1) For much of history, science and technology were one in the same thing. People explored science because they were educated, and learning about the world around them was a commendable endeavor. In discussing the two hundred year tenure of Newton’s Principia, Burke relates the way in which humans pursued science. Science was worth pursuing because it was a way for people to examine their reality. After investigation, scientists were able to make conclusive proclamations about the state of man and nature. The type of information gleaned from scientific inquiry was definitive. Because everything was knowable, science was really an adventure in discovery. The universe was a knowable thing according to Burke, “Newton’s universe was certain, operating in absolute conditions” (1985, p 276). Scientific experiments with electricity were all the rage in the 18th century, but at that time there was no real productive use of electricity. Quacks exploited the stuff as therapeutic.
2) Technology eventually separated from pure science and became the way in which science is used to create tools and inventions that have some viable use. In contemporary times, we take technology for granted. However, today’s science is less certain than Newton’s. Back then, it was assumed that the present was certain and everything was happening in the present. The things that we take for granted now were not apparent to scientists of the past. Though we know so much more, we are less certain about our facts and far less confident about our theories. Every new description of man and nature has at its core doubt, “every description of reality contains some essential and irretrievable uncertainty, and the observer, in observing, modified the phenomenon” (Burke, 1985, p 301). Everything we observe and all the technology we use is based on knowledge that is founded on calculations that seem like speculation.
References
Burke, J. (1985). The Day the Universe Changed. Boston: Little, Brown.
