Terminology Tuesday: Merton Hypothesis

The Merton thesis is the claim of a positive correlation between Protestant religion and scientific productivity during the early modern period (i.e., the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). Scholars continue to debate the validity of the theiss, which can seem more or less credible depending on how it is formulated.

The claim originated with the sociologist Robert K. Merton (1910-2003) and was first published in 1936 as his doctoral thesis. Merton was inspired by the famous claim of Max Weber (first published in English in 1930) that the “Protestant work ethic” was a driving force in the development of capitalism. Merton focused on the cultural values of the English Puritans and how they may have encouraged the rise of experimental science in England, but his sociological claims were difficult to evaluate because of ambiguities concerning who is and isn’t a Puritan and concerning which activities are and aren’t “science.” …

Paul Copan, Tremper Longman III, Christopher L. Reese, and Michael G. Strauss, eds. Dictionary of Christianity and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017).