According to the new school of scientists，technology is an overlooked force in expandingthe horizons of scientific knowledge.（71）Science moves forward，they say，not so muchthrough the insights of great men of genius as because of more ordinary things likeimproved techniques and tools.（72）"In short"，a leader of the new schoolcontends，"the scientific revolution，as we call it，was largely the improvement andinvention and use of a series of instruments that expanded the reach of science ininnumerable directions."

（73）Over the years，tools and technology themselves as a source of fundamentalinnovation have largely been ignored by historians and philosophers of science.Themodern school that hails technology argues that such masters asGalileo，Newton，Maxwell，Einstein，and inventors such as Edison attached great importanceto，and derived great benefit from，craft information and technological devices of differentkinds that were usable in scientific experiments.

The centerpiece of the argument of a technologyyes，geniusno advocate was an analysisof Galileo's role at the start of the scientific revolution.The wisdom of the day was derived fromPtolemy，an astronomer of the second century，whose elaborate system of the sky putEarth at the center of all heavenly motions.（74）Galileo's greatest glory was that in 1609he was the first person to turn the newly invented telescope on the heavens to provethat the planets revolve around the sun rather than around the Earth.But the real heroof the story，according to the new school of scientists，was the long evolution in theimprovement of machinery for making eyeglasses.

Federal policy is necessarily involved in the technology vs.genius dispute.（75）Whetherthe Government should increase the financing of pure science at the expense oftechnology or vice versa（反之）often depends on the issue of which is seen as thedriving force.