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Notes by Alan Dix on "The Evolution of Technology"

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The Evolution of Technology

Notes

p.2

e.e cummings - with caps "A"!

p.2,4,5

many hammers (Marx - 500 made in GB alone)

p.10

wheels are for toys in pre-Columbian Mexico

p.13

Necessity & invention - tools, fire not necessary for life (food grows) - but success of human is greater than other animals - necessity does not drive evolution, success does

p.15

Butler (1863) - human machine symbiosis

p.23

Usher - "cumulative synthesis approach" - design or invention model - c.f. story of lemon squeezer & p.24 inexplicability of insight

p.27

simplistic understanding of science

p.30/31

fundamental difference in view - B is focusses on component in isolation (turbine/stone axe), but seems to ignore implications of combinations (c.f. Mithen)

p.42

unconvincing stories

p.34

'great' inventions - those built on after (c.f. historic (H) creativity Boden)

p.49

Edison - "analogies between two such disparate systems" B sees continuity alternative is to see analytic insights

p.55/56

- Swift's Lagado book writing machine in Gulliver's Travels -
random generation + recognition/evaluation

p.66

homo ludens vs hom faber

p.82-83

imp. of human knowledge for technology - example of US textile industry after independence

p.93

steam - science meets engineering

p.97

role of visual thinking in science and technology

p.98-101

radio from Maxwell to Marconi

p.103

Barnett "all imitation" entails "dome discrepancy" … but digital?

p.111

inventions to suppress workers

p.138

Kroeber's technological family "tree" - mixtures as well as survival (c.f. viral crossover)

p.139/140

Edison's potential uses of phonograph

p.185

the home computer fad

p.187

invention, replication & discard

p.191

Japanese woodworking plane is pulled as well as saws

p.211

evolution but not improvement?

p.214

progress of culture and species (Childe) - but (me) hominids hand tools - to what extent is homo sapiens an evolved cyborg - technology & biology together succeed

p.13

Marx - worst human architects superior to best insect - humans envision structures in their imagination before erecting them

p.76

catalogue of unfindable objects - Bad Ideas!!

p.75-78

the importance of scientific fantasy