"Although often assumed to be separate from the rest of society,scientific knowledge and practice share much in common with other forms of culture, and can profitably be studied as a sociological enterprise. A critical and nuanced understanding ofthe ways scientists work and of how technologies are developed and used allows us to make informed decisions and take responsible actions on the social, political and ethical aspects of scientific and technological progress."
And if we review what we read and discussed about science as culture and practice we can see that our goal has been to understand howsocial interactions and cultural values influence how scientists work, how scientific knowledge is produced, how technologies are developed and how technologies are used.
So rather than looking for the effects of science and technology on society - which implies that they are somehow separate from society - our objective has been to see how our social and cultural lives simultaneously shape, and are shaped by, science and technology.
This involves questioning some of the traditional barriers between science, philosophy, politics, economics, ethics, sociology and anthropology. Rather than accepting these boundaries as 'normal' or 'natural' we have focussed on how the boundaries are made - and changed - in our daily lives. In this way science and technology can be understood in terms of processes with particular interests and values, instead of as neutral or objective products.
Not only does this impact our understanding of science and technology, but it asks us to critically evaluate our knowledge of sociology and anthropology as well.
Praveen Attri 's conclusion is that social stratification is not the standard among all societies. John Gowdy writes: "Assumptions about human behaviour that members of market societies believe to be universal, that humans are naturally competitive and acquisitive, and that social stratification is natural, do not apply to many hunter-gatherer peoples."[2] Non-stratified egalitarian or acephalous ("headless") societies exist which have little or no concept of social hierarchy, political or economic status, class, or even permanent leadership.
TumugonBurahinI don't necessarily agree that in order for something to have an effect on something else that it must be completely sepperate. I don't think that there is an implication that suggests science must be a sepparate entity in order to affect society. I think that in a big way, society is an all-encompasing term that includes things like law, or science or economics, as part of it but still able to affect it in large way.
TumugonBurahinObviously if i made any assumptions about this course, i was wrong to do so. I did assume that it would follow, as many other sociology classes do, the society moreso than the technical aspect of the science. And that's not to say that it didn't at all follow society but i feel like if you believe that science & tech must be included under sociology and therefore any discussion of science & tech is automatically sociological than obviously there meets the burden.
Does this make any sense to anyone else? Because i think i may have even lost myself in there :)