This document contains 17.000 words summarizing the obligated readings and lecture notes for the course Science and Technology Studies as it was taught as part of the first year of the Master Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society in 2020/2021.
hoScience and Technology Studies Summary
Contents
Week 1...............................................................................................................................3
Bierut – Innovation is the New Black.............................................................................................3
Merton: The Sociology of Science..................................................................................................4
Sismondo – Questioning Funcionalism in the Sociology of Science................................................6
Week 2...............................................................................................................................8
Kuhn – Structure of Scientific Revolutions.....................................................................................8
Thomas Kuhn – Second Thoughts on Paradigms..........................................................................10
Nathan Crilly - The Structure of Design Revolutions: Kuhnian Paradigm Shifts in Creative Problem
Solving.........................................................................................................................................11
Sismondo – The Kuhnian Revolution...........................................................................................13
Week 4.............................................................................................................................15
Steven Shapin – Here and Everywhere: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge..................................15
Lecture SSK..................................................................................................................................17
Week 5.............................................................................................................................18
Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker – The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the
Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other........................18
Wiebe Bijker – The Social Construction of Bakelite: Toward a Theory of Invention.....................21
Klein & Kleinman – The Social Construction of Technology: Structural Considerations...............25
Week 6.............................................................................................................................27
Michel Callon - Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and
the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay (1986).........................................................................................27
Four Models for the Dynamics of Science (only model 4)............................................................28
Bruno Latour – Where Are the Missing Masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts........31
Week 7.............................................................................................................................33
Haraway - Situated Knowledges. The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial
Perspective..................................................................................................................................33
Ronald Kline – Resisting Consumer Technology in Rural America: The Telephone and
Electrification..............................................................................................................................34
Ellen van Oost - Materialized Gender: How Shavers Configure the Users’ Femininity and
Masculinity (2003).......................................................................................................................35
Wyatt - Non-users also matter: the construction of users and non-users of the internet............37
Week 8.............................................................................................................................39
Johan Schot – The Usefulness of Evolutionary Models for Explaining Innovation. The Case of The
Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century.......................................................................................39
,René Kemp, Johan Sloot and Remco Hoogma - Regime shifts to sustainability through processes
of niche formation: the approach of strategic niche management..............................................42
,Week 1
Bierut – Innovation is the New Black
Bierut notices that innovation has become a way more popular word than design. People
think design sounds less attractive.
‘Design sounds cosmetic and ephemeral; innovation sounds energetic and essential. Design
conjures images of androgynous figures in black turtlenecks wielding clove cigarettes;
innovators are forthright fellows with their shirtsleeves rolled up, covering whiteboards with
vigorous magic-markered diagrams, arrows pointing to words like "Results!"’
Also, design can be bad, while innovation is supposedly always good.
However, innovation is often not as effective as people think and in 96% of the cases, it fails
to meet financial goal, a study shows. That’s why some businesses are implementing more
elements of design.
Definition of design a comment:
‘Design, stripped to its essence, can be defined as the human capacity to make our
environment in ways without precedent in nature, to serve our needs, and give us meaning
in our lives.’
People in the comments are saying that design is more about making something that’s good,
instead of something that is necessarily new.
, Merton: The Sociology of Science
At first, people thought that there were no limits to western faith in science, but anti-
intellectualism is on the rise. Scientists now realize that they’re dependent on particular
types of social structure and have to act as a part of society as well. When religion fell of its
pedestal, science no longer had to justify itself as being of cultural value, but now it has to
again.
Science is used to describe:
- A set of characteristic methods by means of which knowledge is certified
- A stock of accumulated knowledge stemming from the application of these methods
- A set of cultural values and mores governing the activities termed scientific
- Or any combination of the foregoing
In this article, Merton is mainly concerned about the cultural structure of science, about
science as an institution, not about its methodology or findings.
The Ethos of Science is the complex of values and norms which is held to be binding
on the man of science. It has not explicitly been codified, but can be inferred of moral
consensus of scientists in their actions. It can be assumed that ‘science is afforded
opportunity for development in a democratic order which is integrated with the ethos of
science’. That does mean that science can only be practiced in democratic social structures.
The goal of science is to extend certified knowledge. The ethos consists of four
different institutional imperatives that are seen as right and good and provide procedural
and technical efficiency:
1. Universalism
Universalism means that truth-claims should be based on impersonal criteria. To be
objective means to not be particular, but universal. Ethnocentrism can conflict with scientific
universalism. Universalism also entails that careers should be open to talents and only be
restricted by lack of competence, not because of prejudice or a caste system for example.
The scientific ethos presupposes equality of opportunity, perhaps necessarily made possible
through politics.
2. ‘Communism’
Communism here is meant as the common ownership of goods. Scientific findings are a
product of social collaboration. There is a low level of property rights for a scientist’s
findings. Pretty much the only thing they get out of it is recognition and esteem, which can
result in competition, but doesn’t threaten the scientific ethos of communism. Science
should be openly communicated, it is seen as selfish not to do so. Scientists also express an
indebtedness to the common scientific heritage. This communism is incompatible with
defining technology as private property through patents and such capitalistic practices, so
some struggle arises there.
3. Disinterestedness
The scientific ethos includes the norm that one shouldn’t act to benefit himself, but to
benefit science as a whole. The institution of science punishes actions based on personal
interest, by putting heavy sanctions on fraud for example. Scientific work is also heavily
scrutinized by other scientists to stop such things, scientists have accountability to their
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