This response to a recent article in ST&HV by Woolgar ("The Turn to Technology in
Social Studies of Science") investigates Woolgar's concept of analytic ambivalence. The
response points out how this notion originates in a formula applied to social problems
research and how this formula is used as the basis for Woolgar's critique of work in the
social studies of technology. The response then goes on to show that Woolgar's own
application of the formula of analytic ambivalence is formulaic and glosses over many
of the interesting features of the social studies of technology. Woolgar's article seems set
to become another exemplification of the reflexivist formula rather than an occasion for
questioning the idea of applying formulas altogether.
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