Brooke on the Merton Thesis: A Direct Replication of John Hedley Brooke’s Chapter on Scientific and Religious Reform

Awareness of the need for replication studies is growing in multiple disciplines. Replication in history and the humanities, however, is close to nonexistent. This article presents the results of a direct replication of John Hedley Brooke’s study into the role of Puritanism in increasing the legitimacy of (practical or applied) science. The study serves as a pilot for the possibility and feasibility of replication in history. We give an overview of both what replication studies are and Brooke’s original study. We subsequently revisit Brooke’s study. For this purpose, we reconstruct Brooke’s research protocol, revisit his sources, and include some new sources. We note minor points of divergence with the interpretation of sources on the dominance of Puritans in applied sciences. We conclude that the pilot study shows the importance of replication for history and that replication in history raises new challenges for replication studies.