Science, technology and society

The importance of science and technology

in contemporary society
Science and technology are intimately bound up
wit three leading concerns of citizens and
government in contemporary societies, military
power, economic strength and medical well being.
 Military power

Historically speaking the outcome of World War II

depended on the superior scientific and
technological capabilities of the US and its allies.
Today those technical resources remain vital to
the national security of many government.
National economic strength following the
industrialization of the world economy
technology has played major role in increasing
the industrialized countries productivity. A factor
critical to long term economic growth and an
increasing standard of living. For instance in the
US technological changes is credited as
responsible for almost half of the increase in
productivity achieved since World War II a
contribution far greater than those of capital,
education and resource allocation.
These two scope have also played an important
role in greatly increasing the scope and efficacy
of medical care in this century, from advances in
diagnosis and surgery to vaccines, therapeutic
drugs, prosthetic devices, and rehabilitative
apparatus. As with military strength and
economic well being, the substantial individual
and public health benefits afforded by technical
advances achieved in recent decades are widely
recognized and highly valued in contemporary
industrial societies even though they have
carried increasingly steep price tags.
 Human successes and failures
The forces of sciences and technology have been
centrally involved in many successes and failures in
recent decades. On the individual human level such
successes and failures often mean that certain
persons and groups reap substantial benefits from
such episodes while others fail to realize them,
incur serious harms or are put at risks of incurring
harm. This skewed distribution of benefits, costs,
and risks has elicited intense study by both friends
and critics of the practices and contexts of science
and technology it also increased public interest in
how these forces are exploited and to what effects.
 Threats to human survival
As suggested by the news story about the
underground bomb detonation the social
significance of science and technology in the
contemporary era rests to no small degree on
threats on human survival posed by
development or use of some of their most
potent products. Nuclear weapons, products
designed for chemical or biological warfare,
toxic or lethal by products of manufacturing or
energy generation processes and products that
threaten the viability of the ecosystem.
 Ethical dilemmas
the study of science and technology in
contemporary society merits attention.
Exploitation of advanced scientific knowledge
and technological devices and systems has on
occasion given rise to situations in which these
advances seems to have turned upon their
beneficiaries, creating excruciating ethical and
legal dilemmas.
 Social and cultural roles
A less obvious but no less important ground of
the social importance of science and technology
in the contemporary era lies in various
influential social and cultural roles that these
forces have assumed.
 Science Combating Irrationality
• Beginning in the eighteenth century, science
became Imbued with a skeptical view of and
approach to traditional knowledge claims. It
came to be assigned the task of weaning the
populace from the myth, superstition, and
resultant irrational belief behaviour.
That social function remains operative today
one clear mission of much twentieth century
science and of many contemporary scientist is to
deflate narcissism and combat assorted noxious
claims to inherent superiority associated with
various “isms” including racism, sexism, ageism,
ethnocentrism and anthropocentrism.
 Science as preeminent source of
cognitive authority
• In the twentieth century, a new social role for
science has emerged. Science has become
recognized as the leading source of cognitive
authority in modern western life. For
centuries in the west, when there was an
important dispute over past, present or future
reality in some area of life.
Leaders of society often turned to a sacred book
or religious sage for assistance in making
necessary determination. In the twentieth
century, such a tendency persists in certain
religious sub-communities and in many
individual lives, witness the popularity of biblical
literalism and astrology. However there is now a
relatively firm social consensus about the
direction in which to turn in such instance to
science.
Scientists being compelled to renounce their
empirical findings because they are not in
accord with the prior positions of some church,
mainstream religions conduct their business on
an intellectual playing field whose parameters
are set by the established findings of modern
science. To the extent that a religion refuses to
recognize and adapt itself to the existential
claims and boundary conditions laid down by
this preeminent cognitive authority.
It forfeits the support of consistent believers in
the knowledge claims of modern science.
Scientist are the high priests of the twentieth
century, and most of the faithful laity defer to
the authority conferred by their specialized
expertise.
Confirmation of the powerful cognitive authority
of science in contemporary western society is
not difficult to find. In 1981 public hearings were
held before a U.S. senate committee considering
whether to adopt a bill declaring the fetus a
person from the moment of conception. The
point of the proposed legislation was that if the
fetus was so declared, then abortion would be
outlawed, for the fetus would be entitled to the
due process protection guaranteed to all
persons by the Constitution.
It is revealing that both supporters and
opponents of the measure called scientists to
testify for their respective sides, focusing
particularly on the pseudo empirical questions
“when does human life begin?” neither side
wished the conflict to be perceived as one
between its own morality and its adversary’s
science.
So-called creation science illustrates the same
gambit. Instead of the issue of the origin of
human life being seen as a conflict between
religious and scientific authority, some
creationists frame the issue as a dispute
between “our science” and “their science”.
Public disclosure in recent years of a number of
cases of scientific misconduct has engendered
intense discussion within the scientific
community. Responses have ranged from
attempts to come to grips with the
phenomenon to denials that it constitutes a
significant problem. Such reactions are
explicable partly because such episodes
threaten to undermine modern science’s
cultural role as the ultimate cognitive authority,
something that plays no small role in its ability
to attract continuing substantial public financial
suport.
 Technology sustaining the private corporation.
Technology has long been important in individual
and group survival struggles, whether in hunting
and gathering or agricultural societies. In more
recent times it has become vital in sustaining the
life of that pivotal modern social institution, the
private corporation. Indeed, outside of government,
the dominant role played by technology in
contemporary society is that of helping
corporations survive and increase their profits,
something assumed to translate into substantial
benefits for society at large.
In the late twentieth century, in most influential
circles of the western world, corporation-
controlled technological innovation is regarded
as the leading contributor and enhanced
societal well being.
 Technology as source of personal
identity.
This socioeconomic role, reflecting the interest
of producers and owners is complemented by a
socio-psychological one involving consumers. As
religion, race, class, sex, and nationality become
less able to serve as compelling sources of
individual identity in achievement-oriented
post-traditional society, the items of technology
a person possesses have, along with work,
become increasingly important sources of
identity and self-esteem.
For people without prestigious positions or
meaningful work, such items may well become
the primary source of these psychological goods.
Reminiscent of philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach’s
materialist dictum” You are what you are” in
contemporary western society identity and
esteem are increasingly rooted in the
individual’s personal technological inventory. As
personal identity becomes more fragile in
modern society, producers suggest that one can
secure an identity and garner self-esteem by
acquiring and displaying the right- read state of
the art, high tech-artifacts.
 Technology social integration and
stratification.
Finally modern technology has taken on an
important sociological role. It is used in various
ways to counteract centrifugal tendencies
characteristic of large scale, highly mobile
twentieth century societies such as the United
States. It carries out this integrative role by
promoting shared political awareness, common
value orientations, and similar consumption
patterns, as well as by facilitating intermittent
contact between parties at a distance.
At the same time modern technology also
serves as a powerful social stratify. Desire for
possession of or control over the sometimes
scarce fruits of technological activity fuels
feverish struggles for individuals, institutional
and national prestige.
Science, technology and society a new
field of study
In response to the growing importance of
science and technology in contemporary society
and to the increasing recognition of that
importance the last two decades have witnessed
the birth and growth of a new academic field”
science, technology and society” most often
referred to as STS “STS does not refer to the
kinds of preparatory studies or advanced work
in various technical fields pursued by aspiring or
practicing scientists and engineers.
Rather it refers to study about rather than in
science and technology. More precisely, STS
refers to the study of science and technology in
society that is the study of the ways in which
technical and social phenomena interact and
influence each other.
Consideration of the often controversial
“external “ relationships of science and
technology that is of their links to social
phenomena outside their respective realm the
STS field also encompasses “internal” study of
science and technology. Internal here does not
refer to the inner technical details of scientific
and technological work , it refers to studies of
phenomena such as the general natures and
interrelationships of science and technology.
The social structures and reward systems of the
professions of science and engineering and
social aspects of everyday scientific and
technological activity. The latter category
include the ways in which veteran scientist and
engineers initiate and socialize new colleagues
and social factors in the processes by which
scientists and engineers adopt or resists
proposed changes in theory or practice.
Beside their increasing social importance and the
growing recognition of the importance,
phenomena of science and technology in society
are studied by scholars because they are
interesting and complex sociocultural
phenomena. Surprisingly though it may seem, the
respective natures and functioning of science and
technology. The philosophy, history and sociology
of science are fairly long standing academic
specialties. In contrast, the history and especially
the philosophy and sociology of technology are
still in early stages of development.