Defining science is an overdetermined process in that no single factor, person, or institution can be the sole provider of its definition or judge over legitimacy, and its nature is inherently universal in that no one person or group or country can impose its definition, as its very logic of legitimacy rests upon acceptance in a wider community. Science also needs to successfully mobilize various kinds of resources—financial, human, material, intellectual, political, and so forth—in order to be productive and effective, as it has become a costly business. Hence, when new members enter the field of science, when new economic and political resources become available, when new problems and issues emerge, they change the composition of the field of science and thus affect the struggle to define what is scientific.
