The mismatch between common representations of “science” and the miscellany of materials typically studied by the historian of science is traced to a systematic ambiguity that may itself be traced to early modern Europe. In that cultural setting, natural philosophy came to be rearticulated as involving both contemplative and practical knowledge. The resulting tension and ambiguity are illustrated by the eighteenth‐century views of Buffon. In the nineteenth century, a new enterprise called “science” represents the establishment of an unstable ideology of (...) natural knowledge that was heavily indebted to those early modern developments. The two complementary and competing elements of the ideology of modern science are accordingly described as “natural philosophy” and “instrumentality” . The history of science in large part concerns the story of their shifting, often mutually denying, interrelations. (shrink)

When is it more rational to think for oneself or to defer to the relevant expert? Expertise is either closed-system oriented and lay-person oriented. The first sort is concerned primarily with controlling and manipulating a discipline's defining set of variables as a closed or relatively closed system. The second sort is simply in the business of "advising" clients. I argue that when expert claims are of the first sort, the layperson must defer to the experts; but when experts either extrapolate (...) from their closed-systems, or if they are of the second sort, then the layperson should think for herself. (shrink)

Nature's palace, which is truly glorious in its sophistication, its splendour, and its firm construction, has attracted the eyes of all who are thirsty for knowledge to such an extent that they can scarcely turn away. But to penetrate into this shrine has been granted only to a few. Those, who have proved themselves worthy through much experience, are let into the anteroom, but the most sacred objects are kept as costly treasures in the inner chambers.1.

"Explores the relationships between science and other societal sectors, notably law, religion, government and public culture, in terms of the concepts of expert and moral authority"--Provided by publisher.

2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may ... ISBN 978-0-262-01324-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-262 -51304-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Science— Political aspects. 2. Science and state. 3 .

Summary The rise to dominance of school culture in engineering education took place much later in England and the U.S.A. than in France or Germany. Why? This comparative essay argues that explanations are to be sought within the context of bureaucracy rather than in that of industrialization. The academic training of state engineers set a powerful role model in Continental Europe but was absent in Anglo-America. Consequently, the academic training of engineers for the private sector of the economy started earlier (...) in Continental Europe, and the professional strategies of the engineers included emulating the public service. During the late nineteenth century a general belief in education as a key to international competition joined forces with a thorough transformation of the economy in providing new job markets for engineers graduating from colleges and universities. (shrink)

‘Academic drift’ is a term sometimes used to describe the process whereby knowledge which is intended to be useful gradually loses close ties to practice while becoming more tightly integrated with one or other body of scientific knowledge. Drift in this sense has been a common phenomenon in agriculture, engineering, medicine and management sciences in several countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. Understanding drift is obviously important, both to practitioners concerned that higher education should be relevant to practice, but (...) also to historians who seek to make sense of long-term trends in knowledge-production. It is surprising, therefore, that although the existence of drift has been widely documented, remarkably little attention has been given so far to explaining it. In this paper I argue that drift is not an invariant universal tendency but a historically specific one which arises under particular circumstances. I outline a model of institutional dynamics which seeks to explain why drift has occurred at some institutions but not others. In the second section I explore the implications of the model for educationists and policy-makers concerned with the reform of higher education in these areas. (shrink)

In The Business of Alchemy, Pamela Smith explores the relationships among alchemy, the court, and commerce in order to illuminate the cultural history of the Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In showing how an overriding concern with religious salvation was transformed into a concentration on material increase and economic policies, Smith depicts the rise of modern science and early capitalism. In pursuing this narrative, she focuses on that ideal prey of the cultural historian, an intellectual of (...) the second rank whose career and ideas typify those of a generation. Smith follows the career of Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682) from university to court, his projects from New World colonies to an old-world Pansophic Panopticon, and his ideas from alchemy to economics. Teasing out the many meanings of alchemy for Becher and his contemporaries, she argues that it provided Becher with not only a direct key to power over nature but also a language by which he could convince his princely patrons that their power too must rest on liquid wealth. Agrarian society regarded merchants with suspicion as the nonproductive exploiters of others' labor; however, territorial princes turned to commerce for revenue as the cost of maintaining the state increased. Placing Becher's career in its social and intellectual context, Smith shows how he attempted to help his patrons assimilate commercial values into noble court culture and to understand the production of surplus capital as natural and legitimate. With emphasis on the practices of natural philosophy and extensive use of archival materials, Smith brings alive the moment of cultural transformation in which science and themodern state emerged.In The Business of Alchemy, Pamela Smith explores the relationships among alchemy, the court, and commerce in order to illuminate the cultural history of the Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In showing how an overriding concern with religious salvation was transformed into a concentration on material increase and economic policies, Smith depicts the rise of modern science and early capitalism. In pursuing this narrative, she focuses on that ideal prey of the cultural historian, an intellectual of the second rank whose career and ideas typify those of a generation. Smith follows the career of Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682) from university to court, his projects from New World colonies to an old-world Pansophic Panopticon, and his ideas from alchemy to economics. Teasing out the many meanings of alchemy for Becher and his contemporaries, she argues that it provided Becher with not only a direct key to power over nature but also a language by which he could convince his princely patrons that their power too must rest on liquid wealth. Agrarian society regarded merchants with suspicion as the nonproductive exploiters of others' labor; however, territorial princes turned to commerce for revenue as the cost of maintaining the state increased. Placing Becher's career in its social and intellectual context, Smith shows how he attempted to help his patrons assimilate commercial values into noble court culture and to understand the production of surplus capital as natural and legitimate. With emphasis on the practices of natural philosophy and extensive use of archival materials, Smith brings alive the moment of cultural transformation in whichscience and the modern state emerged. (shrink)

John Henry gives a dramatic account of the background to Bacon's innovations and the sometimes unconventional sources for his ideas.

This essay discusses the ways in which `Mode 1' and `Mode 2' interact, by reviewing the development of research funding in Sweden during the twentieth century. It argues that `Mode 2' has been the traditional mode of practice. `Mode 1' is a post-war phenomenon, but it is presently the dominant layer of Swedish publicly-funded science and science policy. This essay argues that we are seeing not an increase in uncertainty, but rather a decreasing tolerance of uncertainty.

Agricultural decision making is characterized by two challenges common to multiple arenas: linking science to decision making and linking science and decision making across multiple levels. The U.S. agricultural research, education, and extension system was designed to address these challenges. By investigating this system, this study deepens the understanding of science and decision making, specifically exploring the notion of boundary organizations in two significant ways. First, it provides a preliminary test of the hypothesis that boundary organizations mediate between the shifting (...) domains of science and policy, finding that they are instrumental in creating and maintaining an integrated system of assessment and decision making for addressing depletion of the High Plains Aquifer. Second, it extends the concept of boundary organization beyond the science-policy dimension to incorporate the dimension of levels of organization—not only bridging science and policy but linking science and policy across different levels. (shrink)

The theory of boundary organizations was developed to address an important group of institutions in American society neglected by scholarship in science studies and political science. The long-term stability of scientific and political institutions in the United States has enabled a new class of institutions to grow and thrive as mediators between the two. As originally developed, this structural feature of these new institutions—that is, their location on the boundary between science and politics—dominated theoretical frame-works for explaining their behavior. Applying (...) the theory of boundary organizations to international society requires a refocusing of some of the theory’s central features, however. In this article, I introduce a new framework—hybrid management—to explain the activities of boundary organizations in the more complex, contingent, and contested settings of global politics. I develop the framework of hybrid management using the specific example of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice. (shrink)