Having recently written about scientific civilization through the lens of comments by Jacob Bronowski and Susanne Langer, I have been doing more research on the idea of scientific civilization for further posts in the series. This has brought additional material to my attention, but it has also raised questions. Why focus on scientific civilization? Does scientific civilization have a special place in the future of civilization, or ought it to have a special place in the future of civilization?

在最近通过Jacob Bronowski和Susanne Langer的评论撰写了关于科学文明的文章之后，我在该系列的更多文章中对科学文明的概念进行了更多研究。 这引起了我更多的注意，但也引发了疑问。 为什么要关注科学文明？ 科学文明在文明的未来中是否有特殊的地位，还是应该在文明的未来中具有特殊的地位？

In particular, what relationship does scientific civilization have to other forms of post-agricultural civilization, or what we might also call modern civilization? One can find “industrial civilization,” “technological civilization,” and “scientific civilization” used synonymously, which raises the question as to whether these ideas are subtly distinct or not. Is there a reason to distinguish between industrial civilization, technological civilization, and scientific civilization, or should we regard them as different names for the same thing?

特别是，科学文明与后农业文明的其他形式有什么关系，或者我们也可以称之为现代文明？ 可以找到同义词使用的“工业文明”，“技术文明”和“科学文明”，这引发了一个问题，即这些思想是否有微妙的区别。 是否有理由区分工业文明，技术文明和科学文明，还是我们应该将它们视为同一事物的不同名称？

One way to distinguish these three formations of modernity, and yet show them in relation to each other, is by way of what I call the STEM cycle, which is a tightly-coupled loop of scientific research, technological applications, and industrial engineering which characterizes civilization today. A STEM cycle has long been present in civilization, but in the past the STEM cycle was loosely-coupled, often with generations passing between each stage in the cycle. The combined effect of the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution served to transform the loosely-coupled STEM cycle of agricultural civilizations (which make intensive use of specialized agricultural technologies, though often in a highly traditional context that discourages innovation) into the tightly-coupled STEM cycle of modern civilization.

区分这三种现代性形成形式但又相互展示的一种方法是我称之为STEM循环，这是科学研究，技术应用和工业工程的紧密耦合循环，其特征是今天的文明。 STEM循环早在文明中就已存在，但在过去，STEM循环是松散耦合的，通常在循环的每个阶段之间都有代代相传。 科学革命和工业革命的共同作用有助于将松散耦合的农业文明的STEM循环(虽然在高度传统的背景下通常会鼓励创新，但大量使用专业农业技术，尽管经常使用专门的农业技术)变成了紧密耦合的STEM。现代文明的循环。

There are, of course, many technologies that came about not because of science, but through mere tinkering. It seems that James Watt’s steam engine was the iterated result of the tinkering of many men over a long period of time, so that the central exhibit of the industrial revolution seems to defy my characterization of technology. If one wanted to take the time to carefully select one’s examples, one could assemble a history of technology that almost entirely excluded the contribution of science. I concede this point, but at the same time, I could write a history of technology that was entirely based upon technologies that emerged as a direct result of the dispassionate pursuit of scientific knowledge.

当然，有许多技术的产生不是因为科学，而是通过修补。 詹姆斯·瓦特(James Watt)的蒸汽机似乎是许多人长期以来反复修补的反复结果，因此工业革命的中心展览似乎无视我对技术的描述。 如果有人想花时间仔细地选择一个例子，那么人们可以总结一下一部几乎完全排除科学贡献的技术史。 我承认这一点，但与此同时，我可以写一段技术史，它完全基于对科学知识的不懈追求直接产生的技术。

Selective histories aside, all of the most difficult and demanding technologies — nuclear energy, spacecraft, computing, DNA therapies in medicine, and so on — are the result of extensive scientific research, including pure science (Rutherford was doing pure science, but his pure science ultimately made nuclear technologies possible) performed with little or no interest in practical application. This also appears that it will hold good in the future, as the role of tinkering decreases and the role of scientific rigor in the advancement of technology increases. There are thresholds beyond which tinkering cannot pass.

除了选择性的历史，所有最困难和最苛刻的技术-核能，航天器，计算机，医学中的DNA治疗等等-都是包括纯科学在内的广泛科学研究的结果(卢瑟福当时从事的是纯科学，但他纯科学最终使核技术成为可能)，对实际应用几乎没有兴趣也没有兴趣。 这似乎也将在将来保持良好状态，因为修补角色的作用减少了，科学严谨性在技术进步中的作用也增加了。 不能超过修补的阈值。

Similar criticisms can be made of each section of the STEM cycle: scientific instruments that advance scientific research that do not come from industrial engineering, and industrial engineering developments that do not come from technology. All of these criticisms are valid, but they do not invalidate the idea of the STEM cycle generally. Also, the definitions of science, technology, and engineering need to be refined considerably in order to consistently make distinctions among these sections of the STEM cycle, which will inevitably have broad areas of overlap. As with my analysis of the institutional structure of civilization, the STEM cycle is an abstraction for use in the analysis of the economic infrastructure of civilization, and any actual processes will be far more complex that this idealized simplification.

可以对STEM周期的每个部分都提出类似的批评：促进科学研究的科学仪器不是来自工业工程，而工业工程的发展不是来自技术。 所有这些批评都是有效的，但它们通常不会使STEM周期的想法无效。 同样，科学，技术和工程的定义也需要大量改进，以便始终如一地在STEM周期的这些部分之间进行区分，这不可避免地会有广泛的重叠领域。 就像我对文明的制度结构的分析一样，STEM循环是用于分析文明的经济基础结构的抽象，任何实际过程都比理想化的简化要复杂得多。

For more on the STEM cycle, I have written several posts that examine this idea in detail, including:

有关STEM周期的更多信息，我写了几篇文章详细研究了这个想法，包括：

• The Industrial-Technological Thesis

  工业技术论文

• Industrial-Technological Disruption

  工业技术动荡

• The Open Loop of Industrial-Technological Civilization

  工业技术文明的开环

• Chronometry and the STEM Cycle

  计时码表和STEM周期

• The Institutionalization of the STEM Cycle

  STEM周期的制度化

• Secrecy and the STEM Cycle

  保密性和STEM周期

Given a tightly-coupled STEM cycle as characterizing modern civilization, we can differentiate scientific civilization, technological civilization, and industrialized civilization as each being civilizations that emphasize one section of the STEM cycle over the other sections of the cycle. In each, all sections of the STEM cycle are present, but in scientific civilization, for example, the section of the STEM cycle that predominates is scientific research.

给定一个紧密耦合的STEM周期来表征现代文明，我们可以区分科学文明，技术文明和工业化文明，因为每个文明都是强调STEM周期的一个部分而不是周期的其他部分的文明。 每个阶段都有STEM循环的所有部分，但是在科学文明中，例如，占主导地位的STEM循环部分是科学研究。

Coming at this problem from another angle, given my analysis of the institutional structure of civilization, I can formally identify these three formations of modern civilization as follows:

从另一个角度来看这个问题，从我对文明的制度结构的分析来看，我可以正式地将现代文明的这三种形成如下：

• A scientific civilization is a civilization that takes science as its central project

  科学文明是以科学为中心的文明

• A technological civilization is a civilization that takes technology as its central project

  技术文明是一种以技术为中心的文明

• An industrial civilization is a civilization that takes industrial engineering as its central project

  工业文明是以工业工程为中心的文明

The above formulations are, in each case, what I call a “proper” civilization, with other permutations of these formations following from science, technology, and engineering playing different roles in the institutional structure of civilization. This gives us a way to formally distinguish these three formations, but as I have pointed out in other posts, there are a great many different ways in which a civilization might take science as its central project, so there is room for a great deal of variation even among any one of these formations.

在每种情况下，上述表述都是我所说的“适当的”文明，这些形态的其他排列形式(继科学，技术和工程之后)在文明的制度结构中起着不同的作用。 这为我们提供了正式区分这三种形式的方法，但是正如我在其他文章中所指出的那样，文明可以以许多不同的方式将科学作为其中心项目，因此存在很大的空间甚至在这些形式中的任何一种之间也存在差异。

These formulations are entirely consistent with the above formulations that distinguish scientific, technological, and industrial civilizations in terms of an emphasis on one section of the STEM cycle: in each formation, there is a tightly-coupled STEM cycle, but in each formation one section of the STEM cycle either serves as the central project of the civilization, or is integral with the central project of the civilization.

这些提法与上述区分科学，技术和工业文明的提法完全一致，其中侧重于STEM循环的一个部分：在每个编队中，都有紧密耦合的STEM循环，但是在每个编队中，都有一个紧密耦合的STEM循环。 STEM周期的变化既可以作为文明的中心项目，也可以作为文明的中心项目的一部分。

The above formulations, then, allow me to integrate my definition of the institutional structures of civilization with the idea of the STEM cycle characterizing modern civilizations. This degree of integration of the two concepts strengthens both. However, I am lacking an intuitively perspicuous way to differentiate scientific, technological, and industrial civilizations. One way to address this deficit would be to formulate a great many scenarios (i.e., thought experiments, with possible real-world exemplifications, but not necessarily tied to actually existing civilizations in the historical record, which record is very shallow for modern civilizations) that highlighted distinctively scientific, technological, and industrial central projects, and then proceed inductively from these scenarios to generalizations that cover all tokens of the type.

因此，上述表述使我能够将我对文明制度结构的定义与表征现代文明的STEM周期的思想结合起来。 这两个概念的整合程度增强了两者。 但是，我缺乏区分科学，技术和工业文明的直观直观方法。 解决这一不足的一种方法是制定许多方案(例如，思想实验，可能有现实世界的例证，但不一定与历史记录中的实际存在的文明相关，对于现代文明而言，该记录非常浅薄)：突出显示了独特的科学，技术和工业中心项目，然后从这些场景归纳地进行到涵盖所有类型标记的概括。

I am not yet in a position to delineate an exhaustive description of the possibilities for scientific, technological, and industrial civilizations — this would a project for a lifetime, or for a scientific research program with many contributors — but I do have a few telling examples that can shed some limited light on the possibilities.

我尚无法详尽描述科学，技术和工业文明的可能性-这将是一个终身的项目，或者是一个由许多贡献者参与的科学研究计划-但我确实有一些有说服力的例子可以对可能性进行一些有限的了解。

In Tinkering with the Mind (and the sequels Tinkering with Science and Addendum on “Tinkering with Science”) I discussed the possibility of innovations derived from high technology tinkering without a scientific basis. Such high technology tinkering could only come within an economic infrastructure built up by a tightly-coupled STEM cycle, but in the case of technologies derived by tinkering, the scientific element in the production of the innovative technology in question would be in the background, while technology and engineering would be in the foreground. In the event that a civilization emerged from the proliferation of such technologies of tinkering (another example would be Shawyer’s EmDrive), we could call this a technological civilization or an industrial civilization, but it clearly would not be a scientific civilization.

在摆弄的心灵 (和后遗症与科学修修补补和补遗“用科学修修补补” )我讨论了高科技没有科学依据的修修补补派生创新的可能性。 如此高的技术修补只能在紧密耦合的STEM周期建立的经济基础架构内进行，但是在通过修补技术衍生的技术的情况下，所涉及的创新技术生产中的科学要素将是背景，而技术和工程将是前景。 如果这种修修补补技术的兴起产生了一个文明(另一个例子是Shawyer的EmDrive)，我们可以称其为技术文明或工业文明，但显然不是科学文明。

Another possibility that is not far from our present economic infrastructure would be a civilization focused on industrial engineering design, to the point that the technology and the science were far in the background, while the design became the focus of interest and development. Here, practical application would run ahead of actual scientific and technological innovation — though “run ahead” might be misleading in this context. Let me explain. Computer technology has been advancing so rapidly over the past several decades that those who use computers have been playing a game of catching up to the most efficient uses of the technologies available. The result has been a number of suboptimal operating systems that all of us present for the computer revolution have passed through in stoic and pragmatic determination. It hasn’t always been enjoyable. Suppose the technological innovations came to an end. One scenario that I have discussed in other contexts would be the collapse of modern civilization leaving a few industrialized enclaves. These enclaves would probably not be large enough to produce new innovations in semiconductor design, but they might be able to keep existing computational infrastructure functioning. Under these circumstances, there would be a strong motivation to use available technology as efficiently and effectively as possible. A real premium would attach to better software applications that could derive better performance from the same hardware.

与我们目前的经济基础设施相距不远的另一个可能性是，一个专注于工业工程设计的文明，以至于技术和科学都处于背景之外，而设计却成为人们关注和发展的焦点。 在这里，实际应用将先于实际的科学技术创新，尽管在这种情况下“领先”可能会产生误导。 让我解释。 在过去的几十年中，计算机技术飞速发展，以至于那些使用计算机的人都在追赶最有效地利用现有技术的过程。 结果导致了许多次优的操作系统，我们所有人都为计算机的革命而付出了坚决而务实的决心。 它并不总是很有趣。 假设技术创新告一段落。 我在其他情况下讨论过的一种情况是现代文明的崩溃，留下了一些工业化飞地。 这些飞地可能不够大，无法在半导体设计方面产生新的创新，但是它们可能能够保持现有的计算基础结构正常运行。 在这种情况下，将有强烈的动机去尽可能有效地使用可用技术。 真正的优势在于，可以从同一硬件获得更好性能的更好的软件应用程序。

We have an actual example of this in the Voyager spacecraft, far from us in outer space, indeed, having passed out of the solar system, but engineers on Earth have reprogrammed the spacecraft several times since their launch in order to obtain better results from hardware that cannot be changed. A civilization in which such conditions became the norm could be considered a civilization in which industrial engineering was in the foreground, while technology and science were distantly in the background, being maintained but not improved. If this particular example is to be taken as representative, it may be the case the industrial civilizations sensu stricto only come about after science and technology have faltered, that is to say, in the twilight of scientific civilization or technological civilization. But a generalization of this sweeping kind would require much more study of the problem.

在旅行者号航天器中，我们有一个实际的例子，在外层空间中距我们很远，实际上已经脱离了太阳系，但是自发射以来，地球上的工程师已经对该航天器进行了多次重新编程，以便从硬件中获得更好的结果。不能改变的 这样的条件成为规范的文明可以被认为是工业工程处于最前列，而技术和科学则处于遥远的背景下，得到维护但没有得到改善的文明。 如果以这个特定的例子为代表，那么也许只有在科学技术步履蹒跚之后，也就是说，在科学文明或技术文明的黄昏下，才出现严格意义上的工业文明。 但是，这种笼统的概括将需要对该问题进行更多的研究。