> Ali wrote:
> > at the moment I'm envolved in a research related to sociology of
> > science and technology. I would appreciate if anyone can help me in
> > this. I'm looking for a model of science and technology development
> > with sociological approach and its related research program.
"Marvin" <physchem@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:97bEj.11807$u62.11596@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Have you read
> The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn?
> It is a classic.
1. Kuhn's book is indeed a classic, but was written (45 years
ago) as history, not sociology. Its original thesis is provocative,
and was eagerly taken up by sociologists and literary scholars,
sometimes very far afield from its sources and Kuhn's own
paradigms (see Kuhn's later writings, notably The Essential Tension.)
2. The student should probably begin with a textbook. I used to
recommend the sections on sociology in Durbin's Guide to the
Culture of Science, Technology and Medicine or Price and
Spiegel-Roesing's Science, Technology and Society, but I do
not know what now might be more up-to-date.
3. The student needs to consider a special paradox.
1-- The social sciences were invented in the 19th century
generally by the application to social subject-matter of the
methods accepted as best in physics.
2-- One of these methods is that "minds do not count"
or motives do not count -- only social behavior. This may
work OK in economics, perhaps even in criminology, but
presents unique problems in the sociology of science where
2a -- Scientists assert the truth of what they believe is central to
whatever they are doing that may be called "science."
2b -- As themselves would-be scientists, the sociologists seem
to assert that their own beliefs (about how to do social science)
are irrelevant to the activity.
A prophylactic against this paradox is Stanislas Andreski's
Social Sciences as Sorcery (1972).
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
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