Technology and Science-Based Heuristics

The view that equates technology with applied science, that is, that blueprints for technological inventions can be straightforwardly derived from scientific theories or scientific knowledge in general, is historically and philosophically problematic.1 Historians of technology tend to reject this view because it makes science the principal dynamical factor behind the development of technology, and therefore leaves almost no room for social influences. Philosophers of technology have severely criticized this model, because it naively assumes that technological designs can be deduced from scientific theories by simply feeding those theories with appropriate boundary conditions. More generally, they claim that technological knowledge is different in nature from scientific knowledge.2