O ethos da ciência e suas transformações contemporâneas, com especial atenção à biotecnologia

Abstract

Since the 1980s, we have witnessed the strengthening of the ties between science, the industrial world and also political power and private economical interests. At the core of this process are the changes in the means of production of knowledge, in the nature of its institutions, in the epistemology and its relation to the world. The modern relation between scientific knowledge and the industrial sphere has been reversed and, more than assisting technology and the industry, science is today determined by them. It is in this elective affinity that the change in knowledge, university labs and other organisations is revealed. As a result of the transformation of science into a large-scale bureaucratic organisation devoted to the production sphere, during and after World War II, the new corporate technoscience arises. In the present paper some of the modifications in the production of science are discussed, based on the emblematic example of the new biotechnologies, which simultaneously indicate and promote the new scientific ethos.