Normal vs Revolutionary Development of Technology Systems

Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, distinguished between normal science and scientific revolutions. (See a nice summary of the book by Frank Pajares.) Basically, there are scientific paradigms, and normal science is what goes on within them. However, such paradigms have historically gone into crises, where accumulating evidence made them appear untenable. Revolutionary change can then occur in which a paradigm shift occurs. When a new paradigm successfully challenges the old, there is a period in which adherents of the old and the new work in parallel while debating the merits of the two.

Since it was first published there have been a lot of challenges to Kuhn’s book, which itself set a paradigm. I recently read Simon Winchester’s The Map That Changed the World : William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology, and it raised such a challenge in my mind. Smith, at the turn of the 18th century, created the first maps of geological strata, which in turn lead to the field of stratigraphy and thus modern geology. According to Winchester’s book, he did so from scratch rather than in reaction to a previous paradigm then in crisis.

Technological systems seem analogous to scientific paradigms. Would it be useful to distinguish between system shifts and the development of new technological systems?

There are clearly situations in which one technological system replaces another. The replacement of the horse and buggy by the automobile comes to mind. Eventually a system was created of: factories to manufacture cars, garages to maintain and repair them, gas stations to fuel them, roads on which they could run, licensing of drivers, etc. That system replaced one composed of: the breeding farms for horses, the stables, the feed stores, the buggy manufactures, the horse whip makers, the street cleaners, etc. For a while, however, there were both cars and horses and buggies on the street.

Looking at the automobile, however, we can see a process of “normal” technological development that has been going on for more than a century. There have been improvements in every aspect of the autos themselves. There have been improvement in the process by which they are made. Ford, indeed is seen to have changed the manufacturing paradigm through the introduction of mass production. For over a century there have been incremental changes in heavy machinery, and more fundamental changes such as the introduction of robotics and CAD/CAM into the manufacturing process. As the relative costs of capital and labor have changed, and manufacturing has become more capital intensive, technological changes have been induced in the manufacturing process.

The replacement of animal power by auto-power was a change in technological system. But perhaps the Information Revolution is better seen as the introduction of new technological systems. Thus telecommunications, broadcasting, and computers seem to have established new technological systems where none existed before. Even if these are seen as elaborations of the technological system based on electricity, that larger system of electric power and its applications might be seen as historically new to the world.

Would it be useful to distinguish between normal and revolutionary technological development?

A lot of applied research and development (R&D) is simply seeking incremental improvements in an existing product or process technology. We might think of such efforts as normal technology development. Moore’s Law, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits doubles every year, suggests that the for decades the improvements in chips and chip manufacture have been ”normal”. Yet the introduction of semiconductor chips to replace tubes and wired individual components might be seen as “revolutionary”.

Others have pointed out that at the beginning of such a revolutionary change not much is gained economically. It took a while until the effect of Moore’s Law was to put chips into virtually every manufactured electrical device (including electric toothbrushes). So too, I imagine, at the beginning of a shift in scientific paradigm, not much is understood through the new paradigm.

So where do we find normal and where revolutionary technological developments?

I suppose that one of the key sources of revolutionary technology is in the results of fundamental research. Semiconductor electronics came from solid state physics. Biotechnology came out of developments in molecular biology. Operations research from developments in pure mathematics. On the other hand, perhaps the Wright brothers derived the invention of the airplane not so much from science as from their mechanical experience. Edison was an inventor, not a scientist even in the terms of his time.

Normal technology development (NTD) sometimes comes simply from reengineering products and processes to meet changed circumstances. Oil prices go up or government regulations change, and cars are designed with increased fuel efficiency. Labor costs go up, and factories increase automation.

Sometimes NTD comes from technology deepening. Designers take what they learned from developing the processes for the manufacture of one generation of microchips, extend them, and more on to those for the next generation.

Sometimes NTD comes from technology transfer. Companies transfer technology developed in one country to their facilities in another country. Or engineers pick up a technique used in one field, and apply it in another.

Sometimes NTD comes from new findings from fundamental science, as when a pure mathematician can suggest to an applied mathematician an finding that can make algorithms more efficient.

Invention versus innovation

Just to remind any reader who might still be with me, an innovation is not necessarily a new invention. Farmers can innovate by adopting a new crop or farming practice that is commonly used in other places. The combine was invented only once, although there have been many innovations since in the design and manufacture of combines. An invention is something totally new, an innovation need only be novel to its local application.

A thought about IPR

Patents were originally awarded for inventions, and novelty was a critical criterion for the approval of a patent. In the United States, patents were created in the law for utilitarian purposes. It was felt that giving inventors monopoly rights to their inventions in return for their publication would allow and encourage further development of their ideas into useful products. It was also felt, I suppose, that the profitability of the temporary monopoly would encourage both the commercialization of inventions and more inventive activity.

Increasingly, I am told, the patent system has been changed to protect the products of applied research and development, with innovation much reduced as a criterion for their award. I suppose this is due in part to the increase in “normal” technology development focused on improving many aspects simultaneously of our complex technology systems. It certainly seems important for society to stimulate such R&D.

I suppose then that, to some degree, the original idea of patents was to promote revolutionary technological developments while the current use of patents is more to promote normal technological development. I hope that we do not lose the revolutionary in our efforts to encourage the normal.

I have posted in the recent past on open source, open content, and standards as alternative ways of dealing with inventions and innovation.

Perhaps a key issue is how to institutionalize systems in developing nations that best promote innovation in their technological systems, and under their social, political, economic and cultural systems.

Good practice versus innovation

There seems to be a great emphasis these days on innovation, to the neglect of good practice of the science and technology based professions. I would suggest that very few physicians produce medical innovations, but I want my physician to use best practices of knowledge based medicine. Similarly, there is a lot of work in soil analysis, plant pathology, and plant pest control that is not especially innovative, but for which good professional practice matters for agricultural production. Professional architects should use knowledge-based, good practice to develop sound, cost-effective building designs. Civil engineers’ good practice leads to the design of good, cost-effective roads, canals, and water and sewerage systems.

The new growth theory in economics seems to stress technological innovation. Its proponents may not have figured out how to quantify the value of good practice, nor how to include good practice in their economic models. But donor agencies should not be deferred from developing institutional capacity to assure good practice for lack of the economists’ understanding. The threat of such a failure is real. After all, we know that for a generation the donors failed to support knowledge for development. It is only recently that the new growth theory in economics seems to have increased donor agency interest in building the capacity of knowledge systems in order to promote innovation.

Final comment

Developing nations might be regarded as at a different, earlier stage in the transitions among technological systems than developed nations. They still have underdeveloped road systems, and use more animal than auto power. They have less developed electrical, telecommunications, broadcast, and computer infrastructures, and thus depend on energy, communications and information processing technological systems now replaced in Europe and the United States. Their agricultural systems depend more on traditional agricultural practice, and have not fully integrated modern crop varieties, chemical inputs, irrigation, or other elements of the “modern” agricultural technology system. So too, their health services have not made the transition to systems based on professional practitioners, with a full complement of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and diagnostics and diagnostic devices at their disposal.

There is a metaphor that might be useful. Some people image a poor nation as a miniature of a rich nation, as a Chihuahua might be seen as a miniature of a Doberman. It is better to image a poor nation as composed of parts of each, in a dysfunctional arrangement – one big leg and one small, one big ear and one small, a big head and a small mouth. The traditional technological systems are the small organs, while the modern technological systems might be likened to the large ones.

As the “traditional” technology systems of developing countries reflected their cultures as well as their physical, economic and social environments, so too the “modern” technology systems will reflect those environments. The modern technology systems of developing nations should not be seen as simply transferred or copied from developed nations. Their country specific aspects are worth at least as much effort as the transfer of aspects from abroad.

New technological systems are invented very seldom, and there are many countries in the world. Thus most modern technological systems are importantly transfers from abroad. Indeed, it seems that most come from technologically advanced, relative rich countries. However, I wonder whether among the billions of people in developing nations, there is not to be found a modern Edison or a modern Ford, who could lead in the invention of a new technological system meeting the needs of his own and other countries. How are the conditions to be created to empower such individuals?

There is little likelihood that the transition to modern technological systems can be completed soon in many if not most developing nations. The issue then is before such nations of how to continue with “normal” technology development in the various technology systems simultaneously.

It seems clearly inappropriate to leave the “traditional” system unimproved and to put effort only to extend and improve the “modern” system. Thus, in developing countries, it has been important to provide primary health services with delegated functions to poor populations and to improve the efforts of traditional practitioners, while also improving and extending the hospital based medical practice.

It seems a sure path to poverty in a globalized world to ignore modern technologies and put all of a nation's efforts into upgrading traditional technological systems.

With very limited resources in the fields of applied science and technology, poor nations are required to allocate human and institutional resources:
* to improving traditional technology systems and to improving modern technology systems,
* to inventing and innovating to improve traditional technology and to improve and adapt modern technology,
= to training for good professional practice and to training for good paraprofessional and traditional practice.

A critical issue is then how to allocate resources among technological systems in order to achieve more fundamental objectives of social and economic development. This would seem to be an topic tailored for economists, but I am not at all sure that their models are up to the task of illuminating the choices among alternative strategies. Their failure leaves the task to science and technology policy makers, who are working “by the seat of their pants”.

Building science and technology capacity would seem importantly to be about building the institutional capacity and policies so that society will allocate these resources well.