APPROACHES TO

THE STUDY OF
SCIENCE,
TECHNOLOGY,
AND THE FUTURE
By Group 5
 Members:
Raymond Jovenal
Richard Jovenal
Christian Alvaro Capuno
Mariella Isabelle Blas
Mary Zarlyn Constantino
Rachelle Villar
Mary Helen Yutuc
APPROACHES TO THE STUDY
OF SCIENCE,
TECHNOLOGY,AND THE
FUTURE

Predictive-Speculative Studies
Forecasts the content or
timing of future technological
or scientific innovations,
either within a single technical
field or across a wide
spectrum of such fields
Supplements major social
consequences to their
predictions
Extrapolative-Planning
Studies
Project current
science and technology-
related trends into the
future and estimate
what steps society will
have to cope
successfully with these
outcomes.
Projective-Cautionary
Focus on what they see as looming
threats to human survival
Overpopulation and pollution as
examples-Robert Heilbroner
Structural-constraint

Bell has limited himself to identifying

and analyzing a number of emerging
“basic structural frameworks” or
transformations that, while not
determining the future of the United
States or the world in the year 2013,
allegedly constrain possible scenarios for
the future at that time.
Change-Prerequisite
Focuses on changes
that allegedly must
take place if a
desired social
future is to come to
pass.
4 CULTURAL OBSTACLES
This focuses organization of the world
into sovereign, economically competitive
national state, the skewing of the nation’
research and development activity by
entrenched military interests and the
contributions from powerful vested
interests.
ANACHRONISTIC EDUCATION
A nachronistic notion- pertains to what i
is to be an educated and cultural well
being. These notions are residues of the
ideals of 19th century European and
American elite institutions.
Liberal arts students
David Bazelon- former chief justice of the
5th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in
Washington D.C.
- He viewed the former as unrealistic and
the latter as running the risk of creating
“surrogate judges”. Courts should not get
involved either in “assessing the merits of
competing scientific arguments”- something
for which they lack “knowledge and training”
or- substituting their own value preferences
for those agency” whose action are under
review.
Baseline's proposal is unconvincing on 3 counts:
It fails to address itself to the important and
expanding range of cases with significant science or
technology components that are not appeals of
regulatory-agency decisions.
While Bazelon is probably right in saying that it
would be futile to try to substantially raise judges
“scientific conscious” at this late date, that is by no
means the only option available.
Assuming it were concluded that any may attempt at
realizing technical literacy in some field of science or
technology were doomed to fail appointment of
“expert science advisors to sit at the right hand of a
judge when he is considering a case with scientific
overstones” is, again, not the only alternative.
History:
 1951- Harry S. Truman- 1st President to
have formal science advisory group consisting
of eminent scientist.
 1957- Russian Sputnik satellite, Dwight D.
Eisenhower appointed James R. Killian,
president of the Massachusetts institute of
Technology advisory committee (PSAC).
 John F. Kennedy- had a close relationship
with his top advisor, Jerome Weisner, also a
former president of MIT>
 1973-Pres. Richard M. Nixon terminated the
presidential science advisor post and the PSAC
group after its members made public their
disagreement with his views on the merits on
developing American supersonic
transport(SST) and new antiballistic missile
system.
 1976 congress mandated the creation of white
house office of science and technology policy
or (OSTP)
Jimmy Carter- subsequently reinstated
the post of presidential science advisor
1980’s OSTP with its small staff and
modest budget had negligible influence on
executive-branch science and technology
policy including the roughly $60 billion
spend by the US federal government on
research and development in 1988.
STS literacy- basic knowledge about the
ways science and technology function in,
after and are affected by society in
general and their on society in particular.
-Essential element of scientific and
engineering competence.
Technological Maximality
-the second obstacle to improve social management of
Science and technology involves a recurrent pattern of
socio-technical practice characteristic of the
contemporary western society, especially but not
exclusively in the US.
The pattern in question involves the interplay of:
Technology
Rights
Numbers
Technological Maximality- practiced under the auspices of
rights as traditionally understood and as held and
exercised by increasing number of people, is delute or
diminish the overall societal quality of life.
-this concept is also intended to encompass other
phenomena, such as the intensive use of a technic in a
fragile environment or delicate situation
Rights as traditionally understood- refers
to rights as they have long been constructed
in the modern west, including the belief that
they may never morally be violated. Rights
often interpreted in this absolutist way
include the rights to life, property right ,
mobility rights and procreative rights.

Increasing numbers of people- refers to

presence in many kinds of situation of ever-
increasing numbers of individuals who
supposedly holds rights of the foregoing
sort and who exercise them, among other
ways, by using various technologies

 
Patterns of repeated patterns of socio-
technical practice
 This troubling triadic cultural pattern
manifest itself in a variety of ways
 The Increasing no. of individual engaging
in technologically maximalist practices as
something they have violate right to do.
 intensive, sometimes extended use of
life-prolonged technologies or
technological procedures in treating
thousands of terminally ill or irreversibly
comatose Pt’s, or those needing an organ
transplant or other life support
treatment, as supposedly sanctioned by
the inviolable right of life.
 The proliferation of mopeds, all-terrain,
snowmobile, and other kinds of versatile
transport vehicles in environmentally
fragile or wilderness areas, as supposedly
sanctioned by riders’ mobility rights;
The proliferation at high- rise office building in
downtown city centers, as supposedly sanctioned
by developers’ properly rights; and
The proliferation of individual with fertility
problems seeking access to human reproductive
technologies of various sorts, recourse to which
is supposedly guaranteed by their procreative
rights.

Other problematic phenomena exemplifying this

pattern of socio-technical practice include:
- Infestation of grand canyon national park
-“Manhattanization” of urban environments
Rights are widely viewed in modern western culture
as:
God- given
Individual
Immutable
Inviolable
America- increase in population is “more is better” is
alive
China- draconian approach to population control to
which China has resorted in recent years is
sobering In this connection.
 Consequences of technological maximality practiced:
Increase in population
Unlimited individual rights of life
Procreation, mobility and property
Serious problems in an age of mass-produced,
potent, huge or costly technics.
Lawrence Tribe- looming questions of survival
aside, few tasks are more urgent for the future
quality of life in the US than that of sensitively
using public policy to channel science and
technology so as to enhance rather than degrade
the fabric of our collective environment and
ensure the dignity of the lives of all men and
women.
FREEEDOM OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
FREEDOM OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
Struggles over the two cultural obstacles
thus far- Anarchonistic and education and
troubling triad
Robert Sinsheimer
• A professor of biology.
• Case for selectively restrictly scientific
inquiry has 3 parts:
• He offers several examples of
research,pursue of which he regards as “
inopportune” and “ of dubious merit”
• He attempts to show that his position
dismissed out of hand on the grounds that
it s implementation is infeasible.
• Finally, Sinsheimers attempts to make
“the case for restraint”
Sinsheimer’s case for the philosophical justifiability of
se,ective restriction of science rest on 5 main arguments.
First- the likely application of the result obtained from the
certain ines of scientific inquiry.
Second- given human frailty and the fact that human
rationality, foresight, adaptability,.
Third- failure to selectively limit scientific inquiry could so
destabilize society.
Fourth- the restriction of science should be limited to the
level of application of knowledge rather than to its
acquisition.
Fifth- changes in the nature of science and technology.
Baltimore’s Case
He is opposed to limiting scientific inquiry in any way other
than “determining the pace of basic scientific innovation.”
Baltimore offers 5 reasons for thinking that limiting
the domain of permissible research.
FIRST: He contends that “the criteria determining
what areas to restrain inevitably express certain
sociopolitical attitudes that reflect a dominant
ideology.”
SECOND: He opposes selective restriction of scientific
investigation because of what he calls “the Error of
Futurism”
THIRD: He argues that while partisans of selective
restriction of scientific investigation express concern
over the socially disruptive effects of some research.
“in fact societies need certain kinds of upheaval and renewal to stay
vital.”
FOURTH: “scientific orthodoxy is usually dictated by the state when its
leader fear that truths could undermine the power.
FIFTH: He prefers to characterized it, the “imposition of orthodoxy of
science” is the practical impossibility of stopping selected areas of
research.
Dr. Lewis Thomas
• Is there something fundamentally unnatural …things it has no need to
know
2 points about the quote:
First- it is to assume that doing what is alleged to be natural will always
turn out to be the best for the human spouses for the ecosystem as a
whole.
Second- human mind can rise above its ignorance by arrogantly asserting
that there are things it has no need to know
Baltimore with arguments against any form of societal limitation rely on
exaggeration and attribution and are not persuasive.
Society could adopt a general prescription in favor of scientific research.
Neglected Intangibles

The last obstacle to realizing

improved management of science and
technology has to do with barriers to
incorporating consideration of
certain kind of intangibles:a
-Decision making regarding
controversial scientific and
technological innovations.
A given innovation will
definitely yield direct,
concrete, quantifiable
benefits (economic or
medical benefits).
Opponents often counter
that proceeding with the
innovation or development
Patterns which are indirect results of
the proposed undertaking, intangible in
nature, nonquantifiable, and
ascertainable only in the long run:
-vitro fertilization
-nuclear power
-integrated computerized files on
citizens
Responsibility-feasibility dilemma of
innovation
-One of the problems which make such
disputes difficult to resolve rationally.
The longer a conscientious decision
maker wishing to be socially
responsible holds off making a
decision in order to ascertain a full
range of likely impacts, including
intangible ones, of the innovation or
development at issue, the stronger
the body of evidence may become
weighing against approving or
supporting it.
Example:
Suppose a firm petitioned the FDA to allow it to
market an artificial womb that it claimed is
superior to the natural model; it is safer, the
firm says, and so advanced that fetuses can be
housed in it directly after in vitro fertilization.
Suppose further that the cognizant government
decision maker asked teams of government
analysts to develop the strongest cases for and
against giving the firm permission to market the
system. It is unlikely that a society as culturally
heterogeneous as that of US could bring itself
to decide to prohibit or rigorously restrict even
such a controversial technological innovation.
Concrete benefits for the
innovation:
1.) It will save fetuses that would
otherwise die from uterine disorders
of some would-be mothers.
2.) It might well be less expensive or
more reliable than chemical
stimulation of pregnancy.
3.) It would save the lives of mothers
who die in childbirth.
4.) It would eliminate the health
problems of babies of mothers
addicted to alcohol, drugs, or tobacco.
5.) It would yield valuable knowledge
of embryonic development, something
likely to eventually pay handsome
medical dividends.
(-)Negative
1.) It might have long-term, spiritually
dehumanizing effects on the sacredness of
life by rationalizing childbirth.
2.)It might dilute mother-child bonding
3.)Use of the device would be a cop-out,
enabling individuals and society to avoid
coming to grips with the environmental and
behavioral problems that give rise to less
healthy babies carried to term in utero.
4.)If healthier children were in fact to
result from use of the artificial womb, then
access to it should not be limited solely to
those able to pay the going market price.
Problem lies in the :
diversity of world views, philosophical and
religious outlooks, and value and moral systems.
Difficulty to achieve cultural consensus on the
reality and importance of unquantifiable
intangibles that could serve as a basis for
moderating or rebuffing controversial
innovations or developments.
Unlike in certain relatively homogenous
traditional societies, such as those of the Yir
Yoront and the Hasidic Jewish community,
there is no shared sacred world view in the
larger US society.
No shared world view that certifies
the reality and importance-promotes
preservation- of intangibles like:
Community
Character
Intimacy
Spirit
Harmony
Self-respect
Tranquility
Treating someone like a person
Preservation of valued aspects
of a threatened lifeway
Short of a technical innovation’s or
developmet’s seeming to pose a
serious threat to public health,
military strength, or the economic
well-being of the politically influential,
as that happened in the case of the
American SST and as seems to be
happening in the case of commercial
nuclear power, contemporary
American society is quite unlikely to
rebuff any concrete-benefit-
bestowing innovation.
Friedrich Nietzsche: “An
interpretation of existence that
permits counting, calculating,
weighing, seeing and touching, and
nothing more- that is a crudity and
naivete, assuming that it is not a
mental illness, an idiocy.”
3 broad, ideal-type evolutionary stages in
the relationship bet. Tech. innovations and
developments:

1.) Society in Stage 1

– Its members share a sacred world view that
protects the status of certain valued
intangibles only by being inflexibly resistant to
and categorically dismissive of significant,
possibly beneficial changes with which it is
confronted. Let us call such societies “singular
traditional” cultures.
Example: Case with the Yir Yoront and is still
largely the case with the American Amish and
Hasidic Jewish people.
2.) Stage 2
Members possess no shared intangible-
protecting world view that can be mobilized and
used to rebuff admittedly beneficial technical
innovations and developments on the horizon.
“Pluralist modern” cultures.
3.) Stage 3
- Is a kind of Hegelian synthesis of its
antithetical predecessors. It has shown only
faint signs of emerging.
A society in stage 3 resembles one in stage 1
that is able to selectively reject or restrain
benefit-bestowing innovations, even when they
are not economically, militarily, or medially
damaging to society.
It is like stage 2 in that its members subscribe to a
variety of world views, but unlike it in that it is able
to be discriminating about technological innovations
and developments.
Stage 3 societies “discriminating sentinel cultures”.
The discriminating sentinel posture of stage 3
attempts to navigate between undiscriminating and
for contemporary industrial societies, unworkable
extremes:
- The categorical rejection of technical
innovations characteristic of some static traditional
societies.
- The sometimes facile and unbridled
scientific and technological optimism of more
developed industrial societies.
Conclusion:
A key challenge for industrial societies
in the coming decades is to transcend the
youthful, productive, but increasingly
dissipative and destructive Faustian culture
characteristic of the west during the last
200 years and attain a more mature,
discriminating and conserving sentinel culture.
Technical innovations and developments
would be assessed by society not just in
narrow economic, military, and medical terms
but also on the basis of their likely bearings
on human spiritual and physical health and
well-being.
 
 “The
end”
Thank
you for
Listeni