Obliteration by incorporation
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Concept
The concept was introduced by Robert K. Merton in 1949, although some incorrectly attribute it to Eugene Garfield, whose work contributed to the popularization of Merton's theory. Merton introduced the concept of "obliteration by incorporation" in his landmark work, Social Theory and Social Structure in 1949 (although the revised edition of 1968 is usually cited (pp. 27–28, 35–37 in the enlarged edition)). Merton also introduced the less known counterpart to this concept, adumbrationism, meaning the attribution of insights, ideas or analogies absent from original works.[2]
In the process of "obliteration by incorporation", both the original idea and the literal formulations of it are forgotten due to prolonged and widespread use, and enter into everyday language (or at least the everyday language of a given academic discipline), no longer being attributed to their creator.[3]
Thus they become similar to
The obliteration phenomenon is a concept in library and information science, referring to the tendency for truly ground-breaking research papers to fail to be cited after the ideas they put forward are fully accepted into the orthodox world view. For example, Albert Einstein's paper on the theory of relativity is rarely cited in modern research papers on physical cosmology, despite its direct relevance.
Examples
Many terms and phrases were so evocative that they quickly suffered the fate of 'obliteration by incorporation'. Examples include:
- James D. Watson and Francis Crick[6]
- periodic table of elements, introduced by Dmitri Mendeleev[6]
- self-fulfilling prophecy, introduced by Robert K. Merton
- role model, introduced by Robert K. Merton
- deconstruction, introduced by Jacques Derrida
See also
- Citation analysis
- Genericized trademark
- Gaussian distributionwas not discovered by Gauss.
- Matthew effect
- Recuperation (politics)
References
- Inline
- ^ Robert K. Merton, quoted by Sztompka, 2003
- ^
- doi:10.1002/9780470999912.ch2.
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(help) Extract. Google Print, p.19, p.27-28 - ^
- ^ ISBN 9780198607854– via Google Books.
- General
- Robert K. Merton, (1968) Social Theory and Social Structure, enlarged edition. Free Press, New York.
Further reading
- Garfield, E. 1975 The Obliteration Phenomenon. Current Contents No. 51/52: 5–7,(22 Dec. 1975)
- Messeri P., Obliteration by incorporation: Toward a Problematics, Theory and Metric of the Use of Scientific Literature. Unpublished manuscript. Columbia University, 1978.
- Merton, Robert K. (1993-05-15). On the Shoulders of Giants: The Post-Italianate Edition. University Of Chicago Press. p. 348. ISBN 0-226-52086-2.