MODULE III

CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to discuss some notable distinguishing features of

science and technology. The distinctive features vary over time. Some that have long
been characteristics gradually cease to be, while overtime new attributes become
increasingly typical. It is hoped that the features examined in this chapter flesh out the
intuition that there is something qualitatively and qualitatively distinctive about science
and technology in this century, in particular about the kinds of activities and total
societal enterprises that science and technology have become in the present era.

Important Characteristics of Contemporary Science and Technology

Six important distinctive characteristics of contemporary science and technology

will be discussed. First we will start with an important feature of the activities covered by
the expressions contemporary science and contemporary technology. Then the
discussion will focus on the distinctive characteristics having to do with the four
dimensions of scientific and technological activities: their products, settings, resources,
and practitioners. Lastly, there will be a description of several distinctive trends in
contemporary science and technology viewed as total societal enterprises.

1. Polymorphism

Contemporary technological activity is quite polymorphous in character, which

means that it unfolds in many forms. These forms include design of a particular technic
by an independent inventor; the quantitative analysis by the inventor to determine the
best acceptable way of setting the parameters or variables affecting the operation of a
particular technical or socio technical system such as a nationwide telecommunications
network; and a scientific research into the structure and properties of natural or
synthetic materials to serve a particular technological purpose, such as selection and
choice of a heat-shielding for a space shuttle nose cone and for other technological
endeavors. This polymorphism in itself is an important characteristic of contemporary
technology. New kinds of activities continue to improve and added to the arsenal of
contemporary technology particularly in computer-integrated production.

As for contemporary science, the story is somewhat the same, The expression
“contemporary science” conjures up images of theory controlled experiment,
interpretation of results, and reducing some findings to mathematical form or
expression. This seems to suggest that activities having nothing to do with these kinds
of endeavor do not or cannot qualify as part of natural science. After giving a cloy
examination, it become apparent that contemporary science still contains activities of
various forms and sorts. Even in cutting-edge, areas, some scientific activity is primarily
concerned with seemingly elementary and pedestrian tasks of observation and
description of interesting natural phenomena (Mc Ginn R.E. 1991),

Several factors foster the narrow equation of science with quantitative predictive
theory. Historian Walter Pater once wrote that “All Art Constantly Aspires Toward the
Condition of Music” (Pater Walter 1980). He meant that music affords its practitioners
opportunities for achieving the greatest degree of subjective expression, something
painting and that other arts should emulate. Similarly, some scientists believe that all
science aspires to the condition of physics, with its unmatched synthesis of
mathematically formulated predictive theory and controlled experiments.

2. Products of Contemporary Science and Technology

The products of contemporary science and technology exhibit a number of

distinctive features sufficiently common to qualify as characteristics of their own forms of
activity. We start with technology.

Technology

a. Complexity

Many technics of the twentieth century are composed of hundreds, thousands,

millions, or billions of parts; many of which are themselves technics or technical system
m their own right. Automobiles today contain about 14,000 parts, while Apollo 8
spacecraft had approximately 5.6 million parts (Washington Post, 1986). But the classic
Steinway concert grand piano produced in the middle nineteenth century had about
12,000 parts, while the Great Wall of China and some great pyramids of Egypt have
several millions parts (Lenehan M. 1982). Therefore having a large number of parts is in
itself insufficient to distinguish contemporary technics from their predecessors.
Complexity is more distinguish characteristic. Neither the Great Wall, the pyramids, nor
even the contemporary Steinway piano is particularly complex in structure or in its
operational complexity of contemporary technics and technical systems, from stereo
components, personal computers to automobiles, Boeing aircraft's, and nuclear power
plants,

b. System-Embeddedness
 Many of the contemporary technics are embedded in complex sociotechnical
support systems on which they depend for them manufacture, use and maintenance.
However, many contemporary technics cannot be used or operated without external
support systems over which users exercise little control such as electrically powered
technics. It seems as if there are invisible Iinkages that connects the technics in
question to their respective support systems.

Some other contemporary sociotechnical support systems are more complex

than those traditional technics. For instance to acquire a contemporary system-
embedded technic as an automobile for personal use, one has to encounter a series of
sociotechnical systems. These systems are the road network, energy supply, spare
parts supply, registration, insurance, police, toll and legal systems.

c. Production Specialization and Incomprehensibility

The third feature of contemporary technics pertains to their ‘specialized

character. While the production of technics has long been a specialized activity, the
degree of specialization involved in the production of contemporary technics is
unprecedented. The current situation is the climax of a long term trend away from the
usual arrangement in which a technic’s designer, producer, user and maintainer were
oftenly one and the same person, and toward a more intensive division of labor under
which an individual is an expert on only one category of technics-often only on some
phase in the technic’s life-cycle (e.g., design or production)a non specialist with respect
to all other stages, and a mere user or operator with respect to most other categories of
technics.

Some contemporary technics are incomprehensible to majority of their users,

most often they have limited idea on how they are made, work or repaired. This quality
of being Opaque to some users applies both to personal technics like disc players and
digital watches to macrotechnics such as airplanes and power plants.

d. Formalized Technical Procedures

This formalized technical procedure most often embodied in computer programs,

are devised for various purposes. It includes those related to design, production,
operation and maintenance of contemporary technics and technical systems. To
demonstrate this, the industrial engineers create Computer. based procedures for
inventory and quality control, safety engineers concoct computer programs for
automatic train system operation and electrical engineers devise software for
diagnosing and repairing telephone network transmission.

e. Sociotechnical Systems Analysis

 In general, systems analysis is the quantitative examination of a particular
system of interest, or a production system to determine how it perform or would perform
under certain conditions or assumptions This analysis is usually done with a view to
decide how to structure or restructure the system by devising a formalized procedure or
method to be followed m seeking to control its performance or behavior to achieve the
desired and most favorable condition. Sociotechnical systems analysis can be said as a
subbranch of contemporary technical activity, one which complement and oftenly works
hand-in- hand with that devoted to making technics. Its products, sociotechnical
systems analyses are one kind technic related intellectual products. Taken together,
sociotechnical system analysis, the analyses produced by its professional practitioners
the (“systems engineers”), and the systems that embody the conclusions of such
analyses constitute an increasingly important characteristics of contemporary
technological activity (Mc Ginn R.E. 1991).

Science

a. Abstract and Abstruse Nature

The outputs of contemporary science are distinct in three aspects. Twentieth

century scientific knowledge is quite abstract and abstruse (not easy to understand).
Oftenly, it involves phenomena remote from everyday experience and sometimes
involves concepts that are counter intuitive (the “relativity” of space and time) or
unintelligible (“black holes” in the universe). Understanding such knowledge often
anchors on mathematical ideas and methods and sophisticated theories. The
complexity of such scientific knowledge and how it was generated is such that to a
nonspecialist, the opaqueness of modern technics may Seer transparent by comparison
(Mc Ginn R.E. 1991).

b. Theory-Dependence

Some scholars argued that all scientific knowledge, is implicitly if not explicitly
theory-related. Thomas Kuhn, contends that there is no such thing as theory neutral
language of scientific observation (Kuhn, Thomas 1970).

Many twentieth century scientific knowledge are significantly theory dependent.

Much contemporary scientific knowledge is attained only at the summit of multi-tiered
theoretical constructs. Many contemporary technics exist or work only with the aid of
their respective sociotechnical support systems; much modern knowledge is attained
and exists only on high theoretical platforms.

c. Growth of Scientific Knowledge

 In the twentieth century, the number and rate of change of technics and the
amount and rate of production of scientific knowledge is unprecedented. One way of
gauging the latter is by the counting the number of scientific journals that are available
at various times. Derek Price Showed that beginning with the appearance of the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1665, the number of
scientific journals has grown roughly exponentially for more than three centuries.
Doubling roughly every 15 years, the number of such publications has grown 100-fold
every century (Price D.J. 1963).

3. Settings

Another characteristics features of contemporary science and technology are

their dominant settings. Before the twentieth century, scientific and technological
activities took place in garages, basements and in small shops. However, during the
nineteenth century, university science laboratories grow in number in Europe and in the
United States of America. The federal government of the United States of America
established a facility for scientific research, the Smithsonian Institution early in the
middle of the nineteenth century. The twentieth century marked the expansion and
consolidation of the housing of scientific and technological activities in an extensive
network of firmly established substantial-size formal organizations. Indicative of these
developments, is that in the late 1980’s there were approximate}, 6,700 university-
related and other not-for-profit centers devoted to research in the physical and life
sciences and engineering in the Unite States of America and Canada. In addition,
roughly 10,2% organizations in the former were active in doing research an
development for industry; the great majority owned and operated by private
corporations. Finally, about 700 major U.S. federal government laboratories of all sizes
were performing research and development work in science and engineering (Dresser
P.D. and K.A. Hill, 1989),

Other organizations devoted to data collection and analysis, training, planning,

operations, and maintenance were established. An example is the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA), which runs an astronaut training center in Houston
and NASA unit in Washington D.C. carry out its planning and policy-making functions. In
1989, United Airlines employed about 600 engineers and technicians and 10,000
machinists at its national Maintenance Operations Center at San Francisco International
Airport (Comstock K. 1989), The latter example suggest an important difference in the
settings of contemporary scientific and technological activity. It is widely believed that
both kinds of activities take place primarily in research and development laboratories.

Nevertheless, the seemingly anachronistic image of “the engineer in the garage”

is not completely outmoded. William Hewlett and David Packard began what was to
become the Hewlett-Packard electronics firm in a garage in Palo Alto in 1938 (Morgan
Jane 1967). More recently, Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak built the first Apple I
personal computer in garage in Cupertino, California in 1976 (Freiberger P. and M.
Swaine 1984). A garage or room may still be the scene of staring work on a new
technological product or business. However, in most areas of contemporary technology
if such a firm is to survive and prosper, the locus of its activity must shift to a decent-
sized, equipped with adequate facility, able to house and support research and
development work and its support personnel.

4. Resources

Majority of achievements and outputs of contemporary science and technology

were supported by resources. Without the contribution Of resources, any endeavor or
activity in this world is destine to end up in failure. We will discuss some important
characteristics of two types of resources: the input resources and transformative
resources.

Input Resources

Input resources are supplies of various kinds introduced or incorporated into

scientific or technological contexts to enable and facilitate certain ideas and
undertakings. Important input resources include materials, natural phenomena, and
money.

a. Materials

Material inputs to technological activity consisted largely of raw materials in the

form of bones, stones and wood for tools and implements, straw, leaves for baskets,
and animals skins for clothing. Prior to the onset of the Christian era in the West, the
Chinese were already making weapons out of some metal alloys. During the later part
of civilization, input materials to technological work become available in the global
market. These materials includes chromium, manganese and plutonium-group of
metals. The globalization of contemporary technological inputs goes parallel with the
globalization of contemporary technological outputs or technics.

The United States of America space shuttle demonstrates some of these trends.
It would not have been feasible to built this vehicle without specially designed human-
made materials. As the said vehicle re-enters the atmosphere, the shuttle orbiter
encounters temperatures of up to 2,500°F. To withstand this condition, its nose and the
leading edges of its wings are protected by a specially metal known as “carbon carbon”.
Seventy percent of the spaceships aluminum skin surface is covered with heat resistant
tiles composed of silica fiber made rigid by ceramic bonding (New York Times, 1981).

b. Natural Phenomena
 There was a great increase of inputs in science in the contemporary era. This
was brought about in part to the growing developments of new and improve technics
which include microscopes, computers, and imaging machines. It shows that the
domain of natural phenomena to scientific exploration is expanding.

c. Money

Money is an indispensable component or input in contemporary science and

technology. Without it any endeavor is unlikely to succeed or accomplish its objectives
and come up with its target outputs. Given the large number of practitioners of modern
science and the amount and rate of production of scientific knowledge, the latter might
seem easy to produce. On the whole, measure in terms of time, money and effort
invested, breakthroughs in science in the twentieth century an increasingly difficult and
costly to realize. Expensive technology, more high-salaried workers, and high
institutional overhead costs are primarily contributors to the increasing price of most
contemporary scientific research. Similar situation would exist in the case of
contemporary technology.

Transformative Resources

Transformative resources are those used in converting inputs of scientific and

technological activities into their respective outputs or products. This type of resources
can be divided into two kinds: First order-those with which inputs are transformed, and
second order-those in accordance with which first order resources are brought to bear
on inputs.

a. First-Order Resources

These kinds of resources include technics and technical systems, mathematical

techniques, labor power, materials alteration processes and energy forms. Example are,
manually operated tools and physical labor power have been largely replaced by
electrical machinery and machine tools, while many new change-inducing substances in
the physical and biological sciences have been identified and harnessed, such as
microorganisms and particle beams (Mc Ginn R.E. 1991).

b. Second-Order Resources

The second order resources of science and technology; which have also
expanded greatly in the twentieth century, can be divided into two kinds: methods and
knowledge. The discussion here is limited to contemporary technological knowledge
(Vincenti W.G. 1979),

In general, technological knowledge has several bases. Such knowledge is

based on direct observation of the first hand experience working with the ways in which
materials and power sources behave under various circumstances. Such case is with
the knowledge of wood properties developed and used by North American Indians in
making birch-bark canoes. Other technological knowledge is based on systematic
activity such as carefully designed experiments and systematic use of specific
experimental methods. A third source of technological knowledge is bona fide scientific
understanding. Such is the origin of some knowledge that goes into design,
development and manufacture of integrated circuits and light-wave communications
cables.

5. Practitioners

The practitioner can also be considered as a kind of transformative resource for

science and technology. There are some aspects that the practitioner dimension of
contemporary scientific and technological activity is distinctive. These distinctive
aspects are those with respect to: numbers and density, collaboration and teams,
management skills, training and specialization.

a. Numbers and Density

The number of practitioners of technology and science today is enormous

relative to previous centuries.

In 1986, there was an estimated 5.47 million scientists and engineers employed
in the United States of America, 2.85 million engineers and 2.62 million scientists. Of
the latter, about one third (884,000) were in the physical or life sciences: and two thirds
(1.74 million) were in the social sciences psychology, computer science or mathematics
(Science and Technology Data Book, 1989). This data book also showed that in 1900,
the USA population was 76.1 million and the total number of scientists and engineers
was 70,000. In 1950, USA population was 151.3 million and the total number of
scientists and engineers was 559,000. In 1970, the population increased to 203.3
million and scientists and engineers increased to 1,595,000. In 1988, USA population
was 244.6 million and estimated number of scientists and engineers was 5,474,600.

From the data presented, the ratio of total scientists and engineers to the USA
population in 1900 was I to 1,807, while in 1988, the ratio of total scientists and
engineers to the USA population was 1 to 45. This indicates that the “density” of
engineers and scientists in the USA has increased in this century.

b. Collaboration and Teams

Contemporary scientific and technological activities is usually pursued on a

collaborative or team basis. Individual approach of carrying out research work is now
being superseded by the team approach of scientists, engineers and technicians
working on a scientific experiment or a research and development project.

Indicator of the increasing prominence of teamwork in science is the historical

increase of joint authorship of scientific papers. In a study of a sample of professional
journals in the natural and biological sciences, Harriet Zuckerman showed that between
1900 and 1959 the percentage of articles with two oy more authors grew from 25
percent in the period from 1900 to 1909; to 31 percent, 39 percent, 56 percent, and 66
percent in the next four decades; and to 83 percent in the period from 1950 to 1959
(Merton R.K. and H. Zuckerman 1973),

c. Management Skills

One important development in the twentieth century is that scientist or engineer

will need to have some management skills and capabilities. They need to have fund
raising, interpersonal and organizational skills. In 1988, of the estimated 5.47 million
scientists and engineers employed in the United States of America, slightly more were
engaged » management activity (1.5 million or 27.4 percent) than in actual research and
development work (1.49 million or 27.2 percent) according to the Science and
Technology Data Book; 1989.

In big-scale technological projects, there is an urgent need for someone who

possesses some managerial capabilities and who will be responsible for important
project-related decision making, such as setting the personnel levels, allocating tasks
for competing units, and selecting a way satisfying all design constraint, certifying
testing and meeting schedules.

d. Reaffirmation of Individual Practitioner

Although the importance of the team of management skills approach in the

twentieth century technological and | scientific has increased significantly, the role of the
individual has by no means been’ shadowed. Individual practitioners sometimes are the
key sources of ideas for inventions, innovations, or experiments and they may show
indicative differences in fund raising, in the design of prototype products, and in
marketing or in theoretical breakthroughs.

e. Training and Specialization

In 1986, 24.2 percent or 529,100 of the 2.186 million scientists employed in the
United States of America held master’s degrees. In Engineering, the proportion is about
the same, 23 percent or 561,300 of 2.44 million practitioner However, for the same year,
the number of scientists who held Ph. D’s far exceeded the number of engineers with
doctorate degrees: 511,200 to 105,500. The number of engineer employed expanded
by 10.2 percent between 1984 and 1986, On the other hand the number with doctorates
rose by 6] percent, from 65,400 to 105,500. This reflects the growing role of scientific
knowledge in contemporary engineering activity. Thus, in the mid-1980’s the density of
Ph. D degree recipients increased significantly in both engineering and science.

With regard to specialization, there was an indication of the extraordinary degree

of specialization in contemporary science. The “Physics and Astronomy
Classification Scheme”. published in 1985 by the American Institute of Physics
divides the joint discipline of physics and astronomy into no fewer 1,000 sub-fields
(Physics Today, 1984). Similar situation exists in the major disciplines of engineering. In
1989, members of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) were
orgamzed into no fewer than 36 general divisions, each of which subsumes numerous
sub areas of specialized research (ASME, 1989).

6. Salient Characteristics Trends in Contemporary Science and Technology

There are four salient characteristics trends that distinguished contemporary

science and technology during the twentieth century. These are: a. increasing scale, b.
internationalization, c. rationalization, and d. symbiotic interdependence.

Increasing Scale

There is an increasing scale in character of contemporary science and

technology. This was evidence by the large amount of technical apparatus increasingly
used m both activities. The increased in size suggests the unprecedented coverage and
magnitudes of other aspects of these activities to include the quantities and rates of
production of their outputs, the number of their practitioners, the size of their budgets,
the average sizes of the organizations in which they are housed, the amounts of
material and organizational resources required to sustain their practice, and the power
of the special interests that control them and shape their practices to serve their
respective interests (Mc Ginn R.E. 1991).

International character

Contemporary science and technology continue to have an increasing

international in character, brought about by the twentieth century revolutions in
telecommunications and transportation. On the information level, the practitioner,
publish in internationally distributed or circulated journals and are linked by international
telecommunication networks. Flow exchanges of technical personnel have also been
internationalized brought about by international meetings or conferences and the
scholarly exchanges are routine and increasing in number, and thousands of students
and practitioners of science and engineering study and work abroad. In 1986, the ranks
of scientists and engineers working in the United States of America included almost
150,000 citizens of other countries (Science and Technology Data Book, 1989).

Some individual research facilities are also becoming international in character.

For example, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Stanford, California,
USA is 2 major center of experimental particle-physics research. SLAC employs some
foreign nationals and accommodates visiting scientists and engaged in collaborative
research with SLAC scientists and also for some exchange of scientific ideas and
information.

Rationalization

We have witnessed the increasing importance of the results of scientific research

in the knowledge base of twentieth century technology, the growing importance of
formalized technic-related procedures, the increasing use of systematic methods such
as systems analysis, and the growing, highly specialized practice of modern technology
in hierarchical groups housed in large bureaucratic organizations. What unites such
seemingly disparate phenomena is that they exemplify the potent general trend that
Max Weber referred to as “the rationalization of modern life” (Weber M. 1978). To
explain Weber’s contention as applied to the sphere of technological activity. Parallel
developments in other spheres of modern life approaches to the production of technics
and related systems that had long been based on “tradition, sentiment, and role of
thumb” have greatly diminished in importance in this century. On the other hand, one
based on “explicit, abstract, and . intellectually calculable knowledge, rules and
procedures” have become considerably important (Wrong D. 1970). One outcome of
this rationalization process was the transformation of numerous fields of engineering
(e.g. audio engineering) from predominantly craft-based enterprises to mature
professional fields anchored increasingly in scientific, mathematical and advanced
engineering methods ang knowledge (Mc Ginn R.E. 1991),

Symbiotic Interdependence

Finally, contemporary science and technology continue to exhibit a trend towards

increasing symbiotic interdependence. Taken or stripped of their contributions to each
other in this century, each would be virtually unrecognizable and both would be much
less effective. Technics play an ever influential role in the process of acquiring scientific
knowledge and attaining a better understanding of nature. Conversely, the knowledge
generated often makes possible or facilitates the development of new, more efficient
technics and related technical and sociotechnical systems. This iterative or repetitious
feedback relationship is sufficiently widespread to qualify as an important distinguishing
characteristic of contemporary science and technology.
ACTIVITY 2

1. What are the six important characteristics of contemporary science and technology?
And discuss each.

2. What are the two types of transformative resources? And describe it.

3. Discuss the symbiotic interdependence.

4. Define the following terms:

a. Complexity

b. System-Embeddedness

c. Production specialization and incomprehensibility

d. Formalized technical procedures

e. Sociotechnical system analysis

5. When you hear the word “Technology,” what comes to your mind?