Science As a Self-Organizing Institution
Nothing is as confusing and confused as institutions are in Sociology. Are they rules? Who creates them? Why do autonomous agents follow them? Who enforces them? Do they emerge spontaneously? Or deliberately? Are they organizations? What are organizations, if not a mere set of rules? The more questions, the more confusion!
1. A preliminary thought experiment
My metaphor for institutions is that of a tunnel. It could very well be a natural tunnel emerging from millions of years of rock erosion but considered a purpose-built two-way traffic tunnel, yet which way the traffic should follow is not indicated – at least at the end of the tunnel where I am waiting in my Tata.[1] If you are like me – from Pakistan, you know from experience that outgoing traffic flows on the left and incoming traffic flows on the right. The only information I am sure of is that I am in the USA, and the traffic rules might differ. I can act bold, but my gut feeling is I will run into an accident. An additional hindrance is that the tunnel is dark, and my car has no headlights. I wait for someone else to go first, and lucky me, someone in a Buick does show up and enters the tunnel like they know something. I follow their lead.