Science, technology and social change

This book provides students with an original and exciting way of increasing their understanding of the role of science and technology in society. The author draws upon and develops ideas from the latest research in the sociology and politics of science to address, in particular, the following three issues: The nature of scientific know ledge and the authority it commands; the political and economic role of science in the West; the relationship between science, technology, and social change in underdeveloped countries.

Topical examples are carefully used in presenting the text. They range from nineteenth-century brain science to the strategic defence initiative, and from hugely expensive experiments in nuclear physics performed in underground sites beneath the Franco-Swiss border, to proposals for inexpensive boat-building programmes in the Sudan. No other book provides such a comprehensive and stimulating account of the role played by science and technology in contemporary social change.

The author is well qualified to write on these topics. He has carried out original research in the history of science and in the sociology of present-day basic research, and has undertaken studies of debates in science policy. He is a lecturer in Sociology at Queen's University, Belfast.