Introduction to the Special Issue: Science, Knowledge and Society

Abstract

Our changing times provide numerous opportunities for interesting research into different aspect of the knowledge-based society. Science is becoming a powerful institution influencing people's daily lives in various ways. But it is also increasingly influenced by social, economic and political forces shaping its direction and controlling its applications. The boundaries between private and public, nature and society, are increasingly challenged by scientific and technical advances. Technological products or tools embody knowledge and mediate it at the same time. Creating and disseminating knowledge by means of such tools is problematic in many ways, although the tools tend to be taken for granted as objective and neutral. The status and authority of experts in the knowledge-based society is neither automatic nor self-evident. The maintenance of expert status and control requires legitimation and validation displays to fight off public disinterest and scepticism, or legal challenge. Despite the importance of science and technology, mundane and tacit forms of knowledge are still crucial. The implications of recent scientific and technological developments for public welfare seem to indicate that the knowledge society and the welfare state can coexist in a mutually supportive relationship.

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