In 1935, in a celebrated paper, the Polish
sociologist couple
Maria Ossowska and
Stanisław Ossowski proposed the founding of a "science of science" to study the scientific enterprise, its practitioners, and the factors influencing their work. Earlier, in 1923, the Polish sociologist
Florian Znaniecki had made a similar proposal. Fifty years before Znaniecki, in 1873,
Aleksander Głowacki, better known in Poland by his pen name "Bolesław Prus", had delivered a public lecture – later published as a booklet –
On Discoveries and Inventions, in which he said: It is striking that, while early 20th-century sociologist proponents of a discipline to study science and its practitioners wrote in general theoretical terms, Prus had already half a century earlier described, with many specific examples, the scope and methods of such a discipline.
Thomas Kuhn's
Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) increased interest both in the
history of science and in science's
philosophical underpinnings. Kuhn posited that the
history of science was less a linear succession of discoveries than a succession of
paradigms within the
philosophy of science. Paradigms are broader, socio-intellectual constructs that determine which types of truth claims are permissible. Science studies seeks to identify key
dichotomies – such as those between science and technology, nature and culture, theory and experiment, and science and fine art – leading to the differentiation of scientific fields and practices. The
sociology of scientific knowledge arose at the
University of Edinburgh, where
David Bloor and his colleagues developed what has been termed "the
strong programme". It proposed that both "true" and "false" scientific theories should be treated the same way. Both are informed by social factors such as cultural context and self-interest. Human knowledge, abiding as it does within human cognition, is ineluctably influenced by social factors. It proved difficult, however, to address natural-science topics with sociological methods, as was abundantly evidenced by the US
science wars. The view on scientific knowledge production as a (at least partial) social construct was not easily accepted.—addressing objects as hybrids made and scrutinized by the public interaction of people, things, and concepts. Science studies scholars such as
Trevor Pinch and
Steve Woolgar started already in the 1980s to involve "technology", and called their field "
science, technology and society". This "turn to technology" brought science studies into communication with academics in science, technology, and society programs. More recently, a novel approach known as
mapping controversies has been gaining momentum among science studies practitioners, and was introduced as a course for students in engineering, and architecture schools. In 2002
Harry Collins and Robert Evans asked for a third wave of science studies (a pun on
The Third Wave), namely studies of
expertise and
experience answering to recent tendencies to dissolve the boundary between experts and the public. == Application to natural and man-made hazards ==