Question

Merton argued that seeking recognition as the first person to come up with an idea, or to show an experimental finding, is an important part of science. This, he said, is reflected in the frequency and intensity of priority disputes – disagreements over who should get credit of this kind.

In about 200 words, describe a scientific priority dispute, other than the ones included in Theory and Reality. How did it arise and how was it resolved?

Answer 1

There are many scientific priority disputes. One of them is regarding the sunspots . Sunspots are the dark regions on the outer layer of sun i.e the photosphere. The outer layer of sun (photosphere) has a temperature of 5800 k. But there are some places on photosphere where the temperature is lower than the temperature of photosphere . These areas may have the temperature of 4800 k or 5000 k . Due to this low temperature they appear as dark spots on photosphere and they are called sunspots.

The scientific priority dispute is about when and by whom these sunspots were first observed through the telescope. The dispute was resolved in a way that , it was concluded Galileo and Thomas Harriot were the first around the end of 1610; Johannes and David Fabricius and Christoph Scheiner first observed them in 1611 and Johannes Fabricius was the first to publish on them .