American sociologist considered to be the father of the sociology of science, Robert King Merton (1910–2003) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, and died in New York City on February 23. His scholarly career spanned more than seven decades. Merton's contribution to ethics in science and technology was his elaboration of the social, and human, nature of scientific research.

After undergraduate study at Temple University, Merton attended Harvard University. He began his doctoral thesis in 1933 and completed it two years later with the title "Sociological Aspects of Scientific Development in Seventeenth Century England." In 1938 Merton's revised thesis was published in Osiris: Studies on the History and Philosophy of Science, and on the History of Learning and Culture as Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England (STS). In this work, Merton explored the reciprocal relationships between the development of science and the religious beliefs associated with Puritanism...