Howard Odum's Technicways: A Neglected Lead in American Sociology.

Howard Odum at his death in 1954 was working on the technicways, a concept comparable to Sumner's folkways-addressed to the relation of technology to social change and social consensus. To Odum the essence of technicways is to be sought in terms of the transition required to give scientific techniques the sanctions of a system of norms. Technicways are the folkways of an age of science. The current neglect of this concept may be due to its embodiment in Odum's theory of folk sociology and in its closeness to Ogburn's social change which Odum apparently accepted. It is a paradox that today in a literate age of social change we have no records of the contemporary origin and development of folkways. This is explained when changing standards are related to scientific and engineering techniques. Another paradox demanding explanation is the incorporation of these techniques within the system of norms. Failure to understand the nature of the technicways leads to two popular fallacies: namely, (1) there exists a total breakdown of standards; (2) technology is in control of the social order. It is the contention of this paper that Howard Odum in the development of the concept technicways, has offered here a lead that takes up where Sumner's folkways left the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]