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Towards Scientific and Technological Independence?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Isebill V. Gruhn
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Extract

It is generally advisable to get a reasonably firm grasp of the past and present before attempting to achieve an approximate ‘fix’ on the future. Prognostications about the furture are always risky and especially so in reasonably unpredictable fields like science and technology, which can be demonstrated to have been congenitally immune to accurate predictions throughout history. Scientific and technological break-throughs have often, in the past, produced unanticipated changes, and they have frequently led to the solution of heretofore unresolvable problems. History gives us instances of communities which have taken advantage remarkably quickly of advances in science and technology, but it also shows us instances of societies which for one reason or another failed to adapt. And one might add that while some scientific and technological innovations take on global relevance, others have remained specific and have been circumscribed by time and place.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

page 1 note 1 Some of the materials in this article are based on, have been quoted from, or can be found in elaborated form in, Gruhn, Isebill V. and Constance Anthony, G., U.S. Policy on Science for Development in Africa (Los Angeles, 1980), Occasional Paper No. 19, African Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles. I am, of course, indebted to my co-author from the earlier work, although she bears no responsibility for any shortcomings in what follows.Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 Ibid. pp. 8–11.

page 6 note 1 See especially Goulet, Denis, The Uncertain Promise (New York, 1977), published by IDOC/North America in co-operation with the Overseas Development Council.Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 Ibid. p. 15.

page 8 note 1 Ibid. pp. 16–17. See also Gruhn, Isebill V., Regionalism Reconsidered: the Economic Commission for Africa (Boulder, 1979), for a discussion of the desirable and necessary rôle of regional co-operation as an adjunct to national development.Google Scholar

page 9 note 1 Aaron Segal of the American National Science Foundation has repeatedly called attention to the problem of an underdeveloped market in science and technology in Africa. Cf. ‘Science Technology and Development in Africa’, New York, 1981.

page 11 note 1 Ibid. p. 5.

page 14 note 1 For a brief but interesting discussion of the consultant business and the changes it has undergone over the years, see Colamosca, Anne, ‘White Man's Burden, in The New Republic (New York), 4 04 1981, pp. 12–15.Google Scholar

page 16 note 1 Gruhn and Anthony, op. cit. pp. 35–6.

page 17 note 1 Toynbee, Arnold, A Study of History as abridged by Sommervell, D. C. (New York, 1965), p. 116.Google Scholar