On the Genesis of Technoscience: A Case Study of German Agricultural Education Jonathan Harwood University of Manchester Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/posc/article-pdf/13/3/329/1789359/106361405774288017.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 Though many are agreed that “technoscience” is a signiªcant phenomenon, little systematic attention has yet been paid to the circumstances under which it has emerged. Technoscience is conceptualized here as the outcome of a process of convergence in which technological knowledge acquires many of the charac- teristics of scientiªc knowledge while the latter shifts in the opposite direction. The analytical problem is then a matter of understanding why such “drift” has occurred at particular times and places. The drift of higher technical ed- ucation toward science has been observed in a variety of domains including engineering and medicine, but in this paper I identify such a trend in late nineteenth and early twentieth century agricultural education, with particu- lar reference to Bavaria. The process is interpreted using a model of institu- tional dynamics loosely based upon Bourdieu’s concept of the academic “ªeld.” The contributors to this volume are agreed that technoscience is a signi- ªcant phenomenon deserving analysis. For historians one of the most in- teresting questions is necessarily: under what circumstances has techno- science emerged? Few answers have as yet been proposed to this question, and they have necessarily been brief and quite general. In this paper I will offer a more systematic explanation based on a book-length study of the evolution of German higher agricultural education from the late nine- teenth century to the Second World War (Harwood 2005). The central problem in the book is to account for the fact that the cur- riculum and research conducted at some agricultural colleges was more tightly tied to “practice” while at others the approach to problem-solving was more heavily science-based. Moreover, over time there was a tendency Of several contributors to this volume who offered helpful comments on a draft of this pa- per, I would especially like to thank Ursula Klein and John Dettloff. Thanks, too, go to Skali Sigurdssou for extensive feedback. Perspectives on Science 2005, vol. 13, no. 3 ©2005 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 329 330 On the Genesis of Technoscience for the more practically oriented institutions to “drift” closer to science. The explanation for these phenomena, as I will argue below, lies in the in- teraction among three interest groups: academic staff at the colleges, state governments, and user-groups within the local agricultural economy. In the ªnal section of the paper I will illustrate how this model works by comparing Bavaria’s two agricultural institutions at that time: a “scien- tiªc” one at Munich and a “practical” one at Weihenstephan. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/posc/article-pdf/13/3/329/1789359/106361405774288017.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 Before looking in detail at this process, however, we need to address several conceptual issues. To begin with, there is the meaning of the term “technoscience” itself. Often the term is used to mean little more than the fusion of science and technology as forms of knowledge: i.e., the result of a process in which their differences have become eroded (e.g., Hong 1999). For John Pickstone the term has a more speciªc meaning; technoscience entails the making of “knowledge commodities,” albeit of diverse kinds (Pickstone 2000). Such commodities would include naturally occurring species of plants and animals, analytical methods, and artiªcially synthe- sized entities, all of which were of both scholarly and utilitarian interest. Characteristic of all of them, he argues, is that they undermine the cate- gorical distinction between “science” and “technology,” embracing tech- nologies highly dependent on science, forms of science highly dependent on technology, or forms of knowledge which are perceived at one and the same time by scientists as “fundamental” and by engineers or industrial- ists as useful. Both the general meaning of the term, as well as Pickstone’s more speciªc usage, suggest that (since the mid nineteenth century at least) technoscience can be seen as the outcome of a process of convergence in which scientiªc knowledge acquires some of the characteristics of tech- nology while technological knowledge shifts in the opposite direction.1 If so, we need to focus upon the process of convergence and what drives it. Although most recent discussions of technoscience (including almost all of those in this volume) address only one aspect of this process—what we might call the “technicization” of science—in this paper my concern is instead with the changing character of technological knowledge and prac- tice, namely the drift toward science-based research and teaching in agri- culture. If we are to study technological drift, however, we need to be clear about the nature of technological knowledge itself. Whether we think of 1. Obviously this conception—as well as the related notions that technoscience is a “hybrid” subject or that it represents the “fusion” of science and technology—can only ap- ply to a relatively recent period in which science and technology were already separately institutionalized. As Klein’s paper in this volume shows, it would make no sense to speak of convergence or fusion in eighteenth century chemistry since that discipline was consti- tuted by reference to medicine and the economy from its inception. Perspectives on Science 331 technoscience as the blending of science and technology or merely as a closer linkage between the two, in each case both parties to the equation are portrayed as homogeneous (if only for convenience, given the purpose at hand). This tendency has probably been encouraged by the sustained at- tention given by historians of technology during the 1970s and 1980s to the demarcation of “science” from “technology” as bodies of knowledge.2 But at the same time it is also clear from the historical literature that tech- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/posc/article-pdf/13/3/329/1789359/106361405774288017.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 nological knowledge—e.g., as institutionalized in engineering colleges since the early nineteenth century—has actually been a highly diverse cate- gory, with some forms much closer in character to scientiªc knowledge than others (e.g., Vincenti 1990, Ferguson 1992). In this paper, too, I dis- tinguish between “scientiªc” and “practical” forms of problem-solving in the technological disciplines. Characteristic of the “scientiªc” approach to problem-solving is that ac- ademics working in this tradition took scientiªc knowledge as their model, albeit in a variety of ways. For example, they sometimes took their research questions from the basic sciences and attempted to solve them through application to data or problems from the practical realm. In other cases they took their research problems from the practical realm but were convinced that their solution lay merely in the correct application of scientiªc theory. (An example of this category might be the Norwegian, Vilhelm Bjerknes, who, during the early part of his career in meteorology, drew upon his original training in theoretical physics in order to develop a precise and quantitative mechanics of the atmosphere from which he hoped it would be possible to predict future atmospheric states.3) Yet oth- ers were enamored with the methodological apparatus of the sciences, making a point in their research or teaching of deploying the techniques, concepts, laws, data, and instruments from one or other basic discipline. Thus there were a number of forms which the “scientiªc” approach to problem-solving might take (suggesting that we might do well to think of technoscience as a population of cognitively distinct forms of knowl- edge rather than as a unitary entity.) 2. See the literature discussed in Staudenmaier 1985. Since the aim of this literature was to fend off a well-known form of epistemological imperialism which has deªned tech- nology as merely applied science, these historians argued that technology is just as com- plex as science but that the aims of science and technology are different and that much of the knowledge upon which technology draws does not come from the sciences. 3. Interestingly, as Bjerknes became involved in weather forecasting, he gradually aban- doned his earlier theoretical aims, and his approach to meteorology became less deductive and more empirical and qualitative in order that he could better meet the needs of farmers, ªshermen and the military. In my terminology, therefore, he moved from a scientiªc ap- proach toward a practical one. See Kranakis 1992 whose account is based on the work of Robert Marc Friedman. 332 On the Genesis of Technoscience At the other end of the spectrum were those academics whose approach was strongly practice-oriented. This group generally took their research questions from the practical domain, and in attempting to solve them, they often drew in part upon theories and methods from the basic sciences, though without assuming that these alone would be sufªcient for a solu- tion. Instead these academics were attentive to what was both economi- cally feasible and practically realistic under the particular circumstances in Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/posc/article-pdf/13/3/329/1789359/106361405774288017.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 which their “clients” in the practical domain were working. (An example of this type of problem-solver is the design-engineer whose inventions must take into account not only scientiªc and technical possibilities but also the practical circumstances in which the artifact will be manufactured and used as well as economic—and sometimes aesthetic—constraints.) On other occasions, however, solutions were derived merely from empirical experience or from modifying existing technical practices, with no re- course to scientiªc knowledge.