Richard’s Educational Technology Blog

There is an apparent confusion or blur between the role of a “scientist” and “technologist”. According to Andy Gibbons, this blur can lead to technologists thinking of themselves as “wannabe” scientists, a self-image that is “damaging to technological research, especially to research in instructional technology”. (Thr Practice of Instructional Technology: Science and Technology, Gibbons 2003) In his article, Gibbons makes the distinction that science “builds conceptual models… to explain observed effects,” while technology “builds different causal models… to describe how artifacts can created.” Charles Reigeluth makes this point clearer in his article “What is Instructional-Design Theory” by stating that instructional design theory (technology) is “design oriented” while science is “description oriented”.
Dr. Alan J. Friedman, Director of NY Science Hall sums up these differences in a simpler way.

Friedman expresses his concern that many futurists fail to distinguish between science and technology. He states, “Science is the pursuit of knowledge about the material world. By its very nature, science is indeed unpredictable. If we knew exactly what we were going to find, we would not bother looking for it. The understanding eventually produced by science consists of concepts, words, and equations. Science is unpredictable, but it is also slow and by itself rarely affects our material lives.”

On the other hand, Friedman says that technology “is the conscious attempt to apply our understanding about the universe to accomplish some specific, material end: to cure a disease, to build a superior weapon, to make a cleaner car, or to provide 500 channels of entertainment. Technology can undoubtedly change our lives, and sometimes rather quickly. But it is far from unpredictable. People doing technology have deliberate motives and must assemble substantial resources and convince other people to accept their technology, before that technology can actually become powerful. If we choose to accept our responsibilities as a society to investigate and review proposed technologies before we fund and adopt them, technology becomes much more predictable and controllable.”

So why is it important to make the distinction in the first place? I think Dr. Gibbons would say that the confusion inhibits both technologists and scientists from doing what they are best at. My feeling is that these aren’t necessarily two different “modes” or categories. Instead I see is as a scale. On one side is the pure scientist and on the other is the technologist. My feeling is that there is some inherent overlap between the two fields, but that as you get closer to the science side the design issues drop off and as you move close to the technology side, the descriptive characteristics drop off. My guess would be that Gibbons, while recognizing that we are all both scientists and technologists, would call for a separation of the two, encouraging the people to move out of the middle and towards the poles of the scale with the argument that the specialization of each would benefit both. So, where would I fall on this scale? I would certainly consider myself closer to the technologist side of the scale. This is due to the fact that I am more interested in finding solutions using available constructs than attempt to define or describe the constructs in the first place. In my mind that is the more practical of the two. But I recognize that to some extent technology is dependent on science.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 20th, 2004 at 9:58 am and is filed under Educational Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.