Well, what about looking at mode 1 as basic/fundamental science and at mode 
2 as applied/technical science. Or better said,  levels of fundamental 
science and levels of applied/technical science. Usually they alternate in 
some kind of succession. How many levels -- it depends on our theoretical 
model. However the idea is that between basic/fundamental knowledge and its 
application in design there are several levels. It is not possible to grab 
a sack of fundamental knowledge and apply it in design. That is the 
situation now. Designers pick what they find/see and after that they 
complain that the information is irrelevant. It might be as well -- most of 
the research is methodologically flawed. The problem is that contemporary 
science is not organized to cover all the links/levels in all subject 
areas. This will cost the humankind much more than the spending on research 
nowadays.

I think I have mentioned this scientific model long ago, but as usual, 
there was no response. If the design research community looks closer into 
it, many of today's design-research confrontations will be easily 
explained, and more importantly, will be smoothed.

Modern science can be improved dramatically, I would not dispute this. 
However, not by profanizing it for the sake of doing research easier. 
Designers need several new layers of applied science. The most important 
and extensive interdisciplinary interactions happen at the applied levels. 
Actually this model already exists in truncated formats in many industries. 
However, environmental/industrial design academics have little experience 
with it. The model can be identified most easily in engineering, medicine, 
and horticulture.

Regards,

Lubomir


At 04:33 PM 11/10/2001 +0100, Wolfgang Jonas wrote:
>Kari-Hans Kommonen wrote:
>
>While the quest for academic credibility and accountability etc. is
>important, it must not happen by sacrificing the identity, experience and
>the future of the field! We need new, appropriate designs for the education
>and research in our field.
>
>John Broadbent wrote:
>
>It seems clear that the transition from the "paleoteric" to the "neoteric"
>will be one of great magnitude, challenging - as Kari-Hans observes so well
>- the tendency humans have to contextualise the future from the past. Both
>he and Dick imply that we are opening up very different horizons and
>societal roles for design, with which I fully concur.
>__________
>
>I fully agree and want to add some comments:
>
>The scientific research process (the process!) is comparable to a design
>process. Scientific facts are created by completely separating this context
>of production and presenting the purified rest as something labelled
>objective knowledge.
>Scientific research, for the most part, has the great advantage that its
>subject matter is stable (the human body, the solar system, etc.).
>This is not the case in design. Its subject matter is the fluid artefact of
>socio-cultural evolution. The subject and the means of observation are
>permanently changing in design. Any stability that might emerge there has
>to be a highly dynamic one which is probably different from those versions
>of stability that have been established in the sciences.
>Adhering to scientific form might lead to academic credibility. That is
>true. But is it appropriate for our discipline? Does it contribute to
>developing an identity? And does it support neoteric thinking?
>
>To go further: We can observe a kind of convergence of sciences and the
>"sciences of the artificial" in the past decades. I do not refer to the
>struggle of design aiming at scientific standards, but to the sciences.
>They are approaching design. More and more scientific activity (even or
>especially basic) has to do with creation instead of observation.
>New insights into natural processes and the invention of technical
>artefacts and mechanisms open up a new dimension, which is situated beyond
>the well-known separation of "nature" and "culture" or "society", of
>"natural" and "artificial". Phenomena that do not occur in nature are
>artificially created there. See the practice of bio-genetic modelling or
>nano-technology etc. Nature is more and more designed.
>Imagine a nano-scientist trying to bring some atomic structures into a
>certain shape. Which is basic nano research but clinical or applied design
>research (just to mention that I don´t agree with the distinction of
>clinical / applied / basic research in design which was put forward here
>some time ago).
>
>This means that a further borderline is questioned, which has been
>constitutive and self-evident and very momentous for the natural sciences
>in the last 300 years: the separation of objective nature and subjective
>representations which has been the foundation for the radical distinction
>of "facts" and "values", i.e. the distinction of the scientific recognition
>of what is and ethical considerations of what should be.
>
>We are now experiencing very clearly the permeability of these and other
>separations. The hybrid interfaces are multiplying much more rapidly and
>are more effective than the rescue operations trying to save the clear
>separations / interfaces.
>
>We might call the ideal, purified version of knowledge production: mode 1.
>And the heterogeneous, transdisciplinary, project-oriented version: mode 2.
>The 2 versions have always co-existed during the past centuries. There is
>no either / or. Moreover we can say that mode 1 is an important rhetoric
>instrument of defense that all those are using who are necessarily working
>according to both modes.
>Mode 1 is the definition of moral values and intellectual ideals that are
>to make us forget how widespread and necessary mode 2 is in fact. The
>discourses which argue that mode 1 describes the production of scientific
>knowledge have been a means to present modern western thinking as superior
>to all other ways of dealing with reality. They claimed that it was the
>only means to distinguish facts and fictions, reality and inventions. And
>they were the argumentative basis to relieve scientists of social and
>political responsibility. Etc.
>
>So: let´s talk in mode 1 about mode 2. Or: let´s do research ABOUT research
>THROUGH design...
>
>
>
>Jonas
>
>
>Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Jonas
>Designtheorie
>Hochschule für Künste Bremen
>Am Wandrahm 23
>D-28195 Bremen
>Germany