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An influential scholar in science studies argues that innovation tames the insatiable and limitless curiosity driving science, and that society's acute ambivalence about this is an inevitable legacy of modernity.Curiosity is the main driving force behind scientific activity. Scientific curiosity, insatiable in its explorations, does not know what it will find, or where it will lead. Science needs autonomy to cultivate this kind of untrammeled curiosity; innovation, however, responds to the needs and desires of society. Innovation, argues influential European science studies scholar Helga Nowotny, tames the passion of science, harnessing it to produce "deliverables." Science brings uncertainties; innovation successfully copes with them. Society calls for both the passion for knowledge and its taming. This ambivalence, Nowotny contends, is an inevitable result of modernity. In Insatiable Curiosity, Nowotny explores the strands of the often unexpected intertwining of science and technology and society. Uncertainty arises, she writes, from an oversupply of knowledge. The quest for innovation is society's response to the uncertainties that come with scientific and technological achievement. Our dilemma is how to balance the immense but unpredictable potential of science and technology with our acknowledgement that not everything that can be done should be done. We can escape the old polarities of utopias and dystopias, writes Nowotny, by accepting our ambivalence--as a legacy of modernism and a positive cultural resource.

Die Moderne ist durch den Verlust von Gewißheiten geprägt, was sie nicht hindert, neue zu suchen. Die historisch einmalige Präferenz für das Neue, die mit der modernen Naturwissenschaft institutionalisiert wurde, hat Ungewißheiten mit sich gebracht, die aus dem erweiterten Handlungsraum und technischen Möglichkeiten resultieren. So endlos das Potential menschlicher Kreativität und der sie antreibenden Neugier scheinen mag, stößt sie dort auf Grenzen, wo das, was wissenschaftlich und technisch machbar ist, als gesellschaftlich unerwünscht gilt. Die wissenschaftliche Neugier soll gezähmt werden, doch gleichzeitig hat die Gesellschaft eine kollektive Wette auf die fragile Zukunft abgeschlossen. Sie lautet: Innovation. Im Buch werden die sich daraus ergebenden Spannungen analysiert und die ihnen zugrundeliegende Ambivalenz als kulturelle Ressource identifiziert. Um die Zukunft anders als in utopischen und dystopischen Bildern zu denken, müssen wir, ob wir wollen oder nicht, modern bleiben

The authors argue that changes in society now make such communication both more likely and more numerous, and that this is transforming science not only in its research practices and the institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological core. To explain these changes, the authors have developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science. They conclude that the line which formerly demarcated society from science is regularly transgressed and that the resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis on which a new social contract between science and society might be constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the elements that would comprise this new social contract. Contents: 1. The Transformation of Society. - 2. Beyond Modernity - Breaching the Frontiers. - 3. The Co-Evolution of Society and Science. - 4. The Context Speaks Back. - 5. The Transformation of Knowledge Institutions. - 6. The Role of Universities in Knowledge Production. - 7. How Does Contextualization Happen? - 8. Weakly Contextualized Knowledge. - 9. Strongly Contextualized Knowledge. - 10. Contextualization of the Middle Range. - 11. From Reliable Knowledge to Socially Robust Knowledge. - 12. The Epistemological Core. - 13. Science Moves into the Agora. - 14. Socially Distributed Expertise. - 15. Re-Visioning Science. - 16. Re-Thinking Science is not Science Re-Thought (HoF/text adopted)