Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States

Contemporary Sociology 8(2) (March 1979):271—72. Zuckerman’s well-written book provides a comprehensive study of Nobel Laureates in the United States. The process by which the Nobel Prize is awarded is examined asacasestudyoftherewardandevaluation system in science. Analysis is based on an impressive array of data. These include interviews with forty-one Laureates (and, incidentally, the fine appendix on interviewing the elite will be of interest to anyone planning to interview scientists or elites in other areas), studies of biographies and autobiographies of Nobel Laureates, reviews of the Laureates’ publications and citations to these publications, and comparative data from secondarysourcesonaveragemembers of the scientific community and other elite, albeit non-Laureate, scientists. Arguments are based both on tabular data and qualitative information. While the tabular results are often interesting and informative, the personal histories and quotes from the interviews are the strongest and most informative aspects of the book. Followingabriefoverviewinchapter1,chapter2providesahistoryof the prize from its first presentation in 1901 to the present. Chapters 3 through 7 contain analyses of the various stages of the Laureates’ careers,beginningwiththeirsocial origins,movingthroughtheireducation, initial employment and prizewinning research, and ending with their experiences after the prize. Two fundamental questions underlie these chapters. First, why did the Laureates get the prize, or, conversely and perhaps more instructively, why didn’t other eminent scientists receive the prize? Second, what are the consequences of the prize for the operation of the social system of science? Does the prize fulfill its initial intent to foster research? Indealingwiththefirstquestion, two major foci emerge: scientists of the fortyfirst chair and the accumulation of advantage. The notion of the forty-first chair is drawn from the forty-member French Academy,whereeminentlyqualifiedscientists were excluded from the Academy solely because of the lack of available places. This phenomenon also holds for the Nobel Prize, and provides a useful perspective for examining the inequities associated with the prize. The second phenomenon considered in the allocation of the prize is the accumulation of advantage, the process by which the initial advantages a scientist may have (e.g., propitious social origins, prestigious mentors, prestigious doctoral institutions) are used in the achievement of greater success, and as an end product, increased advantage. Zuckerman emphasizes the operation of this process as fundamental to understanding the success of Nobelists. She concludes: “The processes involved in the accumulation of advantage cast considerable doubt on the conclusion that marked differences in performance between theultra-eliteandotherscientists reflect equally marked differences in their initial capacities to do scientific work” (p. 250). This raises an important, albeit unanswered question——what accounts for In Retrospect: 1979 145