CAN GERONTOLOGY BE A SCIENCE? W. ANDREW ACHENBAUM*

University of Michigan

ABSTRACT: During the last half-century, research on aging has become more scien-

tific in its self-representations. Paradoxically however, it is not at all self-evident that gerontology can flourish as a comprehensive science. Highlighting major trends in the internal and external history o f the field's evolution reveals why this is so. A n d yet, retrospective analysis also provides a vehicle f o r creating a science o f gerontology driven by cumulative, synthetic theory-building.

Several paradoxes animate the development of gerontology as a scientific enterprise. Gerontologists have always been intrigued by new ideas to unlock the mysteries of aging and have pursued novel approaches with which to address the elderly's needs and to harness their potentialities. Yet we tend to pay insufficient attention to the accumulated wisdom of those who blazed the frontiers of knowledge before us. This is lamentably ironic, for those born after the Gerontological Society was chartered in 1945 explicitly or implicitly share many of the concerns of those scientists who defined the scope of the field between the world wars. Like them, most gerontologists nowadays are committed, within limits, to collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. For all of our bold calls for holistic perspectives on aging, we act as if disciplinary rigor were the sine qua non for high-quality research and education. Most of us, moreover, value the creative tensions that emanate from working on problems whose intellectual vitality depends on both doing basic research and putting research into practice. With rare exceptions, however, gerontologists who engage in model building typically devote little time teasing out, much less testing, the practical implications of their conceptual breakthroughs. And although we engage in the more sophisticated discourse about esoteric theoretical and methodological matters than ever before, in fifty years gerontologists have not yet developed a satisfactory paradigm or established a uniform code of professional standards. Despite the fact that we have grown admirably more "scientific" in our study of aging, gerontology surely has not yet become a science. *Direct all communication to: W. Andrew Achenbaum, Institute of Gerontolog); University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI48109-2007. JOURNAL OF AGING STUDIES, Volume 1, Number 1, pages 3-18 CopyrighL 9 1987 by JAI Press, Inc. All rights of reproductlon in any form reserved. ISSN: 0890-4065.

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I would like to provide debate here by elaborating on this paradoxical state of affairs. Pessimists and cynics will find much in this essay to support their opinion that major intellectual and institutional obstacles make it unlikely that gerontology can flourish as a science. But, a cautious optimist by nature, I am not persuaded that gerontology will never mature into a comprehensive science. Thanks to our scientific methods, we know more about the dynamics ofaging than researchers did in the 1930s, and we have a better sense of how much more we need to learn. Nonetheless, we need to make a more concerted effort to synthesize generalizable knowledge that we have already acquired. And if we now move beyond the constructions of rational positivism, we have the opportunity to create a science that generates compelling visions of age and aging which, if systematically integrated, would resonate more fully with crucial aspects to the "real world."

FROM PROBLEM SOLVING TO SOLVING PUZZLES THROUGH INFORMATION BUILDING Although people have been studying the nature of the dynamics of growing older for centuries, the foundations of contemporary gerontology were not laid until the twentieth century (Achenbaum 1985; Freeman 1979; Gruman 1966; Haber 1983). Dr. I.L. Nascher (1914), in Geriatrics, insisted that scientific researchers view old age not simply as a "senile pathology" that deviated from a healthy middle age, but as a "normal" stage of life worth serious attention on its own terms. G. Stanley Hall's (1922) Senescence surveyed existing theories about the "last half of life" and concluded that its assets were "not hitherto utilized or even recognized." E.V. Cowdry's (1939) landmark anthology, Problems of AghTg: Biological and Medical Aspects outlined a research agenda that led to systematic gerontological inquiry through the formation of mutual interest groups. The overriding premise in all three documents was: The problems of old age could be assuaged and possibly solved by understanding, disseminating, and applying researchers' latest and most "scientific" findings. Several assumptions embedded in this premise greatly influenced the shape of things to come. From the start, gerontology's intellectual turf was broadly defined. Old age, John Dewey declared (1939, p. xx, emphasis in original), was a "problem and one of a scope having no precedent in human history . . . . We need to know the ways in which social contexts react back into biological processes as well as to know the ways in which biological processes condition social life." Characterizing old age as a "problem" struck a responsive chord: By the late 1930s, if not before, most Americans believed that myriad physical woes and socioeconomic vicissitudes made growing older a pitiable plight; the elderly's growing numbers and increasing vulnerability, moreover, posed a threat to the well-being of society at large. At that time intellectuals were flocking to Washington, DC, and college graduates were assuming professional tasks in which they hoped to use their expertise in remedying the major challenges of the day. The opportunity to define and grapple with a problem that had attracted increasing attention nationwide appealed to men and women eager to make t.heir mark. And yet, precisely because old age was a problem of unprecedented scope, scholars and academic entrepreneurs had difficulty "fitting" gerontology into existing arrangements. The phenomena and processes associated with senescence manifestly had biomedical, socioeconomical, psychological, and practical dir~nsions. And, as Cowdry's volume

Can Gerontology Be a Science?

made clear, analyzing the causes of aging invited debate over competing nature-versusnurture perspectives: some emphasized genetic factors affecting involutionary processes; others attributed degenerative changes and impairments to environmental sources ranging from toxins to social prejudice. If progress in refining hypotheses were to be made, investigators needed to synthesize disparate bits of information, seeing the interconnected patterns between the biological and social contexts. And if their research were to have demonstrable payoffs, they had to design organizational structures and programs that could accommodate efforts to serve the needs of greater numbers of older people. University professors and scientists were not well equipped, however, to tackle a novel and multifaceted problem like aging in a cross-disciplinary manner that required collaboration with experts and practitioners outside of the university. For nearly half a century, the dominant trend within higher education had been toward narrower specialization. Each discipline and professional school preferred to determine its own rules and set standards for its members. Since aging was multifaceted, no single discipline could preempt the fledgling field of gerontology. And no one knew enough about the dimensions of aging to propose the most appropriate strategy for dealing with all of its amorphous components. "Recognition of the seriousness of the problem as well as application of the knowledge that is already in our possession," warned Dewey (1939, p. xx), "is impeded by traditional ideas, intellectual habits, and institutional customs." Under the circumstances, the most sensible course of action was to foster the creation and diffusion of usable knowledge about aging. The immediate challenge was twofold. On the one hand, the first generation of gerontologists had to persuade thei r colleagues that the intellectual and social problems associated with old age were so formidable as to justify concerted scholarly attention. On the other hand, they had tO surmount nihilist attitudes that were thwarting the development of geriatrics as a medical specialty and limiting the feasibility of bold public policy intervention on behalf of the aged. Those who wanted to advance the field had to argue that applying basic research would ameliorate the quality of late life. "The development of knowledge and principles with regard to almost any aspect of aging will have immediate practical application," Clark Tibbitts, a pioneering social gerontologist, confidently predicted (1960, p. 23). "Most professional fields concerned with human and social welfare are feeling the impact of the growing older population, and most of them are recognizing the special characteristics of older people." In the absence of a reigning paradigm, the first generation of researchers adopted strategies that enabled them to capitalize on their previous scholarly endeavors and to tap resources available to them on the local scene. Far from being merely opportunistic, this tack conformed to pervasive postwar assumptions about how any important discoveries were achieved. The most prestigious general model of "scientific" explanation at the time derived from logical positivism, held that the meaningfulness of a statement was to be demonstrated by its testability. According to Karl Popper (1959) and his disciples, ifa statement could not meet the test of falsifiability (or could not be fairly submitted to a "crucial experiment"), then its relevance to theory building was suspect. Biomedical investigators and social scientists th~s committed themselves to engage in piecemeal, empirical research in order to advance gerontology as a science. Making logical inferences on the basis of their research experiences and laboratory experiments, individuals felt they could contribute to scientific progress. That is~ they expected to make cumulative

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advances in knowledge so that what they knew increasingly corresponded to the realities of their theories of aging were intended to describe and explain. Although nearly everybody agreed that breadth of vision was essential, a gap developed between social science and biomedical research in gerontology over time. Typically having only tenuous ties with clinicians, most social gerontologists took their cues from their graduate mentors and departmental colleagues. They eclectically pursued a broad range of interests that paralleled issues preoccupying a new generation of social scientists, but had little to do with the pathbreaking discoveries of Watson and Crick and others who focused on changes in aging organisms at the molecular and cellular levels. At times, behavioral aspects of aging individuals--including the demography of aging, personality and personal adjustment, and social behavior--were the prime focus. Others concentrated on aging as a societal phenomenon; they studied the broad-scale shifts in the economy on the elderly's workforce participation, income needs and political behavior. Some attempted to synthesize the interrelationships between aging at the individual and societal levels. The common thread running throughout all of the fieldwork, publications, and symposia was the conviction that the adaptation and adjustment of old people to an ever-changing environment was sufficiently distinctive to warrant sustained intellectual focus. Investigators moved from a cumulative search for universal solutions to the problems of aging to solving puzzles that were narrowly prescribed. Because basic, empirical information was necessary on a range of issues, most researchers believed that t lie best way to acquire the necessary data was in a discipline-specific context. Gerontology as a field of inquiry quickly subdivided according to academic specialities. The most scientific research on neurological matters, for instance, was to be done by biomedical investigators who understood the research paradigms and possessed the technical skills to generate reliable evidence. Given this strategy, it is more than a little ironic that most gerontologists felt intellectually isolated from their disciplinary colleagues who evinced little interest in senescence or the elderly. In the early years, only psychologists took formal steps to facilitate the study of aging within their ranks: In 1946, a year after the Gerontological Society was founded, the American Psychological Association established the Division of Later Maturity and Old Age. Although gerontology lacked the immediate appeal of other new ventures like computer science, an exciting if eclectic research agenda that sought to generate workable solutions to real-life problems of social adjustment was taking shape at various centers of higher education by the early 1960s. Behaviorists, social workers, and survey researchers took the lead at Michigan; economists and sociologists at Cornell and Berkeley, among other places, secured grants to study retirement and the economics of aging. Sociologists and psychologists at th.e University of Chicago joined forces to explore important issues in adult development and aging. Building on the methods developed by Burgess and Dewey, they developed an interactionist perspective on role theory in late life by emphasizing social organizations such as the family, the group, and social class (Riegel 1977). While they recognized the significance of biological substrata on individual choices and constraints, most social gerontologists at these institutions paid little attention to biomedical matters. This was not the case elsewhere. When Duke created a University Center in 1955, Dr. Ewald Busse launched a multidisciplinary, longitudinal project that extended his earlier investigations into the functionin~ of the central nervous system.

Can Gerontology Be a Science?

Duke's reputation was to grow over time because of that center's close ties with a distinguished medical school (Busse and Maddox 1985). Not all psychologists pursued gerontological inquiry in the same ways. In recruiting James Birren to create a center on aging, administrators at the University of Southern California clearly expected to build a comparative advantage in basic laboratory research in psychology. Researchers at West Virginia were to make their distinctive mark on the field by engaging in a highly theoretical work in developmental psychology. As more and more scholars were drawn to gerontological research, basic information expanded at an extraordinary rate. And as people in different disciplines (and even within them) increasingly took disparate approaches to the study of aging, annual gerontological meetings increasingly resembled other professional conventions more than a family reunion. Solving puzzles that were not related to one another made it difficult for gerontologists to keep abreast of the latest developments in all fields. Hence to take stock of their progress, major figures and rising stars working on "hot" topics periodically reviewed the state of current knowledge in their particular areas of expertise. To an historian, the most ambitious of these surveys--notably James E. Birren's Handbook of Aging and the Individual." Psychological and Biological Aspects (1959) and Clark Tibbitt's Handbook of Social Gerontology (1960) as well as the first (1976--77) and second (1985) editions of the Handbook of the Biology of Aging, the Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, and the Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences--serve as important benchmarks for reconstructing the evolution of gerontol ogy as a scholarly enterprise. To read these volumes from cover to cover, as I did in preparation fo{writing this essay, is a sobering and potentially debilitating exercise. Awestruck, indeed overwhelmed, by the amount of information contained in these handbooks, I realized that I could not begin to relate all that I had learned. Hence I took comfort recalling Isaiah Berlin's distinction (1953) between the ways that the hedgehog and the fox recount historical trends. A hedgehog knows so much and is so enraptured with interesting details that the story line is often lost in the thicket. A fox, in contrast, seems to know less but is able to explain more by invoking a few simple insights that have applicability in a variety of contexts. Although I prefer a hedgehog's approach to history, I shall speak like a fox for the rest Of this article. In my opinion, gerontology has not yet become a science for reasons that foxy scholars have known all along, but chose not to acknowledge, partly because they were too preoccupied with their own puzzle-solving, and partly because they deferred to the hedgehogs in our ranks who were convinced that this was the best way to proceed. . INTERNAL

CONUNDRA

Ideally, a science of gerontology should provide an appropriate rationale and method to help us to describe the patterns and explain the design inherent in the interactive processes of otherwise seemingly chaotic bits of information. Typically, scientists rely on paradigms to guide them in "gathering empirical data and to devise research strategies which distinguish between those independent and dependent variables necessary to test the falsifiability of a given set of propositions. Gerontologists, however, have thus far been unable to formulate such a framework: The very phenomena we assume have an

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impact on the nature and dynamics of senescence often prove to be part of the heuristic problem we want to solve. To illustrate: Gerontologists have never been able to formulate definitions of "age," "aging," and "senescence" that are transferrable from solving one puzzle to another. A major objective of Social Adjustment in OM Age, published in 1948 by the Social Science Research Council, for instance, was to provide a conceptual framework useful across the disciplines. Based on several years of study, the committee that produced the report reluctantly concluded that since the meaning of age varied in biological, social, and cultural contexts, researchers would have to allow for several divergent definitions of age in their interdisciplinary research (Pollak 1948). A decade later, Bitten 0959, p. 6) acknowledged that "aging is used on the one hand to explain phenomena, and, on the other, it is explained." The apparent effects of the mere passage of time are almost always confounded with the impact of other variables that are correlated with age. Depending on the situation, therefore, the use of chronological age as a surrogate measure of a sociobiological phenomenon seems alternately indispensable and problematic. "Age" is a reasonable independent variable for actuaries to employ in constructing life expectancy tables. Citing legal and public policy precedents and methodological convenience, policymakers and social scientists ritualistically invoke age 65 as the onset of old age--although it has also become part of the liturgy to acknowledge that such a "categorical choice is arbitrary. Biologists, on the other hand, are more likely than psychologists and other social scientists to use length of life as their primary dependent (ariable: Restricting their focus to life-limiting biological phenomena or to the probability of dying enables them to measure the relative impact of endogenous and exogenous factors on an aging organism. Yet, here too, biologists acknowledge difficulties in distinguishing between primary and secondary phenomena affecting survivorship because it is "difficult to define precisely what characterizes the aging process when species differ significantly in the qualitative features of their life histories" (Kirkwood 1985, p. 42). Indeed, one sees sharp differences between the biomedical and social sciences in their respective efforts to describe and explain continuities and changes in aging processes over time. The former prefer a controlled laboratory environment, wherein extraneous pathogens can be excluded, thereby reducing genetic variabililty as well as "noise" in the system of analysis. Social gerontologists on the other hand are less inclined to exclude the environment as a factor that might explain intracohort difference in aging; nonetheless, they have not yet reached consensus concerning whether the environment is a source influencing "normal" adjustment over the life source or is mainly a source of deviation from the norm. Differences in basic definitions of aging not surprisingly affect the ways that biomedical and social science researchers assay to apply their research. Few biologists expect to find a "magic bullet" that will arrest or reverse deleterious features of the aging process. Instead, they seek to develop "segmental interventions" (such as rejuvenating the immune system) that are assessed through the measurement of specific bio-markers of aging. Social scientists are disinclined t9 replicate this strategy, in part because they are keenly aware of the scholarly debate that has raged for the past decade over the best methodological techniques for disentangling age, cohort, and period effects (Maddox and Wiley 1977, pp. 19-24). And to the extent that gerontologists have focused primarily on the latter stages of the life course, their veryresearch design has made it difficult to

Can Gerontology Be a Science?

trace and assess the cumulative impact of crises and transitions that took place in infancy, childhood, youth or even middle age. The gap between the two scientific cultures, however, should not blind us to the sharp debates within each group. Biomedical research is still bedeviled by tensions that gained special force nearly a century ago. The controversy pits those who are primarily interested in isolating the pathological manifestations of growing older and remedying the diseases of old age against those who prefer to emphasize that geriatrics cannot employ the heroic, therapeutic interventions associated with other medical specialties because of the progressive changes and natural adaptations that occur in later years. Even the nature and direction of changes that take place in aging organisms is a matter of dispute. Those who study unicellular organisms, for instance, are content to define aging as a "species-specific predictable chronological loss of function during the life span" (SmithSonneborn 1985, p. 79). In contrast, those who have been struck by the increased longevity of humans have been gathering data that indicate that we have been grossly underestimating the strengths and potentials of added years: Exercise, changes in diet, and the cultivation of challenging lifestyles make it humanly possible not only to prolong the plasticity of muscular systems but also to improve intellectual functioning past the age of 75 (Riley and Riley 1986; Butler and Gleason 1985). An analogous debate among social scientists focuses on the modal dimensions of "normal" aging that are explained by ontogenetic, dialectical, and developmental models of the life course (Dannefer 1984; Baltes and Nesselroade 1984). Psychologists, sociologists, and historians have tried to create reliable statistical measures that describe the relative degree of similarity in the time-ordered sequences of behavioral patterns among members of a particular cohort. Without endorsing any value-lade n prescriptions, this camp stresses the heuristic value in mapping out patterns of regular adaptations that appear fairly "representative" in developmental trajectories. The emphasis on single statistical measures of means, however, invariably affects the ways researchers discuss and interpret standard deviations. Variations are sometimes discounted, critics charge, as accidental or idiographic"blips" rather than as fundamentally important patterns of data themselves that must be part of any description. A scientific approach to resolving these gerontological conundra has undeniably advanced the tenor of debate. Researchers have been forced by their own data to acknowledge and account for contrarieties in the paradoxical nature of senescense. In keeping with their scientific paradigm, for instance, specialists recognized fairly quickly that they had to reject "disengagement theory," the only heuristic model that gerontologists alone can claim the distinction of having formulated. In Growing Old, Cumming and Henry argued (1961, p. 14) that "aging is an inevitable, mutual withdrawal or disengagement, resulting in decreased interaction between the aging person and others in the social systems he belongs to." Although most elderly persons do withdraw from previous activities to some degree, Cumming and Henry's formulation was controversial because it described modal tendencies as if they were innate and universal and because their schematization played down important mediating circumstances and variations in the disengagement process. Other schol~'rs, in contrast, pointed to an unexpected degree of social integration among the elderly and their ingenious ways of adjusting to changing circumstances (Rosow 1967; Hochschild 1975). Cross-sectional, comparative analyses of older people in different social environments, moreover, underscored the importance of

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physical health, intelligence, income, gender, occupation, education, and location in predicting variations in outlook and behavior (Shanas et al. 1968; Riley et al. 1969-72). Gerontologists also have been instrumental in encouraging the creation and refinement of longitudinal panels of data in order to broaden the base for describing and assessing changes in health, family status, and socioeconomic well-being over the life course. The primary samples collected at the National Institute on Aging and at Duke as well as the secondary analyses of survey data being undertaken at the Social Security Administration and by researchers using the machine-readable data compiled by the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research in Ann Arbor have made it easier to disaggregate and trace the interrelation between certain biomedical, behavioral, and social variables. Relying on their partial middle-range theories, researchers who massage the data according to the canons of their respective disciplines have sometimes found parallels between their findings and those of specialists in other fields (Maddox and Campbell 1985). And yet, even leaving side the issue of costs involved in maintaining and upgrading the data sets, trying to resolve basic questions about the nature and dynamics of aging through the regression of longitudinal data has a Sisyphus-like quality. Some scholars complain of increasingly diminishing returns when their ever more powerful methodological tools yield seemingly minor refinements in empirical results rather than a dramatic breakthrough. Worse, fancy techniques and reams of coefficients tend to dampen more effectively than they resolve the question of the most appropriate level of gerontological analysis. For instance, in light of what we have learned from child psychologists about memory and intelligence, can we focus on differences at the individual level in late life without also engaging in comparative analysis of the very young? Might not studies of the interactions of groups of people be flawed if they do not take account of important genetic and electrochemical changes that are taking placeat the cellular and molecular levels? Such questions have become more pressing lately as scholars particularly in the social sciences increasingly appreciate that the realm of the universe in which aging takes place has changed. We are in the midst of a demographic revolution bound to disrupt existing socioeconomic and political arrangements. That two-thirds of the gains in life expectancy at birth have taken place in the twentieth century is hardly news, but it is remarkable that so few gerontologists factor that fact into their research design. Instead, as researchers focus more and more on the "old old'--the fastest growing segment of our population--we have been treated to a round of stereotype-bashing that is reminiscent of the evangelical fervor with which an earlier generation of gerontologists attempted to puncture the myths of old age pervasive in popular culture and scientific communities. Such an exclusive focus on the old, however, unintentionally reinforces the importance of chronological age at the expense of formulating models that concentrate on developments from womb through bloom to tomb. It behooves gerontologists to reflect on the efficacy of hewing to tried and true methods of expanding the frontiers of knowledge in the face of such profound demographic shifts. Sober reflection, alas, is at a premium in gerontological circles. And thinking about the changes in age roles and norms that are the inevitable consequence of having longerlived individuals in an aging society requires investigators to engage in creative conjecture not amenable to logical positivism. "The future awaits our intervention, to make of it what we will, aided by the powerful social and economic currents set in motion by the

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aging of the population" (Pifer and Bronte 1986, p. 391). If so, then it becomes counterproductive to refine theories of lifespan development that rest on universal, predictable patterns of change (Levinson et al. 1978; Modell et al. 1976). It may be that the present trend toward homogeneity among cohort members in the timing of when they experience a particular life transition will shortly prove to be an historical anomaly in the face of a rapidly changing and unprecedented set of social conditions. The need to challenge commonplace assumptions in gerontology takes on added relevance in the wake of recent feminist critiques of the advancement of scientific knowledge during the twentieth century. Because most older people are women, gerontologists have been sensitized to the extent to which socially constructed gender characteristics exercise a profound significance for the social roles and psychological attributes of men and women, especially once they enter old age. Yet, as male-female ratios widen in an aging society, the importance of biological sex cannot be discounted as merely a minor motif in an age-old nature-versus-nurture debate. We know now that genotypic sex differences are unique and persistent in the human species and that they affect agespecific morbidity and mortality patterns. Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that these biological differences have psychological corollaries. Among other things, they appear to affect differences in ways of perceiving reality, including the development of autonomy and independence, abstract critical thought, and possibly even the nurturing of moral sensibilities (Gilligan 1982; Rossi 1986; Belenky et al. 1986). We may well be approaching a critical moment in which gerontologists can no longer affordjto treat gender-specific differences associated with women's aging as an interesting divergence from patterns found in the study of older men. Gerontological paradigms in the future may have to embrace two theories of human aging that spring fro m sex-specific differences. If so, being able to disaggregate.endogenous and exogenous factors will become more important than ever. Internal conundra, in short, have had a paradoxical effect on the advancement of gerontological knowledge. To acknowledge all of the complexity and paradoxes intrinsic to senescence threatens to render any theory empirically unfalsifiable. Yet to limit our focus to solving puzzles in a sharply restricted manner because it builds on the latest work done by one's colleagues is to lose sight of the larger forces and hitherto underappreciated anomalies that cumulatively might make one's findings mere artifacts. Until it comes to grips with basic questions of definition and scope, appropriate levels of analysis, and a consensus concerning the most suitable ways to measure and (re)interpret data, gerontology cannot be a comprehensive science.

DIVIDED LOYALTIES So far, we have examined scientific developments in the field of gerontology from a Kuhnian perspective. Kuhn (1962) located scientific ideas in social groups of practitioners who "see" the world through a particular paradigmatic lens. But to the extent that Kuhn concentrated on the internal dynamics of scientific revolutions, he is misleading, for no science develops in /l vacuum. National cultural traditions, technological advances, and a host of other external political and socioeconomic factors affect research priorities and influence their probable impact on society at large (Brown 1980). Given the divergence of underlying assumptions and research strategies in its formative years of A

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information building, it is hardly surprising that there would be divided loyalties within the gerontological community. These divided loyalties, in turn, have diminished the likelihood that gerontology will transcend the boundaries of its subspecialties and flower into a holistic science. As is the ease in other disciplines (Bender 1986; Collins 1986), the specialization in the pursuit of knowledge that has accompanied the expansion of higher education in recent decades has created an environment inimicable to fostering truly multidiseiplinary perspeetives in gerontology that have immediate applicability in the real world. The fragmentation is a function of scale as well as the inevitable consequence of professional dynamics. Scale has permitted the emergence of subfields (such as the growing number of discipline-specific concentrations in gerontology) and of various professional groups with an interest in the elderly (such as nursing home administrators, Area Agency on Aging staff, and advocates of the gray lobby) that have grown large enough to sustain separate professional, often regional, associations complete with their own meetings, special newsletters and publications. As the publication of this issue attests, individuals from different disciplines often join talents to create new outlets for research. Yet at a time when there is more professional and scientific commitment to the study of aging than ever before, the Gerontological Society has not been able to adapt to changing times; it loses a quarter of its membership each year. Given the increasing number of options available, it is not wholly unexpected that gerontologists tend to identify more with the social and intellectual networks theyshare with members of their discipline and home-town colleagues than with those whb have remained stalwartly committed to advancing gerontology as a whole. Ironically, the evisceration of mainstream gerontology is the by-product of its own successes. It also results from the unprecedented attention the graying of America has received in the media and from the relatively generous'allocation since World War II of societal resources and public funds to support aging research and develop policies for the elderly's benefit. Without minimizing the gains, it nonetheless must be quickly added that new opportunities for advancing the field have unexpectedly sanctioned the creation of deliberately parochial, virtually hermetic cells of fellow travelers around discrete series of intellectual puzzles. Fragmentation and specialization per se are not undesirable developments: They signal that the scope of gerontology is maturing. The field of inquiry is increasingly capable of sustaining a panoply of ideas and activities. What is troubling, however, is the apparent lack of any overriding motive for much reflection about where the field itself is heading. To the degree that various subspecialties have become self-promoting and eager for autonomy, its practitioners are less inclined to make the effort of relating their work to research underway in other subfields, even though they pay lip service to gerontology's multidisciplinary traditions. Instead of seeking recognition in the larger field, most of our brightest researchers attempt to make their professional mark in ever smaller arenas. The Balkanization of academic gerontology obviously has an impact on scientists' ability and success in applying their theoretical insights and empirical findings to the ever-changing needs of an aging society'. Sometimes, the complementariness of basic and applied research is easily bridged. After all, the handbooks of aging cited in the first part of this article were produced with the generous support of the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. Administration on Aging respectively. One can point to a

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direct correlation, moreover, between scholarly research and its usefulness in rethinking the quality of older people's conditions in small communities and nursing homes (Gubrium 1974), as well as the impressive gains in the treatment and care of those afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. Nonetheless, if we were honest with ourselves, we would readily admit that the reams of scholarly papers we have produced have had remarkably little impact. Public policies for the elderly, for example, are more sensitive to the politics of incrementalism and shifts in the political economy than to dispassionate critiques of the status quo (Myles 1984; Achenbaum 1986). And for all the growing concern about the need to transform America's health-care system in order to cope with the needs of an increasingly older population, Lewis Thomas (1979) is doubtless correct when he claims that "the plain fact of the matter is that we do not know enough about the facts of the matter, and we should be more open about our ignorance" (p. 166). In the absence of an accessible corpus of theoretical knowledge that has obvious applicability to improving conditions for older people, and given the way modern societies adapt their institutions, it has proved difficult to even effect a significant transfer of knowledge between gerontologists and professionals in allied fields. Robert N. Butler made the advancement of geriatrics a major priority while he headed the National Institute on Aging and he now supervises the first geriatrics department in a major teaching hospital--yet the specialty continues to be held in low esteem among most medical school faculty. Ironically, the catalyst for the changes Butler proposes may not come from advocacy but from the pressures for accreditation increasingly recominended by internists in departments of medicine for family practitioners whose li,)elihood depends on caring for older people. Similarly, the best available law-school text on legal gerontology (Krauskopf 1983) devotes a scant 13 of its 600 pages'to an overview of today's elderly--and even this prefato~ material is riddled with errors! With institutional segmentation has emerged socially segregated subuniverses of meanings (Berger and Luckmann 1966). While it is tempting to blame others for their failure to take our gerontological research seriously, the apparent lack of impact on other professions invites us to question whether the natural sciences still offer the most appropriate model for all work in gerontology. Why is it that gerontologists have failed to create a viable or durable paradigm? Given the plurality of sciences, might the search for an ideal research design simply prove quixotic? If so, it seems silly to prostrate ourselves before the scientific model of research with its implicit claims for universal applicability, for it may be illusionary except in the context of each subspecialty. Such a heretical position has gained greater credence, thanks to the recent infusion of humanists and artists into the gerontological community of scholars. They have made us more sensitive to the epistemological and aesthetic lacunae that have diverted attention from larger philosophical and moral questions about the scope and purposes of science itself(Cole 1983; Moody 1986). And, to the extent that there is a "return of grand theory in the human sciences" (Skinner 1986), then it is important that we consider joining other scientists in discarding an intolerably'narrow endorsement of logical positivism. Herbert A. Simon (1983), one of the nation's premier scientists, reminds us that "the fallibility of reasoning is guaranteed both by the impossibility of generating unassailable general pronositions from ~eneral fact~ and by the tentative and theory-infested character of the

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facts themselves" (p. 6). Gerontologists have reached a stage of intellectual maturity wherein to understand our knowledge and its basis we must be more self-reflective about what we do. Note the paradox embedded in my argument: I am n o t claiming that obeisance to the "traditional" claims of science must be forsaken because historians, literature critics, anthropologists, ethicists and "soft" social scientists and social practitioners represent an increasingly vocal constituency. Actually, those who came to the field of aging from the humanities, arts, and helping professions have been willing and able to match the technicians in analytic rigor and inferential model-building. And they have been quite enthusiastic about devising ways to bridge different scientific orientations and to forge links between basic and applied research. For these reasons, it has been the clinicians and biologists who have been most receptive to the newcomers: True to the guiding vision of the Research Club on Aging founded in 1939 (often unwittingly), they recognize the importance of expanding intellectual horizons. But hospitality has its limits: The "hard" scientists" support for innovation in other quarters will not come at the expense of their striving to earn recognition among their own scientific peers. At bottom, disciplinary interests take precedence over efforts to pursue matters of mutual interest, because that is where the intellectual, personal, and institutional rewards seem most achievable. The growing pertinence of expanding research on senescence in an aging advanced industrial society has made it less and less likely that gerontology will be a unified science. It is hard to imagine how or why the various existing subgroups of academics, practitioners, governmental officials, much less the population at large, will ever be able to rally around a single "scientific" modus operandi or apply even a limited set of theoretical insights. And as the field attracts more and more people from increasingly diverse backgrounds, the centrifugal forces will only accelerate, and we will become more like outsiders to each other.

TOWARD A REFORMULATION OF GERONTOLOGY If present trends continue, the so-called sciences of gerontology probably will never become a comprehensive science. The sum of the parts do not add up to a coherent whole. Most gerontologists have been inclined to pursue interests as we see fit, formulating a distinctive research style that conforms with the disciplinary canons to which we subscribe and our idiosyncratic understanding of what constitutes worthwhile "scientific" research. Yet I am not prepared to abandon the search for new discoveries under the banner of "science." Why scuttle the enterprise when so many gerontologists in the biomedical as well as behavioral and social sciences are so deeply committed to theory-building? Furthermore, basic scientists who hitherto evinced little interest in aging per se-investigators in operations research, biophysics, and mathematics--are beginning to report empirical results with exciting possibilities for gerontology. As more researchers from mainstream sciences join gerontologists in the pursuit of knowledge, there are bound to be more acerbic theoietical recriminations and turf battles. Far from decrying the Balkanization of gerontology, however, should we not consider the potential people in different subspecialties have for validating any general theory by moving work in different fields toward the same set of crucial issues?

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Ultimately, gerontology will be a legitimate science when its various communities of investigators generate a coherent body of ideas that can account for the complex, diverse, and patterned ranges of variations in age and aging by appealing to general principles. Such a development will not occur naturally. It must be consciously produced. Thus we must pay closer attention to identifying the logical requirements of refining the middlerange perspectives we already have and to making explicit the strategic assumptions we expect to serve us in the future. More systematic efforts are needed to create a pliable vocabulary and a common frame of reference that will facilitate collaborative research. I do not think that it makes sense to try to compose a "grey paper" that expostulates a grand, overarching theory of aging. Nor do I see much to be gained by hewing to any "scientific" approach to aging that assumes that there is an ideal way to define and Wrestle with research puzzles. Most researchers are willing to acknowledge that there are limits to positivism: they recognize that not all the relevant data and ethical factors involved in gerontological research lend themselves to rigorous mathematical manipulation. Indeed, it is the anomalies and deficiencies in existing models in both the biomedical and social science spheres that prompt calls for a reformulation of how we go about our business. What, then, are some of the paramount assumptions that might lead to an explicitly cumulative, integrative science of gerontology? Let me cite three commonalities: 9 Gerontologists are interested in the process of aging, not just the aged. Hitherto, there was an age-specific bias built into research: Investigators dealt with thifi'gs old. Increasingly, however, people are looking at the nature and dynamics of biosocial processes at earlier stages in the lifespan because this facilitates their ability to pinpoint what is distinctive about the later stages of growth and development. It also enables them to distinguish betwern those aspects of senescence that might be altered through intervention and those features where the possibilities for adaptive modifications are limited. 9 It is important to identify "normative" (rather than just "normal") patterns of aging to find regularities that provide a reasonable approximation over a good range of instances. Yet solving the mysteries of aging is not a lock-and-key problem. Far greater attention must be paid in the future to systematizing our understanding of the conditions that cause variations at the individual level. If we want an important puzzle to investigate, then unexplained random variables are prime candidates, for these are the source of many of the anomalies that presently confound us. Grappling with this puzzle may illuminate the extent to which things happen at the cellular, molecular, systemic, and societal levels simply because the time clock keeps running. It may also help us describe and explain how certain processes, once set into motion, evolve into different patterns. 9 Gerontological research is perforce comparative. Similarities and differences between "old" and "young" matter greatly. So do continuities and changes over time. Indeed, whereas scholars in other disciplines can design research projects that eschew comparative elements, it if hard to think of an interesting topic in aging that does not presuppose some sort of control group or baseline by which one seeks to analyze results. What remains unclear, however, is the level of abstraction at which such comparisons should be made.

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If we can develop a common set of research principles, which get to the heart of how we do our individual and collective work, we might be able to develop a way to bridge the multiplicity of research interests that we have. How might we proceed if this exercise for greater self-consciousness within the gerontological community? Let me suggest some approaches. In most academic specialties, gerontophagy--chewing up the scholarly contributions of senior professors--is an important rite of passage on the way to establishing one's own professional niche. Gerontologists should resist such impulses. Instead, I propose that we try to make sense of the cumulative wisdom of some of our most creative, pioneering scientists who remain actively engaged in research, teaching, and public service. Tracing the apprenticeship and mentorship of James Birren, for instance, would not only reveal much about how the field of gerontology has evolved since World War I1, but it would also alert us to the durability of many of his hypotheses and contributions to theory-building. To cite just one example: Birren's radical hypothesis that the speed at which an older person reponded to external stimuli might be an independent rather than a dependent variable continues to influence the shape of biopsychological research. It also figures in the work of his students, such as Jack Botwinick, Walter Cunningham, and Diana Woodruff-Pak, who are themselves major figures reshaping our understanding of the psychology of aging. Similarly, I would like to know more about the theoretical underpinnings of the gerontological discourse that evolved in Robert Havighurst and Bernice Neugarten's seminars at Chicago's Committee on Human Development,under Clark Tibbitts and Wilma Donahue's tutelage at the University of Michigan, and in the government sponsored research labs and review panels. How did the sen'se of what constituted "scientific" knowledge change in these settings over time? For those who find such an approach too hagiographie, let me suggest an alternate route to retrospective analysis: Reconstructing the evolution of certain central ideas, such as the salience of people's level of intelligence on their growth and decline in old age, that have long been a staple of gerontological research. Prior to World War I, many hypothesized that the capacity to learn declined with age, but the proposition was not tested on subjects over the age of 45. Miles and Miles (1932) were among the first to engage in systematic, empirical research. During the past five decades, there has been mounting evidence that "age is kinder to the initially more able." And yet, there also is an increasing array of data that undermines such an assertion. If one were to trace the successive contributions of K. Warner Schaie, Klaus Riegel, Paul Baltes and John Nesselroade over time, I predict that much would be learned not only about the paradoxical nature of senescence but also the extent to which assiduous adherence to scientific procedures may have blinded us at critical junctures to anomalies in cumulative results. Even those who claim that there is nothing to be learned from earlier studies because investigators misinterpreted their results might nevertheless discover that the secondary analysis of such empirical data provides a baseline for developing experiments that can be replicated across disciplines. There are, in short, plenty of opportunities to engage in the task of synthesis in gerontology. I regret the historical bras of my illustrations, lest they be taken as an instance of disciplinary special pleading. This is hardly my intention. As we seek to reformulate this field, all of us must be sensitive to emerging possibilities for a cumulative, synthetic approach to scientific inquiry. Paradoxically, however, if past experiences

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are indeed a guide to the future, it is likely that any general principle contributes to theory-building in this field will be revealed through doing solid empirical research; it will not result from reading a manifesto.

REFERENCES Achenbaum, W. Andrew. 1985. "Societal Perceptions of Aging and the Aged." In Handbook of AghTg and the Social Sciences. 2d ed. Edited by Robert H. Binstock and Ethel Shanas. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 1986. Social Security: Visions and Revisions. New York: Cambridge University Press. Baltes, Paul B. and John R. Nesselroade. 1984. "Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Regained." American Sociological Review 49:841-847. Belenky, Mary, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule. 1986. IVomen's IVays of Knowing. New York: Basic Books. Bender, Thomas. 1986. "Wholes and Parts." Journal of American History 73: 120-136. Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday. Berlin, Isaiah. 1953. The Hedgehog and the Fox. New York: Simon & Schuster. Birren, James E., ed. 1959. "Principles of Research in Aging." In tlandbook of Aghlg and the Individual: Psychologicaland Biological Aspects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brown, Theodore M. 1980. "Putting Paradigms into History." Marxist Perspectives 9: 34--63. Busse, Ewald W. and George L. Maddox. 1985. The Duke Longitudinal Studies of Normal Aging, 1955-1980. New York: Springer. Butler, Robert N. and Herbert P. Gleason, eds. 1985. Productive Aging. New York: Springer. Cole, Thomas R, 1983. "The 'Enlightened' View of Aging." Hastings Center Report 13: 34--40. Collins, Randall. 1986. "Is 1980s Sociology in the Doldrums?" American Journal of Sociology 91: 1336--1355. Cumming, Elaine and William E. Henry. 1961. Growing Old. New York: Basic Books. Dannefer, Dale. 1984. "Adult Development and Social Theory: A Paradigmatic Reappraisal." American Sociological Review 49:100-116. Dewey, John. 1939. "Introduction." In Problems of Ageing, edited by Edmund Vincent Cowdry. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. Freeman, Joseph T. 1979. Aging: Its History and Literature. New York: Human Sciences Press. Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gruman, Gerald J. 1966. A History of hleas about the Prolongation of Life. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Gubrium, Jaber F., ed. 1974. Late Life: Communities and Environmental Policy. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas. Haber, Carole. 1983. Beyond Sixo'-Five. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1975. "Disengagement Theory: A Critique and Proposal." American Sociological Review 40: 553-569. Kirkwood, Thomas B.L. 1985. "Comparative and Evolutionary Aspects of Longevity." In Handbook of the Biology of Aging. 2d ed. Edited by Caleb E. Finch and Edward L. Schneider. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Krauskopf, Joan M. 1983. Advocacyfor t~e Aging. St. Paul: West. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Levinson, Daniel J. et al. 1978. Seasons of a Man's Life. New York: Knopf. Maddox, George L. and Richard T. Campbell, 1985. "Scope, Contents, and Methods in the

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Study of Aging." In Handbook ofAging andthe SocialScienees. 2d ed. Edited by Robert H. Binstock and Ethel Shanas. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Miles, C.C. and William R. Miles. 1932. "The Correlation of Intelligence Scores and Chronological Age from Early to Late Maturity." American Journal of Psychology, 44: 44-78. Modell, John, Frank Furstenberg and David Strong. 1976. "Social Changes and Transitions to Adulthood: Continuity and Change." American Journal of Sociology 84:120-150. Moody, Harry R. 1986. The Abundance of Life: Human Development Policies for an Aging Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Myles, John. 1984. OldAge ht the Welfare State. Boston: Little, Brown Series on Gerontology. Pifer, Alan and Lydia Bronte, eds. 1986. Our Aghlg Society. New York: W.W. Norton. Pollak, Otto. 1948. Social Adjustment to Old Age- A Research Planning Report. Bulletin 59. New York: Social Science Research Council. Popper, Karl. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Unwin. Riegel, Klaus F. 1977. "History of Psychological Gerontology." In Handbook of the Psychology of Aghlg, edited by James E. Birren and K. Warner Schaie. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Riley, Matilda White et al. 1967-72. Aghlg and Society, 3 vols. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Riley, Matilda White and John W. Riley, Jr. 1986. "Longevity and Social Structure: The Potential of the Added Years." In Our Aging SocieO', edited by Alan Pifer and Lydia Bronte. New York: W.W. Norton. Rosow, Irving. 1967. Social Integration of the Aged. New York: Free Press. Rossi, Alice. 1986. "Sex and Gender in the Aging Society." In Our Aging Society, edited by Alan Pifer and Lydia Bronte. New York: W.W. Norton. Shanas, Ethel et al. 1968. OM People in Three IndustrialSocieties. New York: Atherton Press. Simon, Herbert A. 1983. Reason in tluman Affairs. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Skinner, Quentin, ed. 1986. The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith-Sonneborn, Joan. 1985. "Aging in Unicellular Organisms." In Handbook of the Biology of Aging. 2d ed. Edited by Caleb E. Finch and Edward L. Schneider. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Thomas, Lewis. 1979. The Medusa and the Snail. New York: Viking Press. Tibbitts, Clark. 1960. "Origins, Scope, and Fields of Social Gerontology." In Handbook of Social Gerontology, edited by Clark Tibbitts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Can gerontology be a science?

During the last half-century, research on aging has become more scientific in its self-representations. Paradoxically, however, it is not at all self-...
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