The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science) [Paperback]

George Basalla (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 1989 | ISBN-10: 0521296811 | ISBN-13: 978-0521296816

Presents an evolutionary theory of technological change based on recent scholarship in the history of technology and on relevant material drawn from economic history and anthropology. Challenges the popular notion that technological advances arise from the efforts of a few heroic individuals who produce a series of revolutionary inventions that owe little or nothing to the technological past. Therefore, the book's argument is shaped by analogies drawn selectively from the theory of organic evolution, and not from the theory and practice of political revolution. Three themes appear, with variations, throughout the study. The first is diversity: an acknowledgment of the vast numbers of different kinds of made things (artifacts) that long have been available to humanity. The second theme is necessity: the mistaken belief that humans are driven to invent new artifacts in order to meet basic biological needs such as food, shelter, and defense. And the third theme is technological evolution: an organic analogy that explains both the emergence of the novel artifacts and their subsequent selection by society for incorporation into its material life without invoking either biological necessity or technological process.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mr. Basalla argues his case ingeniously and cites a variety of examples...the reader is astonished again and again at the ease with which Mr. Basalla overturns many cherished prejudices and preconceptions about inventors and their creations." New York Times Book Review

"George Basalla has done scholars a valuable service...(his)own insights at an intermediate level of analysis may well provide the building blocks for a more rigorous and sophisticated theory of technological change." Science

"A thoughtful and thought provoking analysis drawing on a wide range of historical examples that will be of use to scholars and students." - Science, Technology and Society

"a refreshing book...a lively and revealing perspective on the history of technology. This book should find its way into undergraduate courses." American Scientist

"Both the tech-happy and the tech-wary will find news in this view of technology as an evolutionary system. Fascinating case studies show how society-bending inventions - even 'breakthroughs' - proceed from small, incremental variations upon earlier inventions." Whole Earth Catalog

Book Description

Three emerging themes challenge the popular notion that technology advances through the efforts of a few who produce a series of revolutionary inventions that owe little or nothing to the technological past.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 24, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521296811
• ISBN-13: 978-0521296816
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #478,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Do Technologies 'Evolve'? February 25, 2007

By Steve Ruskin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Basalla's 'Evolution of Technology' makes the analogy to biological evolution to explain the development of technologies: the Paleolithic chipping stone becomes the crude stone-and-wood hammer which later becomes a cast-iron hammer which eventually becomes the giant mechanical steam hammer. Of course, thinking of technology in such evolutionary terms can ONLY be analogical--tools don't have genes, and they certainly don't procreate. What tools and technologies have is diversity (a key component in evolutionary change); however, it takes human needs--necessities--to bring about technological developments. This historical combination of technological diversity and human necessity is "evolution" for Basalla.

Basalla's argument is therefore a practical method for thinking about the history of technology--one of a number of different methods (for other alternatives see anything by Arnold Pacey, or the 'Short History of Technology' by Derry and Williams). And in this respect Basalla offers a fine approach. In fact, his book may well be the most readable history of technological progress available, but it is also one that places more weight on a single analogy than the analogy itself may be able to bear.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars continuous improvements March 1, 2005

By W Boudville HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

In considering the role of major inventions in history, there have been two major views. This book puts forward one of them. Namely that technological progress can be understood in part by analogy to biological evolution, as a series of continuous and incremental innovations, that arise out of the gestalt of the inventor's environment. The authors argue eloquently, with much cited research to buttress their arguments.

Certainly, most inventions are indeed incremental gains in understanding. But one might say that if you take the evolution analogy, there is also a corresponding hypothesis akin to punctuated equilibrium. Namely that sometimes, an inventor or scientist really does make a fundamental discontinuity in understanding. In a way that a continuously innovative procedure would have been extremely unlikely to garner. In science at least, the best examples may be Einstein's General Relativity, and Claude Shannon's Information Theory. Nothing like either was even remotely contemplated by their contemporaries. Ok, granted, the book talks about technology, not science. But at some fundamental level, the discussion of progress encompasses both.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A seminal work December 24, 2011

By Aldo Matteucci

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Heroic historiography of science and technology has dominated well past the moment when historians had despaired of kings and heroic battles as shapers of human history. The lone scientist and inventor still hogs today's narrative. These heroes have been joined lately by visionary entrepreneurs à la Steve JOBS, who "invented the future". Humbug, says the author, and I concur wholeheartedly. This splendid book, easy to read ans understand, explains why.

There are a few million living species. Our material artifacts outnumber them easily. The author is correct in pointing out that diversity of artifacts is a distinguishing characteristic of human life. Necessity is not the reason for this stupendous diversity: "it is a testimony to the fertility of the contriving mind and to the multitudinous ways the peoples of the earth have chosen to live." (pg. 208)

The author explains this diversity of artifacts not so much by invention as by evolution: "the prevalence of artifactual continuity has been obscured by the myth of the heroic inventive genius" (pg. 208) and postulates continuity, even if convoluted and rhyzomic (my term here), rather than directed and progressive. At each point in time the potential for technological innovation is far greater than any society can hope to exploit. Play, fantasy, and emulation all collaborate to create this potential. So do psychological and intellectual factors (Chapt. III). Socio-economic and cultural factors should not be discounted (Chapt. IV).

Selection may be based on economic and military factors - we could call them "necessity" (Chap. V). In many cases, however, social and cultural factors are deeply involved (Chapt. VI). "Ultimately the selection is made in accordance with the values and perceived needs of society and in harmony with its current understanding of "the good life"." (pg. viii).

It is the author's great merit to have chosen Darwinian evolution as the overarching explanatory metaphor explaining the evolution of technology. He should be commended for this. A generation later, and with deeper knowledge of Darwinian processes, new authors are picking up this metaphor is picked up and deepening it (See Alex MESOUDI Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture and Synthesize the Social Sciences).

Metaphors constrain as much as they explain. Contrary to speciation we do have discontinuities with artifacts - when they are used for a different purpose, so as when first a hammer was used as a weapon. Chance and whimsy probably play a larger role than they do in nature. Just an example: I've read somewhere that the race between the steam and petrol car was decided by foot-and-mouth disease. An outbreak of this disease among horses led to the elimination of troughs on public highways, which may have spread contagion. Such troughs were used to refuel steam cars, so their refueling stations were eliminated.

The author discounts somewhat path-dependent outcomes and "autonomous technologies". I'd be more reserved. As long as the laws of scarcity are not repealed, efficiency will be a main criterion for technology choice. Once efficiency enters the realm of choice, it tends to overshadow other criteria. It is also the lowest common denominator when values conflict. In fact "efficiency" has become a very hard task-master, ruling us impartially.

Individual agency remains the source of invention in the book's paradigm. Is it really so? If we are truly social animals, creativity is also social - though we may perceive is as personal, nay solitary. I would be wary of the "lone tinkerer" as much as the "lone genius". The act of creation arises from the "meeting of minds" - Newton spoke of standing on the shoulders of giants. It is in dialogue that most brilliant ideas emerge, and one is loath, as the creation unfolds, to assign its original spark to anyone. The inventor's reception of the emergent spark and the kindling and nurturing of the emergent fire assigns authorship to him. Fair enough. If one writes a history of technology, however, the social aspect should be highlighted, for it is the bed from which new ideas spring. Clustering great minds is often a winning proposition - unless the great minds drift into a tiring game of establishing a pecking order among themselves.

The author is liberal in the use of examples and "stories". Some are apt, some fascinating, and the best are "paths not taken" (pg. 189 ff.). Others tend to be overlong. And one quibble: fire antedates the emergence of homo sapiens sapiens by about one million years. Cooking food was a prerequisite for our large brains. In this sense it was not a choice, but a necessity.