Nathalie Schwichtenberg

For a long time the scientific production process has been known as resting on the "shoulders of giants" (Merton 1965). But how do scientists know that these giants are actually giants and not dwarfs on stilts? Where do they get their firm footing in science from? How do they know they won't hit hard ground? They do trust in the giants. [...] This paper aims to draw a systematic picture of the role of scientific trust within research specialties. By its field comparative approach it offers a concept of trust for science studies which can be discussed, expanded and modified to apply to further research specialties, disciplines and areas of scientific work.

The use of citations as indicators of topical relatedness of publications is common in the algorithmic mapping of the structure of science. References to source documents, however, may serve a variety of epistemic functions, and hence represent rather different dimensions of topical relatedness. They may pertain to the research methods used, the empirical objects studied, the theoretical resources build on, the research questions pursued, or the external motivation for and relevance of the work. In this qualitative case study, we explore the diversity in topical dimensions along which publications are linked in citation networks.