Reply to Alvin M. Weinberg

Burns, Emile; Studer, Kenneth E.

doi:10.1016/0048-7333(76)90041-x

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Ethical Implications1

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2018

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“…Early scholarly criticisms of Alvin Weinberg's notions criticized them as naively confident about the outcomes of science ("scientistic") and tending to narrowly define the complexity of problems ("reductionistic") [42]. Because of its exaggerated attention to measurable outcomes, rational decision-making carries additional philosophical and ethical dimensions.…”

Section: Ethical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Technological Fix as Social Cure-All: Origins and Implications

Johnston

2018

IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag.

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Section: Ethical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Technological Fix as Social Cure-All: Origins and Implications

Johnston

2018

IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag.

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Alvin Weinberg and the Promotion of the Technological Fix

Johnston¹

2018

Technology and Culture

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The term technological fix, coined by technologist/administrator Alvin Weinberg in 1965, vaunted engineering innovation as a generic tool for circumventing problems commonly conceived as social, political, or cultural. A longtime Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, government consultant, and essayist, Weinberg also popularized the term big science to describe national goals and the competitive funding environment after the Second World War. Big science reoriented towards technological fixes, he argued, could provide a new "Apollo project" to address social problems of the future. His ideas-most recently echoed in "solutionism"-have channeled confidence and controversy ever since. This article traces the genesis and promotion of the concept by Weinberg and his contemporaries. It argues that, through the concept, the marginal politics and technological confidences of interwar scientists and technocrats were repositioned as mainstream notions closer to the heart of big science policy.

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Reply to Alvin M. Weinberg

Cited by 2 publications

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The Technological Fix as Social Cure-All: Origins and Implications

The Technological Fix as Social Cure-All: Origins and Implications

Alvin Weinberg and the Promotion of the Technological Fix

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