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use of tools by human beings, comparing such use of tools to the role of
natural organs in plants and animals. As is well known, Darwin's discus–
sion of this topic, in fact, earned him a place, if only embalmed in two
footnotes, in the second edition of Karl Marx's
Das Kapital.
Tools and
technology are related to science in two very important ways. One of
these needs no special emphasis today: the application of scientific discov–
eries to practice, serving as an increasingly significant vector in
technology. But there is another and very basic kind of interaction that is
not so obvious, one that is closely related to any discussion of method and
scientific roads to truth.
Before exploring this aspect of the sciences, let me take note that the
founders of our modern science were keenly aware that the fruits of their
research would be to serve, as Descartes put it, "the general welfare of
mankind," to make us the "lords and masters of nature."
In
particular, he
specified, the new method would lead to a "practical" science, improving
medicine and all the crafts of artisans. Francis Bacon expressed a similar
sentiment, envisaging a time when the new science would have the prac–
tical effect of improving every conceivable aspect of human existence.
It
is not usually noted, however, that Bacon insisted that such "fruits" of
science would be more important as proofS or "earnests" of the validity of
the new method than as means of increasing the comforts of daily life.
This kind of interaction between science and technology is, as I have
mentioned, so obvious that it needs no emphasis. But the other aspect of
this relationship - the influence of technology on science - is not only far
from obvious; it is neglected by almost all philosophers of science and
even by historians and sociologists of science.
It
is historically demonstra–
ble that from the seventeenth century onwards, the production of
scientific knowledge has depended to a very high degree on the state of
the practical arts, on useful technology. I believe that, in real terms, the
availability of suitable tools by far outweighs the importance of the codifi–
cation of method. To put the matter another way, to present science as an
activity without the technology on which it depends may be like a stag–
ing of
Hamlet
without the main character.
Historians of the scientific revolution tend to concentrate on intel–
lectual changes, on putting on a new thinking cap, on such factors as the
geometrization of space and the destruction of the traditional Aristotelian
cosmos.
It
is generally agreed that a major step in forging the new science
was to transform the Copernican system so as to make it a foundational
part of science, rather than being just a hypothetical or arbitrary mathe–
matical speculation. This was accomplished by a demonstration that it is
not "philosophically absurd" to consider the Earth to be "merely" an–
other planet, just like the other planets and not different from them.
