Solomon’s House Revisited: The Organization and Institutionalization of Science (Nobel Symposium 75)

Frängsmyr, Tore, ed., 1990, xiii + 350pp. Science is not only a matter of great theories and daring thinking. It is also about the organization and practical work. The scientist has seldom been in an ivory tower; one the contrary, he has been dependent on the society around him. Today more than ever, the scientist is part of an organization, either in a small laboratory or as part of a network in a big project.   When the royal Swedish Academy of Sciences celebrated its 250th anniversary in 1989, a Nobel symposium was arranged to discuss in a very broad sense the organization and institutionalization of science, what Francis Bacon described as Solomon's house.   Organization, in the form of academies, universities, institutes, and laboratories, has both a supportive and stimulating effect on science. Not even individualists, such as Newton or Darwin, worked in a vacuum; they had the backing of their academies and learned societies. At the same time, it is obvious that the institutio