| This dissertation studies how social organization shapes the intellectual content of research. American evolutionary biology from 1830 to 1950 is used as a case study.;Large scale changes in American society at the end of the nineteenth century set the conditions for the development of an expanded and reorganized system of research institutions. Research universities, the scholarly disciplines, and private foundations each underwent major reorganization and development between 1890 and 1920. Each institution changed so as to accommodate the demands of the other, and all were progressively rationalized. World War II and its aftermath added the Federal government as a major source of funding and regulation to this system.;Evolution research at the end of the nineteenth century was mired in continuing debates over the adequacy of Darwin's theory. In the first years of the twentieth century, a series of discoveries and agreements broke this impasse, and evolutionary biology resolved and refined many of its problems. In the early 1920s, Darwin's theory enjoyed considerable success. By 1950, further developments had culminated in the "Modern Synthesis" which forms the basis of evolutionary biology today.;As the debates over Darwin's theory were resolved or mooted, evolutionary problems, theories, descriptions, methods, and evaluation criteria which fit well with the rationalization of the research system were successful. Approaches which did not tended to languish or disappear.;This pattern is explained by analyzing changes in the commitments adopted by research programs and their audiences (disciplines, sponsors, universities, hobbyists, client industries, and so on). Where lines of research satisfied the demands of critical audiences, they flourished. Lines of research tied primarily to declining audiences weakened. As the audiences within the research system became increasingly important, audiences outside the system (e.g, hobbyists) became less important. This tendency was also strongly reinforced by parallel changes in the stylistic commitments of research programs. The lines of research which allied to form the Modern Synthesis were oriented toward audiences within the rationalizing research system, and were weakly obligated to audiences outside it. |
