The Historiography of Science and Technology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seymour Mauskopf ◽  
Alex Roland
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Big Science ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Historical Dynamics ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter links the history of science with the related but less well-studied history of technology. Science and technology have evolved so rapidly in the last sixty years that historians must constantly revise their definitions of these fields and their understanding of their historical dynamics. The relationship between science and technology seemed to change, from a linear model of technology as applied science, to a more complex and interactive model often labelled ‘technoscience’. As historians of science and technology experienced the transformation of modern technoscience, they had to develop new concepts, methodologies, and theories to explain what they were witnessing. Moreover, they had to think about unprecedented topics, such as ‘big science’, particle physics, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and photonics. Their attempts to understand the rapidly evolving worlds of science and technology going on about them suggested new ways of thinking about previous historical eras.

„Gentlemen in, Genuine Knowledge out“? Zum Status wissenschaftlicher Normen für die Erkenntnissicherung

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Huber
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
Transgenic Mice ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Genuine Knowledge

ZusammenfassungCase studies in the history of science and technology have shown that scientific norms, so called standards, contribute significantly to the evolution of scientific practices. They arise predominantly, but not exclusively, on the basis of interactions with instruments of measurement and other technical devices. As regards experimental practices standards are mandatory preparatory procedures in a variety of designs, including the inbreeding and genetic engineering of experimental organisms (e.g. transgenic mice). I claim that scientific norms not only regulate mere technical preconditions of research but also guide experimental practices, for example with regard to the stabilisation and validation of phenomena. Against this background, the paper introduces different kinds of scientific norms and elaborates on the question if they are means to epistemic ends (e.g. stability).

Engineering Heterotopia

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-569
Author(s):  
Shehab Fakhry Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Nature Of Science ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Mutual Engagement ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global Nature

My starting point is the present—certainly a critical and loaded moment for scholars of the modern Middle East. It is incumbent upon us to take a step back and to rethink how to create new concepts, new narratives, new explanatory schemes, new historicities, and new visions of the future. An engagement with science studies, understood broadly, is one possible way to begin such critical rethinking. It is an exercise that could also be mutually illuminating, as scholars of science studies have been debating the global nature of science and technology for the last decade, undoubtedly in reaction to the once European-dominated narrative of the history of science. The field of science studies has moved well beyond “diffusion” and “core-periphery” models toward more eclectic examinations of various processes of epistemic encounters, translations, mediations, and conflicts that shaped societies. These processes also shaped science and technology. Here, I would like to provide a brief outline of one mutual engagement inspired by the injunction to follow scientists, doctors, and engineers and to probe what was at stake in the knowledge they produced and how they “made society.”

scholarly journals The 1931 London Congress: The Rise of British Marxism and the Interdependencies of Society, Nature and Technology

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-130
Author(s):  
Gerardo Ienna ◽  
Giulia Rispoli
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Social Study ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
London Conference

Abstract The Second International Conference of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, held in London in 1931, exerted a profound influence on the historiography of science, giving rise to a new research field in the anglophone world at the intersection of social and political studies and the history of science and technology. In particular, Boris Hessen’s presentation on the Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia successfully ushered in a new tradition in the historiography of science. This article introduces and discusses the London conference as a benchmark in the history of the social study of science within a Marxist and materialist tradition. In contemporary science and technology studies, political epistemology, and the study of society-nature interaction, it is no less relevant today than it was at the beginning of the fabulous 1930s. In reconstructing some important theses presented by the Soviet delegation in London, we aim to revive the conference’s legacy and the approach promoted on that occasion as a pretext to address current debates about society’s major transition toward a new agency and ways of existence in the Earth system. In particular, the London conference invited us to think of the growing metabolic rift between society, technology, and nature, and further reflects a historical moment of profound environmental and political crisis.

Welcome and introduction

1989 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-96
Keyword(s):  
Advisory Committee ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Imperial College ◽  
Joint Meeting ◽  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
The University

It is my pleasant duty to welcome you all most warmly to this meeting, which is one of the many events stimulated by the advisory committee of the William and Mary Trust on Science and Technology and Medicine, under the Chairmanship of Sir Arnold Burgen, the immediate past Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society. This is a joint meeting of the Royal Society and the British Academy, whose President, Sir Randolph Quirk, will be Chairman this afternoon, and it covers Science and Civilization under William and Mary, presumably with the intention that the Society would cover Science if the Academy would cover Civilization. The meeting has been organized by Professor Rupert Hall, a Fellow of the Academy and also well known to the Society, who is now Emeritus Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Imperial College in the University of London; and Mr Norman Robinson, who retired in 1988 as Librarian to the Royal Society after 40 years service to the Society.

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