Texas Crude: Science, Ideology and Oil, 1925-1975

康斯坦特教授以人类学和科学哲学的最新研究成果为基础，研究科学如何从字面上改变社会，以及社会如何改变科学。本研究的核心是对德克萨斯州发展中的石油工程科学与石油兄弟会之间相互作用的历史描述。他试图捕捉谈判和再谈判的过程，通过这些过程，他们共同产生和重建了“社会现实”（他们彼此之间的关系以及与德克萨斯州权力结构其余部分的关系）和“物理现实”（地下石油储量的性质）。为此，他详细研究了德克萨斯州石油商如何向科学家寻求帮助，以确定开采石油财富的最佳途径，科学家如何调整自己的工作以满足石油商的需求，以及两者如何合作在德克萨斯州建立管理石油业的监管体系。在这个详细的案例研究的基础上，康斯坦特教授希望建立一个科学、技术和社会相互作用的一般模型。因此，这项研究不仅有望深入了解德克萨斯州石油工业的历史，而且对整个科学、技术和社会研究领域做出真正的贡献。

Professor Constant is building on recent work in anthropology and philosophy of science for his study of how science literally transforms society and how society transforms science. The core of this study is an historical account of the interaction between developing petroleum engineering science and the oil fraternity in Texas. He is trying to capture the processes of negotiation and renegotiation by which they jointly produced and reconstructed "social reality" (their relationship to each other and to the rest of the Texas power structure) and "physical reality" (the nature of the subsurface petroleum reserves). He is doing this by studying in detail the ways that Texas oil men turned to scientists to help determine the best way to exploit oil riches, how scientists adjusted their work to meet the needs of the oil men, and how both cooperated to establish a regulatory system in Texas to manage the oil industry. On the basis of this detailed case study, Professor Constant hopes to develop a general model of the interactions of science, technology and society. This study thus promises insights not only into the history of oil industry in Texas, but a real contribution to the entire field of studies in science, technology and society.