Diario de una investigación

Martes, 09 de agosto de 2005

The Public Policy of Science, Technology and Innovation in the Context of the Technoscientific Revolution

(Trabajo de Investigación anterior)

SUMMARY:
My intention in this paper has been to carry out a panoramic of the evolution that science and the public policies of science and technology have undergone, indeed, for the interaction between both during the second half of 20th century.
According to the sociometric analyses done by Solla Price (1963) in the middle of the twelfth century, and as the traditional indicators of Research and Development (R+D) showed, the science underwent a great growth, quantitatively speaking. The causes of the sudden growth correspond to internal as well as external aspects of the scientific practice. The highest growth in science corresponded with the period of the Governmental Science (Bernal, 1954), which now is known as Big Science (Weinberg, 1961). In the first chapter I describe the characteristics of Big Science and some factors that contributed to such growth in science. The "Inherited Conception" of science contributed to that great growth. Three paradigms, at least, are behind this conception: the content of the Science, the (internal and external) organization of scientific practice and the socio-politic role of science. Since the appearance of Big Science some aspects about these three models have changed. In the followings chapters I try show these aspects.
In the Second Chapter I take the questions stated by Callon (The definition of the scientific production; the definition of the scientific actors; The definition of the scientific agreement; the model about the scientific organization; and the model of the internal and general dynamics of the Science) and I make a comparison between “The Legend” (Ziman, 1998) and the new concepts (like “Trans-science”, “Regulatory science”, etc.) and also I try to show the new dimensions of scientific practise and production according these specialists.
In the Third Chapter I describe the concept of “Technoscience” of Latour and I try to show that He does not show a new mode of production of the scientific knowledge but he does have a more realistic view of the production. His definition, in some issues, does not gather the new dimensions of the scientific and Technologic practise (Like a special uncertainty, etc.). But his concept does not involve the interference of the technologic aims in the scientific production (like Niiniluoto or Ziman think).
So, I take the “Technoscience” from Javier Echeverría (2003), like a concept which shows the new dimensions of the science and its “praxiological” revolution originating from Big Science. This Technoscience is a new mode of production of knowledge (Gibbons, 1994) and a strong symbiosis between science and technology (also making outstanding use of new developments in information and communication technology), etc. and also with more variety of values. Finally I briefly discuss the possibility of using the Actor-Network theory as a methodological tool for studying this kind of Technoscience also, because it is flexible and dynamic enough for introducing new values and provisional contexts in scientific practise.
In the final chapter, I make a comparison between the Bush Report (1945) and the Frank Report (1945) using the Mythos R+D (Sarewitz, 1996): Bush Report like the first social contract for science and the Frank Report like an opposite view. I try to show why the lineal model of the innovation works. This I do by making use of the distinction made by Amilcar Herrera (1971) between “explicit politics of science” (the discourse of the Government about Science) and “implicit politics of science” (the rest of policies: education, economy, etc.). Briefly I do a reflection about the necessity of a new social contract for science (like that described in a Budapest Declaration in 1999) and, taking the ideas of Jasanoff and Gibbons, how the new modes of production break the traditional Mythos and permit civic participation and the award of responsibilities. Finally, I talk about how in the last years the lineal model has been replaced by new interactive models and how the new production of scientific knowledge also needs politics of innovation (and I take the Six Framework Programme as an example of this change).

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