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Michael Joseph Mulkay (born 1936) is a retired British sociologist of science.

Biography

Mulkay worked as a reader and researcher at Aberdeen University until 1966, he was then lecturer in sociology at Simon Fraser University 1966 to 1969, at the University of Cambridge from 1969 to 1973, and then as Professor of Sociology at the University of York, from which he retired in 2001. A number of his students have gone on to take distinguished academic posts, including Nigel Gilbert, Steve Woolgar, Steve Yearley, Andrew Webster and Jonathan Potter.

Between the scientific positivism of Karl Popper and the revolutionary perspective of the Kuhnian school, Mulkay probably stands on a slightly left ground, follows Robert Merton who has been known partially as the predecessor of Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. He supports the methodological right of sociology to investigate the process of the production of scientific knowledge by means of comparing, illustrating academic influential social circumstance and the informative pattern of individual interaction among scientists who are in debate or cooperation. To analyse the effect on scientific research from inter-professional communication, Mulkay dedicated the significant book The Word and the World: Explorations in the Form of Sociological Analysis.

In the late 60s and early 70s, Mulkay used Kuhn's and Merton's work, both of which he felt had limitations, to formulate an approach that "opened the way for 'internalist' perspectives in the contemporary sociology of science...his work in part paralleled, and in part preceded the work of the Edinburgh School." He also sought to create a synthesis between Mannheimian sociology of knowledge and Merton's sociology of science. Transforming Kuhn's idea of scientific revolutions, he preferred the concept of rebellion in which "rebels within scientific fields branch out to create new fields," rather than transforming an existing field by a so-called Kuhnian paradigm shift. Mulkay therefore forms an important link connecting the early sociology of science of the 60s, as represented by Merton, with the rich diversity of contemporary sociology of science, which has its origins in the late 60s and early 70s, both in Mulkay's pioneering work and in that of the Edinburgh School of Barnes, Bloor and Edge, as well as in the Bath School of Collins and Pinch, which partly succeeded and partly paralleled his own work. He therefore remains an important figure who pioneered reflexive studies and epistemological diversity. He is perhaps best known for his work on discursive analysis of science and his more recent publications on issues surrounding human embryology.

In recent years, he has devoted more of his time to basket weaving, entering his intricate work at various exhibitions for local artists in East Yorkshire.

Selected bibliography

Books

• Mulkay, Michael (2014) . Functionalism, exchange and theoretical strategy (RLE social theory. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781138782464.
• Mulkay, Michael (1972). The social process of innovation: a study in the sociology of science. London: Macmillan. ISBN 9780333134313.
• Mulkay, Michael; Edge, David O. (1976). Astronomy transformed: the emergence of radio astronomy in Britain. New York: Wiley. ISBN 9780471232735.
• Mulkay, Michael (1979). Science and the sociology of knowledge. London Boston: G. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9780043010945.
• Mulkay, Michael; Knorr-Cetina, Karin (1983). Science observed: perspectives on the social study of science. London Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. ISBN 9780803997837.
• Mulkay, Michael; Gilbert, G. Nigel (1984). Opening Pandora's box: a sociological analysis of scientists' discourse. Cambridge Cambridgeshire New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521274302.
• Mulkay, Michael (1985). The word and the world: explorations in the form of sociological analysis. London Boston: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9780043011973.
• Mulkay, Michael (1988). On humour: its nature and its place in modern society. Cambridge, UK Oxford, UK New York, NY, USA: Polity Press B. Blackwell. ISBN 9780745605432.
• Mulkay, Michael; Pinch, Trevor; Ashmore, Malcolm (1989). Health and efficiency: a sociology of health economics. Milton Keynes England Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 9780335099122.
• Mulkay, Michael (1991). Sociology of science: a sociological pilgrimage. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. ISBN 9780335094042.
• Mulkay, Michael (1997). The embryo research debate: science and the politics of reproduction. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521576833.

Chapters in books

• Mulkay, Michael; Pinch, Trevor; Ashmore, Malcolm (1992), "Technology, testing, text: clinical budgeting in the U.K. National Health Service", in Bijker, Wiebe E.; Law, John (eds.), Shaping technology/building society: studies in sociotechnical change, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 265–289, ISBN 9780262521949.

Journal articles

• Mulkay, Michael; Woolgar, Steve; Gilbert, G. Nigel (May 1975). "Problem areas and research networks in science". Sociology. 9 (2): 187–203. doi:10.1177/003803857500900201. S2CID 145579542.

References

1. Matthew David, Science in Society, London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005, p.16
2. David, p.17
3. Well-woven mix of art forms, East Riding Mail/ Hull Daily Mail, 26 March 2009

External links

• 45 years of Sociology at York University

• 1936 births
• Alumni of the University of Aberdeen
• Alumni of the University of Cambridge
• Alumni of the University of York
• British sociologists
• Living people
• Sociologists of science
• Medical sociologists
• Science and technology studies scholars