An Economic Perspective on Science and Technology – Methods

• Bernal’s Marxism, science and history
• Role of scientist in capitalist society, origins of science in society
• Conditions of production, economic context of science and technology

Concerns with Science in the Modern World

• Science changes rapidly, unpredictably and is not in control of scientists*The disinterested pursuit of truth, moral concerns *
• Five characteristics of science: an institution, a method, a cumulative tradition of knowledge, a factor in production a factor shaping beliefs and attitudes to people and nature

Science as an Institution

• Professionalization, social status and economic contributions of science *
• Education and mathematical training and public understanding of science
• Science started out as a part time occupation of the upper classes*

Science as a Method

• Science has methods, historically located
• Trades and scientific method *
• Scientific approach to experiment similar and error methods of the trades
• Scientific observations, assumptions and hypotheses, experience, experiments
• Classification (ordering experience into categories) and measurement (quantification of properties of objects) *
• Economic background of mathematics *
• Measurement, experiment, generalization *
• Scientific apparatus, senses, manipulation of nature *
• Laws (general relationships), hypotheses (specific claims) and theories (groups of claims), integration and logic
• Scientific language, theory, experiment and observation
• Tactics of science, strategy of science (choosing problems), economic concerns*
• Discovery and economic goals (Faraday, light, heat, electricity and magnetism) *

Cumulative Tradition of Science

• Science and the criticism of existing theories and ideas, accumulation of knowledge
• “Science is far more than the total assembly of known facts, laws and theories, criticizing and often destroying as much as building. Nevertheless, the whole edifice of science never stops growing. It is permanently, as we may say, under repair; but it is always in use.” Bernal pp 18-19
• Early science is constitutive of later science
• The time sequence of scientific development (math, astronomy, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology) “fits even more closely the possibly useful applications which were in the interest of the ruling or rising classes at different times.” Bernal, p 20*
• Interaction of scientific fields, great man history, social nature of science

Science as a Means of Production

• The origins of science as a specialized activity can be linked to its role as a means of production *
• The geographic dispersion of science has followed trade, industry and technical advances *
• “When the productive relations are changing rapidly, as when a new class is rising into a position of power, there is a particular incentive to improvements in production that will enhance the wealth and power of this class, and science is at a premium. Once such a class is established and is still strong enough to prevent the rise of a new rival, there is an interest in keeping things as they are – techniques become traditional and science is at a discount.” Bernal p 24
• Science and literacy, education and training *
• Class barriers and scientific progress *

Science as a Source of Ideas

• Science is not just a history of ideas
• Conflict between idealistic/formal and material/practical influences

The Beginnings of Science

• Origins of science hidden and fragmentary
• Science and the manipulation of nature, techniques of early man *
• Tools and language, manipulation of nature, extension of knowledge
• Technical development and social traditions
• Design of tools, experimental method, use of models, etc. *
• Fire, cooking, tanning, dying, boiling and chemistry *
• Plants and animal knowledge, hunting and gathering, botany and biology *
• Art, symbolism, mathematics and writing
• Regularities, manipulation of nature, observational and descriptive knowledge
• Mechanics and the manipulation of objects, knowledge of statics and dynamics
• Traditional basis of knowledge, observing and knowing
• Ecological “footprint” of humanity: Technology, expansion, population, altering environment; Hunting and gathering culture, animal populations parasitic societies
• Technologies and scientific theory, physics
• Shamans and medicine men as scientific precursors