Science, Technology, & Society

in the 20th century

MODERN WORLD
Science, Technology, & Society in the 20th
Century
• Technology is central in war and peace. The changes in change in
structure, methods, and scope led to an increased production of
technology. There is remake in man’s way of life all over the globe.
There are three separate aspects:
• 1. Structural Changes the professionalization, specialization, and
institutionalization of technological work
• 2. Changes in Methods the new relationship between technology
and science
• 3. The “Systems Approach”
The Structure of Technological Work

• Technological activity (19th century) is craft. This is done by individuals

alone and without much formal education. By the 20th century, the
technological activity has become highly specialized and thoroughly
professional.
• A. Formal Education Typical inventor: a mechanic starting at age 14 years
old or below Notable people consider themselves as mechanics and
inventors
• B. Technology–University Buildings Universities
• a. Ecole Polytechnique
• b. California Institute of Technology People
• a. Henry Ford b. Wright Brothers
• Technically educated man with the college degree began to assume
leadership about the time of World War I. Technological work since
1940, as primarily been done by men who were educated in
universities and degrees eventually became prerequisites for
technological work.
• Charles Franklin Kettering: inventive genius of General Motors
Electric self-starter (automobiles) Non-toxic freezing compound
(refrigeration) Tetra-ethyl lead (high- performance automobile and
aircraft engine)
Specialists in Invention

Thomas Edison Werner von Siemens

Justus von Liebig
George Westinghouse
Emile Berliner Edwin H. Land
Laboratories
• A. Size of a laboratory has no relation to its research and its results; it
needs: exclusive interest in research, discovery, and innovation brings
together men from a wide area of disciplines embodies a new
methodology of technological work squarely based on the systematic
application of science to technology
• B. Strength of laboratories: “specialist” and “generalist”
• What distinguishes today's research laboratory from any predecessor is,
first, its exclusive interest in research, discovery, and innovation.
Secondly, the research laboratory brings together men from a wide area
of disciplines, each contributing his specialized knowledge. Finally, the
research laboratory embodies a new methodology of technological work
squarely based on the systematic application of science to technology.
The Methods of Technological Work
• Technology has become science-based. Its method is now "systematic
research." And what was formerly "invention" is "innovation" today.
It was World War I that brought about the change. Technology has
become in this century somewhat of a "science" in its own right. It
has become "research"—a separate discipline having its own
specific methods. Technologists followed the work of scientists,
therefore electrical technology has been closely related to the
physical science of electricity.
• Alexander Graham Bell on telephone
• Hermann von Helmholtz on the reproduction of sound
• Guglielmo Marconi on radio
• James C. Maxwell on electromagnetic-wave propagation theory
• World War I, scientists were mobilized for war effort: science’ power
to spark technological ideas and to indicate technological solutions
and technological problems
• Technology is NOT, then, ‘the application of science to products and
processes,’ as is often asserted.”
• “Know-how” of technologists > “know-what of scientists”
• Science as the basis and starting point of today’s technology
• Technology has become a science in its own right; a separate
discipline
• “Invention” = “flash of insight”

Technological "research" has not only a different

methodology from "invention"; it leads to a different
approach, known as "innovation," or the purposeful and
deliberate attempt to bring about, through technological
means, a distinct change in the way man lives and in his
environment.
• Research method
• Research team
• Other elements of research discipline
• 1. A definition of the need
• 2. A clear goal
• 3. Identification of the major steps to be taken and the major pieces of work
that had to be done
• 4. Constant "feedback" from the results of the work on the plan
• 5. Organization of the work so that each major segment is assigned to a
specific work team
• Scientific "discovery" has always been measured by what it adds to
our understanding of natural phenomena. The test of invention is,
however, technical--what new capacity it gives us to do a specific task.
But the test of innovation is its impact on the way people live.
• First major innovation: mass production of Model T automobile by
Henry Ford
• Innovation defined: “a technical solution to the economic problem of
how to produce the largest number of finished products with the
greatest reliability of quality at the lowest possible cost.”
The Systems Approach
• Mass production exemplifies, too, a new dimension that has been
added to technology in this century: the systems approach.
The Pre-Technological Civilization of 1990
• Only Japan, of the non-European, non-western countries, had then
begun to build up a modern industry and modern technology.
• It was, indeed, almost an axiom--for Westerner and non-Westerner
alike--that modern technology was, for better or worse, the birth
right of the white man.
• Technology, as a creature of man, is a problematical, as ambivalent,
and as capable of good or evil, as is its creator.
Technology Remakes Social Institutions
• Emancipation of Women
• Changes in the Organization of Work
• The Role of Education
• Change in Warfare
• A Worldwide Technological Civilization
• Man–Moves into a Man–Made Environment
Man–Moves into a Man–Made Environment
• Only sixty years ago, men depended on nature and were primarily
threatened by natural catastrophes, storms, floods or earthquakes.
Men today depend on technology, and our major threats are
technological breakdowns. The largest cities in the world would
become uninhabitable in forty-eight hours were the water supply or
the sewerage systems to give out.
Modern Technology and the Human Horizon
• News, data, information, and pictures have become even more
mobile than people. They travel in "real time", that is, they arrive at
virtually the same time as they happen.
Technology and Man
• The metropolis has become the habitat of modern man. Yet
paradoxically we do not know how to make it habitable.
• In the final analysis this surely means mastery by man over himself,
for if anyone is to blame, it is not the tool but the human maker and
user. "It is a poor carpenter who blames his tools"
• It is also true that "better tools" demand a better, more highly
skilled, and more careful "carpenter".