When Science is a Game

TL;DR

This paper introduces a framework based on Huizinga's game theory to analyze scientific practice as a game, predicting behavioral patterns and boundaries within scientific communities.

Contribution

It applies Huizinga's conditions to science, providing a novel theoretical framework for understanding scientific behavior and discipline boundaries.

Findings

Emergence of strict boundaries between disciplines

Closure of loopholes in scientific theory creation

Resistance to certain innovations in publication practices

Abstract

What happens when scientists are, at certain points in a field's development, playing a game? I present a framework for such an analysis that draws on the theory of games provided by the historian Johan Huizinga. Huizinga gives five conditions for a social practice to become a game: free engagement, disconnection, boundedness in time and arena, the order-creation of rules, and the presence of tension. Application of this theory to scientific practice predicts patterns of behavior that can be tested by quantitative analysis: the emergence of hard boundaries between disciplines, the closure of loopholes in theory creation, resistance to certain innovations in journal publication, and the ways in which scientists fail to prosecute colleagues who engage in questionable research practices.