Dou you think that underdevelopment of technology slows down scientific thought or is it the other way around?

Answer 1

Underdevelopment?
Technology and science help each other. For a scientist to test something he needs to set up an experiment, which needs technology. On the other hands, scientific progress help developing new technologies.

Answer 2

Yes.

The development of technology is a type of scientific thought. The massive amount of thought put into using new technologies suggest this.

Certainly this is not all scientific thought since sciences based on the natural world as opposed to the mechanical are not, by definition technological. For natural science, might or might be advanced by fuller development of technology.

Obviously the invention of the electron telescope helped in the sciences surrounding particles. It is also clear that space travel has allowed us to see and understand our Universe in a way we could never have understood it not that many years ago. A failure to develop these would have done a lot to slow down progress in these areas.

I'm not sure what you mean by the other way around though. Do you mean that scientific thought causes the underdevelopment of technology? If so than this would also be true. Our understanding of our planet and of some of the consequences of our actions is definitely tied to scientific thought. Even many moral decisions we make as a society depend on scientific thought. It's why we decide to develop some technology and not others.

Answer 3

Scientific thought does not depend on technology. There were lots of good scientists who lived and worked before there was a lot of technology. Say, Galileo, Lavoisier, Priestley, Dalton, Linne, Robert Hooke, etc etc
And even in modern times, some pretty famous scientists didnt rely much on technology, like, Einstein.... he did what he called "thought" experiments where he imagined how things worked. However, he did insist that after he thought up an answer, it had to be proved by an experiment. His most famous ideas about relativity were proved by a quite simple experiment, though.
Having all kinds of super-duper machines can make scientists sloppy. They can tend to depend on the machine to do the work. But the real work of science is done inside the brain!