South Asia
Middle East
Europe
North America
The sociology of a history of science—related to sociology and philosophy of science, as well as a entire field of science studies—has in the 20th century been occupied with the question of large-scale patterns & trends in the development of science, and asking questions about how science "works" both in a philosophical and practical sense.
One of the basic indications for a scientific community is the existence and approval of a political sponsor; in England, the Royal Society operates under the aegis of the monarchy; in the US, the National Academy of Sciences was founded by Act of the United States Congress; etc. Otherwise, when the basic elements of cognition were being formulated, the political rulers of the respective communities couldto arbitrarily either support or disallow the nascent scientific communities. For example, Alhazen had to feign madness to avoid execution. The polymath Shen Kuo lost political support, and could not keep on his studies until he came up with discoveries that showed his worth to the political rulers. The admiral Zheng He could not stay on his voyages of exploration after the emperors withdrew their support. Another famous example was the suppression of the realize of Galileo, by the twentieth century, Galileo would be pardoned.