Technology and more

Technology, a concept made complex by our need to categorize everything. I found a definition that I find useful from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Technology has more than one definition. One is the development and application of tools, machines, materials and processes that help to solve human problems. As a human activity, technology predates both science and engineering. It embodies the human knowledge of solving real problems in the design of standard tools, machines, materials or the process. Thus standardization of design is an essential feature of technology." We have talked in class about the differences between "craft" technology and "formal scientific research" developed technologies. I think that this characterization of the differences of these kinds of technological developments is inaccurate. The early craftsmen who experimented with designs, and tried to develop new processes, things, etc; were researching their technologies. The only thing is that they did not have a research lab that we associate today with scientific and technological development. What we today refer to as scientific technology (scientific technologicay development) are technologies that have been developed by people following the scientific method. This is importand because it makes possible the development of a replicable process for reproducing the technology.
The advent of this method of developing new technologies didn't become common until companies started paying people to develop new technologies for them. This was essential for the company because they needed to have methods developed to mass-produce the technology (or in some cases automate the production of a product). So, it was the advent of the early company sponsored R&D department that shaped our current concept of the science based technology (or the technology developed using the scientific method) Before this time, it wasn't fiscally feasable for a craftsman to take the time to try to research improvements in a technology.
From those beginnings of technology research to improve products and processes, companies have more and more relied on these researchers to come up with new concepts and technologies for the company to use to make more money.