The Relation between Science and Technology — A Sociological Explanation

Abstract

It is surprising that so far little interest has been paid by the sociology of science to the study of technology, let alone to the comparative analysis of science and technology and the relation between these two areas of knowledge production (1). The sociology of science is concerned with science, and this term more often than not has the meaning of pure academic science. Even though the range of analysis has widened in recent years the sociological fascination is focused on the phenomenon of science as an institutionalized subsystem of society, differentiated from similar systems such as technology and hardly touching upon the classic professions such as medicine or law. This is surprising if one considers some of the major theoretical concerns of the sociology of science, namely to determine the respective import of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ factors in the development of scientific knowledge, or the specific differentiating criteria of systematic and everyday knowledge or the particular conditions of the production of scientific knowledge.