How Theories Travel: the Role of the Translator in the Diffusion of Scientific Innovations

• In Event: 440 - Regular Session. Sociology of Science 1: Big Data and the Structure of Science

Abstract

How do scientific innovations spread within and across academic communities? In this paper, we address this question by applying network analysis to study the early spread of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior within and across the social and behavioral sciences as an exemplary case of the diffusion of scientific concepts. Using an innovative form of co-citation analysis, we reconstruct the historically evolved knowledge domain in which the theoretical concepts contained in the Theory of Games first found application. From salient positions in the co-citation network, we identify a subset of key seminal contributions that had a crucial role in facilitating the spread of game theoretic concepts across distinct sub-disciplinary fields. In light of their bridging role in establishing linkages between the epistemic core of game theory and salient sub-disciplines, we label these seminal contributions ‘translators’. We discuss the role of these translators in the context of the early diffusion of game theory across the social and behavioral sciences and develop some general insights into the conditions under which scientific innovation disseminate across scientific communities. Furthermore, we make a case for the fruitfulness of network analysis in the history and philosophy of (social) sciences more generally.

Authors

• Malte Doehne, University of Zürich (UZH)

• Catherine Herfeld, LMU Munich, MCMP