It has been my contribution to emphasize them as the specific contribution of the humanities. In recent years technology studies has benefited greatly from the adoption of a historicist approach derived from the work of Thomas Kuhn in the history of science. Instead of regarding technological progress as a deterministic sequence of developments, we have learned to see it as a contingent process that could lead in many different directions. I have applied this approach to several important issues in technology. My work shows how the illusion of neutrality and autonomy of the technical professions arises from the way in which they construct their history.
History shows that public opinion has deep impacts on the direction of technical development.
Insofar as lay attitudes make a difference their influence is embodied in new technical standards. With time these standards appear to the backward glance of professionals to have arisen spontaneously from technical rationality. Thus professionals tend to meet each new offensive of public opinion as a challenge to their autonomy when in all likelihood they will succeed in assimilating its consequences. I also study a variant of this problem in relation to the supposed tradeoff between ideology and technology. What I find is that technical development is far more flexible, far more able to internalize public initiatives than is usually imagined.