November 13, 2024

How technology evolves?

In this weeks’ discussion, we talked about the philosophical understanding of what constitutes as real science and how science and technology developed over time. If may seem like these three points are unrelated, but in my opinion, they are related in an ordered way. An idea would first emerge from a philosophical perspective and be applied to a real experiment; if the experiment comes out unexpectedly, this would induce a renovation in our current knowledge, which can possibly encourage new technologies to emerge.

How should we perceive science and distinguish them from other non-science matters? Though I don’t have an exact answer for this question yet, Popper gives us his answer from the first reading “Conjuncture and Refutations”. He believes that in order for a subject to be considered as real science, it needs to have three crucial characteristics—falsifiability, refutability, and testability (P37). He believes that subject with a hypothesis that can’t be proven false shouldn’t be considered as science, and he gives two examples-Astrology and Marxist theory of history to illustrate his point. He claims that both Astrology and Marxist theory are untestable thus unfalsifiable and non-refutable, which make them non-science.

On the other hand, if a subject is a real science, it must be falsifiable, refutable and testable, and these characteristics make it possible to challenge a scientific matter and its associated paradigm. These challenges are what causes science to develop. In the second article “Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries” by Kuhn, he introduced to us an example of how oxygen was discovered by Lavoisier (P54). Before him, the last scientist, who made contact with oxygen, described oxygen as nitrous oxide or dephlogisticated air, which are all hypothesis based within the previous-constructed paradigm. Only by Lavoisier’s brave challenge, the world is finally on the right path to confirm the existence of oxygen. In this case, we can see how real science would be able to shift the existing paradigm and promote further development in its own field.

Once the “old” knowledge is renewed, the technological development becomes possible. Technology develops in two orders—It’s either science develops so that people figures out new technology or technology is invented without any scientific background—possible out of multiple experiments and failures-and theory comes after to explain how that technology worked in the first place. For the second case, there’s an example proposed by the author Nye from the third article “Can we define technology?” (P10): Newcomen, who made the first practical engine in Britain, didn’t understand the theories behind the operation of the steam engine. Even though at that time, Papin had done some experiments with steam and vacuum pumps, Newcomen didn’t base his invention on these researches as he could not understand them. In this case, the first model of steam engine didn’t come after scientists figured out how such machine can work.

 

It usually takes a long path from an idea to become a functional invention. On this path, there will be biases, objections, and misinterpretations, and other forms of obstacles. In order to overcome these issues and make progress, people have to be conscious of challenging the existing paradigm when necessary. This is why I support Popper’s definition for science as I also believe that if a theory cannot be challenged and testified, there will be no room for scientific advancement  to come through. At the same time, it’s also interesting to think about how people’s desires or needs is influencing the path and rate of new inventions. Somebody may believe it is necessity that foster new invention, or it may be new inventions that create new needs. What will you guys think? You can place your comments in the comment section below.

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