Golem at Large : What You Should Know About Technology

Cover
Halftitle
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction: the technological golem
1  A clean kill?: the role of Patriot in the Gulf War
	The Gulf War
	War, science, and technology
		Was Patriot a success?
	What everyone agrees about Patriot
	Criteria of success
		The indirect criteria of success
			Sales, anti-tactical missiles, and Star Wars
			The local political role of Patriot
			Death and destruction
		The direct criteria of success
			Interception and diversion
			Dudding and damaging
	Reaching toward the laboratory
2 The naked launch: assigning blame for the Challenger explosion
	O-ring joints
	The design and testing of the SRB joints
	The hydroburst test
		Similarity and difference
	More testing
		Make sure the thing’s going to work
	Testing for worst scenarios
		First flight of the shuttle
	1981-1985 erosion and blow-by become accepted and expected
		Going operational
	Blow-by
	The Challenger launch decision
		The pre-launch teleconference
	Conclusion
3 Crash!: nuclear fuel flasks and anti-misting kerosene on trial
	Two crashes: a solution to technological ambivalence?
	Experiments and demonstrations
	The crashes reanalysed
		The train crash revisited
		The plane crash revisited
	Imagining what might have been done
	Conclusion
4 The world according to Gold: disputes about the origins of oil
	Gold’s world
	Who is Gold?
	Which came first, the fossil or the fuel?
	Abiogenic evidence?
	A crucial oil well?
	Give us a gusher
5 Tidings of comfort and joy: Seven Wise Men and the science of economics
	What is a macroeconomic model made of?
	The Seven Wise Men and their ideas
	Why do macroeconometric models survive?
		(i) Underlying structure versus the behaviour of the economy
		(ii) Quantitative prediction
		(iii) Big forecast errors
		(iv) Luck
		(v) Trouble with the economy
	Discussion
	Postscript
6 The science of the lambs: Chernobyl and the Cumbrian sheepfarmers
	Fallout over Britain
		The government sounds the ‘all clear’
		Radioactive lambs
	The science of the lambs
	The Sellafield factor
	Conclusion
7 ACTing UP: AIDS cures and lay expertise
	AIDS: The ‘gay plague’
	PART I
		A vaccine in two years?
		The promise of anti-viral drugs
		Clinical controlled trials and the FDA
		Buyers clubs
		Project Inform
		The trials of AZT
		Equipoise
		Patients as body counts
		Redefining the doctor-patient relationship
		Community-based trials
	PART II
		ACT UP
		Talking good science
		Activists start to win allies
		The expertness of lay expertise
		Teaching old dogs new tricks
Conclusion: the golem goes to work
	Promises delivered
	Conclusion
References and Further Reading
Index