Research Paper Example on Technological Progress

Skolimowski says that methodologists and philosophers define technology as the culmination of various sciences gathered together and is not an independent ethodologically, and is the applications of distinct sciences like optics, chemistry, physics, and electromagnetics. But he believes that technological progress is what helps defined what technology and that the definition of what scientific progress helps define what science is, something that the previous definition lacks. He defines technological progress as an end goal of solving technical problems and not the pursuing knowledge, technological progress provides a means for the betterment of that artifacts. This can be described as an increase in durability, an increase in reliability, increase in sensitivity, a faster performance, or a combination of all of the aforementioned qualities. On the other hand, he defines the progression of sciences as the continuous improvements or replacements of already scientific theories and scope of sciences themselves. In the case of the replacement of already existing theories he means theories that are replaced by more widely accepted theories, better explained theories, or much simpler but more well-defined theories. In the case of science, the end goal is the pursuit of knowledge. From his definition of both scientific progression and technological progression the end goal of the two are how Skolimowski differentiates the two from each other, science the expanding of our knowledge through the refinements and simplification of theories, and technology the creation of new artifacts through finding more effective means. Another distinction made by Skolimowski is that science is the study of reality as we see it, and technology a new reality is created according to the desired design. In the case of technology reality refers to things that we already know, while in technology we “create” a reality through means that are yet to be known or discovered. The pursuit of technical progress can lead to scientific progress. Technology is what shapes the destiny of mankind, or that which controls mankind to use machines resulting in human being themselves becoming a technological component. The way that Skolimowski connects the concept of “better” to Praxiology is through technological progression, specifically the way that technology progress is measured in effectiveness or “better” as he previous defined, as an increase in efficiency, and how Praxiology itself is the analyze of actions taking into account efficiency. In this way praxiological models are the precursor to the technological progress as the construction a praxiological model is necessary for technological progression. Basically, both are the aim for the increase in efficiency through the same goal, however one is the precursor of the other. Bunge defines pure sciences as the focus on one specific discipline for example: physics, cytology, or chemistry. Pure sciences can be broken down to four major groups physical technologies, biological technologies, social technologies, and thought technologies. He defines technology as a study of a practical art which succeeds a craft by looking at new problems and attacking them scientifically. The main difference he finds between applied science and pure science is that applied science use known laws to create new inventions, while pure science looks for new laws or theories. In pure science seeks to understand further and applied science seeks to further mastery what is already known. In the case of applied science Bunge also says that it is the application of scientific idea without using the scientific method. A technological theory may affect the actions of an object as it provides knowledge regarding said object. Technological theories can be categorized into two groups, substantive and operative. Bunge describes substantive theories to be essentially applications to situations that are nearly real, one example that Bunge uses the theory of flight. On the other hand, operative technological theories rely heavily on the operation of men and man-machine in close to realistic situations. Substantive technological theories are followed by scientific theories, whereas operative theories are created with in applied research. The characteristics of a good operative theory to idealized models, theoretical concept, use empirical information to make predictions, and can be proven empirically. In the case of substantive theories only look into the relevant knowledge of needed for manufacturing and the problems arise in action. Bunge believe that technological theories are much less deep than scientific theories is because it only looks at, the practical man is only interested in having a net change using only his reach and does not look deeply into the science. This means that the man is limited to his knowledge and does not truly understand the deeper sciences that is occurring, the practical man is also only looking at the controllable at the human scale.  For example, an electrician looks not at the quantum electron theories involved with the material. With this negligence the practical man is oversimplifying the science and barely scratching the surface of what is really going on. On the other hand, using scientific theories one can look at the deeper makeup of the sciences, however, somethings may experience the same in the macroscale which can be misleading and create some unappreciation for scientific theories.