The article addresses the problem of quantification as a social technology that in science aims at the standardization of (groups of) people, organization of (scientific) discourse, and unity of the scientific community. A typical case is the investigation of scientific creativity and efficiency, particularly bibliometric assessment of quality, importance, and impact of scientific publications, which on the one hand concerns researchers and, on the other hand, financial subsidizers and decision makers. In enumerating bibliographic units, scientific activity, quality, productivity, and progress are not clearly distinguished. In the application of bibliometric methods, differences between specific scientific fields are often ignored or it is not clearly stated, what is the actual aim of research. Yet examples of bibliometric assessment in Slovenia, a typical "small scientific community" due to its linguistic exclusiveness, show that, despite all doubts,quantification is much less arbitrary and partial than subjective expert assessment.
|
