Lecture 2

LECTURE 2
Introduction to Science and Technology

Studies
Science, Technology and Society- refers to an endless cycle of
co-production, co- influence, and co-production of technology and
society upon the other.
The basic concepts
Science: Investigations of the physical world, including us and the stuff

we make
Technology: Making stuff, including stuff used by society, and in the
production and dissemination of science
Society: The sum total of our interactions as humans, including the
interactions that we engage in to figure things out and to make
things
It should be clear that all of these are deeply interconnected.

The field of Science and Technology Studies
• Science and Technology Studies (STS) is a relatively recent

discipline, originating in the 60s and 70s, following Kuhn’s
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). STS was the
result of a “sociological turn” in science studies.
• STS makes the assumption that science and technology are

essentially intertwined and that they are each profoundly
social and profoundly political.
Being
critical
Definition (Critical Stance)
A critical stance is the deliberate creation of distance between us and the
object we study.
In order to be critical we must step back and ask broad questions.
• Science claims to produce knowledge about the world. What is the
nature of this knowledge? Is it absolutely certain? Are there other
kinds of knowledge? And so on...
• Technology claims to improve our lives. Who is us? What does it
mean to have a better life? What’s to be gained and what’s to be lost.
And so on...
Internal and external perspectives
• An internal perspective starts with the principles
and assumptions that scientists and engineers

themselves work with and then uses these to try
to explain their activities.
Internal and external perspectives
• An external perspective uses a different set of
assumptions and attempts to analyze the context

in which experts live and work, as well as what
they say.
A “classical” view of science and
technology
A typical, naive view of science might be as follows:

• Science is a formal activity that creates knowledge by
direct interaction with nature.
• Science has some kind of special method that allows
different scientists to produce the same kind of
knowledge whatever their social and political context
might be.
A “classical” view of science and
technology
• Scientists perform the same experiments in the

same way, and agree upon and reject the same
hypotheses.
• Scientists come to consensus on the truths of the
natural world.
• We have a sort of black box:
Nature Science Truth

The demise of the “classical” view
The classical view began to fall apart in the process of 20th century
investigations of scientific activity.
• Philosophers were unable to formalize the “black box.” There appears
to be no single “scientific method.”
• When historians began to explore past scientific activities more
closely, they found there was no such thing as “pure science,”
removed from social and political interactions and assumptions.
• When sociologists began to open the black box of contemporary
scientific activity, they found that the inside was thoroughly social and
political.
“Scientism”
• Scientism goes back at least as far as the Scientific

Revolution (c. 1550–1700) and originates in the claim that
there is a sharp divide between “facts” and “values.”
• According to this view, when we do science, we set aside
values and study only facts.
• The authority of science rests on its claim to be “value
free” and hence “objective.”
“Technological
progressivism”
• Technological progressivism has its roots in the European
Enlightenment (c. 1700–1800), when progress became a
synonym for good and technology came to be seen as a
fundamental tool in progressive projects.
Good = Progress Progress = Technology
• Technological progressivism assumes that technological

change is inherently good and sees it as self-propagating,
moving by the internal constraints of technology itself.
“Technoscience”
• In the classical view of the relationship between science

and technology, science leads the way by creating
knowledge from nature and technology follows by
applying this knowledge to the creation of new things.
• We can call the sum total of scientific and
technological activities technoscience.
Figure : R&D funding as a % of GDP plotted against technoscientists per million
people
Figure : Government report on technoscience funding, Neitherlands (NLD), 2011
What makes something social?
• Society is the result of people, and institutions,

interacting with one another. It is a sort of
epiphenomena of these individuals.
• Society in turn shapes the people and institutions
that form it.
• Most people experience society as though it were an external
force acting upon them.
What makes something social?
• The “effects” of society operate through the vague

mechanism of social norms. Norms “tell” us what we
should and should not do, what we should and should not
think. But they are not rational – or rather, their rationality
is not universal.
• Norms produce the values that we use in interacting with
others. They produce many of our core ideas – such as ideas
of the place of class, the role gender, the meaning of race,
the function of justice, the importance of objectivity, the
criterion of truth, the significance of evidence, etc.
Technoscience is social
In the simplest sense, technoscience is the product of people, and people are
social.
But it is possible to claim something much stronger than this:
• The social norms of technoscientists affects where they will look, what
they will see and what they will say about it. (Their worldview.)
• Technocientists’ norms are shaped by their discipline. (Basic scientific
concepts mean different things in different fields.)
• Professional norms affect the value that technoscientists place on judgments.
What makes something political?
• It is the result of the distribution and utilization of power in our

societies.
• Political activity functions by employing various structures,
resources and discourses in order to consolidate and wield
power.
• Political structures are formal and informal “rules of play.”
• There are many kinds of political resources:

natural resources, money, military force, knowledge, access,
charm, etc.
• Politics uses discourses to control what is sayable and what is
Not.
Technoscience is political
• Individual knowledge workers (technoscientists), various

institutions, and different professional groups all use economic
and cultural resources to advance their aims.
• Discourses can be developed by appeal to both social and

scientific norms. These discourses can then be used as
resources to advance technoscientific work.
• This is often referred to as the production of social capital.
Final remarks
Answer:
• QUIZ 2 (MOODLE)
• ASSIGNMENT 2 (GOOGLE CLASSROOM)

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LECTURE 2

Introduction to Science and Technology

Science: Investigations of the physical world, including us and the stuﬀ

It should be clear that all of these are deeply interconnected.

• Science and Technology Studies (STS) is a relatively recent

• STS makes the assumption that science and technology are

• An internal perspective starts with the principles

and assumptions that scientists and engineers

• An external perspective uses a diﬀerent set of

assumptions and attempts to analyze the context

A typical, naive view of science might be as follows:

• Scientists perform the same experiments in the

Nature Science Truth

• Scientism goes back at least as far as the Scientiﬁc

Good = Progress Progress = Technology

• Technological progressivism assumes that technological

• In the classical view of the relationship between science

• Society is the result of people, and institutions,

• The “eﬀects” of society operate through the vague

• It is the result of the distribution and utilization of power in our

• There are many kinds of political resources:

• Individual knowledge workers (technoscientists), various

• Discourses can be developed by appeal to both social and

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