Perhaps this conference and this book will catalyze the critical mass needed to establish psychology of science as a discipline with its own journals, organizations, courses, and doctoral programs – comparable in its degree of institutionalization to sociology of science, philosophy of science, or history of science. I hope so. But if not this time, then soon.

When this institutionalization occurs, there will be a retrospective reconstruction of the history of our field. This chapter consists of fragmentary notes toward that history, stressing oddities that others might miss, collected over 45 years of dilettante, back-burner attention. Consistent with that degree of attention, my essay will degenerate into an annotated bibliography of items which I hope younger, more fully committed scholars will conscientiously consider in the history of the psychology of science that they will eventually write. At age 71, I expect that this is the last essay I will contribute to our field (although I am far from having stopped in other areas).

Within the full range of relevant topics, my essay concentrates most on psychological contributions to epistemological and theory of science issues of interest to philosophers, although I will go beyond that range to include rare items apt to be missing from others' histories. A perspective on the overall scope of psychology of science will help locate this focus. I quote from my part of the introduction to a collection of Boring's writings in this area: