Abstract

John Ziman, like most other scientists, learnt about the social nature of science by becoming a scientist. He travelled through the various stages of passing examinations, having articles that he had written reviewed by peers, and applying for academic posts. Better still he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society because of the problems he had solved-- at least for the time being-- in several landmark papers. There was little written about the social nature of science at this time so when he was asked to give a talk on the radio in 1960 he chose the title 'Science is Social' and began as follows: I am going to try to justify the following proposition 'A scientific truth is statement that has been publicly accepted by the experts'.