Notes from Chapter 4:
Society and
Technological Change, 3rd ed.
Rudi Volti
The
ideas and examples referenced below are notes compiled by Robert Keel and Shannon
Mayer in their reading of Volti's, Society and Technological Change,
6th edition, Worth Publishers, 2010. They are intended for classroom
use.
SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE
- Technology more than
"applied science"
- Technology often emerged
w/out scientific knowledge
- Scientific advance sometimes
depends on prior Technological advances
The Historical
Separation of Science and Technology
- Most Technologies have
been developed with little scientific input
- Greece— many Technological
achievements made withoutout science, yet Scientific legacy more significant
than Technological legacy
- Rome— similar lack of
connectivity, however Rome's greatest advances were in the area of technology
with little scientific development.
"Through the bulk of
human history, Technology has flourished in societies where science has remained
undeveloped, and vice versa." (Thomas Kuhn)
Modern Relationship
between Technology and Science
- U.S. (1960's)-- Project
Hindsight — Study of effect of pure science on development of major weapon
systems
- Results of study revealed
that pure science had very little impact on technological development
- Limitations of study—
only considered scientific knowledge after 1945, not before that time, which
was arguably, critical to success of technology
How
Technology Differs from Science
- The two are very different
in their basic nature
- Science- knowledge for
its own sake
- Technology- a means to
an end
- Obviously, motives
come into play, and make it difficult to cleanly categorize the two
- Scientists— motives seen
as pure, "for science sake," not influenced by politics, economy,
society
- Works with more freedom;
can abandon one theory when another appears more promising
- The notion that scientific
progress leads to material progress has conferred more respectability
on scientists than on technicians
- Technicians— work is
more structured
- Due to demand of
product, technician cannot abandon projects as easily as scientist
- Under more time pressures
Science— Is
it true?: All possibilities must be accounted for. Need for ANSWER
Technology—Will
it work? Technology still relevant even if we don’t know how it works
- Iron produced for decades
before it was known what actually occured inside furnace
- Scientific knowledge
may be a by-product of technological achievements
- Development of steam
injector led to abandonment of a scientific
theory of nature of heat
- Technological developments
often reach a plateau due to a lack of scientific knowledge
"When
Science and Technology have gone their separate ways, as has been the case
for most of human history, they develop more slowly that when they interact
with each other, as they have done to an increasing degree during the twentieth
century."
Indirect effects
of Technology on Scientific Advance
- Technology supplies devices
and instruments for scientific inquiry: Telescopes and galvanometers
- Much Scientific research
has been funded in the hopes that it will "pay off" one day
- This pay off can only
take place with the help of technology
"[The
ultimate success of science] must be accounted to its fulfillment of Baconian
ambitions--the delivery of power. Other modes of knowing have been able to give
an intelligible, systematic, aesthetically pleasing picture of reality. If science
had only been able to accomplish this and nothing more, it is likely that it
would have been supplanted by yet another philosophy of inquiry. But in the
West at least, the test is not so much what do you know? Or how elegant
is your interpretation of worldly phenomena? But rather, What can actually
do? This is the conclusive factor, the reason that, for instance, social
science has never fully established its credentials in the halls of science.
Science succeeds over rival ways of knowing--poetry, religion, art, philosophy,
and the occult— not by its ability to illuminate, not even by its ability to
organize knowledge, but by its ability to produce solid results...In the last
analysis the popular proof of science is technology."
The Commonalities
of Science and Technology
- Both based on the gathering
of knowledge
- Both advance through
cumulative development
- Both share rational thought
processes— though neither are totally rational in their scope: Values,
interpretation, and serendipity central to both endeavors
- Mathematics central to
both
- Both share sense of optimism
and progress
The Translation
of Science into Technology
- A great deal of scientific
information is translated into technology through the education of engineers
- Science can stifle Technology
because of its rigidity and movement toward a single answer (rather than several
possibilities)
"Both science and technology seem to do best when they
remain in close contact, but this should not obscure the fact that they remain
very different enterprises"
URL:
http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/280/soctechchange/soctech4.htm
Owner: Robert O. Keel: rok@umsl.edu
Last Updated:
Friday, December 31, 2010 16:09