Wiebe E. Bijker's Books

The Paradox of Scientific Authority

The Role of Scientific Advice in Democracies

By: Wiebe E. Bijker,Roland Bal,Ruud Hendriks

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The Paradox of Scientific Authority

The Role of Scientific Advice in Democracies

By: Wiebe E. Bijker,Roland Bal,Ruud Hendriks

Assessing the influence of scientific advice in societies that increasingly question scientific authority and expertise. Today, scientific advice is asked for (and given) on questions ranging from stem-cell research to genetically modified food. And yet it often seems that the more urgently scientific advice is solicited, the more vigorously scientific authority is questioned by policy makers, stakeholders, and citizens. This book examines a paradox: how scientific advice can be influential in society even when the status of science and scientists seems to be at a low ebb. The authors do this by means of an ethnographic study of the creation of scientific authority at one of the key sites for the interaction of science, policy, and society: the scientific advisory committee. The Paradox of Scientific Authority offers a detailed analysis of the inner workings of the influential Health Council of the Netherlands (the equivalent of the National Academy of Science in the United States), examining its societal role as well as its internal functioning, and using the findings to build a theory of scientific advising. The question of scientific authority has political as well as scholarly relevance. Democratic political institutions, largely developed in the nineteenth century, lack the institutional means to address the twenty-first century's pervasively scientific and technological culture; and science and technology studies (STS) grapples with the central question of how to understand the authority of science while recognizing its socially constructed nature.

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Page Count

238

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262026589

ISBN 13

9780262026581

Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change

By: Wiebe E. Bijker

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Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change

By: Wiebe E. Bijker

This book crystallizes and extends the important work Wiebe Bijker has done in the last decade to found a full-scale theory of sociotechnical change that describes where technologies come from and how societies deal with them. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs integrates detailed case studies with theoretical generalizations and political analyses to offer a fully rounded treatment both of the relations between technology and society and of the issues involved in sociotechnical change. The stories of the the safety bicycle, the first truly synthetic plastic, and the fluorescent light bulb—each a fascinating case study in itself—reflect a cross section of time periods, engineering and scientific disciplines, and economic, social, and political cultures. The bicycle story explores such issues as the role of changing gender relationships in shaping a technology; the Bakelite story examines the ways in which social factors intrude even in cases of seemingly pure chemistry and entrepreneurship; and the fluorescent bulb story offers insights into the ways in which political and economic relationships can affect the form of a technology. Bijker's method is to use these case studies to suggest theoretical concepts that serve as building blocks in a more and more inclusive theory, which is then tested against further case studies. His main concern is to create a basis for science, technology, and social change that uncovers the social roots of technology, making it amenable to democratic politics.

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Page Count

396

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262522276

ISBN 13

9780262522274

Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change

By: Wiebe E. Bijker

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Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change

By: Wiebe E. Bijker

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

396

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262522276

ISBN 13

9780262522274

Book's by Wiebe E. Bijker

The Paradox of Scientific Authority

The Paradox of Scientific Authority

Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

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