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C00002 00002	IN DEFENSE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
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IN DEFENSE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

	Science  and  technology  have  come  in  for  a  new wave of
criticism recently.  I propose to discuss what is this criticism, who
is criticizing, what validity does the criticism have, and what ought
to be done.   In this article,  I  shall  mainly  confine  myself  to
stating  opinions for the benefit of those to whose world-views these
opinions might appeal in the hopes that  they  will  be  inspired  to
appropriate  action.   Lack  of space precludes extensive attempts to
convince people holding entirely different views.

	The  first  criticism  is  that  scientists  and   especially
engineers  are  inferior  plastic  people.  No  doubt  scientists and
engineers have tendencies to faults characteristic of the group,  but
no  worse  than  other  groups.   In the main, these criticisms raise
differences in taste to the level of morality and are  themselves  on
the moral level of race and class prejudice.

	The  second  criticism  is  that  technology  has  made  some
fundamental mistake - either technological civilization  is  bad  for
human  beings  or it is destroying the planet or both. We distinguish
this view from opinions that  various  specific  mistakes  have  been
made,  but  the system as a whole can be salvaged. The view must also
be distinguished from the Marxist view that  technology  is  OK,  but
capitalism has to be clobbered.

	The main counter argument against the view that technological
civilization  is  bad  for  human  beings  is  the  observation  that
migration  is  predominantly  away from less technologically advanced
areas towards the  more  advanced.   Even  the  vocal  detractors  of
technology  rarely  move away from it.  Perhaps much of the nostalgia
for earlier times comes from identifying with the wealthy of  earlier
times about whom most of the novels are written.  It would be nice to
have faithful and obsequious servants, and it is nice to be one of a
small elite group.  I received my PhD as part of a group of six
mathematics students, and I believe the preceding classes were even
smaller.

	For example, the 1960s cry against the size
of  the University of California may be interpreted as a protest against
equality of opportunity, for most of the growth of the university has
come from the increasing proportion of youth getting higher education
and not from population increase.  (Those of us who find the academic
world  getting  crowded  should imagine what will happen when the
billion Chinese start writing  a  share  of  the  world's  scientific
literature  proportional  to their population). We must learn to live
with the consequences of equality of opportunity.

	There is a widespread though not universal belief that the
world is getting worse and that technology is to blame.  Much of it
seems to be simple misperception founded on tendencies to self pity.
It is said that the air is unbreathable, the water is undrinkable,
and it is increasingly difficult to drive anywhere.  I was particularly
struck by one Stanford professor's remark that he can't remember when
he was last able to see Mount Hamilton from the Stanford campus.  In
fact, while smog is not getting better yet, it is far less unpleasant
than the soot of soft coal burning cities, and the actual travel
times of many routes in the Bay Area have been reduced (280 is very
pleasant to drive on), and Mount Hamilton can be seen from Stanford
at least 3/4 of the time.  (Someone told me that the professor in
question had in fact moved from a place from which Mount Hamilton
is visible to Palo Alto which is flat and has too many trees).
In short, the perception that things are getting worse contradicts
both the statistics of living standards and longevity as well as
direct observation.  I have found that this perception is very soft
in that it yields readily to argument in contrast to other beliefs
that intellectuals hold.

	The ecological criticism that technology  is  destroying  the
planet  is  harder  to  answer,  because  to answer it fully requires
proving that each of a large number of potential  disasters  will  be
avoided   including   disasters   not   yet   even  imagined.   After
considerable study of the literature,  my  own  conclusions  are  the
following:

	1.  Population must eventually be limited.  The U.S. can postpone
this limitation for several hundred years and still live well off
resources from within its own borders.  In some other countries the
problem is more acute, but they have to see the problem themselves as they
in fact are.  Neither by precept nor by example nor by pressure can we
make them do it.  About the most we can do is help with technology.

	Some will say ``eventually, why not now'', but the country is
capable of paying political attention to only a limited set of issues, and
these are inevitably chosen from the most painful.  Population control
isn't urgent in the U.S., especially with the present low birth rate, and
the public and politicians correctly perceive other issues as more
important.

	2. It is easy to see trends  that  if  continued  will  bring
about  disaster,  but  our  scientific  and political ability to spot
these trends and  take  action  before  they  kill  people  has  been
increasing.   Ancient ecological disasters where a population starved
because it destroyed its food supply or populations were  reduced  by
epidemics  are  not  occurring.   The prophets of doom have played an
important role in this servo-mechanism, and it is a major  defect  of
our  society  that  prophecy  of  disaster has been required to cause
action.  Prophets of good news like us ``facile technological optimists''
have  a  hard  time  getting attention, because we admit that mankind
will survive even if it doesn't follow our advice.

	3. There can be enough energy, food, and materials  to  bring
even  twice  the present world population to twice the American level
of affluence.
To prove this would be quite difficult and lengthy, because each
resource would have to be examined separately and its adequacy or
substitutability established.  To prove the contrary is even harder,
because it is difficult to limit other people's ingenuity in solving
problems.

	4.  When  we  modify  the  workings  of  nature,  there   are
side-effects  which require additional action, and these actions have
further side-effects.  Some people claim that this proves we shouldn't
have begun the process.  However, so
far it has turned out that the systems have
been  convergent.   Controlling the side-effects is easier than going
back to  the  old  way,  and  the  secondary  side-effects  are  less
important  than the primary ones.  As a computer scientist, I tend to
expect programs to be eventually debugged  even  if  the  process  is
lengthy and inconvenient.

	These  optimistic  views  are based on a different reading of
recent history than the extreme critics.  For example, I  regard  the
automobile  as  having turned out successful in the main. The freedom
it has given the individual to live where he wants and  have  friends
where  he  wants  is worth the inconveniences, and I believe the smog
problem is being solved by any of  several  of  the  approaches  being
tried.  Of course, we shall eventually have to switch to cars that
don't rely on petroleum, but this will be feasible.

	Well,  if  we  scientist and engineers are so good, why doesn't
everybody love us?  Is it just bad public relations?  In my  opinion,  the
trouble  is  that  we  haven't  done much for the middle class lately
except enlarge it.   Far from having created future shock by changing
the  world  too  much,  we have done much less recently than was done
around the turn of the  century.   Consider  that  in  the  50  years
preceding  1920,  technology produced the telephone, electric lights,
refrigeration,  the  automobile,  the  airplane,  and   radio.    The
important  recent  innovations in daily life have been television and
the pill.  The others have allowed more people to enjoy  the  goodies
of previous technology by increasing productivity, but evidently this
is not enough to save us from criticism.

	Why haven't we done more recently?  Three reasons.

	1. At the request of the people through  the  government,  we
spent  our  time  fighting menaces rather than inventing good things.
For a long time the menace was presumed to be  military,  and  so  we
invented  lots  of  weapons.  Now they are less interested in weapons
which may be good if possibly risky.
The conservative ideology that objects to  government
subsidy  of  technology except when there is a menace involved didn't
help.  (Remember that the Federal Highway Program  was  justified  on
the grounds of national defense).
The current menace is pollution; the problem is important and will
be solved, but we should not expend all our thought on menaces; making
positive improvements should get even more attention.

	2.  The  mine  of  easy  mechanical  invention was exhausted.
Dishwashers and refrigerators are easy; a real house-cleaning machine
will  require  the  use  of a computer.  We are about ready for a new
wave of invention affecting daily life mostly involving  the  use  of
computers.   Let  me  tell (not now) you  about  the  home  computer terminal,
computer  driven  cars,  automatic   home   delivery   systems,   the
elimination  of  money,  and  the  national jukebox, and the personal
telephone.

	3.  The  over-selling  of  pure  science   especially   among
potential  scientists.   The  selling  of  pure  science started when
science consumed an infinitesimal proportion of the GNP and  occupied
a  vey  small  portion  of the very intelligent people.  The case for
increasing its support was quite valid. The present  situation  where
practical   application   is   looked  down  on,  especially  in  the
under-developed countries is quite different.  One visits  institutes
in  these  countries  that are at the forefront of world science, but
which make very little  contribution  to  the  advancement  of  their
countries.   The same situation prevails in the United States, but is
hidden, because we don't know what people  would  have  invented  had
they  tried.

	Scientists and technologists are worried  about  unemployment
and  manpower  statisticians  say there are too many of us.  In fact,
there is plenty of work, even if we can't all follow exactly  in  the
footsteps of our professors.  Specifically, we need to figure out how
to reduce the cost of construction  by  a  factor  of  three  so  the
country  can  be  rebuilt,  we  need  to  figure  out how to have the
mobility of the car without the traffic jams and the smog, we need to
figure  out  how to get all that boring office work done by computer,
we need to figure out how to get and use  energy  without  pollution.
Most  of  all,  we  need to invent ways of making life better and not
merely respond to threats of disaster.

	The economists had better figure  out  how  we  can  get  the
benefits of all these changes without mass unemployment.
However, while new technology often makes certain jobs redundant, it
never seems to contribute to the general level of unemployment.  There
is no correlation between periods of rapid technological advance
and periods of high unemployment.  Nor is there a positive correlations
between the technological level of a country and its rate of unemployment.
Die hards may argue that technological advance in one country produces
unemployment in others.