Science and Technology as Dancing Partners

Abstract

Derek de Solla Price, in an article in 1965, put forward the image of science and technology as relatively independent, but closely interacting activities; dancing partners as it were.1 His analysis of the relation between science and technology is still valuable, but he tended to look at science and technology as separate, unified wholes, rather than ongoing processes and their interactions which cluster in various ways and are labeled “science” and “technology”, also in a variety of ways. If this point is added to his analysis, it allows us to raise, and to some extent answer, further important questions: about the patterns of the dance, the contexts in which it occurs, and secular changes and transformations.