Philosophy, Science, Society, STS
Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had “never been any of these things, in any profound sense”.
In the early 20th century, Russell led the British “revolt against idealism”. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy, and he is widely held to be one of the 20th century’s premier logicians. His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.
Futurism, Science, Technology
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He is also known in engineering for his work on analog computers, for founding Raytheon, and for the memex, a hypothetical adjustable microfilm viewer with a structure analogous to that of hypertext. In 1945, Bush published the essay “As We May Think” in which he predicted that “wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified”.[2] The memex influenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from its vision of the future. He was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation.
Philosophy, Science, STS
Sir Karl Raimund Popper was an Austrian-British philosopher and professor. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method, in favour of empirical falsification: A theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments. Popper is also known for his opposition to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, namely “the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy.”
Futurism
An American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communication revolution and technological singularity.
Blog, STS
Being entirely new to the world of Science and Technology Studies (STS), I am both at a disadvantage and an advantage. My disadvantage of course is my inexperience and ignorance. I have much to learn, and I can be certain that in the future I will look back on what I write today with a completely different perspective. It’s entirely possible that I will someday disagree with myself.
However I also hold a certain advantage. Compared to my more experienced and knowledgable colleagues, my biases are those of an outsider, of the uninitiated and the un-indoctrinated. With fresh eyes I can see things in a way that those ahead of me (and my future self) could not.
Why does this matter? Because as I entered the world of Science and Technology Studies, it was obvious to me as soon as I walked through the door that there was an elephant in the room. STS has a huge problem – and no one is willing to admit it.
