# kb

id: creativity-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity-11.md
category: reference
title: Creativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:10.173371+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: creativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Education === For those who view the conventional system of schooling as stifling creativity, an emphasis is made (particularly in the preschool/kindergarten and early school years) to provide a creativity-friendly, rich, imagination-fostering environment for young children. Researchers have seen this as important because technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate and creative problem-solving will be needed to cope with these challenges as they arise. In addition to helping with problem solving, creativity also helps students identify problems where others have failed to do so. The Waldorf School is an example of an education program that promotes creative thought. Promoting intrinsic motivation and problem solving are two areas where educators can foster creativity in students. Students are more creative when they see a task as intrinsically motivating, valued for its own sake. To promote creative thinking, educators need to identify what motivates their students and to structure teaching around it. Providing students with a choice of activities allows them to become more intrinsically motivated and therefore creative in completing the tasks. Teaching students to solve problems that do not have well-defined answers is another way to foster their creativity. This is accomplished by allowing students to explore problems and redefine


id: creativity-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity-12.md
category: reference
title: Creativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:10.173371+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: creativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Team composition === The diversity of team members' backgrounds and knowledge can increase team creativity by expanding the collection of unique information that is available to the team and by introducing different perspectives that can be integrated in novel ways. The Millennium Conferences on Creativity, a two-year-long Canadian review of the subject, for example, advocated for new linkages between the arts and science communities and targeted funding for multidisciplinary research. However, under some conditions, diversity can also decrease team creativity by making it more difficult for team members to communicate about ideas and causing interpersonal conflicts between those with different perspectives. Thus, the potential advantages of diversity must be supported by appropriate team processes and organizational cultures in order to enhance creativity. === Team processes === Team communication norms, such as respecting others' expertise, paying attention to others' ideas, expecting information sharing, tolerating disagreements, negotiating, remaining open to others' ideas, learning from others, and building on each other's ideas, increase team creativity by facilitating the social processes involved with brainstorming and problem solving. Through these processes, team members can access their collective pool of knowledge, reach shared understandings, identify new ways of understanding problems or tasks, and make new


id: creativity-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity-13.md
category: reference
title: Creativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:10.173371+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: creativity-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == Rick Rubin The creative act, A. (2023). The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Penguin Press. ISBN 9780593652886. Craft, A. (2005). Creativity in Schools: tensions and dilemmas. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-32414-4. Gielen, P. (2013). Creativity and other Fundamentalisms. Amsterdam: Mondriaan. Glăveanu, Vlad Petre, ed. (2019). The Creativity Reader. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-084171-3. Hadamard, Jacques (2017) [1945]. The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-20107-8. Jeffery, Graham (2005). The Creative College: building a successful learning culture in the arts. Trentham Books. Johnson, D.M. (1972). Systematic introduction to the psychology of thinking. Harper & Row. Jullien, F. (2004). In Praise of Blandness: Proceeding from Chinese Thought and Aesthetics. Translated by Varsano, Paula M. Zone Books, U.S. ISBN 1-890951-41-2. Jung, Carl G. (1981). The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 8. The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09774-7. Kanigel, Robert (1992). The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan. Washington Square Press. ISBN 0-671-75061-5. Kolp, P.; Lammé, A.; Regnard, Fr. (2009). Rens, J.M. (ed.). "Musique et créativité". Orphée Apprenti. NS (1): 9–119. D/2009/11848/5 Kounios, John; Kounios, Yvette (1 March 2025). "The Wonder of Insight: Scientists are finally


id: criticism-of-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:11.499680+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
Criticism of technology is an analysis of adverse impacts of industrial and digital technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies (not necessarily only capitalist ones), technology becomes a means of domination, control, and exploitation, or more generally something which threatens the survival of humanity. Some of the technology opposed by the most radical critics may include everyday household products, such as refrigerators, computers, and medication. However, criticism of technology comes in many shades. == Overview == Some authors such as Chellis Glendinning and Kirkpatrick Sale consider themselves Neo-Luddites and hold that technological progress has had a negative impact on humanity. Their work focused on seeking meaning out of technological change, specifically wrestling with the question of "how tools and their affordances change and alter the fabric of everyday life." Ellul, for instance, maintained that when people assert that technology is an instrument of freedom or the means to achieve historical destiny or the execution of divine vocation, it results in the glorification and sanctification of Technique so that it becomes that which gives meaning and value to life rather than mere ensemble of materials. This is echoed by rhetorical critics who cite the way technological discourse damages


id: cybernetics-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics-0.md
category: reference
title: Cybernetics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:12.709808+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cybernetics-20260505-0
summary:
Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent actions. It is concerned with general principles that are relevant across multiple contexts, including engineering, ecological, economic, biological, cognitive and social systems and also in practical activities such as designing, learning, and managing. Cybernetics' transdisciplinary character means that it intersects with a number of other fields, resulting in a wide influence and diverse interpretations. The field is named after an example of circular causal feedback—that of steering a ship (the ancient Greek κυβερνήτης (kybernḗtēs) refers to the person who steers a ship). In steering a ship, the position of the rudder is adjusted in continual response to the effect it is observed as having, forming a feedback loop through which a steady course can be maintained in a changing environment, responding to disturbances from cross winds and tide. Cybernetics has its origins in exchanges between numerous disciplines during the 1940s. Initial developments were consolidated through meetings such as the Macy conferences and the Ratio Club. Early focuses included purposeful behaviour, neural networks, heterarchy, information theory, and self-organising systems. As


id: cybernetics-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics-1.md
category: reference
title: Cybernetics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:12.709808+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cybernetics-20260505-0
summary:
=== Second wave === The second wave of cybernetics came to prominence from the 1960s onwards, with its focus shifting away from technology toward social, ecological, and philosophical concerns. It was still grounded in biology, notably Maturana and Varela's autopoiesis, and built on earlier work on self-organising systems and the presence of anthropologists Mead and Bateson in the Macy meetings. The Biological Computer Laboratory, founded in 1958 and active until the mid-1970s under the direction of Heinz von Foerster at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, was a major incubator of this trend in cybernetics research. Focuses of the second wave of cybernetics included management cybernetics, such as Stafford Beer's biologically inspired viable system model; work in family therapy, drawing on Bateson; social systems, such as in the work of Niklas Luhmann; epistemology and pedagogy, such as in the development of radical constructivism. Cybernetics' core theme of circular causality was developed beyond goal-oriented processes to concerns with reflexivity and recursion. This was especially so in the development of second-order cybernetics (or the cybernetics of cybernetics), developed and promoted by Heinz von Foerster, which focused on questions of observation, cognition, epistemology, and ethics. The 1960s onwards also saw cybernetics begin to


id: cybernetics-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics-2.md
category: reference
title: Cybernetics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:12.709808+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cybernetics-20260505-0
summary:
== Related fields and applications == Cybernetics' central concept of circular causality is of wide applicability, leading to diverse applications and relations with other fields. Many of the initial applications of cybernetics focused on engineering, biology, and exchanges between the two, such as medical cybernetics and robotics and topics such as neural networks, heterarchy. In the social and behavioral sciences, cybernetics has included and influenced work in anthropology, sociology, economics, family therapy, cognitive science, and psychology. As cybernetics has developed, it broadened in scope to include work in management, design, pedagogy, and the creative arts, while also developing exchanges with constructivist philosophies, counter-cultural movements, and media studies. The development of management cybernetics has led to a variety of applications, notably to the national economy of Chile under the Allende government in Project Cybersyn, as well as other lesser known projects by Stafford Beer in Latin America. In design, cybernetics has been influential on interactive architecture, human-computer interaction, design research, and the development of systemic design and metadesign practices. Cybernetics is often understood within the context of systems science, systems theory, and systems thinking. Systems approaches influenced by cybernetics include critical systems thinking, which incorporates the viable system model; systemic design;


id: domestication-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Domestication theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:14.030884+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: domestication-theory-20260505-0
summary:
Domestication theory is an approach in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and media studies that describe the processes by which technology is 'tamed' or appropriated by its users. The theory was originally created by Roger Silverstone, who described four steps that technology goes through when being adapted into peoples' lives: First, technologies are integrated into everyday life and adapted to daily practices. Secondly, the user and its environment change and adapt accordingly. Thirdly, these adaptations feedback into innovation processes in industry, shaping the next generation of technologies and services. Fourthly, conversion, signalling what extent and how the technology has the status of reflecting the cultures of a household. The theory was initially developed to help understand the adoption and use of new media technologies by households (Silverstone et al. 1992), but has since been expanded in the innovation literature as a tool to understand technologies and innovations entering any consuming unit (workplace, country etc. e.g. Lie et al., Habib, Punie, Sørensen) that can be analysed economically, culturally and sociologically. The domestication approach considers both the practical and the symbolic aspects of the adoption and use of technologies, showing how these two elements- the meanings of things, and their materiality, are


id: early-adopter-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_adopter-0.md
category: reference
title: Early adopter
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_adopter
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:15.349425+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: early-adopter-20260505-0
summary:
An early adopter or lighthouse customer is an early customer of a given company, product, or technology. The term originates from Everett M. Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations (1962). == History == Typically, early adopters are customers who, in addition to using the vendor's product or technology, also provide considerable and candid feedback to help the vendor refine its future product releases, as well as the associated means of distribution, service, and support. Early adoption could also be referred to as a form of testing in the early stages of a project. The relationship is synergistic. The customer receives early (and sometimes unique, or at least uniquely early) access to an advantageous new product or technology. In return, the customer may also serve as a kind of guinea pig. In exchange for being an early adopter, and thus being exposed to the problems, risks, and annoyances common to early-stage product testing and deployment, the "lighthouse customer" is sometimes given especially attentive vendor assistance and support, even to the point of having personnel at the customer's work site to assist with implementation. The customer is sometimes given preferential pricing, terms, and conditions, although new technology is often very expensive, so the early


id: eco-innovation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-innovation-0.md
category: reference
title: Eco-innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:16.559305+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eco-innovation-20260505-0
summary:
Eco-innovation is the development of products and processes that contribute to sustainable development, applying the commercial application of knowledge to elicit direct or indirect ecological improvements. This includes a range of related ideas, from environmentally friendly technological advances to socially acceptable innovative paths towards sustainability. The field of research that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new "ecological" ideas and technology spread is called eco-innovation diffusion. == Concept == The idea of eco-innovation is fairly recent. One of the first appearances in the literature was in a 1996 book by Claude Fussler and Peter James. In a subsequent article in 1997, Peter James defined eco-innovation as "new products and processes which provide customer and business value but significantly decrease environmental impacts". Klaus Rennings employs the term eco-innovation to describe three kinds of changes related to sustainable development: technological, social and institutional innovation. Eco-innovation is sometimes called "environmental innovation", and is often linked with environmental technology, eco-efficiency, eco-design, environmental design, sustainable design, or environmental sustainable innovation. While the term "environmental innovation" is used in similar contexts to "eco-innovation", the other terms are mostly used when referring to product or process design, and when the focus is more on


id: economics-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Economics of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:17.813987+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: economics-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The economics of science aims to understand the impact of science on the advance of technology, to explain the behavior of scientists, and to understand the efficiency or inefficiency of scientific institutions and science markets. The importance of the economics of science is substantially due to the importance of science as a driver of technology and technology as a driver of productivity and growth. Believing that science matters, economists have attempted to understand the behavior of scientists and the operation of scientific institutions. == Science as a public good == Economists consider "science" as the search and production of knowledge using known starting conditions. Knowledge can be considered a public good, due to the fact that its utility to society is not diminished with additional consumption (non-rivalry), and once the knowledge is shared with the public it becomes very hard to restrict access to it or use of it (non-excludable). Traditional public economic theory asserts that competitive markets provide poor incentives for production of a public good because the producers cannot reap the benefits of use of their product, and thus costs will be higher than benefits. Economists have identified several possible reasons as to why producers of science might


id: economics-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Economics of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:17.813987+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: economics-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== The patent system === In the United States, the Patent and Trademark Office issues patents that give the holder of the patent exclusive, defined property rights to their product for 20 years. From an economic perspective, the value of the patent is that it increases the marginal benefit of the firm that is producing the scientific knowledge. To graphically display this concept, the accompanying figure depicts the marginal benefit and marginal cost curves of a firm in the market for science. The vertical axis displays the marginal cost and marginal benefit of each additional dollar spent on research and development. The horizontal axis displays the amount of money spent on research and development in total. Research and development is assumed to have diminishing returns. For simplicity's sake, all curves are assumed to be linear, and the marginal cost curve is assumed to be constant. A firm will maximize their profits by producing where marginal cost intersects marginal benefit. In the absence of any government intervention, the firm will produce where at RD0, where private marginal benefit (MB0) intersects MC. However, if scientific knowledge is assumed to be a public good, then RD0 is too low a quantity to satisfy


id: economics-of-scientific-knowledge-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_scientific_knowledge-0.md
category: reference
title: Economics of scientific knowledge
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_scientific_knowledge
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:19.132749+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: economics-of-scientific-knowledge-20260505-0
summary:
The economics of scientific knowledge is an approach to understanding science which is predicated on the need to understand scientific knowledge creation and dissemination in economic terms. The approach has been developed as a contrast to the sociology of scientific knowledge, which places scientists in their social context and examines their behavior using social theory. The economics of scientific knowledge typically involves thinking of scientists as having economic interests with these being thought of as utility maximisation and science as being a market process. Modelling strategies might use any of a variety of approaches including the neoclassical, game theoretic, behavioural (bounded rationality) information theoretic and transaction costs. Boumans and Davis (2010) mention Dasgupta and David (1994) as being an interesting early example of work in this area. == See also == Economics of science == References ==


id: ethical-legal-and-social-aspects-research-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical,_Legal_and_Social_Aspects_research-0.md
category: reference
title: Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects research
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical,_Legal_and_Social_Aspects_research
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:20.440796+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ethical-legal-and-social-aspects-research-20260505-0
summary:
The acronyms ELSI (in the United States) and ELSA (in Europe) refer to research activities that anticipate and address ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) or aspects (ELSA) of emerging sciences, notably genomics and nanotechnology. ELSI was conceived in 1988 when James Watson, at the press conference announcing his appointment as director of the Human Genome Project (HGP), suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly declared that the ethical and social implications of genomics warranted a special effort and should be directly funded by the National Institutes of Health. == Spread == Various ELSI or ELSA programs have been developed, in Canada, Europe and the Far East. Overview: U.S.A.: Ethical, ....Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) (funding agency: NIH, 1990) Canada: Genomics-related Ethical, Environmental, Economic, Legal and Social Aspects (GE3LS) (funding agency: Genome Canada, 2000) South-Korea: Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) (funding: Government of South-Korea, 2001) United Kingdom: ESRC Genomics Network (EGN), including: Cesagen, Innogen, Egenis, Genomics Forum (funding agency: ESRC 2002) Netherlands: Centre for Society and the Life Sciences (CSG) (funding agency: Netherlands Genomics Initiative, 2002); more recently the ELSA labs programme related to Artificial Intelligence Norway: ELSA Program (funding agency: Research Council of Norway, 2002) Germany, Austria, Finland: ELSAGEN Transnational Research


id: ethnomethodology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology-0.md
category: reference
title: Ethnomethodology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:21.768037+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ethnomethodology-20260505-0
summary:
Ethnomethodology is the study of how social order is produced in and through processes of social interaction. It generally seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream sociological approaches. It can be seen as posing a challenge to the social sciences as a whole, as it re-specifies the assumed phenomena of those sciences as being themselves social achievements. Its early investigations led to the founding of conversation analysis, which has found its own place as an accepted discipline within the academy. According to Psathas, it is possible to distinguish five major approaches within the ethnomethodological family of disciplines (see § Varieties). Ethnomethodology is a fundamentally descriptive discipline which does not engage in the explanation or evaluation of the particular social order undertaken as a topic of study. It seeks "to discover the things that persons in particular situations do, the methods they use, to create the patterned orderliness of social life". However, applications have been found within many applied disciplines, such as software design and management studies. == Definition == The term's meaning can be broken down into its three constituent parts: ethno – method – ology, for the purpose of explanation. Using an appropriate Southern California example: ethno refers to


id: ethnomethodology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology-1.md
category: reference
title: Ethnomethodology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:21.768037+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ethnomethodology-20260505-0
summary:
== Theory and methods == Ethnomethodology has often perplexed commentators, due to its radical approach to questions of theory and method. With regard to theory, Garfinkel has consistently advocated an attitude of ethnomethodological indifference, a principled agnosticism with regard to social theory which insists that the shared understandings of members of a social setting under study take precedence over any concepts which a social theorist might bring to the analysis from outside that setting. This can be perplexing to traditional social scientists, trained in the need for social theory. A multiplicity of theoretical references by Anne Rawls, in her introduction to Ethnomethodology's Program, might be interpreted to suggest a softening of this position towards the end of Garfinkel's life. However, the position is consistent with ethnomethodology's understanding of the significance of "member's methods", and with certain lines of philosophical thought regarding the philosophy of science (Polanyi 1958; Kuhn 1970; Feyerabend 1975), and the study of the actual practices of scientific procedure. It also has a strong correspondence with the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, especially as applied to social studies by Peter Winch. Regarding theory, Garfinkel's work references the phenomenology of Husserl, Gurwitsch, Merleau-Ponty and, most frequently, to the works


id: ethnomethodology-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology-2.md
category: reference
title: Ethnomethodology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:21.768037+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ethnomethodology-20260505-0
summary:
== Some leading policies, methods and definitions == The fundamental assumption of ethnomethodological studies As characterised by Anne Rawls, speaking for Garfinkel: "If one assumes, as Garfinkel does, that the meaningful, patterned, and orderly character of everyday life is something that people must work to achieve, then one must also assume that they have some methods for doing so". That is, "...members of society must have some shared methods that they use to mutually construct the meaningful orderliness of social situations." Ethnomethodology is an empirical enterprise Rawls states: "Ethnomethodology is a thoroughly empirical enterprise devoted to the discovery of social order and intelligibility [sense making] as witnessable collective achievements." "The keystone of the [ethnomethodological] argument is that local [social] orders exist; that these orders are witnessable in the scenes in which they are produced; and that the possibility of [their] intelligibility is based on the actual existence and detailed enactment of these orders." Ethnomethodology is not, however, conventionally empiricist. Its empirical nature is specified in the weak form of the unique adequacy requirement. The unique adequacy requirement of methods (weak form) is that the researcher should have a 'vulgar competence' in the research setting. That is, they should be able


id: ethnomethodology-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology-3.md
category: reference
title: Ethnomethodology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:21.768037+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ethnomethodology-20260505-0
summary:
No criteria are offered for the translation of an original text and its misreading—the outcome of such translations are in Garfinkel's term: "incommensurable." The misreading of texts or fragments of texts is a standard feature of ethnomethodology's way of doing theory, especially in regards to topics in phenomenology. Reflexivity Despite the fact that many sociologists use "reflexivity" as a synonym for "self-reflection," the way the term is used in ethnomethodology is different: it is meant "to describe the acausal and non-mentalistic determination of meaningful action-in-context". See also: Reflexivity (social theory). Documentary method of interpretation The documentary method is the method of understanding utilised by everyone engaged in trying to make sense of their social world—this includes the ethnomethodologist. Garfinkel recovered the concept from the work of Karl Mannheim and repeatedly demonstrates the use of the method in the case studies appearing in his central text, Studies in Ethnomethodology. Mannheim defined the term as a search for an identical homologous pattern of meaning underlying a variety of totally different realisations of that meaning. Garfinkel states that the documentary method of interpretation consists of treating an actual appearance as the "document of", "as pointing to", as "standing on behalf of", a presupposed


id: ethnomethodology-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology-4.md
category: reference
title: Ethnomethodology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:21.768037+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ethnomethodology-20260505-0
summary:
== Differences with sociology == Since ethnomethodology has become anathema to certain sociologists, and since those practicing it like to perceive their own efforts as constituting a radical break from prior sociologies, there has been little attempt to link ethnomethodology to these prior sociologies. However, whilst ethnomethodology is distinct from sociological methods, it does not seek to compete with it, or provide remedies for any of its practices. The ethnomethodological approach differs as much from the sociological approach as sociology does from psychology even though both speak of social action. This does not mean that ethnomethodology does not use traditional sociological forms as a sounding board for its own programmatic development, or to establish benchmarks for the differences between traditional sociological forms of study and ethnomethodology as it only means that ethnomethodology was not established in order to: repair, criticize, undermine, or poke fun at traditional sociological forms. In essence the distinctive difference between sociological approaches and ethnomethodology is that the latter adopts a commonsense attitude towards knowledge. In contrast to traditional sociological forms of inquiry, it is a hallmark of the ethnomethodological perspective that it does not make theoretical or methodological appeals to: outside assumptions regarding the structure of


id: ethnomethodology-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology-5.md
category: reference
title: Ethnomethodology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:21.768037+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ethnomethodology-20260505-0
summary:
Even though ethnomethodology has been characterised as having a "phenomenological sensibility", and reliable commentators have acknowledged that "there is a strong influence of phenomenology on ethnomethodology" (Maynard and Kardash 2007:1484), some orthodox adherents to the discipline—those who follow the teachings of Garfinkel—do not explicitly represent it as a form of phenomenology. Garfinkel speaks of phenomenological texts and findings as being "appropriated" for the purposes of exploring topics in the study of social order. Even though ethnomethodology is not a form of phenomenology, the reading and understanding of phenomenological texts, and developing the capability of seeing phenomenologically is essential to the praxis of ethnomethodological studies. As Garfinkel states in regard to the work of the phenomenologist Aron Gurwitsch, especially his Field of Consciousness (1964: ethnomethodology's phenomenological urtext): "you can't do anything unless you do read his texts". == References == === Notes === === Bibliography === Bar-Hillel, Y. (1954) 'Indexical expressions', Mind 63 (251):359–379. Feyerabend, Paul (1975) Against Method, London, New Left Books. Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology, Prentice-Hall. Garfinkel, H. and Liberman, K. (2007) 'Introduction: the lebenswelt origins of the sciences', Human Studies, 30, 1, pp3–7. Gurwitsch, Aron (1964) The Field of Consciousness, Duquesne University Press. Hammersley, Martyn (2018)


id: evidence-argument-and-persuasion-in-the-policy-process-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence,_Argument,_and_Persuasion_in_the_Policy_Process-0.md
category: reference
title: Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence,_Argument,_and_Persuasion_in_the_Policy_Process
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:22.978144+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: evidence-argument-and-persuasion-in-the-policy-process-20260505-0
summary:
In Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process, published in 1989, Italian political scientist Giandomenico Majone contrasts a vision of policy analysis as a technical, nonpartisan, and objective enterprise, with one more dependent upon the political environment in which it is formulated. Against a 'decisionist' view of information-for-decisions, Majone sets policy analysis as distinct from the academic social sciences on the one hand, and from problem-solving methodologies such as operations research on the other (p. 7). The tasks entrusted to an analyst - according to Majone - are to screen the evidence according to a plurality of viewpoints, elaborate arguments relative to the appropriateness of given policies, elaborate these arguments as a function of the intended audience, and finally present these argument convincingly. For this reason, beyond the necessary technical competence, the analyst should possess rhetorical and dialectical skills. This book contributes to the efforts to provide a more realistic portrayals of the strengths and limits of analysis, like Richard_R._Nelson’s The Moon and the Ghetto and Aaron Wildavsky’s Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis. == References ==


id: extended-peer-community-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_peer_community-0.md
category: reference
title: Extended peer community
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_peer_community
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:24.404724+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: extended-peer-community-20260505-0
summary:
The concept of Extended peer community belongs to the field of Sociology of science, and in particular the use of science in the solution of social, political or ecological problems. It was first introduced by in the 1990s by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz. in the context of what would become Post-normal science. An Extended peer community is intended by these authors as a space where both credentialed experts from different disciplines and lay stakeholders can discuss and deliberate. == Content == An Extended peer community is intended by its creators as an arrangement at the science policy interface that helps to expand and assess both the knowledge-base and the value-base of policy-making'. Post-normal science's extended peer community argues for two kind of extensions: first, more than one discipline is assumed to have a potential bearing on the issue being debated, thereby providing different lenses to consider the problem. Second the community is extended to lay actors, taken to be all those with stakes, or an interest, in the given issue. The lay members of the community thus constituted may also take upon themselves active 'research' tasks; this has happened e.g. in the so-called 'popular epidemiology', when the official


id: factor-10-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_10-0.md
category: reference
title: Factor 10
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_10
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:25.566052+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: factor-10-20260505-0
summary:
Factor Ten is a social and economic policy program developed by the Factor Ten institute with the stated goal of "provid[ing] practical support for achieving significant advances in sustainable value creation, in particular through increases in resource productivity throughout the economy. == History == Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek, from the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, first proposed the Factor 10 and dematerialization concepts in the early 1990s. He concluded in his studies that 80% of the world's resources are distributed among First World nations, which contribute 20% of the global population, so those nations are promoting an unsustainable system of development. The goal of Factor 10 is to assure that nations do not exceed the planet's carrying capacity but leave sufficient resources for future generations. == Factor 4 == Factor 10 evolved from the less dramatic Factor 4 was originally proposed by L. Hunter Lovins and Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute and Ernst von Weizsäcker, the founder of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment & Energy. Their book Factor 4 explains how simple it is for nations to achieve Factor 4 results with existing technologies. The concept attempts to reduce resource and energy use by 75% by doubling


id: far-fetched-facts-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-Fetched_Facts-0.md
category: reference
title: Far-Fetched Facts
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-Fetched_Facts
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:26.782730+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: far-fetched-facts-20260505-0
summary:
Far-Fetched Facts is a book by German anthropologist Richard Rottenburg, published in German as Weit hergeholte Fakten in 2002; the English translation was released in 2009. The book is an ethnography-based, though fictionalized, polyphonic account of a waterworks' improvement project in Tanzania (called Ruritania in the book's fictionalization). The book follows the different stages of the development project by looking closely at the interactions between a Northern development bank, experts of an international consulting firm and African project managers. It focuses thereby on technologies of inscription that enable the reconnaissance and operationalization of improvement measures to be taken, but also guide the overall interaction between the different stakeholders of the project. Showing these representational and managerial practices, the book lays bare the necessary day-to-day production of objectivity and legitimacy in development projects, but also the intricacies and inconsistencies of daily translation processes, that often lead to the rather disappointing results of such development enterprises. Inspired by organizational and science and technology studies, “Far-fetched facts” provides an anthropological critique of the aid industry in Africa distinct from postdevelopment critique. == Reviews == Breyman, Steve 2010. Review of Far-Fetched Facts. In: The History of Science Society, vol. 101, no. 3, pp. 682–683


id: feminist-science-and-technology-studies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_science_and_technology_studies-0.md
category: reference
title: Feminist science and technology studies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_science_and_technology_studies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:28.065386+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: feminist-science-and-technology-studies-20260505-0
summary:
Feminist science and technology studies (feminist STS) is a theoretical subfield of science and technology studies (STS), which explores how gender interacts with science and technology. The field emerged in the early 1980s alongside other relativist theories of STS which rejected the dominance of technological determinism, proposing that reality is multiple rather than fixed and prioritizing situated knowledges over scientific objectivity. Feminist STS's material-semiotic theory evolved to display a complex understanding of gender and technology relationships by the 2000s, notable scholars producing feminist critiques of scientific knowledge and the design and use of technologies. The co-constructive relationship between gender and technology contributed to feminist STS's rejection of binary gender roles by the twenty-first century, the field's framework expanding to incorporate principles of feminist technoscience and queer theory amidst widespread adoption of the internet. Historical areas of research include policy development, reproduction, pharmaceuticals, design and use of consumer products, and engineering cultures, researchers exploring ways gender creates and is created by individuals or groups interacting with non-human actors. Feminist STS scholars prioritize this relationship of co-construction to emphasize that neither gender nor technology and science exists before their interaction, but instead, reality exists in the social and material interactions, producing these


id: feminist-science-and-technology-studies-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_science_and_technology_studies-1.md
category: reference
title: Feminist science and technology studies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_science_and_technology_studies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:28.065386+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: feminist-science-and-technology-studies-20260505-0
summary:
=== 2000s – present === Building upon prior research from two decades of feminist STS literature, studies adopted principles based on updated frameworks at the turn of the millennium, such as Ellen van Oost's research into how gender becomes configured into electric shavers, Ruth Schwartz Cowan's study on technological innovation increasing women's labor, and Jennifer R. Fishman's exploration of pharmaceutical technology's potential to designate potential consumers as dysfunctional. Research regarding decades of body modification practices in queer communities introduced material connections between gender and technology through individuals who represented and created diverse genders for themselves through physical alteration of their bodies, further establishing academic literature on gender beyond binary terminology and connecting queer theory to feminist STS. Compared to past studies which were restricted to questioning the objectivity of scientific knowledge through the language used in descriptions of biological sex, researchers approached reproductive studies through a gender-based framework, Rayna Rapp emphasizing feminist ideology in her study of the impact of reproductive biomedicalization on women, while Laura Mamo's exploration of knowledge negotiation in lesbian reproduction six years later emphasized situated knowledges. Both studies found multiple possibilities of femininity reflected in their research subjects, similar to Wendy Faulkner's conclusions in her 2001


id: gartner-hype-cycle-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle-0.md
category: reference
title: Gartner hype cycle
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:29.229999+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: gartner-hype-cycle-20260505-0
summary:
The Gartner hype cycle is a graphical presentation to represent the maturity, adoption, and social application of specific technologies. The hype cycle's veracity has been largely disputed, with studies pointing to it being inconsistently true at best. == History == The hype cycle framework was introduced in 1995 by Gartner analyst Jackie Fenn, who had joined the firm the year before. In her research reports, Fenn identified common patterns related to the maturity of emerging technologies. Fenn referred to this familiar progression as a "hype cycle" and created a graph depicting its ups and downs with each distinct stage given a title, starting with Technology trigger and ending with Plateau of productivity. The chart was included in a one-off research report, but it was popular with other Gartner analysts and clients and the "Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies" was soon developed into an annual report. == Five phases == Each hype cycle consists of five key phases of a technology's life cycle. 1. Technology trigger A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven. 2. Peak of inflated expectations Early publicity produces a


id: graphism-thesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphism_thesis-0.md
category: reference
title: Graphism thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphism_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:30.444789+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: graphism-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
In the sociology of science and science and technology studies (STS), the graphism thesis is a proposition advanced by Bruno Latour that visual inscriptions—especially graphs, diagrams, and other visual representations—are central to the practice and authority of science. First articulated in Latour's 1990 essay "Visualization and Cognition: Drawing Things Together", the thesis holds that the power of scientific disciplines is closely linked to their capacity to produce, circulate, and combine visual representations of data. The thesis has been empirically tested by a number of researchers, who have found strong correlations between the level of graph use in scientific publications and the perceived "hardness" of scientific disciplines. == Background == The graphism thesis emerged from Latour's broader theory of inscriptions in scientific practice, developed across several works including Laboratory Life (1979, with Steve Woolgar) and Science in Action (1987). In these works, Latour defined an inscription device as any apparatus or configuration that transforms a material substance into a visual display usable within a scientific text, such as a diagram, chart, photograph, map, equation, or table. Central to this framework is the concept of immutable mobiles (a key term in actor–network theory)—objects that can be transported across distances while retaining their


id: ideation-creative-process-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation_(creative_process)-0.md
category: reference
title: Ideation (creative process)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation_(creative_process)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:31.633440+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ideation-creative-process-20260505-0
summary:
Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic unit of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation comprises all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to development, to actualization. Ideation can be conducted by individuals, organizations, or crowds. As such, it is an essential part of the design process, both in education and practice. == Criticism == The word "ideation" has come under informal criticism as being a term of meaningless jargon, as well as being inappropriately similar to the psychiatric term for suicidal ideation. == Methods and approaches == There are many methods and approaches for ideation. A list of common ideation techniques is as follows: Brainstorming: A technique where the basic premise is to get a group together and have them share their ideas freely, without judgement. The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible, regardless of whether they are good or bad. Once the brainstorming session is over, the group can evaluate the ideas and narrow them down to the best ones. Idea mapping: This process begins with brainstorming a central idea and then developing said idea by adding


id: infolab21-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoLab21-0.md
category: reference
title: InfoLab21
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoLab21
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:32.872769+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: infolab21-20260505-0
summary:
InfoLab21 is a research centre at Lancaster University focusing primarily on information and communication technologies. The centre was opened in 2005 by Patricia Hewitt in order to "transfer the knowledge, technology and innovation techniques that are strong within the university into the private sector." The centre houses the University's School of Computing and Communications and operates under the University's department of Science and Technology. == References == == External links == InfoLab21 at Lancaster University


id: innovation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation-0.md
category: reference
title: Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: innovation-20260505-0
summary:
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the creation or improvements of goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity, realizing or redistributing value". Others have different definitions; a common element in the definitions is a focus on newness, improvement, and spread of ideas or technologies (see diffusion of innovation). Innovation often takes place through the development of more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, art works or business models that innovators make available to markets, governments, and society. Innovation is related to, but not the same as, invention: innovation is more apt to involve the practical implementation of an invention (i.e. new / improved ability) to make a meaningful impact in a market or society. Not all innovations require a new invention. Technical innovation often manifests itself through the engineering process when the problem being solved is of a technical or scientific nature. The opposite of innovation is exnovation. == Definition == Surveys of the literature on innovation have found a variety of definitions. In 2009, Baregheh et al. found around 60 definitions in different scientific papers, while a 2014 survey found over 40. Based on their


id: innovation-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation-1.md
category: reference
title: Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: innovation-20260505-0
summary:
One framework proposed by Clayton Christensen draws a distinction between sustaining and disruptive innovations. Sustaining innovation is the improvement of a product or service based on the known needs of current customers (e.g. faster microprocessors, flat screen televisions). Disruptive innovation in contrast refers to a process by which a new product or service creates a new market (e.g. transistor radio, free crowdsourced encyclopedia, etc.), eventually displacing established competitors. According to Christensen, disruptive innovations are critical to long-term success in business. Disruptive innovation is often enabled by disruptive technology. Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani define foundational technology as having the potential to create new foundations for global technology systems over the longer term. Foundational technology tends to transform business operating models as entirely new business models emerge over many years, with gradual and steady adoption of the innovation leading to waves of technological and institutional change that gain momentum more slowly. The advent of the packet-switched communication protocol TCP/IP—originally introduced in 1972 to support a single use case for United States Department of Defense electronic communication (email), and which gained widespread adoption only in the mid-1990s with the advent of the World Wide Web—is a foundational technology. === Four types


id: innovation-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation-2.md
category: reference
title: Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: innovation-20260505-0
summary:
=== 20th and 21st centuries === A study by McKinsey & Co. notes that patterns of innovation as measured by patent applications followed the economic cycle during the first part of the 20th century, with businesses reluctant to innovate during the depression of the 1930s. Later in the century, the concept of innovation became more popular after the Second World War of 1939–1945. This was the point in time when people started to talk about technological product innovation and tie it to the ideas of economic growth and competitive advantage. Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950), who contributed greatly to the study of innovation economics, is seen as the one who made the term popular. Schumpeter argued that industries must incessantly revolutionize the economic structure from within, that is: innovate with better or more effective processes and products, as well as with market distribution (such as the transition from the craft shop to factory). He famously asserted that "creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism". In business and in economics, innovation can provide a catalyst for growth when entrepreneurs continuously search for better ways to satisfy their consumer base with improved quality, durability, service and price - searches which may come to


id: innovation-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation-3.md
category: reference
title: Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: innovation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Facilitating innovation === Innovation by businesses is achieved in many ways, with much attention now given to formal research and development (R&D) for "breakthrough innovations". R&D help spur on patents and other scientific innovations that leads to productive growth in such areas as industry, medicine, engineering, and government. Yet, innovations can be developed by less formal on-the-job modifications of practice, through exchange and combination of professional experience and by many other routes. Investigation of relationship between the concepts of innovation and technology transfer revealed overlap. The more radical and revolutionary innovations tend to emerge from R&D, while more incremental innovations may emerge from practice – but there are many exceptions to each of these trends. Information technology and changing business processes and management style can produce a work climate favorable to innovation. For example, the software tool company Atlassian conducts quarterly "ShipIt Days" in which employees may work on anything related to the company's products. Google employees work on self-directed projects for 20% of their time (known as Innovation Time Off). Both companies cite these bottom-up processes as major sources for new products and features. An important innovation factor includes customers buying products or using services. As a result,


id: innovation-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation-4.md
category: reference
title: Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: innovation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Environmental and social innovation failures === Innovation is generally framed as an inherently positive force, delivering growth and prosperity for all, and is often deemed as both inevitable and unstoppable. In this sense, future innovations are often hailed as solutions to current problems, such as climate change. This business-as-usual approach would mean continued and increased globalization as well as quick innovation cycles which supposedly will maximize the competitiveness of processes, in the end leading to Eco-economic decoupling or Green growth. Yet, it is unclear whether innovative solutions will be capable of solving the climate crisis: According to Mario Giampietro and Silvio Funtowicz (2020), this positive framing of innovation "demonstrates [a] lack of understanding of the biophysical roots of the economic process and the seriousness of the sustainability crisis". This is due to the fact that innovation can be understood in its specific historic and cultural context: The prevailing hegemonic view on innovation, as emphasized by Ben Robra et al. (2023), aligns closely with capitalist mode of production, shown by the mantra of 'innovate or die.' From this viewpoint, innovation is primarily driven by the imperative of capital accumulation, serving the sole purpose of increasing returns, neglecting societal needs such


id: innovation-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation-5.md
category: reference
title: Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: innovation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Indicators === Many scholars claim that there is a great bias towards the "science and technology mode" (S&T-mode or STI-mode), while the "learning by doing, using and interacting mode" (DUI-mode) is ignored and measurements and research about it rarely done. For example, an institution may be high tech with the latest equipment, but lacks crucial doing, using and interacting tasks important for innovation. A common industry view (unsupported by empirical evidence) is that comparative cost-effectiveness research is a form of price control which reduces returns to industry, and thus limits R&D expenditure, stifles future innovation and compromises new products access to markets. Some academics claim cost-effectiveness research is a valuable value-based measure of innovation which accords "truly significant" therapeutic advances (i.e. providing "health gain") higher prices than free market mechanisms. Such value-based pricing has been viewed as a means of indicating to industry the type of innovation that should be rewarded from the public purse. An Australian academic developed the case that national comparative cost-effectiveness analysis systems should be viewed as measuring "health innovation" as an evidence-based policy concept for valuing innovation distinct from valuing through competitive markets, a method which requires strong anti-trust laws to be effective, on


id: innovation-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation-6.md
category: reference
title: Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: innovation-20260505-0
summary:
Given its effects on efficiency, quality of life, and productive growth, innovation is a key driver in improving society and economy. Consequently, policymakers have worked to develop environments that will foster innovation, from funding research and development to establishing regulations that do not inhibit innovation, funding the development of innovation clusters, and using public purchasing and standardisation to 'pull' innovation through. For instance, experts are advocating that the U.S. federal government launch a National Infrastructure Foundation, a nimble, collaborative strategic intervention organization that will house innovations programs from fragmented silos under one entity, inform federal officials on innovation performance metrics, strengthen industry-university partnerships, and support innovation economic development initiatives, especially to strengthen regional clusters. Because clusters are the geographic incubators of innovative products and processes, a cluster development grant program would also be targeted for implementation. By focusing on innovating in such areas as precision manufacturing, information technology, and sustainable energy, other areas of national concern would be tackled including government debt, carbon footprint, and oil dependence. The U.S. Economic Development Administration understand this reality in their continued Regional Innovation Clusters initiative. The United States also has to integrate her supply-chain and improve her applies research capability and downstream process


id: institute-for-science-and-society-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Science_and_Society-0.md
category: reference
title: Institute for Science and Society
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Science_and_Society
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:35.540532+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: institute-for-science-and-society-20260505-0
summary:
The Institute for Science and Society (ISS) is an international centre of research in Science and Technology Studies located at the University of Nottingham in England. In 2024, Professor Pru Hobson West is the director of the institute. == History == The organisation was founded in 1998. It was known as the Genetics and Society Unit (GSU) until 2001. It was renamed the Institute for the Study of Genetics, Biorisks and Society (IGBiS). Its remit was expanded in 2006 to cover the social, legal, ethical and cultural implications of any field of science, medicine or technology, at which point it became ISS. The institute is located in the School of Sociology and Social Policy but works virtually across the university and has strong links with the sciences and engineering. == About ISS == The Institute for Science and Society is a multidisciplinary centre drawing on a wide range of social sciences and humanities disciplines to conduct research into aspects of the mutual relationship between science and society. Since ISS was founded in 1998 it has attracted over £20 million in research funding and has been variously supported by grants and contracts from the Leverhulme and Wellcome Trusts, the Economic and


id: john-desmond-bernal-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Desmond_Bernal_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: John Desmond Bernal Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Desmond_Bernal_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:36.795372+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: john-desmond-bernal-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The John Desmond Bernal Prize is an award given annually by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) to scholars judged to have made a distinguished contribution to the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The award was launched in 1981, with the support of Eugene Garfield. The award is named after the scientist John Desmond Bernal. == Award recipients == Source: Society for Social Studies of Science Archived 2017-08-06 at the Wayback Machine == See also == List of social sciences awards == References == == External links == Society for Social Studies of Science


id: knowledge-production-modes-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_production_modes-0.md
category: reference
title: Knowledge production modes
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_production_modes
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:38.027257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: knowledge-production-modes-20260505-0
summary:
A knowledge production mode is a term from the sociology of science which refers to the way (scientific) knowledge is produced. So far, three modes have been conceptualized. Mode 1 production of knowledge is knowledge production motivated by scientific knowledge alone (basic research) which is not primarily concerned by the applicability of its findings. Mode 1 is founded on a conceptualization of science as separated into discrete disciplines (e.g., a biologist does not bother about chemistry). Mode 2 was coined in 1994 in juxtaposition to Mode 1 by Michael Gibbons, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott and Martin Trow. In Mode 2, multidisciplinary teams are brought together for short periods address specific, real-world problems, with the aim of producing knowledge (applied research) within the context of knowledge society. Mode 2 can be explained by the way research funds are distributed among scientists and how scientists focus on obtaining these funds in terms of five basic features: knowledge produced in the context of application; transdisciplinarity; heterogeneity and organizational diversity; social accountability and reflexivity; and quality control. Subsequently, Carayannis and Campbell described a Mode 3 knowledge in 2006. == Development of the concept == Gibbons and colleagues argued that a


id: knowledge-production-modes-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_production_modes-1.md
category: reference
title: Knowledge production modes
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_production_modes
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:38.027257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: knowledge-production-modes-20260505-0
summary:
The so-called Mode 2 is not new; it is the original format of science (or art) before its academic institutionalization in the 19th century. Another question to be answered is why Mode 1 has arisen after Mode 2: the original organizational and institutional basis of science, consisting of networks and invisible colleges. Where have these ideas, of the scientist as the isolated individual and of science separated from the interests of society, come from? Mode 2 represents the material base of science, how it actually operates. Mode 1 is a construct, built upon that base in order to justify autonomy for science, especially in an earlier era when it was still a fragile institution and needed all the help it could get (references omitted). Thus, Mode 1 is essentially a theoretical construct, not a description of actual scientific research, as the boundaries between different disciplines and "basic" and "applied research" have always been blurred. In the same article, Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff use the notion of the triple helix of the nation state (government), academia (university) and industry to explain innovation, the development of new technology and knowledge transfer. Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff argue, "The Triple Helix overlay provides a model at


id: linear-model-of-innovation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_model_of_innovation-0.md
category: reference
title: Linear model of innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_model_of_innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:39.296205+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: linear-model-of-innovation-20260505-0
summary:
The linear model of innovation was an early model designed to understand the relationship of science and technology that begins with basic research that flows into applied research, development and diffusion. It posits scientific research as the basis of innovation which eventually leads to economic growth. The model has been criticized by many scholars over decades. The majority of the criticisms pointed out its crudeness and limitations in capturing the sources, process, and effects of innovation. However, it has also been argued that the linear model was simply a creation by academics, debated heavily in academia, but never believed in practice. The model is more fittingly used as a basis to understand more nuanced models. == Versions == Two versions of the linear model of innovation are often presented: "technology push" model "market pull" model From the 1950s to the mid-1960s, the industrial innovation process was generally perceived as a linear progression from scientific discovery, through technological development in firms, to the marketplace. The stages of the "technology push" model are: Basic science→Design and engineering→Manufacturing→Marketing→Sales From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s emerges the second-generation Innovation model, referred to as the "market pull" model of innovation. According to this simple


id: ludwik-fleck-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwik_Fleck_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Ludwik Fleck Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwik_Fleck_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:40.608385+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ludwik-fleck-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Ludwik Fleck Prize is an annual award given for a book in the field of science and technology studies. It was created by the 4S Council (Society for the Social Studies of Science) in 1992 and is named after microbiologist Ludwik Fleck. The prize is named after the Polish microbiologist and sociologist Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961), author of Genèse et développement d'un fait scientifique (1935), which influenced Thomas Samuel Kuhn's conception of the history of science, constructivist epistemology, and various fields of research such as the sociology of science, the sociology of scientific knowledge, science studies and the social construction of technologies. == Prize Winners == == See also == List of social sciences awards == References == == External links == Official website


id: mapping-controversies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapping_controversies-0.md
category: reference
title: Mapping controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapping_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:41.968634+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mapping-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
Mapping controversies (MC) is an academic course taught in science studies, stemming from the writings of the French sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour. MC focuses exclusively on the controversies surrounding scientific knowledge rather than the established scientific facts or outcomes. Thus, it helps sociologists, anthropologists and other social scientists get insights not into scientific knowledge per se, but rather into the process of gaining knowledge. Thus, MC sheds light on those intermediate stages corresponding to the actual research process and pinpoints the connections between scientific work and other types of activities. == History == The term mapping controversies was first suggested in relation to analysis of scientific and technological controversies, and then lately re-affirmed as a widely applicable methodological approach going beyond the boundaries of science studies. It is usually used for the methodology that identifies and tracks down the polemics or debate surrounding a scientific fact, and utilises various visualisation tools to present the problem in its complexity. From January 2008 until December 2009, Latour coordinated the project "Mapping Controversies on Science for Politics (MACOSPOL)". The showcase website is mappingcontroversies.net. In 2008 and 2009 several universities in Europe and the USA started teaching mapping controversies courses for students in


id: mutual-shaping-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_shaping-0.md
category: reference
title: Mutual shaping
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_shaping
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:43.256561+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mutual-shaping-20260505-0
summary:
Mutual shaping suggests that society and technology are not mutually exclusive to one another and, instead, influence and shape each other. This process is a combination of social determinism and technological determinism. The term mutual shaping was developed through science and technology studies (STS) in an attempt to explain the detailed process of technological design. Mutual shaping is argued to have a more comprehensive understanding of the development of new media because it considers technological and social change as directly affecting the other. == Comparison of TD and SD == Technological determinism (TD), coined by Thorstein Veblen, suggests that technology is the primary catalyst for change in society. Following this theory, the development and implementation of technology is beyond the control of society as it is pervasive in all elements of our lives. Once a technology has been created its influence on society is an inevitable, predetermined path. Technological deterministic view suggests that technology is the cause of societal change, which shapes humans and their environments. An example that supports technological determinism is the development of the printing press that accelerated the Protestant Reformation. In contrast, social determinism (SD), popularized by social theorists Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim, purports that


id: new-media-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-0.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
New media are communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users, as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for the influx of interactive CD-ROMs for entertainment and education. The new media technologies, sometimes known as Web 2.0, include a wide range of web-related communication tools such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds, and other social media platforms. The phrase "new media" refers to computational media that share material online and through computers. New media inspire new ways of thinking about older media. Media do not replace one another in a clear, linear succession, instead evolving in a more complicated network of interconnected feedback loops . What is different about new media is how they specifically refashion traditional media and how older media refashion themselves to meet the challenges of new media. Unless they contain technologies that enable digital generative or interactive processes, broadcast television programs, non-interactive news websites, feature films, magazines, and books are not considered to be new media. The term "new media" stands in contrast to old media, which dominated the media landscape as a


id: new-media-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-1.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
New media versus cyberculture – Cyberculture is the various social phenomena that are associated with the Internet and network communications (blogs, online multi-player gaming), whereas new media is concerned more with cultural objects and paradigms (digital to analog television, smartphones). New media as computer technology used as a distribution platform – New media are the cultural objects which use digital computer technology for distribution and exhibition. e.g. (at least for now) Internet, Web sites, computer multimedia, Blu-ray disks etc. The problem with this is that the definition must be revised every few years. The term "new media" will not be "new" anymore, as most forms of culture will be distributed through computers. New media as digital data controlled by software – The language of new media is based on the assumption that, in fact, all cultural objects that rely on digital representation and computer-based delivery do share a number of common qualities. New media is reduced to digital data that can be manipulated by software as any other data. Now media operations can create several versions of the same object. An example is an image stored as matrix data which can be manipulated and altered according to the additional algorithms


id: new-media-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-2.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
== Interactivity == Interactivity has become a term for a number of new media use options evolving from the rapid dissemination of Internet access points, the digitalization of media, and media convergence. In 1984, Ronald E. Rice defined new media as communication technologies that enable or facilitate user-to-user interactivity and interactivity between user and information. Such a definition replaces the "one-to-many" model of traditional mass communication with the possibility of a "many-to-many" web of communication. Any individual with the appropriate technology can now produce his or her online media and include images, text, and sound about whatever he or she chooses. Thus the convergence of new methods of communication with new technologies shifts the model of mass communication, and radically reshapes the ways we interact and communicate with one another. In "What is new media?", Vin Crosbie described three different kinds of communication media. He saw interpersonal media as "one to one", mass media as "one to many", and finally new media as individuation media or "many to many". Interactivity is present in some programming work, such as video games. It's also viable in the operation of traditional media. In the mid-1990s, filmmakers started using inexpensive digital cameras to create


id: new-media-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-3.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
== Globalization == The rise of new media and the Internet has increased communication among people all over the world. It has enabled individuals to express themselves through blogs, websites, videos, pictures, and other forms of user-generated media. Terry Flew stated that as new technologies develop, the world becomes more globalized. Globalization is more than the development of activities throughout the world, globalization allows the world to be connected no matter the distance from user to user and Frances Cairncross expresses this great development as the "death of distance". New media has established the importance of making friendships through digital social places more prominent than in physical places. Globalization is generally stated as "more than expansion of activities beyond the boundaries of particular nation states". New media "radically break the connection between physical place and social place, making physical location much less significant for our social relationships". However, the changes in the new media environment create a series of tensions in the concept of "public sphere". According to Ingrid Volkmer, "public sphere" is defined as a process through which public communication becomes restructured and partly disembedded from national political and cultural institutions. This trend of the globalized public sphere is


id: new-media-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-4.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
=== Social change === Social movement media has a rich and storied history (see Agitprop) that has changed at a rapid rate since new media became widely used. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation of Chiapas, Mexico were the first major movement to make widely recognized and effective use of new media for communiques and organizing in 1994. Since then, new media has been used extensively by social movements to educate, organize, share cultural products of movements, communicate, coalition build, and more. The WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity was another landmark in the use of new media as a tool for social change. The WTO protests used media to organize the original action, communicate with and educate participants, and was used as an alternative media source. The Indymedia movement also developed out of this action, and has been a great tool in the democratization of information, which is another widely discussed aspect of new media movement. Some scholars even view this democratization as an indication of the creation of a "radical, socio-technical paradigm to challenge the dominant, neoliberal and technologically determinist model of information and communication technologies." A less radical view along these same lines is that people


id: new-media-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-5.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
=== Electronic literature === New media provides new ways to read and produce literature. The electronic literature is intertwined with new media and is often called "New Media literature" as noted in the New Media Writing Prize as well as critical works of this genre. Astrid Ensslin and Samya Brata Roy point out in their 2023 article, electronic literature "comprises literary media objects, practices and environments that often yet not exclusively require the reader’s active participation," which are based in new media practices and affordances. Electronic literature is often Janez Strehovec compares and new media art. === Games === Terry Flew argues that "the global interactive games industry is large and growing, and is at the forefront of many of the most significant innovations in new media". Interactivity is prominent in these online video games such as World of Warcraft, The Sims Online and Second Life. These games, which are developments of "new media," allow for users to establish relationships and experience a sense of belonging that transcends traditional temporal and spatial boundaries (such as when gamers logging in from different parts of the world interact). These games can be used as an escape or to act out a desired


id: new-media-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-6.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
=== Youth === Based on nationally representative data, a study conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation in five-year intervals in 1998–99, 2003–04, and 2008–09 found that with technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among Black and Hispanic youth. Today, 8 to 18-year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media in a typical day (more than 53 hours a week) – about the same amount most adults spend at work per day. Since much of that time is spent 'media multitasking' (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to spend a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content in those 7½ hours per day. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 96% of 18 to 29-year-olds and three-quarters (75%) of teens now own a cell phone, 88% of whom text, with 73% of wired American teens using social networking websites, a significant increase from previous years. A survey of over 25000 9- to 16-year-olds from 25 European countries found that many underage children use social media sites despite the site's stated


id: new-media-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-7.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
In trying to determine the impact of new media on political campaigning and electioneering, the existing research has tried to examine whether new media supplants conventional media. Television is still the dominant news source, but new media's reach is growing. What is known is that new media has had a significant impact on elections and what began in the 2008 presidential campaign established new standards for how campaigns would be run. Since then, campaigns also have their outreach methods by developing targeted messages for specific audiences that can be reached via different social media platforms. Both parties have specific digital media strategies designed for voter outreach. Additionally, their websites are socially connected, engaging voters before, during, and after elections. Email and text messages are also regularly sent to supporters encouraging them to donate and get involved. Some existing research focuses on the ways that political campaigns, parties, and candidates have incorporated new media into their political strategizing. This is often a multi-faceted approach that combines new and old media forms to create highly specialized strategies. This allows them to reach wider audiences, but also to target very specific subsets of the electorate. They are able to tap into polling data


id: new-media-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media-8.md
category: reference
title: New media
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:44.549298+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-media-20260505-0
summary:
==== Observational research ==== One of the major issues for observational research is whether a particular project is considered to involve human subjects. A human subject is one that “is defined by federal regulations as a living individual about whom an investigator obtains data through interaction with the individual or identifiable private information”. If access to a social media site is public, information is considered identifiable but not private, and information gathering procedures do not require researchers to interact with the original poster of the information, then this does not meet the requirements for human subjects research. Research may also be exempt if the disclosure of participant responses outside the realm of the published research does not subject the participant to civic or criminal liability, damage the participant's reputation, employability or financial standing. Given these criteria, however, researchers still have considerable leeway when conducting observational research on social media. Many profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Twitter are public and researchers are free to use that data for observational research. Users have the ability to change their privacy settings on most social media websites. Facebook, for example, provides users with the ability to restrict who sees their posts through specific


id: models-as-mediators-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_as_Mediators-0.md
category: reference
title: Models as Mediators
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_as_Mediators
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:45.867999+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: models-as-mediators-20260505-0
summary:
Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science is a multi-author book edited by Mary S. Morgan and Margaret Morrison and published in 1999 by Cambridge University Press. == Synopsis == The volume looks at the working of models in the social and natural sciences, with a focus in economics and physics. The book illustrate the concept of models as mediating between theory and the world and yet independent from both. It offers a historical and philosophical discussion of what models are and of what models do, with detailed examples written by the same editors and scholars such as Ursula Klein, Marcel Boumans, R.I.G. Hughes, Mauricio Suárez, Geert Reuten, Nancy Cartwright, Adrienne van den Boogard and Stephan Hartmann. == Content == Models and theories are related, so that an evolution in the perception of what a scientific theory is also chances the perception of what models are. The concept of scientific theory has moved from the 'received view' - whereby a theory can be seen as an axiomatic system to be dealt with in the context of the discipline of logic, to a new conception of theory as framed in therms of semantics, whereby models acquire a new prominence


id: models-as-mediators-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_as_Mediators-1.md
category: reference
title: Models as Mediators
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_as_Mediators
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:45.867999+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: models-as-mediators-20260505-0
summary:
== Reception == One review notes that while the title appears to promise a unified theory of models the chapters point instead to a universe of possible ways to characterize the nature and use of models. Acting as mediators, models are partly independent from both theory and world, and this independence, that ensures the versatility of 'models as autonomous agents', is also the reason why they resist an attempt to a unified 'theory of models'. But the individual chapters make clear why Models as Mediators cannot possibly offer such a theory: the models dealt with in the book are so diverse and disparate that they cannot really be covered by a general description. The 'functionalist' — rather than philosophical approach of the work, i.e. more about what a model does than what a model is, leaves several questions unanswered (or answered in different ways in different chapters). Furthermore, the examples are quite technical and detailed, not easy to read for the non initiated. Important epistemological questions left open concerns for example why individual models are constructed with the particular degrees of independence from theory and experiment. Being focused on models in physics, chemistry and economics, the book leaves out biological


id: the-new-politics-of-numbers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Politics_of_Numbers-0.md
category: reference
title: The New Politics of Numbers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Politics_of_Numbers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:47.127766+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-new-politics-of-numbers-20260505-0
summary:
The New Politics of Numbers: Utopia, evidence and democracy is a multi-author book edited by sociologists Andrea Mennicken and Robert Salais and published in 2022 by Palgrave Macmillan. == Synopsis == This work builds on the 1989 volume The Politics of Numbers of William Alonso and Paul Starr, as well as Alain Desrosières’ The Politics of Large Numbers, the contributions of Laurent Thévenot, and other scholars in France and the UK. The volume sets out to investigate the power of statistics, how they travel across countries and domains, how they may be implicated in policy reform, and how they establish accountability and regulation. The book devotes particular attention to the linkages between statistics and democracy. The book was inspired by a working group on social quantification at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2014. It is inspired by two strands of research: one related to Foucauldian ideas of power and control, which were studied by historians and sociologists at the London School of Economics; and the other being the "economics of conventions" or "theory of conventions", studied by various French scholars, including Luc Boltanski, Laurent Thévenot, and originally by Alain Desrosières. == Content == Peter Miller's chapter investigates the role of


id: the-no-nonsense-guide-to-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Nonsense_Guide_To_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: The No Nonsense Guide To Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Nonsense_Guide_To_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:48.383320+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-no-nonsense-guide-to-science-20260505-0
summary:
The No Nonsense Guide to Science is a 2006 book on Post-normal science (PNS). It was written by American born British historian and philosopher of science Jerome Ravetz. == Main == What should a young person do who aspires to make the world a better place and to make their way in science? This is how this work's ambition was summarized. Written in 2006 by one of the founding fathers of Post-normal Science - the other being Silvio Funtowicz - its 142 pages cover several themes, in part synthesizing previous works such as Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems, The Merger of Knowledge with Power, and Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy (with Funtowicz), and introduces the ideas of Post-normal Science. Topics include: The problem of science being at once 'little' and big or 'mega', embedded in institutions and corporations The fallibility of science, against a possibly 'dogmatic' teaching of the power of science The democratization of science as a necessary and realistic antidote to its hubris The opportunity of forming extended peer communities - inclusive of whistle blowers and investigative journalists as well as academics and interested stakeholders, when science is called to answer conflicted policy questions. The


id: normal-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Normal science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:49.642225+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: normal-science-20260505-0
summary:
Normal science, identified and elaborated on by Thomas Samuel Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is the regular work of scientists theorizing, observing, and experimenting within a settled paradigm or explanatory framework. Regarding science as puzzle-solving, Kuhn explained normal science as slowly accumulating detail in accord with established broad theory, without questioning or challenging the underlying assumptions of that theory. == Route to normal science == Kuhn stressed that historically, the route to normal science could be a difficult one. Prior to the formation of a shared paradigm or research consensus, would-be scientists were reduced to the accumulation of random facts and unverified observations, in the manner recorded by Pliny the Elder or Francis Bacon, while simultaneously beginning the foundations of their field from scratch through a plethora of competing theories. Arguably at least the social sciences remain at such a pre-paradigmatic level today. == Normal science at work == Kuhn considered that the bulk of scientific work was that done by the 'normal' scientist, as they engaged with the threefold task of articulating the paradigm, precisely evaluating key paradigmatic facts, and testing those new points at which the theoretical paradigm is open to empirical appraisal. Paradigms are central


id: normalization-process-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_process_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Normalization process theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_process_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:50.841006+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: normalization-process-theory-20260505-0
summary:
Normalization process theory (NPT) is a sociological theory, generally used in the fields of science and technology studies (STS), implementation research, and healthcare system research. The theory deals with the adoption of technological and organizational innovations into systems, recent studies have utilized this theory in evaluating new practices in social care and education settings. It was developed out of the normalization process model. == Origins == Normalization process theory, dealing with the adoption, implementation, embedding, integration, and sustainment of new technologies and organizational innovations, was developed by Carl R. May, Tracy Finch, and colleagues between 2003 and 2009. It was developed through ESRC funded research on Telehealth and through an ESRC fellowship to May. Its application to randomised controlled trials was led by Professor Elizabeth Murray of University College London, and chararacterised normalization process theory as a trial killer. Through three iterations, the theory has built upon the normalization process model previously developed by May et al. to explain the social processes that lead to the routine embedding of innovative health technologies. == Content == Normalization process theory focuses attention on agentic contributions – the things that individuals and groups do to operationalize new or modified modes of practice as


id: performativity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity-0.md
category: reference
title: Performativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:52.163007+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: performativity-20260505-0
summary:
Performativity is the concept that language can function as a form of social action and have the effect of change. The concept has multiple applications in diverse fields such as anthropology, social and cultural geography, economics, gender studies (social construction of gender), law, linguistics, performance studies, history, management studies and philosophy. The concept is first described by philosopher of language John L. Austin when he referred to a specific capacity: the capacity of speech and communication to act or to consummate an action. Austin differentiated this from constative language, which he defined as descriptive language that can be "evaluated as true or false". Common examples of performative language are making promises, betting, performing a wedding ceremony, an umpire calling a foul, or a judge pronouncing a verdict. The concept of performance has been developed by such scholars as Richard Schechner, Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, Erving Goffman, John Austin, John Searle, Pierre Bourdieu, Stern and Henderson, and Judith Butler. == Defining performance == Performance is a bodily practice that produces meaning. It is the presentation or 're-actualization' of symbolic systems through living bodies as well as lifeless mediating objects, such as architecture. In the academic field, as opposed to the domain


id: performativity-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity-1.md
category: reference
title: Performativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:52.163007+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: performativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== J. L. Austin === The term derives from the founding work in speech act theory by ordinary language philosopher J. L. Austin. In the 1950s, Austin gave the name performative utterances to situations where saying something was doing something, rather than simply reporting on or describing reality. The paradigmatic case here is speaking the words "I do". Austin did not use the word performativity. Breaking with analytic philosophy, Austin argued in How to Do Things With Words that a "performative utterance" cannot be said to be either true or false as a constative utterance might be: it can only be judged either "happy" or "infelicitous" depending upon whether the conditions required for its success have been met. In this sense, performativity is a function of the pragmatics of language. Having shown that all utterances perform actions, even apparently constative ones, Austin famously discarded the distinction between "performative" and "constative" utterances halfway through the lecture series that became the book and replaced it with a three-level framework: locution (the actual words spoken, that which the linguists and linguistic philosophers of the day were mostly interested in analyzing) illocutionary force (what the speaker is attempting to do in uttering the locution)


id: performativity-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity-2.md
category: reference
title: Performativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:52.163007+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: performativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Jacques Derrida === Philosopher Jacques Derrida drew on Austin's theory of performative speech act while deconstructing its logocentric and phonocentric premises and reinscribing it within the operations of generalized writing. In contrast to structuralism's focus on linguistic form, Austin had introduced the force of speech acts, which Derrida aligns with Nietzsche's insights on language. In "Signature, Event, Context," Derrida focused on Austin's privileging of speech and the accompanying presumptions of the presence of a speaker ("signature") and the bounding of a performative's force by an act or a context. In a passage that would become a touchstone of poststructuralist thought, Derrida stresses the citationality or iterability of any and all signs.Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written (in the current sense of this opposition), in a small or large unit, can be cited, put between quotation marks; in doing so it can break with every given context, engendering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely illimitable. This does not imply that the mark is valid outside of a context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center or absolute anchorage [ancrage]. This citationality, this duplication or duplicity, this iterability of


id: performativity-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity-3.md
category: reference
title: Performativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:52.163007+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: performativity-20260505-0
summary:
== Various applications == Performance offers a tremendous interdisciplinary archive of social practices. It offers methods to study such phenomena as body art, ecological theatre, multimedia performance and other kinds of performance arts. Performance also provides a new registry of kinaesthetic effects, enabling a more conscientious observation of the moving body. The changing experience of movement, for example as a result of new technologies, has become an important subject of research. Moreover, the performative turn has helped scholars to develop an awareness of the relations between everyday life and stage performances. For example, at conferences and lectures, on the street and in other places where people speak in public, performers tend to use techniques derived from the world of theatre and dance. Performance allows us to study nature and other apparently 'immovable' and 'objectified' elements of the human environment (e.g. architecture) as active agents, rather than only as passive objects. Thus, in recent decades environmental scholars have acknowledged the existence of a fluid interaction between man and nature. The performative turn has provided additional tools to study everyday life. A household for example may be considered as a performance, in which the relation between wife and husband is a role


id: performativity-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity-4.md
category: reference
title: Performativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:52.163007+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: performativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Video art === Theories of performativity have extended across multiple disciplines and discussions. Notably, interdisciplinary theorist José Esteban Muñoz has related video to theories of performativity. Specifically, Muñoz looks at the 1996 documentary by Susana Aiken and Carlos Aparicio, "The Transformation." Although historically and theoretically related to performance art, video art is not an immediate performance; it is mediated, iterative and citational. In this way, video art raises questions of performativity. Additionally, video art frequently puts bodies and display, complicating borders, surfaces, embodiment, and boundaries and so indexing performativity. == Issues and debates == Despite cogent attempts at definition, the concept of performance continues to be plagued by ambiguities. Most pressing seems to be the paradox between performance as the consequence of following a script (cf. Schechners restored behaviour) and performance as a fluid activity with ample room for improvisation. Another problem involves the discrepancy between performance as a human activity that constructs culture (e.g. Butler and Derrida) on the one hand and performance as a representation of culture on the other (e.g. Bourdieu and Schechner). Another issue, important to pioneers such as Austin but now deemed irrelevant by postmodernism, concerns the sincerity of the actor. Can performance be


id: performativity-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity-5.md
category: reference
title: Performativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:52.163007+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: performativity-20260505-0
summary:
== Bibliography and further reading == Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Austin, J. L. 1970. "Performative Utterances." In Austin, "Philosophical Papers", 233–52. London: Oxford University Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Discourse in the Novel", The dialogic imagination : four essays; edited by Michael Holquist; translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist Austin: University of Texas Press, c1981. Bamberg, M., Narrative. State of the Art (2007). Barad, Karen. 2003. "Posthumanist Performativity: Toward and Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.3: 801–831. Boldyrev, Ivan and Svetlova, Ekaterina. 2016. Enacting Dismal Science: New Perspectives on the Performativity of Economics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bourdieu, P., Outlines of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge 1972). Burke, Peter, 'Performing history: the importance of occasions', in: Rethinking history 9 afl. 1 (2005), pp. 35–52. Brickell, Chris. 2005. "Masculinities, Performativity, and Subversion: A Sociological Reappraisal." Men and Masculinities 8.1: 24–43. Brisset, Nicolas. 2017. "On performativity: Option Theory and the Resistance of Financial Phenomena". Journal of the History of Economic Thought. 39(4) : 549–569. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837217000128 Brisset, Nicolas. 2019. Economics and Performativity. Exploring limits,Theories and Cases. Routledge INEM Advances in Economic Methodology. Butler, Judith. 1993.


id: list-of-philosophers-of-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philosophers_of_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: List of philosophers of technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philosophers_of_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:53.407591+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-philosophers-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
This is a list of philosophers of technology. It includes philosophers from other disciplines who are recognised as having made an important contribution to the field, for example those commonly included in reference anthologies. == A–C == Hans Achterhuis Alison Adam Günther Anders Hannah Arendt Aristotle Joxe Azurmendi Francis Bacon Jean Baudrillard Seth Baum Anthony Beavers Walter Benjamin Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent Albert Borgmann Nick Bostrom Joanna Bryson Mario Bunge Wendy Hui Kyong Chun Mark Coeckelbergh Kate Crawford == D–G == John Dewey Hubert Dreyfus Jacques Ellul Andrew Feenberg Michel Foucault Luciano Floridi Ursula Franklin Alexander R. Galloway Marina Gržinić == H–L == Jürgen Habermas Byung-Chul Han Donna Haraway Martin Heidegger Eric Higgs Yuk Hui Don Ihde Lucas Introna Sheila Jasanoff Karl Jaspers Hans Jonas Ernst Kapp Nicole C. Karafyllis Douglas Kellner Friedrich Kittler == M–R == Catherine Malabou Herbert Marcuse Karl Marx Marshall McLuhan Carl Mitcham Lewis Mumford José Ortega y Gasset Jussi Parikka Joseph C. Pitt Neil Postman Günter Ropohl == S–Z == Egbert Schuurman Emanuele Severino Gilbert Simondon Oswald Spengler Bernard Stiegler Mariarosaria Taddeo Behnam Taebi Tiziana Terranova Eugene Thacker Iain Thomson Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Ibo van de Poel Jeroen van den Hoven Álvaro Vieira Pinto Meredith Whittaker Aimee van


id: philosophy-of-design-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_design-0.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:54.685525+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-design-20260505-0
summary:
Philosophy of design is the study of definitions of design, and the assumptions, foundations, and implications of design. The field, which is mostly a sub-discipline of aesthetics, is defined by an interest in a set of problems, or an interest in central or foundational concerns in design. In addition to these central problems for design as a whole, many philosophers of design consider these problems as they apply to particular disciplines (e.g. philosophy of art). Although most practitioners are philosophers specialized in aesthetics (i.e., aestheticians), several prominent designers and artists have contributed to the field. For an introduction to the philosophy of design see the article by Per Galle at the Royal Danish Academy of Art. == Notable philosophers and theorists == Philosophers of design, or philosophers relevant to the philosophical study of design: == References ==


id: philosophy-of-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:56.003968+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
The philosophy of technology is a reflective inquiry into the assumptions, values, knowledge claims, and consequences embedded in human making and doing, especially when people design, use, and organize tools, systems, and processes. It examines what technology is (beyond mere tools), how technological artifacts are designed and used, and how technology differs from science and craft, addressing ethical, social, and political questions, such as whether technology is value-neutral, how responsibility for technological risks should be assigned, and how technologies shape human behavior, culture, power relations, and conceptions of knowledge and agency. Philosophical discussion of questions relating to technology (or its Greek ancestor techne) dates back to the very dawn of Western philosophy. The phrase "philosophy of technology" was first used in the late 19th century by German-born philosopher and geographer Ernst Kapp, who published a book titled Elements of a Philosophy of Technology (German title: Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik). == History == === Greek philosophy === The western term 'technology' comes from the Greek term techne (τέχνη) (art, or craft knowledge) and philosophical views on technology can be traced to the very roots of Western philosophy. A common theme in the Greek view of techne is that it arises


id: philosophy-of-technology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_technology-1.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:56.003968+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
=== 20th century to present === Five early and prominent 20th-century philosophers to directly address the effects of modern technology on humanity include John Dewey, Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Günther Anders and Hannah Arendt. They all saw technology as central to modern life, although Heidegger, Anders, Arendt and Marcuse were more ambivalent and critical than Dewey. The problem for Heidegger was the hidden nature of technology's essence, Gestell or Enframing which posed for humans what he called its greatest danger and thus its greatest possibility. Heidegger's major work on technology is found in The Question Concerning Technology. His theory of the Gestell is influential in dispositif thinking. Technological determinists such as Jaques Ellul have argued that modern technology constitutes a unified monolithic and deterministic force, and that the notion of technology being simply a tool is a serious error. Ellul views the modern technological world-system as being motivated by the needs of its own efficiency and power, not the welfare of the human race or the integrity of the biosphere. While a number of important individual works were published in the second half of the twentieth century, Paul Durbin has identified two books published at the turn of the century


id: plantationocene-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantationocene-0.md
category: reference
title: Plantationocene
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantationocene
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:57.333864+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: plantationocene-20260505-0
summary:
The Plantationocene is a proposed theoretical framework describing the ways in which the plantation system established in the Americas during early settler-colonialism continues to shape the world and the environment today. It was coined in conversation with several interdisciplinary scholars as a response to critiques of the existing proposed epochal names, specifically the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene. In contrast to the Anthropocene, it was not proposed as a scientific geological epoch but rather as a name for a transitional phase between epochs. The Plantationocene aims to explain human impact on the environment and global climate change as a result of social, political, and economic systems based on the plantation. Scholars point to monocrop agriculture, violent control and exploitation of labour, colonial land dispossession and transformation, transplanting of various species, racism, and prioritization of profit over human and non-human well-being as examples of logic inherent to the plantation which still shapes the modern world. The Plantationocene has been adopted by some scholars, but remains somewhat controversial. Various academics have rejected it for differing reasons: some claim that any alternative to the Anthropocene is unnecessary, while others claim that the Plantationocene inadequately considers Black and Indigenous realities and scholarship on the lasting


id: plantationocene-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantationocene-1.md
category: reference
title: Plantationocene
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantationocene
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:57.333864+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: plantationocene-20260505-0
summary:
The Plantationocene refers to the globalization of a plantation economy, continuing into the modern day, which is characterized by unequal and unsustainable metabolic exchange and which includes factories and similar sites of non-agricultural production in addition to traditional plantations; It centers the history of colonialism and slavery as what led to modern globalization and to the socio-ecological injustices which are called out by the Anthropocene and Capitalocene; It analyzes geographical relations of power and consumption, emphasizing spatial relationships which recreate the plantation system such as how sites of production characterized by poor working conditions and/or ecological degradation are rarely the same place where products are consumed and wealth is accumulated; It indicates the existence of a "plantation politics", meaning global political systems which are characterized by uniformity and assimilation, by racial, gender, and other social hierarchies, and by exploitation of labour; It emphasizes disturbances to landscapes and reduction of biodiversity caused by plantations, highlighting non-human elements in analysis and critique of modern social-political-ecological organizations. The non-human element addressed in aspect five is a particularly core feature in early discussions around the Plantationocene. Haraway et al. discuss how the enforcement of uniformity onto indigenous landscapes and the transportation of plants and


id: plantationocene-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantationocene-2.md
category: reference
title: Plantationocene
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantationocene
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:57.333864+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: plantationocene-20260505-0
summary:
== Critiques == The Plantationocene and other proposed alternatives to the Anthropocene have been criticized for being unnecessary or "silly". Some scholars claim that despite its imperfections, the Anthropocene has value in that it draws attention to the detrimental impacts of certain human actions on the global environment and incites action in a way that other terms do not. Others represent models of modern life using the -cene suffix as inherently Eurocentric and thereby problematic. The initial proposal of the Plantationocene by Haraway et al. has also drawn criticism for inadequately considering racial dynamics and Black scholarship on the plantation. Davis et al. discuss how their emphasis on multi-species considerations, at the expense of taking human considerations into account, ignores the way that slavery, racial struggle, and anti-Blackness specifically impacted plantation systems and the way they persist in the modern day. Critics point to significant existing publications regarding the long-lasting impacts of plantations on Black communities, which Haraway and her colleagues do not cite. Another example of this critique comes from Mythri Jegathesan, who takes a Black feminist perspective and posits that the quote by Noboru Ishikawa in the conversation when the Plantationocene was initially coined, "plantations are just the


id: platform-capitalism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_capitalism-0.md
category: reference
title: Platform capitalism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_capitalism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:58.664105+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: platform-capitalism-20260505-0
summary:
Platform capitalism refers to the activities of companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb, Amazon and others to operate as platforms. In this business model both hardware and software are used as a foundation (platform) for other actors to conduct their own business. Platform capitalism has been both heralded as beneficial and denounced as detrimental by various authors. The trends identified in platform capitalism have similarities with those described under the heading of surveillance capitalism. Technology companies build platforms that entire industries rely on, and those industries can easily collapse due to the decisions of those technology companies. The possible effect of platform capitalism on open science has been discussed. Platform capitalism has been contrasted with platform cooperativism. Companies that try to focus on fairness and sharing, instead of just profit motive, are described as cooperatives, whereas more traditional and common companies that focus solely on profit, like Airbnb and Uber, are platform capitalists (or cooperativist platforms vs capitalist platforms). In turn, projects like Wikipedia, which rely on unpaid labor of volunteers, can be classified as commons-based peer-production initiatives. == See also == Enshittification Platform economy == References ==


id: political-economy-of-research-and-innovation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Economy_of_Research_and_Innovation-0.md
category: reference
title: Political Economy of Research and Innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Economy_of_Research_and_Innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:11:59.936327+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: political-economy-of-research-and-innovation-20260505-0
summary:
The Political Economy of Research and Innovation (PERI) (or sometimes political economy of technoscience) is an emerging academic field at the interface of science and technology studies and political economy. It focuses on the production, distribution, and consumption of knowledge, and how these shape and are shaped by different political economies. Most scholars in this field have so-far focused on the two-way relationship between science, technology, and innovation and political economic processes, practices, and logics. It has its origins in the critique of neoclassical or orthodox economics of science by scholars like Philip Mirowski, the 'economic turn' in science and technology studies (see social studies of finance and valuation studies), and innovation studies or science policy. Examples of the field include: An annual Changing Political Economy of Research and Innovation (CPERI) workshop which has been held in Lancaster (UK 2012), Toronto (Canada 2013), San Diego (USA 2015), Liege (Belgium 2016), Boston (USA 2017), and Lancaster (UK 2018). Programmatic handbooks like The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science (2017, edited by David Tyfield, Rebecca Lave, Samuel Randalls, and Charles Thorpe) and Critical Studies of Innovation (2017, edited by Benoît Godin and Dominique Vinck) published by Edward Elgar. Special issues


id: the-politics-of-large-numbers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Large_Numbers-0.md
category: reference
title: The Politics of Large Numbers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Large_Numbers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:01.131041+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-politics-of-large-numbers-20260505-0
summary:
The Politics of Large Numbers:A History of Statistical Reasoning is a book by French statistician, sociologist and historian of science, Alain Desrosières, which was originally published in French in 1993. The English translation, by Camille Naish, was published in 1998 by Harvard University Press. == Synopsis == Alain Desrosières's ambition is to reconcile an “Internal” history of the field, focusing on theory building and data collection, with an “External” history, examining the social conditions where and why a discipline develops. In his words, applying a science-in-the-making perspective “the distinction between technical and social objects—underlying the separation between internal and external history— disappears” (p. 5). The work of Desrosières mobilize the French style of social analysis of cognitive forms, looking at statistics as the ensemble of concepts, methods, and practices concerned with "making up things that hold". A central part of the book explores how socio-political structures of France, Britain, Germany, and the United States affect the establishment and evolution of the nationals statistical offices in these countries. The author discusses in depth how the activity of categorization, allocating individuals to classes, provide the encoding necessary for the realization of statistical constructs, following Durkheim's motto to 'treat social facts as things',


id: positive-computing-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_computing-0.md
category: reference
title: Positive computing
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_computing
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:03.422665+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: positive-computing-20260505-0
summary:
Positive computing is a technological design perspective that embraces psychological well-being and ethical practice, aiming at building a digital environment to support happier and healthier users. Positive computing develops approaches that incorporates psychology, education, neuroscience, and HCI with technological development, bridging technology with mental health. == Background == The design of a tool impacts the people who use it. Small design implications of technologies can have their effects amplified when used by many people. Technology researchers typically focus primarily on technical aspects, paying less attention to the ethical impact and ethical considerations of their products. However, researchers from other fields such as psychology and philosophy studied these matters extensively and provided a wealth of methodologies to assess users' well-being, with thousands of quality-of-life assessment methods and validating studies. Positive computing draws many ideas from positive psychology, a domain of psychology that focuses on societal well-being and improving quality of life. === Well-being in technology and technology research === The recognition of the impact of technology and inventions on people's lives has moved technology professionals to rethink the technology tools we use and seek a realignment of companies' goals to the social good. Exemplary of this disposition is the famous Google's


id: post-normal-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Post-normal science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:04.688073+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: post-normal-science-20260505-0
summary:
Post-normal science (PNS) was developed in the 1990s by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz. It is a problem-solving strategy appropriate when "facts [are] uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent", conditions often present in policy-relevant research. In those situations, PNS recommends suspending temporarily the traditional scientific ideal of truth, concentrating on quality as assessed by internal and extended peer communities. PNS can be considered as complementing the styles of analysis based on risk and cost-benefit analysis prevailing at that time and integrating concepts of a new critical science developed in previous works by the same authors. PNS is not a new scientific method following Aristotle and Bacon, a new paradigm in the Kuhnian sense, or an attempt to reach a new 'normal'. It is instead, a set of insights to guide actionable and robust knowledge production for policy decision making and action in challenges like pandemics, ecosystems collapse, biodiversity loss and, in general, sustainability transitions. == Context == According to its proponents Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz, the name "post-normal science" echoes the seminal work on modern science by Thomas Kuhn. For Carrozza PNS can be "framed in terms of a call for the 'democratization of


id: post-normal-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Post-normal science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:04.688073+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: post-normal-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Applications == Beside its dominating influence in the literature on 'futures', PNS is considered to have influenced the ecological 'conservation versus preservation debate', especially via its reading by American pragmatist Bryan G. Norton. According to Jozef Keulartz the PNS concept of "extended peer community" influenced how Norton's developed his 'convergence hypothesis'. The hypothesis posits that ecologists of different orientation will converge once they start thinking 'as a mountain', or as a planet. For Norton this will be achieved via deliberative democracy, which will pragmatically overcome the black and white divide between conservationists and preservationists. More recently it has been argued that conservation science, embedded as it is in a multi-layered governance structures of policy-makers, practitioners, and stakeholders, is itself an 'extended peer community', and as a result conservation has always been 'post-normal'. Other authors attribute to PNS the role of having stimulated the take up of transdisciplinary methodological frameworks, reliant on the social constructivist perspective embedded in PNS. Post-normal science is intended as applicable to most instances where the use of evidence is contested due to different norms and values. Typical instances are in the use of evidence based policy and in evaluation. As summarized in a recent work


id: postnormal-times-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postnormal_times-0.md
category: reference
title: Postnormal times
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postnormal_times
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:05.980479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: postnormal-times-20260505-0
summary:
Postnormal times (PNT) is a concept developed by Ziauddin Sardar as a development of post-normal science. Sardar describes the present as "postnormal times", "in an in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense." == Context == In support of engaging communities of various scope and scale on how to best navigate PNT and imagine preferred pathways toward the future(s), Sardar and Sweeney published an article in the journal Futures outlining The Three Tomorrows method, which fills a gap in the field as "many methods of futures and foresight seldom incorporate pluralism and diversity intrinsically in their frameworks, and few, if any, emphasize the dynamic and merging nature of futures possibilities, or highlight the ignorance and uncertainties we constantly confront". == Theory and criticism == Rakesh Kapoor criticized PNT in 2011 as a Western concept that does not apply to India and other emerging markets. Sam Cole criticised the three Cs of PNT (chaos, complexity and contradictions) as "Alliterative Logic, theorizing through alliterative word-triads that is not based on empirical evidence". Jay Gary has suggested that PNT is embryonic, needs a more robust framework, and should be


id: private-collective-model-of-innovation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private-collective_model_of_innovation-0.md
category: reference
title: Private-collective model of innovation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private-collective_model_of_innovation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:07.242484+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: private-collective-model-of-innovation-20260505-0
summary:
The term private-collective model of innovation was coined by Eric von Hippel and Georg von Krogh in their 2003 publication in Organization Science. This innovation model represents a combination of the private investment model and the collective-action innovation model. In the private investment model innovators appropriate financial returns from innovations through intellectual property rights such as patents, copyright, licenses, or trade secrets. Any knowledge spillover reduces the innovator's benefits, thus freely revealed knowledge is not in the interest of the innovator. The collective-action innovation model explains the creation of public goods which are defined by the non-rivalry of benefits and non-excludable access to the good. In this case the innovators do not benefit more than any one else not investing into the public good, thus free-riding occurs. In response to this problem, the cost of innovation has to be distributed, therefore governments typically invest into public goods through public funding. As combination of these two models, the private-collective model of innovation explains the creation of public goods through private funding. The model is based on the assumption that the innovators privately creating the public goods benefit more than the free-riders only consuming the public good. While the result of the


id: rachel-carson-prize-academic-book-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson_Prize_(academic_book_prize)-0.md
category: reference
title: Rachel Carson Prize (academic book prize)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson_Prize_(academic_book_prize)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:08.586204+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rachel-carson-prize-academic-book-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Rachel Carson Prize is awarded annually by the Society for Social Studies of Science, an international academic association based in the United States. It is given for a book "of social or political relevance" in the field of science and technology studies. This prize was created in 1996. == Honorees == |2025 |Emily Yates-Doerr |Mal-Nutrition: Maternal Health Science and the Reproduction of Harm |} == References ==


id: resisting-ai-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resisting_AI-0.md
category: reference
title: Resisting AI
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resisting_AI
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:09.763744+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: resisting-ai-20260505-0
summary:
Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence is a book on artificial intelligence (AI) by Dan McQuillan, published in 2022 by Bristol University Press. == Content == Resisting AI takes the form of an extended essay, which contrasts optimistic visions about AI's potential by arguing that AI may best be seen as a continuation and reinforcement of bureaucratic forms of discrimination and violence, ultimately fostering authoritarian outcomes. For McQuillan, AI's promise of objective calculability is antithetical to an egalitarian and just society. McQuillan uses the expression "AI violence" to describe how – based on opaque algorithms – various actors can discriminate against categories of people in accessing jobs, loans, medical care, and other benefits. The book suggests that AI has a political resonance with soft eugenic approaches to the valuation of life by modern welfare states, and that AI exhibits eugenic features in its underlying logic, as well as in its technical operations. The parallel is with historical eugenicists achieving saving to the state by sterilizing defectives so the state would not have to care for their offspring. The analysis of McQuillan goes beyond the known critique of AI systems fostering precarious labour markets, addressing "necropolitics", the politics of


id: reverse-salient-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_salient-0.md
category: reference
title: Reverse salient
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_salient
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:11.006697+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: reverse-salient-20260505-0
summary:
A reverse salient refers to a component of a technological system that, due to its insufficient development, prevents the system in its entirety from achieving its development goals. The term was coined by Thomas P. Hughes, in his work Networks of power: Electrification in western society, 1880-1930. == Technological systems and their evolution == Technological systems may refer to a hierarchically nested structure of technological parts, whereby the system is seen as a composition of interdependent sub-systems that are themselves systems comprising further sub-systems. In this manner the holistic system and its properties are seen to be synthesized through the sub-systems that constitute them. Technological systems may also be seen as socio-technical systems that contain both technical and social sub-systems, such as the creators and users of technology, as well as overseeing regulatory bodies. In both perspectives, technological systems are imputed to be goal-seeking, therefore evolving towards objectives. Hughes proposed that technological systems pass through certain phases during their evolution. The first is invention and development, owed greatly to the efforts of inventors and entrepreneurs, such as Thomas Edison in the development of the electric technological system. The second is the era of technological transfer from one region or society


id: reverse-salient-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_salient-1.md
category: reference
title: Reverse salient
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_salient
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:11.006697+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: reverse-salient-20260505-0
summary:
== Reverse salient examples == While numerous studies illustrate technological systems that have been hampered by reverse salients, the most seminal work in this field of study is that of Hughes, who gives a historical account of the development of Edison's direct-current electric system. In order to supply electricity within a defined region of distribution, sub-systems such as the direct current generator were identified as reverse salients and corrected. The most notable limitation of the direct-current system was, however, its low voltage transmission distance, and the resulting cost of distributing electricity beyond a certain range. To reduce costs, Edison introduced a three-wire system to replace the previously installed two-wire alternative and trialed different configuration of generators, as well as the usage of storage batteries. These improvements however did not correct the reverse salient completely. The satisfactory resolution of the problem was eventually provided by the radical innovation of the alternating current system. Since Hughes' seminal work, other authors have also provided examples of reverse salients in different technological systems. In the ballistic missile technological development, where the systemic objective has been to increase missile accuracy, MacKenzie has identified the gyroscope sub-system as a technical reverse salient. Takeishi and Lee have


id: river-city-science-academy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_City_Science_Academy-0.md
category: reference
title: River City Science Academy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_City_Science_Academy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:12.263762+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: river-city-science-academy-20260505-0
summary:
River City Science Academy (RCSA) is Charter School in Jacksonville, Florida, part of the Duval County School District. The school currently has six locations in Jacksonville being Southeast, Intracoastal, Innovation, Mandarin, Elementary and, Middle High and is known for its focus on STEM curriculum. == School grades == RCSA Middle-High currently has an "A" as of 2019 on the Florida School Accountability Grading Scale. RCSA Elementary currently has an "A" as of 2019 on the Florida School Accountability Grading Scale. RCSA Mandarin currently has an "A" as of 2025 on the Florida School Accountability Grading Scale. RCSA Innovation currently has a "A" as of 2025 on the Florida School Accountability Grading Scale. RCSA Southeast currently has an "A" as of 2025 on the Florida School Accountability Grading Scale. == Academic programs == RCSA offers degree programs to its students including the gifted program, dual enrollment classes through Florida State College at Jacksonville and University of North Florida, the AP Capstone program, and multiple CTE electives, and debate. The debate team that they have is one that was created three years ago. They had multiple placements in the FCDI state debate championship, for both their middle and high school teams. ==


id: science-wars-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars-0.md
category: reference
title: Science wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:13.476539+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-wars-20260505-0
summary:
In the philosophy of science, the science wars were a series of scholarly and public discussions in the 1990s over the social place of science in making authoritative claims about the world. Encyclopedia.com, citing the Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, describes the science wars as the "complex of discussions about the way the sciences are related to or incarnated in culture, history, and practice. [...] [which] came to be called a 'war' in the mid 1990s because of a strong polarization over questions of legitimacy and authority. One side [...] is concerned with defending the authority of science as rooted in objective evidence and rational procedures. The other side argues that it is legitimate and fruitful to study the sciences as institutions and social-technical networks whose development is influenced by linguistics, economics, politics, and other factors surrounding formally rational procedures and isolated established facts." The science wars took place principally in the United States in the 1990s in the academic and mainstream press. Scientific realists (such as Norman Levitt, Paul R. Gross, Jean Bricmont and Alan Sokal) accused many writers, whom they described as 'postmodernist', of having effectively rejected scientific objectivity, the scientific method, empiricism, and scientific knowledge. Though much


id: science-wars-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars-1.md
category: reference
title: Science wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:13.476539+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-wars-20260505-0
summary:
A number of different philosophical and historical schools, often grouped together as "postmodernism", began reinterpreting scientific achievements of the past through the lens of the practitioners, often positing the influence of politics and economics in the development of scientific theories in addition to scientific observations. Rather than being presented as working entirely from positivistic observations, many scientists of the past were scrutinized for their connection to issues of gender, sexual orientation, race, and class. Some more radical philosophers, such as Paul Feyerabend, argued that scientific theories were themselves incoherent and that other forms of knowledge production (such as those used in religion) served the material and spiritual needs of their practitioners with equal validity as did scientific explanations. Imre Lakatos advanced a midway view between the "postmodernist" and "realist" camps. For Lakatos, scientific knowledge is progressive; however, it progresses not by a strict linear path where every new element builds upon and incorporates every other, but by an approach where a "core" of a "research program" is established by auxiliary theories which can themselves be falsified or replaced without compromising the core. Social conditions and attitudes affect how strongly one attempts to resist falsification for the core of a program,


id: science-wars-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars-2.md
category: reference
title: Science wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:13.476539+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-wars-20260505-0
summary:
=== Continued conflict === In the first few years after the 'Science Wars' edition of Social Text, the seriousness and volume of discussion increased significantly, much of it focused on reconciling the 'warring' camps of postmodernists and scientists. One significant event was the 'Science and Its Critics' conference in early 1997; it brought together scientists and scholars who study science and featured Alan Sokal and Steve Fuller as keynote speakers. The conference generated the final wave of substantial press coverage (in both news media and scientific journals), though by no means resolved the fundamental issues of social construction and objectivity in science. Other attempts have been made to reconcile the two camps. Mike Nauenberg, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, organized a small conference in May 1997 that was attended by scientists and sociologists of science alike, among them Alan Sokal, N. David Mermin and Harry Collins. In the same year, Collins organized the Southampton Peace Workshop, which again brought together a broad range of scientists and sociologists. The Peace Workshop gave rise to the idea of a book that intended to map out some of the arguments between the disputing parties. The One Culture?: A Conversation


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-0.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It represents a broad and interconnected set of fields that are crucial for innovation and technological advancement. These disciplines are often grouped together because they share a common emphasis on critical thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns (as a shortage of STEM-educated citizens can reduce effectiveness in this area), and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers. There is no universal agreement on which disciplines are included in STEM; in particular, whether or not the science in STEM includes social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, economics, and political science. In the United States, these are typically included by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Labor's O*Net online database for job seekers, and the Department of Homeland Security. In the United Kingdom, the social sciences are categorized separately and are instead grouped with humanities and arts to form another counterpart acronym HASS (humanities, arts, and social sciences),


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-1.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
To promote STEM in China, the Chinese government issued a guideline in 2016 on national innovation-driven development strategy, "instructing that by 2020, China should become an innovative country; by 2030, it should be at the forefront of innovative countries; and by 2050, it should become a technology innovation power." "[I]n May 2018, the launching ceremony and press conference for the 2029 Action Plan for China's STEM Education was held in Beijing, China. This plan aims to allow as many students to benefit from STEM education as possible and equip all students with scientific thinking and the ability to innovate." "In response to encouraging policies by the government, schools in both public and private sectors around the country have begun to carry out STEM education programs." "However, to effectively implement STEM curricula, full-time teachers specializing in STEM education and relevant content to be taught are needed." Currently, "China lacks qualified STEM teachers and a training system is yet to be established." Several Chinese cities have made programming a mandatory subject for elementary and middle school students. This is the case of the city of Chongqing. However, most students from small and medium-sized cities have not been exposed to the concept of


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-2.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
=== Philippines === In the Philippines, STEM is a two-year program and strand that is used for Senior High School (Grades 11 and 12), assigned by the Department of Education or DepEd. The STEM strand is under the Academic Track, which also includes other strands like ABM, HUMSS, and GAS. The purpose of the STEM strand is to educate students in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, in an interdisciplinary and applied approach, and to give students advanced knowledge and application in the field. After completing the program, the students will earn a Diploma in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In some colleges and universities, they require students applying for STEM degrees (like medicine, engineering, computer studies, etc.) to be a graduate of STEM, if not, they will need to enter a bridging program. === Qatar === In Qatar, AL-Bairaq is an outreach program to high-school students with a curriculum that focuses on STEM, run by the Center for Advanced Materials (CAM) at Qatar University. Each year around 946 students, from about 40 high schools, participate in AL-Bairaq competitions. AL-Bairaq makes use of project-based learning, encourages students to solve authentic problems, and inquires them to work with each


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-3.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
==== Immigration policy ==== Although many organizations in the United States follow the guidelines of the National Science Foundation on what constitutes a STEM field, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has its own functional definition used for immigration policy. In 2012, DHS or ICE announced an expanded list of STEM-designated degree programs that qualify eligible graduates on student visas for an optional practical training (OPT) extension. Under the OPT program, international students who graduate from colleges and universities in the United States can stay in the country and receive up to twelve months of training through work experience. Students who graduate from a designated STEM degree program can stay for an additional seventeen months on an OPT STEM extension. As of 2023, the U.S. faces a shortage of high-skilled workers in STEM, and foreign talents must navigate difficult hurdles to immigrate. Meanwhile, some other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, have introduced programs to attract talent at the expense of the United States. In the case of China, the United States risks losing its edge over a strategic rival. ==== Education ==== By cultivating an interest in the natural and social sciences in preschool


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-4.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
==== American Competitiveness Initiative ==== In the State of the Union Address on January 31, 2006, President George W. Bush announced the American Competitiveness Initiative. Bush proposed the initiative to address shortfalls in federal government support of educational development and progress at all academic levels in the STEM fields. In detail, the initiative called for significant increases in federal funding for advanced R&D programs (including a doubling of federal funding support for advanced research in the physical sciences through DOE) and an increase in U.S. higher education graduates within STEM disciplines. The NASA Means Business competition, sponsored by the Texas Space Grant Consortium, furthers that goal. College students compete to develop promotional plans to encourage students in middle and high school to study STEM subjects and to inspire professors in STEM fields to involve their students in outreach activities that support STEM education. The National Science Foundation has numerous programs in STEM education, including some for K–12 students such as the ITEST Program that supports The Global Challenge Award ITEST Program. STEM programs have been implemented in some Arizona schools. They implement higher cognitive skills for students and enable them to inquire and use techniques used by professionals in the


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-5.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
==== Jobs ==== In November 2012 the White House announcement before the congressional vote on the STEM Jobs Act put President Obama in opposition to many of the Silicon Valley firms and executives who bankrolled his re-election campaign. The Department of Labor identified 14 sectors that are "projected to add substantial numbers of new jobs to the economy or affect the growth of other industries or are being transformed by technology and innovation requiring new sets of skills for workers." The identified sectors were as follows: advanced manufacturing, Automotive, construction, financial services, geospatial technology, homeland security, information technology, Transportation, Aerospace, Biotechnology, energy, healthcare, hospitality, and retail. The Department of Commerce notes STEM fields careers are some of the best-paying and have the greatest potential for job growth in the early 21st century. The report also notes that STEM workers play a key role in the sustained growth and stability of the U.S. economy, and training in STEM fields generally results in higher wages, whether or not they work in a STEM field. In 2015, there were around 9.0 million STEM jobs in the United States, representing 6.1% of American employment. STEM jobs were increasing by around 9% percent per year.


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-6.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
The gender ratio depends on the field of study. For example, in the European Union in 2012 women made up 47.3% of the total, 51% of the social sciences, business, and law, 42% of the science, mathematics, and computing, 28% of engineering, manufacturing, and construction, and 59% of PhD graduates in Health and Welfare. In a study from 2019, it was shown that part of the success of women in STEM depends on the way women in STEM are viewed. In a study that researched grants given based primarily on a project versus primarily based on the project lead there was almost no difference in the evaluation between projects from men or women when evaluated on the project, but those evaluated mainly on the project leader showed that projects headed by women were given grants four percent less often. Improving the experiences of women in STEM is a major component of increasing the number of women in STEM. One part of this includes the need for role models and mentors who are women in STEM. Along with this, having good resources for information and networking opportunities can improve women's ability to flourish in STEM fields. A 2018 study suggested the


id: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics-7.md
category: reference
title: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:14.664269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-20260505-0
summary:
== Criticism == The focus on increasing participation in STEM fields has attracted criticism. In the 2014 article "The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage" in The Atlantic, demographer Michael S. Teitelbaum criticized the efforts of the U.S. government to increase the number of STEM graduates, saying that, among studies on the subject, "No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelor's degrees or higher", and that "Most studies report that real wages in many—but not all—science and engineering occupations have been flat or slow-growing, and unemployment as high or higher than in many comparably-skilled occupations." Teitelbaum also wrote that the then-current national fixation on increasing STEM participation paralleled previous U.S. government efforts since World War II to increase the number of scientists and engineers, all of which he stated ultimately ended up in "mass layoffs, hiring freezes, and funding cuts"; including one driven by the Space Race of the late 1950s and 1960s, which he wrote led to "a bust of serious magnitude in the 1970s." According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, various STEM occupational outlooks have shown slowing


id: snowmass-process-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowmass_Process-0.md
category: reference
title: Snowmass Process
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowmass_Process
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:15.856191+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: snowmass-process-20260505-0
summary:
The Snowmass Process is a particle physics community planning exercise sponsored by the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society. During this process, scientists develop a collective vision for the next seven to ten years for particle physics research in the US. == History == Original planning meetings were held beginning in 1982 in Snowmass, Colorado, but that has not been the location since 2005. More recent locations of the Snowmass Process include the University of Minnesota (2013) and the University of Washington (2021), which was delayed until July 2022, due to COVID. == Description == The modern Snowmass Process consists of a series of small meetings, which culminate in a community-wide meeting. The Snowmass Process solicits reports on progress and plans within "frontiers". Snowmass 2021 identified ten frontiers: "energy; neutrino physics; rare processes and precision measurements; cosmic; theory; accelerator; instrumentation; computation; underground facilities; and community engagement". Members of the particle physics community submit Letters of interest and provide input to contributed whitepapers. The frontiers use these whitepapers to provide web-based reports based on the material that they receive. The final output of the Snowmass Process is a Snowmass Summary for the Public, a Snowmass Summary Report,


id: social-construction-of-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Social construction of technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:17.191936+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: social-construction-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
Social construction of technology (SCOT) is a theory within the field of science and technology studies. Advocates of SCOT—that is, social constructivists—argue that technology does not determine human action; rather, human action shapes technology. Additionally, they also argue that the ways a technology is used cannot be understood without a thorough understanding of how that technology is embedded within its respective social context. SCOT is a response to technological determinism, and it is sometimes known as technological constructivism. SCOT draws from the contributions of constructivist school of the sociology of scientific knowledge, and its subtopics include actor-network theory (a branch of the sociology of science and technology) and historical analysis of sociotechnical systems, such as the work of historian Thomas P. Hughes. Its empirical methods are an adaptation of the Empirical Programme of Relativism (EPOR), which outlines a method of analysis to demonstrate the ways in which scientific findings are socially constructed (see strong program). Leading adherents of SCOT include Wiebe Bijker and Trevor Pinch. SCOT holds that those who seek to understand the reasons for acceptance or rejection of a technology, should look to the social world. According to SCOT, a mere assertion of a technology's preeminence as "the


id: social-construction-of-technology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_technology-1.md
category: reference
title: Social construction of technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:17.191936+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: social-construction-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
==== Relevant social groups ==== The most basic relevant groups are the users and the producers of the technological artifact, but most often many subgroups can be delineated – users with different socioeconomic status, competing producers, etc. Sometimes there are relevant groups who are neither users, nor producers of the technology, for example, journalists, politicians, and civil organizations. Trevor Pinch has argued that the salespeople of technology should also be included in the study of technology. The groups can be distinguished based on their shared or diverging interpretations of the technology in question. ==== Design flexibility ==== Just as technologies have different meanings in different social groups, there are always multiple ways of constructing technologies. A particular design is only a single point in the large field of technical possibilities, reflecting the interpretations of certain relevant groups. ==== Problems and conflicts ==== The different interpretations often give rise to conflicts between criteria that are hard to resolve technologically (e.g., in the case of the bicycle, one such problem was how a woman could ride the bicycle in a skirt while still adhering to standards of decency), or conflicts between the relevant groups (the "Anti-cyclists" lobbied for the banning of the


id: social-shaping-of-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_shaping_of_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Social shaping of technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_shaping_of_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:18.378498+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: social-shaping-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
Social shaping of technology (SST) is the concept that there are choices (though not necessarily conscious choices) inherent in both the design of individual artifacts and systems, and in the direction or trajectory of innovation programs. If technology does not emerge from the unfolding of a predetermined logic or a single determinant, then innovation is a 'garden of forking paths'. Different routes are available, potentially leading to different technological outcomes. Significantly, these choices could have differing implications for society and for particular social groups. SST is one of the models of the technology: society relationship which emerged in the 1980s with MacKenzie and Wajcman's influential 1985 collection, alongside Pinch and Bijker's social construction of technology framework and Callon and Latour's actor-network theory. These have a common feature of criticism of the linear model of innovation and technological determinism. It differs from these notably in the attention it pays to the influence of the social and technological context of development which shapes innovation choices. SST is concerned to explore the material consequences of different technical choices, but criticizes technological determinism, which argues that technology follows its own developmental path, outside of human influences, and in turn, influences society. In this way,


id: social-studies-of-finance-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_studies_of_finance-0.md
category: reference
title: Social studies of finance
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_studies_of_finance
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:19.595301+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: social-studies-of-finance-20260505-0
summary:
Social studies of finance is an interdisciplinary research area that combines perspectives from anthropology, economic sociology, science and technology studies, international political economy, behavioral finance, and cultural studies in the study of financial markets and financial instruments. Work in social studies of finance emphasizes the social and cultural dimensions of financial activities, but focuses also on technical and economic dimensions such as pricing and trading. == History == Financial markets have been an object for sociological inquiry since, at least, Max Weber’s Die Börse. The rise of quantitative financial theory in financial economics from the 1950s onwards has led to an academic specialization on financial markets rather focused on economic modeling, and poorly attentive to sociological aspects. In the 1980s, a number of economic sociologists developed empirical investigation on the social structure and cultural characteristics of financial markets, especially in the US. Such pioneering researcher included contributions from Wayne E. Baker, Mitchel Y. Abolafia and Charles W. Smith, and was based on methods such as ethnographic observation or social network analysis. In the 1990s, a number of researchers from the field of science and technology studies such as Karin Knorr-Cetina and Donald A. MacKenzie started also developing empirical research in


id: sociology-of-quantification-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_quantification-0.md
category: reference
title: Sociology of quantification
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_quantification
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:20.832512+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sociology-of-quantification-20260505-0
summary:
The sociology of quantification is the investigation of quantification as a sociological phenomenon in its own right. == Content == According to a review published in 2018, the sociology of quantification is an expanding field which includes the literature on the quantified self, on algorithms, and on various forms of metrics and indicators. A prior review in 2016 names a similar range of topics: "quantification processes in the sciences, quantification in society driven by the sciences, quantification processes driven by other social processes, including for example implementations of numeric technologies, standardization procedures, bureaucratic management, political decision-taking and newer trends as self-quantification." Older works which can be classified under the heading of the sociology of quantification are Theodore Porter’s Trust in Numbers, the works of French sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Desrosières, and the classic works on probability by Ian Hacking and Lorraine Daston. The discipline gained traction due to the increasing importance and scope of quantification, its relation to the economics of conventions, and the perception of its dangers as a weapon of oppression or as means to undesirable ends. For Sally Engle Merry quantification is a technology of control, but whether it is reformist or authoritarian depends on who


id: sociotechnology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnology-0.md
category: reference
title: Sociotechnology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:22.023934+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sociotechnology-20260505-0
summary:
Sociotechnology (short for "social technology") is the study of processes on the intersection of society and technology. Vojinović and Abbott define it as "the study of processes in which the social and the technical are indivisibly combined". Sociotechnology is an important part of socio-technical design, which is defined as "designing things that participate in complex systems that have both social and technical aspects". The term has been attributed to Mario Bunge. He defines it as a grouping of social engineering and management science. He sees it thus as a form of technology, distinguished from other branches of it such as engineering, biotechnology, information technology and general technology. Its goal is to help engineer sociosystems and evaluate their performance, while making use of social science research. In short, sociotechnology can be seen as the creation, modification and maintenance of social systems. Writing on sociotechnical change, Bijker wrote: "Society is not determined by technology, nor is technology determined by society. Both emerge as two sides of the sociotechnical coin." Technology is the sum of ways in which social groups construct the material objects of their civilizations. The things made are socially constructed just as much as technically constructed. The merging of these


id: sociotechnology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnology-1.md
category: reference
title: Sociotechnology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:22.023934+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sociotechnology-20260505-0
summary:
== Social technology == Science and technology are big contributions to the economic development, but can also lead to negative side effects as it evolves. For example, people care more about materialistic things than the negative influences they have created in human morals and education. For example, it is more important for people to know words to songs than to remember things for their test. There are other problems due to the development of new technologies such as the conservation of the environment because there is a demand for more products which leads to more destruction of environment to build more to sell from. Many social problems have appeared in society and cannot seem to be solved by natural science and technology alone. It requires the need for social sciences as well. Social technology is the strategy used to help solve the wrong behaviors in the world that are caused by social problems like how to solve the issue of people being invested in materialistic goods more than morals, so that they economy can still continue to grow, and society can be a better place. Organizational theory borrows from sociotechnology through its use of sociotechnical systems, a subset of the


id: software-studies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_studies-0.md
category: reference
title: Software studies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_studies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:23.197878+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: software-studies-20260505-0
summary:
Software studies is an emerging interdisciplinary research field, which studies software systems and their social and cultural effects. The implementation and use of software has been studied in recent fields such as cyberculture, Internet studies, new media studies, and digital culture, yet prior to software studies, software was rarely ever addressed as a distinct object of study. To study software as an artifact, software studies draws upon methods and theory from the digital humanities and from computational perspectives on software. Methodologically, software studies usually differs from the approaches of computer science and software engineering, which concern themselves primarily with software in information theory and in practical application; however, these fields all share an emphasis on computer literacy, particularly in the areas of programming and source code. This emphasis on analysing software sources and processes (rather than interfaces) often distinguishes software studies from new media studies, which is usually restricted to discussions of interfaces and observable effects. == History == The conceptual origins of software studies include Marshall McLuhan's focus on the role of media in themselves, rather than the content of media platforms, in shaping culture. Early references to the study of software as a cultural practice appear in Friedrich


id: sokal-affair-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair-0.md
category: reference
title: Sokal affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:24.453966+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sokal-affair-20260505-0
summary:
The Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the journal's intellectual rigor, specifically to investigate whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies—whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross—[would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions." The article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", was published in the journal's Spring/Summer 1996 "Science Wars" issue. It proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct. The journal did not practice academic peer review at the time, so it did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist. Three weeks after its publication in May 1996, Sokal revealed in the magazine Lingua Franca that the article was a hoax. The hoax caused controversy about the scholarly merit of commentary on the physical sciences by those in the humanities; the influence of postmodern


id: sokal-affair-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair-1.md
category: reference
title: Sokal affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:24.453966+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sokal-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Follow-up between Sokal and the editors === In the article "A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies" in the May 1996 issue of Lingua Franca, Sokal revealed that "Transgressing the Boundaries" was a hoax and concluded that Social Text "felt comfortable publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject" because of its ideological proclivities and editorial bias. In their defense, Social Text's editors said they believed that Sokal's essay "was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field" and that "its status as parody does not alter, substantially, our interest in the piece, itself, as a symptomatic document." Besides criticizing his writing style, Social Text's editors accused Sokal of behaving unethically in deceiving them. Sokal said the editors' response demonstrated the problem that he sought to identify. Social Text, as an academic journal, published the article not because it was faithful, true, and accurate to its subject, but because an "academic authority" had written it and because of the appearance of the obscure writing. The editors said they considered it poorly written but published it because they felt Sokal was


id: sokal-affair-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair-2.md
category: reference
title: Sokal affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:24.453966+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sokal-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Criticism of social sciences === Sociologist Stephen Hilgartner, chairman of Cornell University's science and technology studies department, wrote "The Sokal Affair in Context" (1997), comparing Sokal's hoax to "Confirmational Response: Bias Among Social Work Journals" (1990), an article by William M. Epstein published in Science, Technology, & Human Values. Epstein used a similar method to Sokal's, submitting fictitious articles to real academic journals to measure their response. Though much more systematic than Sokal's work, it received scant media attention. Hilgartner argued that the "asymmetric" effect of the successful Sokal hoax compared with Epstein's experiment cannot be attributed to its quality, but that "[t]hrough a mechanism that resembles confirmatory bias, audiences may apply less stringent standards of evidence and ethics to attacks on targets that they are predisposed to regard unfavorably." As a result, according to Hilgartner, though competent in terms of method, Epstein's experiment was largely muted by the more socially accepted social work discipline he critiqued, while Sokal's attack on cultural studies, despite lacking experimental rigor, was accepted. Hilgartner also argued that Sokal's hoax reinforced the views of well-known pundits such as George Will and Rush Limbaugh, so that his opinions were amplified by media outlets predisposed to


id: steps-centre-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEPS_Centre-0.md
category: reference
title: STEPS Centre
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEPS_Centre
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:25.752852+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: steps-centre-20260505-0
summary:
The STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) was an interdisciplinary research centre hosted at the University of Sussex, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The Centre's research brought together development studies with science and technology studies. It was launched at Portcullis House in London on 25 June 2007 and closed in 2022. The STEPS Centre described its aim as to "highlight, reveal and contribute to just and democratic pathways to sustainability that include the needs, knowledge and perspectives of poor and marginalised people". Based at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, the centre worked with partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Professor Ian Scoones and Professor Andy Stirling were its co-directors. Professor Melissa Leach stepped down as STEPS Director in 2014 to become the Director of the Institute of Development Studies. == Areas of work == The STEPS Centre's research investigated the politics of sustainability in various domains, including climate change, food systems, urbanization, and technology. It focused on the perspectives and needs of marginalized people, particularly in poor countries and settings, as well as methodologies for including these priorities in policy


id: strong-programme-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_programme-0.md
category: reference
title: Strong programme
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_programme
date_saved: 2026-05-05T07:12:27.061908+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: strong-programme-20260505-0
summary:
The strong programme or strong sociology is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) particularly associated with David Bloor, Barry Barnes, Harry Collins, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry. The strong programme's influence on science and technology studies is credited as being unparalleled. The largely Edinburgh-based school of thought aims to illustrate how the existence of a scientific community, bound together by allegiance to a shared paradigm, is a prerequisite for normal scientific activity. The strong programme is a reaction against "weak" sociologies of science, which restricted the application of sociology to "failed" or "false" theories, such as phrenology. Failed theories would be explained by citing the researchers' biases, such as covert political or economic interests. Sociology would be only marginally relevant to successful theories, which succeeded because they had revealed a fact of nature. The strong programme proposed that both "true" and "false" scientific theories should be treated the same way. Both are caused by social factors or conditions, such as cultural context and self-interest. All human knowledge, as something that exists in the human cognition, must contain some social components in its formation process. == Characteristics == As formulated by David Bloor, the strong programme has


