Scientific Theory and Technological Testability: Science, Dynamometers, and Water Turbines in the 19th Century
TL;DR: The relationship between scientific and technological knowledge has been investigated in a wide range of areas, including the creation of technological knowledge in engineering science through parameter variation and the application of technologically relevant concepts such as control volume theory as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: An increasingly central concern among historians of technology is the nature of technological knowledge as distinct both from science and from the design of specific artifacts. This concern is reflected in diverse scholarship addressing such issues as the relationships among scientific investigation, technological research, and the process of innovation;1 the creation of technological knowledge in engineering science through such specifically technological methodologies as parameter variation and through the application of technologically relevant concepts such as control-volume theory;2 and the sociological and epistemological relationship between scientific and technological knowledge.3 At the same time, recent research by Edwin T. Layton, Norman Smith, Louis Hunter, and Terry Reynolds has provided basic
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01 Jan 1987
TL;DR: The need for an integrated social constructivist approach towards the study of science and technology is outlined in this article, where both scientific facts and technological artefacts are to be understood as social constructs.
Abstract: The need for an integrated social constructivist approach towards the study of science and technology is outlined. Within such a programme both scientific facts and technological artefacts are to be understood as social constructs. Literature on the sociology of science, the science-technology relationship, and technology studies is reviewed. The empirical programme of relativism within the sociology of scientific knowledge and a recent study of the social construction of technological artefacts are combined to produce the new approach. The concepts of `interpretative flexibility' and `closure mechanism', and the notion of `social group' are developed and illustrated by reference to a study of solar physics and a study of the development of the bicycle. The paper concludes by setting out some of the terrain to be explored in future studies.
3,197 citations
01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: The first step towards a convincing explanation is to adopt! this a priori position as mentioned in this paper, which clears the field of study of any single distinction between! prescientific and scientific cultures, minds, methods or societies.
Abstract: It would be nice to be able to define what is specific to our modem scientific culture. It would be still nicer to find the most economical explanation (which might not be the most economic one) of its origins and special characteristics. To arrive at a parsimonious explanation it is best not to appeal to universal traits of nature. Hypotheses about changes in the mind or human consciousness, in the structure of the brain, in social relations, in “mentalites”, or in the economic infrastructure which are posited to explain the emergence of science or its present achievements are simply too grandiose, not to say hagiographic in most cases and plainly racist in more than a few others. Occam’s razor should cut these explanations short. No “new man” suddenly emerged sometime in the sixteenth century, and there are no mutants with larger brains working inside modern !laboratories who can think differently from the rest of us. The idea that a more !rational mind or a more constraining scientific method emerged from darkness !and chaos is too complicated a hypothesis. It seems to me that the first step towards a convincing explanation is to adopt! this a priori position. It clears the field of study of any single distinction between ! prescientific and scientific cultures, minds, methods or societies. As Jack Goody !points out, the “grand dichotomy” with its self-righteous certainty should be !replaced by many uncertain and unexpected divides (Goody, 1977). This negative first move frees us from positive answers that strain credulity1. All such ! dichotomous distinctions can be convincing only as long as
378 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a composite categorization of different types of knowledge used in innovation is proposed, as part of a broader framework encompassing two further taxonomic dimensions, which can provide useful research tools in furthering our understanding of knowledge transfers and transformations that occur in the course of innovation.
Abstract: This article reviews empirical and conceptual material from two distinct research traditions: on the science-technology relation and on industrial innovation. It aims both to shed new light on an old debate—the distinction between scientific and technological knowledge—and to refine our conceptualizations of the knowledge used by companies in the course of research and development leading to innovation. On the basis of three empirical studies, a composite categorization of different types of knowledge used in innovation is proposed, as part of a broader framework encompassing two further taxonomic dimensions. It is hoped that this typology and framework might provide useful research tools in furthering our understanding of the knowledge transfers and transformations that occur in the course of innovation. It could also prove useful for organizations and groups facing difficult strategic choices about technology.
167 citations
Cites background from "Scientific Theory and Technological..."
...academic discipline (e.g., Layton 1976; Channell 1982; Constant 1984a), and we should be careful not to conflate engineering and technology....
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...With respect to the latter, Edward Constant (1984b) and others have stressed the hierarchical features of the development of complex technologi-...
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TL;DR: In this article, a generalizable analysis of testing in terms of a notion of projection is presented, with examples of testing a clinical budgeting system in the United Kingdom National Health Service and the testing of the O-rings on the space shuttle Challenger.
Abstract: This article explores testing as research site in the sociology of technology. A fully generalizable analysis is offered of testing in terms of a notion of projection. Prospective, current, and retrospective testing are identified The article is illustrated with examples of testing a clinical budgeting system in the United Kingdom National Health Service and the testing of the O-rings on the space shuttle Challenger. Lastly, the theme of "testing the user" is developed Some comments are offered on the pervasiveness of testing in society at large.
120 citations
Cites background from "Scientific Theory and Technological..."
...For instance, a new aircraft or a boat may be demonstrated to prospective purchasers, as was the case for the Turbina - the first turbine-powered boat (Constant 1980)....
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01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: The purpose of the model proposed here for technology was and is historical; that is, it is intended to be utilitarian and heuristic rather than definitive or ‘clean’.
Abstract: The purpose of the model proposed here for technology was and is historical; that is, it is intended to be utilitarian and heuristic rather than definitive or ‘clean’. It grew out of work on turbine systems, specifically turbojets, in which I found conventional explanations of invention inadequate: the turbojet is neither the product of unique genius nor a simple-minded ‘new combination of old ideas’. I therefore developed an ‘ideal-typical’ model for the structure of technological practice, and for technological change. I use ‘ideal-typical’ in its Weberian sense: an artificial construct intended to portray the essential relations among conjectured entities, the purpose of which is to illuminate rather than to replicate ‘social reality’.1 The goal is not comprehensive or finished theory, but rather the beginning of secure historical understanding.
80 citations