Understanding Science and Technology

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Science and technology have been dominant and pervasive influences in modern culture; yet they have never been generally well understood. The Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, the Program in History of Science and Technology, the Charles Babbage Institute for the History of Information Processing, the Department of History of Medicine, and the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota have joined together in a coordinated effort to understand the operation of science and technology in our society. The collaborative research efforts among historians and philosophers of science and technology center on four areas: (I) models, theories, and reality; (II) the history and philosophy of physical science; (III) the history and philosophy of biological sciences; and (IV) interactions among science technology and society. In area I, historians and philosophers are examining scientific models or theories and their relation to "reality." They are examining the nature of scientific representations; the issues of realism, idealization, and experimentation; the application of mathematics and logic in the empirical sciences; and issues in the philosophy of cognitive science. In area II, historians and philosophers are concentrating on questions in the history and philosophy of quantum mechanics, the nature and status of nuclear models, the nature of light, and the interaction of theory and experiment in physics. In area III, they are examining the interrelationship between biomedical and physical sciences; the institutional organization of biomedical science; and issues in biology, medicine and values including theories and controversies in biomedicine, genetics and society, the enterprises of natural history and evolutionary biology, theories of disease and public health, and the design of clinical research. Finally, in area IV, they are investigating scientific and technological institutions, ethical issues of science and technology, the interaction of theory and experiment, and the role of government in science-technology interactions. This grant over five years supports postdoctoral fellows and graduate students who are participating in research and training in each of these lines of research.