Introduction

Scientific concepts have peculiar histories. The history of scientific knowledge, including its production, dissemination, and acceptance, is shaped by broad contextual forces within the social milieu. As Pierre Bourdieu (1991) has argued, scientific knowledge can be best seen through the lens of social construction; that is, scientific knowledge, discovery, advances and so on never emerge as fully developed concepts that are accepted into culture. Rather, the production, dissemination, and acceptance of knowledge is influenced by social, cultural, historical, and even political forces. There are several factors associated with the accumulation and advancement of scientific knowledge, such as the cultural authority of existing institutions or ‘fields’ that define what acceptable knowledge is, the power and legitimacy of individuals or groups advancing alternative paradigms, the broad historical context of accepted knowledge, the degree of resistance to new ideas by those promulgating what Thomas Kuhn (1962) called, ‘normal science’, as well as circumstances within the environment that would at first glance seem to be superfluous to the history of ideas.

The discovery of penicillin and its impact on the world is a case in point (Lax, 2005). Alexander Fleming's 1928 discovery of penicillin occurred, in large part, by accident. The Scottish bacteriologist working at St Mary's Hospital in London discovered, after a two-week hiatus from his laboratory, that mould had grown in one of his samples of bacteria.