Specialization can be seen as a
response to the problem of an increasing accumulation of scientific knowledge. By splitting up the subject matter into smaller units, one man could continue to handle the information and use it as the basis for further research. But specialization was only one of a series of
related developments in science affecting the process of communication. Another was the growing professionalisation of scientific activity.
No clear-cut distinction can be drawn between professionals and amateurs in science: exceptions can be found to any rule. Nevertheless, the word 'amateur' does carry a connotation that the person
concerned is not fully integrated into the scientific
community and, in particular, may not fully share its values. The growth of specialisation in the nineteenth century, with its
consequentrequirement of a longer, more complex training, implied greater problems for amateur
participation in science. The trend was naturally most obvious in those areas of science based especially on a
mathematical of
laboratory training, and can be illustrated in terms of the development of geology in the United Kingdom.
A comparison of British
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geological publications over the last century and a half reveals not simply an increasing
emphasis on the primacy of research, but also a changing
definition of what constitutes an
acceptable research paper. Thus, in the nineteenth century, local
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geological studies represented worthwhile research in their own right; but, in the twentieth century, local studies have
increasingly become
acceptable to professionals only if they
incorporate, and reflect on, the wider
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geological picture. Amateurs, on the other hand, have continued to pursue local studies in the old way. The overall result has been to make entrance to professional
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geological journals harder for amateurs, a result that has been reinforced by the
widespread introduction of refereeing, first by national journals in the nineteenth century and then by several local
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geological journals in the twentieth century. As a
logical consequence of this development, separate journals have now appeared aimed mainly towards either professional or amateur readership. A rather similar process of differentiation has led to professional geologists coming together nationally within one or two
specific societies, whereas the amateurs have tended either to remain in local societies or to come together nationally in a different way.
Although the process of professionalisation and specialisation was already well under way in British geology during the nineteenth century, its full consequences were thus delayed until the twentieth century. In science generally, however, the nineteenth century must be reckoned as the crucial period for this change in the structure of science.
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