Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Although Big Science is a rather nebulous term, most commentators have used it to describe an array of perceived changes in science and scientific practice during and after World War II. Following Alvin Weinberg's Reflections on Big Science , the term has often been associated with the rise of a military-industrial-government-academic complex, the use/production of huge machines, the investment of massive resources, and the growth of large techno-scientific organizations. As such, Big Science is often compared against a pre-war Little Science, usually characterized by lone or heroic scientists (typically, a Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein-type figure) working in their makeshift laboratory. Yet large-scale science is not a twentieth-century phenomenon. Astronomy, for example, modeled itself on the factory system during the nineteenth century, with an increase in the hierarchical division of labor and a focus on large-scale, mission-oriented projects. These developments coincided with increased funding (mainly philanthropic) and the construction of ever-larger telescopes, upon which the field of inquiry came to depend. Nonetheless, the Manhattan Project, which brought together resources and labor power on an unprecedented scale to produce the first atomic bomb, often serves as the symbol for the beginnings of Big Science. Because of this, many commentators have seen technology as ... log in or subscribe to read full text