Barnes-science Technology Relation

8/13/2019 Barnes-science Technology Relation

1/8


2/8

Notes and Letters (continued)

* ABSTRACTThis Note draws attention to the emergence of what is generally acknowledgedto be a very satisfactory interactive model of the science-technology relationship.It goes on to ask why such a model should not be extended to describe therelationship of science with other sub-cultures, besides that of technology.

The Science-Technology Relationship:A Model and a Query

Barry Barnes

This very brief Note seeks merely to raise questions and point out some possibleanalogies and connections; it addresses no issues of substance, nor does it involveany attempts at proof or demonstration. Accordingly, I have felt entitled to proceedin a semi-mythological way, using abstractions rather than actual historically-situated models and theories, and referring to the literature sparingly and un-systematically.

The ModelI start with the major reorientation in our thinking about the science-technologyrelationship which has occurred in recent years. We are now much less prone tothink in terms which subordinate technology to science, and have the former work-ing out the implications of the latter. Instead we recognize science and technology tobe on a par with each other. Both sets of practitioners creatively extend and developtheir existing culture; but both also take up and exploit some part of the culture ofSocial Studies of Science (SAGE, London and Beverly Hills),Vol. 12 (1982), 166-72


3/8

Notes and Letters: Barnes: Science-Technology

TABLE 1Conceptions of the Relationship Between Science (S) and Technology (T)

THE NSTITUTION 'BAD OLD DAYS' PRESENTCOMPAREDS Discovery S InventionFORMS OF Creation of knowledgeACTIVITY T Application T InventionUse of knowledge

MAJOR S Nature S Existing scienceRESOURCES T Science T Existing technologyMAJORMAJOCORTS S State of nature S No single major constraintCONSTRAINTSON RESULTS T State of science T No single major constraint

FORMS OF S Creative/constructive S Creative/constructiveCOGNITION T Routine/deductive T Creative/constructiveTHEIR RELATIONSHIP

SGENERAL S--TIMAGE TTHierarchical dependence Egalitarian interactive

MAINMEDIATING Words PeopleWords PeopleAGENCIEOUTCOMES

a. For the development a. Predictable consequences. a. No predictable consequences.of knowledge T deduces the implications of S T makes occasional creativeand gives them physical use of S. S makes occasionalrepresentation. No feedback creative use of T.from T to S. Interaction

b. For the development b. S may make free creative use b. Not a separate question.of competence and of T as resource in research. Interaction as above.techniquec. For the evaluation c. S evaluates discoveries in an c. S and T, both being inventive,of knowledge and unchanging context-independent both involve evaluation incompetence way. T is evaluated according terms of ends. No a priorito its ability to infer the reason why activity in T shouldimplications of S. Success in not be evaluated by referenceT is proper use of S; failure in to ends relevant to agents in S,T is incompetent use of S. or vice versa.

167


4/8

168 Social Studies of Sciencethe other - culture which tends to be transferredpredominantly by personal mobili-ty. Technology and science could both survive as forms of institutionalized activityindependently of the other, but they are in fact enmeshed in a symbiotic relationship- a weak, mutually beneficial interaction, which looks much the same whicheverway round it is considered.This reorientation is set out in an extreme form in Table 1. Ratherthan documen-ting and justifying the contents of the table, I rely upon the reader to recognize thetwo models it represents. How far the hierarchical model had credibility, even in the'bad old days', is a moot point; but I do hope that the interactive model attributed tothe present day will be recognized by most readers. Although it corresponds to nospecific opinion, it is an abstraction which, I believe, captures much of the basicstructure of current thinking.At least two intellectual developments were necessary for the emergence of an in-teractive model. First, science and technology had both to be recognized as forms ofculture: it had to be accepted that new science develops predominantly from oldscience, new technology from old technology. In the case of science, the tendency torelate new findings solely to nature, and to give little explicit stress to receivedknowledge, whether existing science or inputs from technology, constituted anobstacle which has only recently been overcome. In the case of technology, undueconcern with the role of science in innovation for a long time stifled interest in thefar more important role of existing technology. Fortunately, historians oftechnology are now rapidly redressing the balance: there is no longer any difficultyin perceiving that new machines develop predominantly out of old ones, andanalogously with instruments, materials, patterns and procedures.2The second necessary development was more subtle and far-reaching. It had to beaccepted that knowledge does not have inherent implications. So long as theoriesand discoveries were thought to have such implications, technology could be seen asa routine activity wherein those implications were deduced and realized. Anytechnological innovation could be traced backwards, and made out as a logical con-sequence of the newest scientific theory or discovery encountered in the line of itsdevelopment; and the period between theory and innovation, the so-called 'lag' bet-ween fundamental research and its application, could be used as a measure oftechnological inefficiency. But again, historians of technology helped to reorientateour thinking: they insisted that we recognize what was surely never hard to see; thatquantum theories of the solid state did not evoke transistors as a rational intuition;that Marconi did not follow from Maxwell; that, in general, scientific theories donot arrive, like calculators or quartz-watches, with instruction books attached. AsJoseph Ben-David has rightly stressed, 'nothing is implied in a discovery beyondthe questions answered by it, and those to which it is related by the traditions andmental habits of the people who are its prime consumers.'3Scientific 'discoveries' have no logical implications. Nor can technologists relyupon their 'traditions and mental habits' to arrive at what may be taken to be 'im-plications': technologists are not 'prime consumers'. Accordingly, we must expecttechnologists actively and imaginatively to exploit scientific work, just as they fre-quently exploit the resources of their own technological culture.4 Cognitively, thereis no fundamental distinction to be drawn between the creation of a scientific theoryand its subsequent application. Just as the one is the imaginative development andpurposive reordering of existing knowledge, so too is the other. And so also, in just


5/8

Notes and Letters: Barnes: Science-Technologythe same way, is the exploitation of technological innovation in the context ofscience.

Thus, the current interactive model of the science-technology relationship hasemerged. And a very satisfactory model it is, given that no such construct, howeversophisticated, can cope perfectly with the complexities of real relationships, or allowfor the negotiable and essentially contested character of the two concepts, 'science'and 'technology'.5 The utility of the model in empirical studies is already widelyrecognized, and its wider heuristic value is beginning to be apparent. For example,once we think in terms of the interaction of two contexts of inventive activity - ac-tivity which of its nature demands evaluation in relation to human objectives - it iseasy to understand how judgement in one context may readily become conditionedby objectives, and hence criteria, from the other. This overlap, or even total in-terpenetration, of the objectives and judgements of technologists and scientists,everywhere apparent in the history of either activity, presents much greater dif-ficulties of conceptualization when the alternative hierarchical model is employed.

The QueryFor present purposes, however, my assessment of the merits of the interactive modelis irrelevant. I need only describe it, in the hope that the reader will recognize it andconcede the high regard in which it is widely held. This opens the path to the querywhich is the crux of my Note. Why should an interactive model of this kind not beused as a way of conceptualizing the relationship of science with other sub-cultures?Why, for example, should the relationship between science and political sub-cultures, to the extent that there is such a relationship, not be conceptualized in thisway, or the relationship between science and our everyday commonsense culture?It is certainly easy to speculate upon why, as a matter of fact, this move is rarelymade. A plausible hypothesis is that our willingness to describe a sub-culture as insymmetrical interaction with science, and our willingness to evaluate it asepistemologically comparable with science are intimately connected. Technology,obviously and impressively efficacious and thereby in a sense valid, is possibly theonly form of culture which can interact with science, and hence affect science,without danger to the standing of the latter.To say this, however, is only to say why an interactive conception is not used; Iask why it should not be used. At present, when a relationship is perceived betweenscience and (say) politics, the tendency is to presume that science is used by politicalsub-cultures but that science is itself untouched by this use, or by its general relation-ship to the political context at that point. An hierarchical model is employed, andthe possibility of interaction, and hence of inputs into science, is not considered. Isuggest that an interactive model should always be used in such cases, that thepossibility of feedback into science should always be investigated as a matter ofroutine, and that zero feedback should be treated merely as a possible empirical fin-ding.Consider how much can be said in favour of such a policy. First, there is thegenerally acknowledged merit of the interactive model as a representation of thescience-technology relationship. Secondly, there is the character of the argumentswhich support the adoption of the model in that context. These argumentsdo not re-quire the existence of any special or distinctive features in the sub-cultures of science

169


6/8

Social Studies of Scienceand technology. On the contrary, it was precisely the imputation of such features toscientific culture which sustained the earlier, unsatisfactory, hierarchical model ofthe science-technology relationship, and the abandonment of that imputation whichallowed the interactive model to be justified. The interactive model treats scienceand technology as much more closely analogous to other forms of culture than didits predecessor. And this in turn suggests that the science-technology relationship islikely to be relevantly analogous to other relationships between sub-cultures. Final-ly, there is the fact that the science-technology interaction is understood in a con-siderable degree of detail, and that many of its principal features are now commoncurrency among us. These are precisely the two characteristics which endowrepresentations with heuristic value, which make them potent metaphors, versatiletools of thought.At present the study of science and technology is but weakly conne.ted to thestudy of the general social and political context of science: although there is someoverlap of personnel between the fields, there does not appear to be a ready inter-change of methods and models. Recent work in the latter field, however, indicatesthat it may now independently be recapitulating the development of the former. Ithas for a long time been standard practice for historians to speak of the social orpolitical uses of science: one way traffic has been assumed from science to 'society',with the role of the latter being solely to use, or to misuse, the knowledge derivedfrom the former, to deduce its real 'implications' or to attach false 'implications' toit. The profane culture of 'society' has been set below science, and their relationshiphas been conceptualized hierarchically - precisely as was done with technology inthe 'bad old days' when it too was reckoned a possible source of defilement. But thecurrent trend is to call into question this asymmetrical treatment, and the associatedassumption that where science is used in a general social context what is involved ismere use, and not interaction.For example, a great range of materials on the 'social uses' of eighteenth-centuryscience has recently been gathered together by Shapin, who has tellinglydemonstrated how the 'uses' are relevant to an understanding of the conception,development and evaluation of the science itself.6 Shapin notes how theories of mat-ter were deployed as strategies to further interests throughout the period of theEnlightenment. Theories asserting the primacy of spirit over matter were favouredby spiritual elites and supporters of clerical hierarchies; theories locating powers inmatter itself and denying the primacy, or even the existence, of spirit were deployedby opponents of those elites and hierarchies. Thus the matter theories of, amongothers, Boyle, Newton and Priestley all had important social and political uses. It isboth arbitrary and, as it happens, incorrect, to assume that the matter theories ofthese men of science originated in ways quite unconnected with the social andpolitical uses. Boyle's a priori conviction, so important in his technical scientificwork, that matter was inert and lacking in inherent powers, was no mere individualidiosyncracy or expedient technical assumption; nor was Newton's view of theuniverse as rich in spirit and poor in matter; nor was Priestley's materialism andconsequent affection for the phlogiston theory. If Boyle, Newton and Priestley weremen of science, then their science was a sub-culture which interacted with the widerculture in a way well adumbrated by the right hand column of Table 1.This example is genuinely representativeof emerging trends in the social history ofscience, and of parallel movements in sociology and political science.7 Yet it is clearfrom its structure, its vocabulary, and the work it does in reinterpretingthe very re-

170


7/8

Notes and Letters: Barnes:Science-Technologycent primary materials upon which it relies, that it represents an attempt at persua-sion on behalf of a framework both cognitively alien and evaluatively suspect tomuch of its audience. Within the context of the social and intellectual history ofscience it is natural, and indeed desirable, that there should be such suspicion. But tothe extent that the framework produces problems of intelligibility, or stimulates con-ceptual questions, it is surely relevant to note that it already exists in a welldeveloped form as the accepted model of the science-technology relationship.

* NOTES

1. In lieu of documentation, I cite W. Gruber and G. Marquis (eds), Factors inthe Transfer of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), as one markerofthe point at which the interactive conception and its merits achieved clear visibility.The contribution of D. J. de S. Price to this volume remains one of the best generalpresentations of current thinking about the science-technology relation. A goodsource for further developments is the excellent bibliographical essay by E. Layton,'Conditions of Technological Development', in I. Spiegel-Rosing and D. J. de S.Price (eds), Science, Technology and Society (London and Beverly Hills, Calif.:Sage, 1977), 197-222.2. Diffuse long-term trends are being referred to here, which cannot beassociated with specific contributions. No doubt, Kuhn's work on research tradi-tions and Price's upon researchliteratureshave special significances as far as scienceis concerned. With regard to technology, one has to consider the overall tendency insuch concrete historical studies as those of Cardwell, Hughes or Layton (cf. Layton,op. cit. note 1).3. J. Ben-David, Fundamental Research and the Universities (Paris: OECD,1968), 50. This perceptive insight into 'implication' as a matter of habit and customis suggestive in many other ways.4. For a general account along these lines see D. Schon, Technology and Change(Oxford: Pergamon, 1967); for a very brief concrete illustration, M. Gibbons and C.Johnson, 'Relationship between Science and Technology', Nature, Vol. 227 (11 July1970), 125-27.5. Cf. O. Mayr, 'The Science-Technology Relationship as a HistoriographicProblem', Technology and Culture, Vol. 17 (1979), 663-73.6. S. Shapin, 'Social Uses of Science', in G. S. Rousseau and R. Porter (eds),The Ferment of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980),93-139. Shapin himself notes that 'A proper perspective of the uses of science mightreveal that the sociology of knowledge and the history of technology have more incommon than is usually thought' (ibid., 132).7. Cf. the many references in Porter and Rousseau, op. cit. note 6; B. Barnesand S. Shapin (eds), Natural Order (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979); R. Wallis(ed.), On the Margins of Science: The Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge(Keele, Staffs.: University of Keele, Sociological Review Monograph No. 27, 1979);and G. Lemaine et. al. (eds), Perspectives on the Emergence of Scientific Disciplines(The Hague: Mouton, 1976).

171


8/8

172 Social Studies of ScienceAuthor's address: Science Studies Unit, EdinburghUniversity,

34 Buccleuch Place, EdinburghEH89JT, Scotland, UK.

Barnes-science Technology Relation

Documents

Transcript of Barnes-science Technology Relation