Definition of Science, Technology and Society

Science comes from the Latin word scientia, meaning ‘knowledge’. It refers to a systematic and
methodical activity of building and organizing knowledge about how the universe behaves through
observation, experimentation or both. According to the famous American science historian, John
Heilbron (2003, p. vii), “Modern science is a discovery of regularity in nature, enough for natural
phenomena to be described by principles and laws. He also explained that science required invention to
devise techniques, abstractions, apparatuses, and organizations to describe these natural regularities
and their like law-like descriptions.

Technology, for its part, is the application of scientific knowledge, laws, and principles to
produce services, materials, tools, and machines aimed at solving real-world problems. It comes from
the Greek root word techne, meaning ‘art, skill, or cunning of hand’. During a live public Q&A in
December 2014, one member of the audience asked Mark Zuckerberg what his definition of a
technological tools is, and the CEO of Facebook responded:

“What defines a technological tool one historical definition is something that takes a human’s
sense or ability and augments it and makes it more powerful. So, for example, I wear contact lenses or
glasses; that is a technology that enhances my human ability of vision and makes it better”.

Wolpert (2005) made an interesting comparison between science and technology that is helpful
in the study of their interaction with society. In his landmark paper, The Medawar Lecture 1998: Is
Science Dangerous? Wolpert explained that reliable scientific knowledge has no moral or ethical value. It
is meant simply to explain how nature and the universe work and the obligation of scientists, besides
studying the nature of the universe, is to explain the possible uses and applications of such scientific
knowledge. Along this line, Wolpert made it clear that science is not the same as technology. He further
explained that the very nature of science is that it is not possible to predict scientific discoveries and
how these discoveries may be applied. While scientists are responsible for the reliable conduct of
scientific inquiry and its honest interpretation and dissemination, technological applications of science
are influenced by other sectors such as politics and governance, religion and business. With this
distinction, one can surmise the need for the study of the various ways in which science and technology
act and are enacted in society. This is a particularly timely and relevant concern because of the
advancements in science and technology today.

Nowadays, advancements in science and technology have become pervasive. They are
manifested in the activities that humans pursue and the tools that they use every day. The beauty of this
is that an advancement builds upon itself. As such, humans today live more productive and more
exciting lives than their predecessors. With the way things go, it could be expected that this generation’s
children, and the children have the chance to lead even better lives than this generation already does.

However, the dynamism and immensity of scientific and technological process also pose
challenges and drawbacks to the way humans live. The introduction of machines tremendously cut the
need for human workforce and gave rise to questions about whether machines will eventually replace
humans. The invention of drugs that cured the previously incurable diseases introduced new strains of
bacteria and viruses that are resistant to the very the same drugs that once fought them take an
antibiotic resistant strain of gonorrhea as an example. The rise of social media drastically changes the
way humans communicate, interact, and share information; however, this trends to put people’s privacy
at risk. Indeed, science and technology have served a predominantly double edge function. This is
succinctly captured in a famous line popular American scientist, Carl Sagan, quoted in Tom Head’s
(2006):

“We lived in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly
arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That’s a clear prescription of
disaster”.

As problems in science and technology continue to rise and become more observable, the need to pay
attention to their interactions with various aspects of human life, e.g., social, political, and economic,
becomes even more necessary. How the different aspects of society shape and influence the
progression and further development of science and technology is the area of concern of a relatively
new academic discipline called Science, Technology, and Society.

Science, Technology, and Society (STS) is a relatively young field that combines pr3eviously
independent and older disciplines, such as the history of science, philosophy of science, and sociology of
science. As an academic field, STS, according to Harvard University’s Kennedy Schools (2018), traces its
root from the interwar period and the start of the Cold War. It was during this period when historians
and scientists found interest in the interconnections of scientific knowledge, technological systems, and
society. The rise of STS as an academic field resulted from the recognition that many schools today do
not really prepare students to respond critically, reflectively, and proactively to the challenges posed by
science and technology in the contemporary world.

In general, STS applies methods drawn from history, philosophy, and sociology to study the
nature of science and technology and ultimately judge their value and place in society. As an
interdisciplinary field, the emergence of STS was a results of questions about science and technology’s
dynamic interaction with various aspects of society and was thus viewed as a socially embedded
enterprise. Thus, as the Kennedy School effectively encapsulates, STS seeks to bridge the gap between
two traditionally exclusives cultures humanities (interpretative) and natural sciences (rational) so that
humans will be able to better confront the moral, ethical, existential dilemmas brought by the continued
developments in science and technology.

The John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values of the University of Notre Dame is
responsible for listing the ten emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology
every year. Below is the list for 2018:

Ethical Dilemmas and Policy Issues in Science, Technology and Society for 2018

1. Helix - a digital app store designed to read genomes

2. BlessU-2 and Pepper - first robot priest and monk
3. Emotion-Sensing Facial Recognition - a software being developed to assess your reactions to
anything such as shopping and playing games.
4. Ransomware - a way of holding data hostage through hacking and requiring a ransom to be paid
5. Textalyzer - a device that analyzes whether a driver was using his or her phone during an
accident
6. Social Credit System - a system of scoring citizens through their actions by placing them under
constant surveillance (which China plays to adopt)
 7. Google Clips – a hands-free camera that lets the user capture every moment effortlessly
8. Sentencing Software – a mysterious algorithm designed to aid courts in sentencing decisions
9. Friendbot – an app that stores the deceased’s digital footprint so one can still “chat” with them
10. Citizen App – an app that notifies users of ongoing crimes or major events in a specific area

Even though several items in the list sound unfamiliar to many, it can be useful springboard in the
study of science and technology. The list points to the ever growing challenges, questions, and issues
that need to be addressed and resolved when science and technology and humanity intertwine.
However, methods of critiquing these emerging ethical dilemmas may come from similar methods used
in previous critiques of science and technology issues. For example, one can use methods used in
critiquing the rise of clinical trials of gene therapy in the 1990’s. Today’s approach in critiquing emerging
science and technology issues, such as the ones listed above, may be influenced by how scientists and
non-scientists evaluated positive and negative implications of clinical trials of gene therapy in the
1990’s. For this purpose, one can continue to specifically draw from the tenets of history, philosophy,
and sociology in making informed and critical judgments of the ethical and moral values of these
innovations in the science and technology.