The number of publications inspired by Bruno Latour’s social thought has significantly grown in Poland over the last decade. Among them there are theoretical analyses, research programms as well as projects of social engineering. This situation makes it urgent to examine the credibility of Latour’s vision of science and society. The present article claims that the premises as well as arguments of the French thinker are not only fallacious but also dangerous. A number of absurdities following from the actor-network theory become evident in the works of the Polish followers of Latour. Thus the article focuses on selected examples of them. In the conclusion the author indicates certain advantages for Latour’s readers and formulates several hypotheses about the possible reasons for Latour’s growing popularity.

In the paper I address the problem of consolidation of the borders of the world of science by scientific institutions—in this case, Polish scientific societies of various fields. Basing on the analysis of the statutes of selected societies, I formulate a list of research questions that concern the role of scientific societies in distinguishing between what is considered scientific and what is not. These questions can be used in a more in-depth research. I adopt a constructivist perspective, focus on the ways in which science is produced and separated from pseudoscience, and do not address the (in)accuracy of claims rejected by the scientific world.

In this interview, conducted during the XXIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Poznan, Verónica Tozzi Thompson (professor of Philosophy of History at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina) discusses historiography in Argentina and recent trends in historical theory, in particular the epistemology of the witness. She addresses important issues concerning key concepts for the philosophy and sociology of history: truth and trust. In addition, Tozzi Thompson discusses the differences and connections between analytic and narrativist philoso-phy of history and recommends some further readings.

The paper analyses Thomas S. Kuhn's theory of the development of science interpreted as a sociological conception. Kuhn's visions of dealing with history as well as eventual controversies connected with its application are discussed.

The new edition in Italian of the articles by the Polish microbiologist and philosopher Ludwik Fleck (1896–1961) edited by Francesco Coniglione offers the opportunity for some considerations around this significant scholar. Fleck anticipates Kuhn’s ideas as well as those of the sociology of science. For him, any epistemology that does not take psychological and sociological methods into account, or that does not concern itself with economics, technology, art, and even politics, is an epistemology imaginabilis. Here we discuss some key points of the essays collected in the book, some observations taken from the rich introduction of the editor, and an inevitable question: Why has Fleck been neglected for so long?

We examined the male-female collaboration practices of all internationally visible Polish university professors (N = 25,463) based on their Scopus-indexed publications from 2009–2018 (158,743 journal articles). We merged a national registry of 99,935 scientists with the Scopus publication database, using probabilistic and deterministic record linkage. Our database (“The Polish Science Observatory”) included all professors with at least a doctoral degree employed in 85 researchinvolved universities. We determined an “individual publication portfolio” for every professor. The gender homophily principle (publishing predominantly with scientists of the same sex) was found to apply to male scientists — but not to females. The majority of male scientists collaborate solely with males; most female scientists, in contrast, do not collaborate with females at all. Gender homophily in research-intensive institutions proved stronger for males than for females. Finally, we used a multi-dimensional fractional logit regression model to estimate the impact of gender and other individual-level and institutional-level independent variables on gender homophily in research collaboration.

Science at the state level consists of two distinct and heterogeneous systems: the global science system and national science systems. National science systems are deeply embedded in global science, and states seek to use global knowledge for domestic economic needs. However, harnessing the wealth of global knowledge can only be done through scientists. Consequently, the scientific strength of states in practice depends on the scientific strength of individual scientists. Their ability to collaborate internationally and to tap into the global scientific network is crucial. By remaining outside it and working within local research programs, the academic community risks being marginalized, losing the interest of national research funding patrons, and losing the ability to influence the development of science.

In this text, we analyze the limitations of using academic age as a proxy for biological age in the whole national science system, for which we consider both biological age and academic age of all researchers from all Polish universities, holding at least a PhD degree and participating in global academic science through international publications (N = 20 569). An approximation of a researcher's functioning in global science is having at least one publication indexed in the Scopus database in the analyzed decade 2009–2018. Thus, using the example of comprehensive data from the entire national system of science, we estimate the extent of limitations of using academic age as a proxy for biological age depending on selected independent variables and analyze both the practical and methodological implications of using academic age in academic career research, which is one of the most important components of quantitative studies of science.