Alvin Weinberg and the Promotion of the Technological Fix

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Technology and culture 2018-07, Vol.59 (3), p.620-651
Main Author: Johnston, Sean F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advisors
Apollo project
Audiences
Biology
Careers
Community colleges
Contemporary problems
Design
Engineering
Innovations
Laboratories
Nuclear reactors
Physics
Politics
Problem solving
Promotion
Research facilities
Science
Science policy
Scientists
Social conditions
Social problems
Technological change
Technology
World War II
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0040-165X
1097-3729
1097-3729
DOI:10.1353/tech.2018.0061