Science, Technology and Public Policy: Part 4

Technology and Culture Summarized

Howard E. McCurdy

Understanding the debate over science, technology, and culture is a prelude to understanding policy

formulation.• Park and Sagan present conflicts

over science as a matter of truth versus falsehood.

• They suggest that post-modern thinking is anti-scientific (tenets ascribed to post-modernism):

– Scientists are biased– Truth is relative– If it feels good, believe it

• They deplore “new age” thinking as bad science.

• In fact, the relationship between science and culture is more complex than that.

Some issues are fairly straightfoward:did we really go to the Moon?

A number of people have advanced the notion that the U.S. faked the missions to the Moon.

• The Van Allen radiation belts are lethal.

• Pictures from the Moon show a velvet sky with no stars.

• The American flag would not flap in the breeze.

• Shadows are not parallel and stage lights appear in some pictures.

• The dust from the “moon car” falls as it would through air.

• Anomalies appear in the video record (the same rock appears at two different sites on two different days).

• Witnesses are growing old and dying.

Some issues are a bit more complex:A scientific explanation for alien abduction.

• Not all of the reports are obvious hoaxes (that is, some people actually recall these events).

• In medieval times, people reported encounters with demons and other creatures from the underworld.

• The reports may represent a form of mass hallucination triggered by apocalyptic fears.

• What do you believe?

Once into the policy realm, truth and anticipation begin to merge.

• What is the difference between hot and cold fusion?

• One is an observed phenomenon, the other a vision of an imaged future.

• Achievement of a vision may be promoted by public policy.

• In a scientific society, confirmation is ultimately subject to rules of experimentation like peer review, systematic observation, and the null hypothesis.

• Public officials make policy choices on the basis of incomplete information.

• Until the phenomenon is confirmed, the policy remains a matter of hope and persistence.

Public officials have difficulty ascertaining the validity of visions in advance of their pursuit.

“Crazy ideas” in science:• The germ theory of medicine.• The ability of a rocket to work

in a vacuum.• Petroleum not a fossil fuel

(rather part of the original composition of the planet).

• Artificial intelligence.• Growing organs from stem

cells.• Cyborgs.• Faster than light travel.

Robert Ehrlich, Nine Crazy Ideas in Science (2001).

The post-modern view accepts science as one way to organize society, but denies its inevitability.

• All realities are socially constructed. Laws of nature may be discovered, but technologies are invented.

• Imagination plays a critical role in launching new technologies.• Sufficiently advanced visions of technology initially appear magical or

unreal to the people who imagine them.• Visionaries often utilize metaphors to imagine and promote new ideas.• The invention of electronic communication creates an “infotainment”

media in which new ideas are treated as entertainment.• Knowing that humans are socially reconstructing their worlds,

communicators are free to propose radical visions like space colonization, artificial intelligence, and extreme longevity.

• The use of metaphors and methods of communication create gaps between expectations and the ability to fulfill them.

• When faced with obstacles, believers are more likely to intensify their efforts than abandon their efforts.

• Ultimately, the power of a vision rests with its ability to inspire faith and belief in a “higher agenda.”

Promoters of new ideas prefer to portray the commitment to science and technology as non-

partisan; in fact, it is not.• Ideology shapes beliefs about

science and technology to a higher degree than party, region, or federal contracts.

• In space, liberals favor scientific purposes and robotics while conservatives favor survival purposes and human flight.

• The liberal or egalitarian view arises from the problem of maintaining social order in a society of voluntary organizations.

• Conservatives who are less averse to hierarchy and coercion tend to overestimate risks arising from external threats.

• Ideologies create different hopes, fears, and visions.

Dame Mary Douglas, British anthropologist (1921-2007), and Aaron Wildavsky, American political scientist (1930-1993).

Societal effects of living in a science and technology culture

• The pursuit of science and technology has led to a post-modern society in which people gain optimism in their ability to create real change through visualization.

• The doctrines of post-modernism free people to believe that their visions are just as good as any others and demand tolerance.

Ultimately, how does one assess a post-modern society?

• “Progress” is not a straight line; reality is socially constructed.

• We “choose” to live in a science and technology culture.

• Our culture has substantial economic and survival value.

• Among its dyfunctions are over-population, environmental vulnerability, violence, and economic/technological elites.

• Particular cultures are valuable only insofar as they “work” for the people within them.