Theory of Technology

The history of technology is often troubled by good ideas that do not, for one reason or another, take off right away--sometimes for millennia. Sometimes, technology comes to a standstill, and sometimes, it even reverses itself. Thus, unlike science, which seems to proceed at a reasonable and calm rate, the progress of technology is difficult to theorize about. While in science many developments are predictable to a certain extent and this predictability may, at times, direct or stymie science's progress--as with stem-cell research and cloning--technological advances, such as the Internet, are often sudden and unpredictable, and therefore frightening.In Theory of Technology, David Clarke brings together nine authors who try to understand technology from a variety of viewpoints. Rias van Wyk, in &quote;Technology,&quote; parses the concept into many angles, including its anatomy, taxonomy, and evolution. Karol Pelc, in &quote;Knowledge Mapping,&quote; discusses tracking the evolution of the emerging discipline of technology management. Jon Beard, in &quote;Management of Technology,&quote; pursues a similar mapping endeavor, but looks to the patterns of the literature of technology management. Thomas Clarke, in &quote;Unique Features of an R&D Work Environment and Research Scientists and Engineers,&quote; takes the reader on a tour of how people of technology present unique challenges to not just management but whole organizations.Richard Howey, in &quote;Understanding Software Technology,&quote; places enterprise software into a meaningful pattern of technology management. Fred Foldvary and Daniel Klein, in &quote;The Half-Life of Policy Rationales,&quote; discuss how new technology affects old policy issues. John Cogan, in &quote;Some Philosophical Thoughts on the Nature of Technology,&quote; maintains that our Aristotelian search for the essence of technology is doomed. And Peter Bond, in &quote;The Biology of Technology,&quote; establishes a basis for the development of a socio-biological approach to understanding the pheno