Deciphering Science and Technology: The Social Relations of Expertise (Explorations in Sociology.) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0333465547 ISBN 13: 9780333465547

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990

Synopsis

As science and technology have pervaded modern life to an ever greater degree, social scientists have been led to find questions of the causes and consequences of 'expert' knowledge arising in places that would have been felt unlikely hitherto. Varcoe, McNeil and Yearley's book assembles nine exemplary studies by sociologists, each of which explores an aspect of the current scientific-technological 'revolution'. Some popular ideas are challenged. So, too, implicitly, are certain large-scale social scientific theories claiming to have discerned in science and technology an overall meaning.

About this title

Synopsis

This book has its origins in the annual conference of the British Sociological Association in 1987, held in the University of Leeds on the theme "Science, Technology and Society". The papers are a selection from among those presented in Leeds and explore aspects of the current scientific-technological "revolution". Some popular ideas are challenged and so too, implicitly, are certain large-scale social scientific theories claiming to have discerned in science and technology an overall meaning. The studies follow a sequence, beginning with the demonstration of different levels of methodological approach, continuing with forms of new technology at work, and concluding with instances of scientific research and its application and of professional practice. Each study is empirical in nature, the fruit in some cases of many years of enquiry. Complexity and subtlety of issue and outcome are the main emphases of "Deciphering Science and Technology", the cumulative effect of which is to show how involved science and technology are with the workings of society today, and how, because of this, their "human" side requires disciplined and painstaking unravelling - or deciphering.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0333465547
• ISBN 13: 9780333465547
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 267
• Editor: McNeil Maureen, Varcoe Ian, Yearley Steven