title: The wage of fame: how non-epistemic motives have enabled the phenomenal success of modern science.
abstract: This paper ventures an economic view of modern science. It points out how science works as a closed economy of attention where researchers invest their own attention in order to get the attention of fellow researchers. Attention thus enters economy in two properties: (1) as a scarce resource energising scientific production and (2) as a means of gratification rewarding the effort of the working scientist. Economising on attention as a scarce resource is another expression of thought economy. The income of expert attention is what gives rise to reputation, renown, prominence and eventually fame. By its being conceived as a closed economy of attention, science shows to be capable of self-organising a tendency towards overall efficiency and thus towards collective rationality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Digital Methods in Architecture and Planning, Institute of Architectural Sciences, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Franck
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D009042:Motivation; D012586:Science