Unit 15: Science, Technology, and the Future

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Unit 15 Science, Technology, and the Future

• Approaches to Improved Social Management of
  Science and Technology

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APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
AND THE FUTURE

• 1. Predictive -Speculative Studies Forecasting
  the timing or content of future technological or
  scientific innovations. Sometimes predictions
  are supplemented with APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
  SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTUREspeculations
  regarding major social consequences of Science
  and Technology innovations.
•  2. Extrapolative-Planning Studies Project
  current ST trends into the future and estimate
  what steps society will need to take to cope
  successfully with these trends.
•  3. Projective -Cautionary Focus on looming
  threats to human survival. Ex. Arms Race,
  overpopulation, pollution.

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APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
AND THE FUTURE

• 4. Structural-Constraint Approach Basic
  Structural Frameworks or Transformations
  Example. Economic Shift to the Pacific Basin,
  Joining of Computers with Telephones creating
  World Society
• 5. Change Prerequisite Approach Emphasis on
  changes that must take place if a desired future
  is to exist. Raymond Williams

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For desired changes to occur Williams proposes
the following Prerequisites

• 1. First, the established way of seeing the
  world as raw material for profitable exploitation
  must be replaced with a view of the world as a
  web of intricately independent and dynamically
  interactive Life Forms and Land Forms
•  
• 2. The capitalistic and Marxian notion that
  Production is the sole realistic and useful
  form of societal intervention in nature can, and
  must, now be replaced by a broader notion of how
  society and its members may relate to nature.
  Practical, self managing, self-renewing
  societies in which people care first for each
  other in a living world

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For desired changes to occur Williams proposes
the following Prerequisites(continued)

• 3. The culturally reinforced dichotomy between
  Emotion and Rational Intelligence, the former
  dismissed by the dominant culture as inferior
  must yield to a new concern with forms of whole
  relationships - ones adequately providing for
  the expression of the various facets of being
  human.

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FOUR CULTURAL OBSTACLES TO A SELF-ACTUALIZED
SOCIETY

• 1. Anachronistic Education Characterized by
•   Technological IlliteracyTwo Cultures
•  2. Technological Maximality Involving the
  interplay of Technology, rights and numbers.
•  
• Intensive use of particular technic in a fragile
  environment.
•  
• Rights Absolute rights, i.e., Life, Property,
  Mobility, Procreation

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Numbers

• Increasing numbers of People Factor. Robert
  Malthus On Population.
• Is the world overpopulated already?

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Triadic Cultural Pattern

• These three factors (technic, rights, numbers) in
  repeated patterns of socio-technical practice may
  put societal quality of life at risk.

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This Triadic Cultural Pattern manifests itself in
a variety of ways.

• 1. The intensive, sometimes, extended use of
  life-prolongation technologies, as sanctioned by
  the inviolable right to life.
•  2. Proliferation of mopeds, all terrain and
  other versatile transport vehicles in
  environmentally fragile wilderness areas, as
  supposedly sanctioned by the riders mobility
  rights
•  3. Proliferation of High-Rise Office Buildings
  as supposedly sanctioned by developers property
  rights.
•  4. Proliferation of individuals with fertility
  problems accessing reproductive technologies as
  supposedly sanctioned by procreative rights

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3. FREEDOM OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

• Belief that freedom of scientific inquiry should
  be unrestricted by society.
•  
• Question Will societal restriction of science
  ever take the form of limiting the scope of
  permissible scientific inquiry - that is,
  prohibiting the pursuit of selected scientific
  projects because the knowledge sought is believed
  to be socially undesirable ?

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Robert Sinsheimer Reason for restricting
Scientific Inquiry

• Inopportune or Dubious Merit Example Research
  aimed at making the separation of isotopes easier
  and less expensive. If successful would be
  quickly applied to facilitate the separation of
  U-235 from U-238 thus eliminating the last
  defense against nuclear terror. Search for
  extraterrestrial intelligence, concern for
  culture shock. Aging process, if successful,
  would have a devastating effect on the carrying
  capacity of a planet already facing
  overpopulation.

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David Baltimore Opposition to limiting
Scientific Inquiry

• 1. Criteria determining what areas to restrain
  inevitably express certain sociopolitical
  attitudes reflecting a dominant ideology
• 2. The Error of Futurism fallacy that one can
  predict what society will be like even in the
  near term future. Example What if technology
  aimed at keeping people living longer were
  restricted and suddenly the birth rate fell
  dramatically.
• 3. Societies need certain kinds of upheaval and
  renewal to stay vital.
•  

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David Baltimore Opposition to limiting
Scientific Inquiry (cont.)

• 4. A social system that leaves science free to
  explore transmits to its members strength, not
  fear, and therefore can endure.
• 5. Major breakthroughs cannot be programmed and
  often come from outside an area of fundamental
  research for which they prove seminal.

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4. Neglected Intangibles

• Barriers to incorporating consideration of
  certain kinds of intangibles into decision-making
  regarding controversial scientific and
  technological innovations.

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Responsibility-feasibility dilemma of Innovation

• On one hand, the longer a conscientious
  decision-maker, wishing to be socially
  responsible holds off making a decision in order
  to ascertain the full range of likely impacts
  including intangible ones, the stronger the voice
  of opposition may become.
•  
• Example (Imaginary) Company petitions FDA to
  market an artificial womb.

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Rationale offered by Company

• . 1.  It would save fetuses that might otherwise
  die from uterine disorders
•  2. Save the lives of mothers who now die in
  childbirth
• 3. Eliminate health problems of babies of
  mothers addicted to drugs and alcohol.

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Arguments Against

• 11.  It might have long term dehumanizing effects
  on the sacredness of life
• 2. It might dilute mother-child bonding
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• 3. Access to the device might be restricted to
  those who can afford it. Lower socio-economic
  groups would have higher infant death rates.

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Time Frames for the FutureVisions Michio Kaku

• To the Year 2000
•     Ubiquitous Computers Prolific, Inexpensive.
  1950 to present power has increased by a factor
  of 10 billion. Power doubles every18 months. By
  2020, micrprocessors will likely be as cheap as
  scrap paper. This will give us smart homes,
  cars, TVs, clothes, etc. We will talk to our
  appliances.
•  
• 2.   Biotechnology By 2020 it will be possible
  for everyone on earth to their DNA stored on CD.
  Many genetic diseases will be eliminated. Large
  classes of cancer will be cured without invasive
  surgery or chemotherapy.
• 3.  
• Diagnostic Toilets Blood pressure, heart rate,
  diabetes, cancer screening

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Time Frames for the FutureVisions Michio Kaku

• From 2020 - 2050
•  
• 1.   Molecular Computers and DNA Computers to
  Quantum Computers True robot automatons that
  have common sense, understand human language,
  recognize and manipulate objects in their
  environment and learn from their mistakes.
•  
• 2.   Biotechnology shift from monogenic to
  polygenic diseases (heart isease). Isolation of
  the age gene
•  
• 3.   Holographic three dimensional TV, room
  temperature
• superconductors. New technology rocket engines
  that will allow interplanetary travel commonplace