Science Transformed?: Debating Claims of an Epochal Break

Advancements in computer algorithms, robotics, digital imaging, and digital modelling have changed science into a technology-driven institution. Government, industry, and society increasingly exert their influence over science, raising questions of values and objectivity. These and other profound changes have led many to speculate that we are in the midst of an epochal break in scientific history.

This volume presents an in-depth examination of these issues from philosophical, historical, social, and cultural perspectives. It offers arguments both for and against the epochal break thesis in light of historical antecedents. Contributors discuss topics such as: science as a continuing epistemological enterprise; the decline of the individual scientist and the rise of communities; the intertwining of science and technological needs; links to prior discoveries and ways of thinking; the alleged divide between mode-1 and mode-2 research methods; and the shift from scientific to technological enterprise. Additionally, they examine the epochal break thesis using specific examples, including the transition from laboratory to real world experiments; the increased reliance on computer imaging; how analogue and digital technologies condition behaviours that shape the object and beholder; the cultural impact of humanoid robots; the erosion of scientific quality in experimentation; and the effect of computers on prediction at the expense of theorisation.

whether these events represent a historic break in scientific theory, practice, and methodology is inconclusive. What they do offer is an important forum for philosophical analysis of the institutional and moral questions affecting current and future scientific pursuits.