Science, Technology and Culture ed. by Henry John Steffens and H.N. Muller (review)

Leonardo. Vol. 10, pp.156174. Pergamon Press 1977. Printed in Great Britain BOOKS Readers are invited to reconimend books to be reviewed. In general. only books in English and in French can be reviewed at this stage. Those who would like to be added to Leonardo’s panel of reviewers should write to the FounderEditor . indicating their particular interests. Science, Technologyand Culture. Henry John Steffens and H. N. Muller, eds. AMS Press, New York, 1974. 204 pp. $10.00. Reviewed by Howard S. Becker* This book containsfour papers on various aspects of science and its relations to technology and culture: Science vs. Science Technology by historian L. Pearce Williams; Are There Two Cultures? by George V. Cook of Western Electric Co., which sponsored the conference; Science as a Creative Art by historian Henry John Steffens and Science and Social Responsibility by Donald K. Conover. also of Western Electric. Each paper is followed by short comments by other academicians and Western Electric executives and a rejoinder by the author. The most charitable thing to say is that the book should not have been published. The papers are at best simple-minded, retracing ritual argumentsabout such matters as whether science is good or bad for us. whether science requires creative genius or not, and so on. Despite the learned references in the academic papers, there is no deep thought here; you can find the same arguments. sometimes more sophisticated, in a Sunday newspaper. The chief mistake all the papers make, despite a few references to Thomas Kuhn’s more sociological view of science, is to treat scientific activity as an individual matter, rather than as a system of interrelated collective activities that constrain the individuals who participate in them. This leads to treating the ‘social responsibility of science’ as a matter of whether corporate executives are or are not evil, instead of locating the problem of the exploitation of scientific results in the system of finance and profit, which inevitably leads to that exploitation. Similarly. Williams acknowledges the ‘99.Y4’ of scientists who do hackwork but thinks there is a mysterious who-knows-what that singles out a few to do work of paradigm-shattering genius. He does not consider the possibility that many people do paradigmshattering work but do not have the ability to convince others to take them seriously, which would mean considering recognition of scientific genius as a matter of building a reputation and a following. which might or might not depend on the genius of one’s work. There is no point in pursuing the mistakes and missed analytic opportunitiesin this book. I cannot resist pointing out, however, that most of the authors find time to make a critical remark or two about social science. They might better have taken the time to become better acquainted with what social scientists are doing, thus possibly avoiding the most egregious errors. Science, Technology and Freedom. Willis H. Truitt and T. W. Graham Solomons,eds. Houghton Mifllin, Boston. Mass., 1974. Available only in U.S.A. and Canada. 272 pp.. illus. Paper. Reviewed by John Scott Willson** This book consists of a collection of 30 articles concerning the nature of science and of technology and their influences upon humans and their environment. The title is rather misleading as *Dept. of Sociology, Northwestern University. Evanston, IL 60201. U.S.A. **The Manchester Grammar School, Manchester M13 OXT. England. the wide range of topics under discussion covers far more than is implied by the word ‘freedom’. Some of the essays are concerned with the philosophy of science; in these sectionslhe aims. methods and values of science are analyzed. Another group of writers trace the history of science and technology since ancient Greece and investigate the concept of ‘progress’.They show that cultural and social factors such as religion, politics and commerce have always influenced the development of science and that at certain periods in history, e.g. that of industrial revolution, significant social and cultural changes have resulted from scientific discoveries and technological innovations. In the rest of the book the impact of science on our present society is discussed in great detail: the major issues fall into four main categories: Science has...