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Controlling Science and Technology: Popular and Radical Alternatives

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Science, Technology and Society

Part of the book series: Sociology for a Changing World ((SCW))

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Abstract

Controlling science and technology is an exceptionally difficult task. Who or what should one control: scientists, their institutions, wider technological systems? And for what purpose: what direction are we to take, whose interests are we to serve? And since, as we have seen, science and technology are malleable, socially negotiated, institutionally located and without clear boundaries, then what is ‘it’ that we are trying to control?

We should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organisation of society.

Albert Einstein (1949)

For ‘undue public concern’ one should always read ‘perfectly reasonable terror’.

Lucy Ellman (1990)

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Authors
  1. Andrew Webster
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© 1991 Andrew Webster

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Webster, A. (1991). Controlling Science and Technology: Popular and Radical Alternatives. In: Science, Technology and Society. Sociology for a Changing World. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21875-2_6

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