Neither, it's a false dichotomy.

The article linked to says that science might be applied technology since the world is:
best understood in terms of information and computation - concepts that arise from the artificial world of technology

But that's not true. Information and computation theory arose from pure mathematics and philosophical crises in FOM. They only found application as the computers that we know later on.

Saw Dr Margaret Wertheim give a speech at the National Press Club a few years ago (on TV, had to google for the name though).  She likes to, instead of the terms Pure and Applied science, use the terms Aesthetic and Applied science, because applied science often involves just as much genuine discovery as so-called Pure Science.  She basically argues that Aesthetic Science funding should be considered on similar terms as Arts funding (not arguing that it should be cut, though I can see it taken that way).  You would also, I guess, have to recast certain types of research as long-term applied science gambles, rather than aesthetic science.

The idea that a hundred pure mathematicians locked in a room for eternity would eventually invent velcro and tang was always a little flaky.  Maybe long-term investment strategies are a better analogy.

_{warehouse-sized anti-Communist manifesto -- Ch.B}

The article at wired was pretty interesting, but after reading it I'm not convinced. But, I'm starting to think of things as if they switch back and forth from time to time. Almost as if it were cyclical. And as if to try and draw a parallel, nature, after all, is cyclical as well.

As an example take photography (because it is something I know well):

Back in the 1800's it began as an idea, and men like Daguerre and Niepce attempted to make it a reality. They used information gathered by scientists and chemist that came before them and from their time to create a few different methods. They started by applying information from known sciences. And as they progressed they applied technologies of their time (such as the camera obscura) to improve their method. After Niepce died, and Daguerre revealed the invention publicly, and so did Talbot. We essentially had black and white photography (under two different names at the time) and more than 100 years later through chemistry we created a color photographic process. Which was again the application of science.

In more modern terms I could say that CCD's are a technology that is the result of applied science, and than scanners and digital cameras are a result of the application of that technology. Perhaps the next jump will result from science.

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"Friends don't let friends set friends on fire."
[*rrng is dying]

The real process is sort of like a game of leapfrog. A new technology depends on some newly established scientific theory, and the implementation might reveals flaws in the theory, or at least unconsidered consequences. The scientists try to explain this, extend the theory, and come up with new principles that are again applied to a technological problem...

Granted, there are a lot of areas of science that aren't as close to applications as this implies, such as cosmology. But those sciences are also pretty hard to describe as an application of technology; and some supposedly obscure fields, like particle physics, are finding new applications in fields like nanotechnology. Experiments with Atomic Force Microscopes come to mind...

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"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself... and you are the easiest one to fool."
-- Richard Feynman