Discovery, Innovation, and Risk: Case Studies in Science and Technology by Newton H. Copp and Andrew W. Zanella

Abstract

TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE Book Reviews 645 practices. I would like to have a clearer picture of the practices through which the differences between disciplines come to be so: how it is that honesty and fraud are constructed and sustained in these different contexts, and how certain elements become crucial to the establishment of a fraud. Some of this ground is covered by Malcolm Ashmore in his recent account of Wood’s “debunking” of Blondlot’s N-rays, “The Theatre of the Blind: Starring a Promethean Prankster, a Phoney Phenomenon, a Prism, a Pocket, and a Piece ofWood” {Social Studies ofScience 23 [1993] : 67-106). Ashmore’s work, viewed in conjunction with LaFollette’s book, unpacks some of the work that goes into sustaining an identification of transgression. It is perhaps unfair to expect a historical study of such depth to be also a study of scientific discourse, and it is to be hoped that Stealing into Printwill form the groundwork for future studies of the discourse of scientific fraud. As a historical study this book is a valuable documentation and clarification of a highly controversial and topical field. Christine M. Hine Dr. Hine is a research fellow at the Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture and Technology at Brunel, the University of West London. Her current research project is concerned with the use of information technology in human genetics research. Discovery, Innovation, and Risk: Case Studies in Science and Technology. By Newton H. Copp and Andrew W. Zanella. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993. Pp. xii+425; illustrations, tables, glossary, bibliography, index. $39.95 (cloth); $19.95 (paper). Newton Copp and Andrew Zanella’s book consists, as suggested by the subtitle, of a series of nine case studies in science and technology. The volume has its origins as part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s New Liberal Arts program and is intended to help foster a better understand­ ing of technology among liberal arts students. In particular, the authors want to provide a technical framework within which basic scientific principles can be seen and discussed in conjunction with the major divisions of engineering. Thus, the main theme that links the cases is the complex web of relationships between science and technology. As the authors remind us, technology is not simply a case of applied science, but rather they are, as suggested by Edwin Layton, more like “mirrorimage twins.” Part 1 of the collection, “Discovery,” contains three cases in which the technological development emerged out of the underlying scientific principles and understanding. The student learns how Samuel Morse’s invention of the telegraph and the development of the generator used to produce early hydroelectric power for Los Angeles depended heavily on the scientific work of men such as Hans Oersted,Joseph Henry, and 646 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE Michael Faraday relating electricity and magnetism. Also, the Wright brothers, while less dependent on existing scientific theory, clearly utilized an organized “scientific” experimental approach to their devel­ opment of the 1903 Flyer. Part 2, “Innovation,” takes the opposite tack by showing how good, even “artistic,” engineering design can proceed independent of, and indeed in advance of, scientific theory. Here the examples range from the development of the steam engine and later steam turbines used to provide a growing Los Angeles with additional electric generating capacity, to the refining of petroleum into gasoline, to a detailed look at the development of reinforced prestressed concrete—my favorite of the cases. Part 3, “Risk,” turns somewhat afield from the indirect analysis of the mirror-image theme to examine trade-off issues as they evolve out of the dynamic interplay between scientific discovery and technical innova­ tion, which produces both benefits and potential hazards. The cases include the development of vaccines and the risks they pose, the possibilities associated with global warming concerns, and the dangers of nuclear radiation occasioned by the creation of the atomic bomb and civilian nuclear power. In the latter case, the example of Chernobyl is probed for what it reveals about massive radiation exposure versus low-level exposures, relevant population size, and so forth. Even in this third section, the relationship between science and technology is never far from the reader’s focus...