Research Abstract |
In this research, I tried to survey almost all of the main trends of sociology of science and technology after 1970's. Especially, I at first scoped my attention on some main trends such as what they called strong program promoted by David Bloor, Barry Barnes etc., and actor network theory promoted by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, and analyzed their implications on history and sociology of science and technological research. And I argued that the zenith of what is called "social constructivism" in this domain was attained during 1980's, and that already at the first years of 1990's, emerged some strong reaction among scientists against the social constructivism of history of science and technology. This was a famous and vitriolic controvercy between scientists and sciense studies researchers during about 1994-1998 especially in the United States. And this controvercy was coined Science wars. After the science wars, the "science studies" (recent name for an interdisciplinary and cross cultural studies upon history, philosophy and sociology of science and technology) is suffering from some ambiguity and hesitation of their own aim of study. Roughly speaking, there are two main trends amon contemporary science studies, the one is the studies very close to science and technology policies, and the other is the cultural studies of science.
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