A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Notes

1. Allaby (1996), p. 2.

2. ibid., p. 3.

3. Hadlock (1998), pp. 6–8.

4. This is not to say that the latter do not exist, but that – to an extent greater than for basic sciences – environmental science exists at the interface between techno-political–economic practical problems and theoretically based research sciences.

5. In the US at least, this episode illustrated another not untypical pattern of development in environmental science research. In response to the acid rain problem, Congress in 1980 funded a ten-year scientific research program (NAPAP) in their desire to have the authority of science behind a planned new regulatory policy. Lots of good scientific research was done within different academic specializations, and the systems involved were much better understood as a result, but the specialists involved did not coordinate their research efforts around the policy problem, and as a result the work could not be integrated to form the basis of any policy recommendations. (See Rubin, Lave and Morgan 1991.)

6. At the University of Hawaii the Environmental Center was legislative-funded precisely to perform this function for the State of Hawaii.

7. See Galison (1997) for details.

8. Monmonier (1999), p. 7.