LEE, MARY E.; PHD

                        TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY, 1993
 
                        SOCIOLOGY, SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT (0700); SOCIOLOGY, THEORY AND
                        METHODS (0344); PHILOSOPHY (0422)
 

                         Recent work signals a return to questions about relationships between diverse knowledge claims and
                         macrolevel change. In this dissertation, I outline a preliminary model of science and technology in society
                         as a basis for a better understanding of relationships between macrolevel patterns of social organization
                         and the actions of individual scientists and technologists at the microlevel. The model is based on a
                         theoretical 'resource transfer group' (RTG) as the basic unit of change in both ecosystems and social
                         systems. The model is self-organizing in that no 'external' processes are posited to affect system
                         behavior. 'Levels' of structured resource transfer relationships act as bounding conditions for other
                         'levels' of the system. I locate science and technology in this system as specific classes of cognitive
                         resources that are transferred among human RTGs by various communicative mechanisms. The
                         relevance of mathematical chaos to modeling the behavior of a system of socioecological
                         self-organization is discussed.

Social Systems Simulation Group P.O. Box 6904 San Diego, CA  92166-0904 Roland Werner, Principal Phone/FAX  (619) 660-1603