Technology
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Technology is a word with origins in the Greek word technologia (τεχνολογία), techne (τέχνη) "craft" and logia (λογία) "saying." It is a broad term dealing with the use and knowledge of humanity's tools and crafts.
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Different meanings of technology
Depending on context, the word technology has the following definitions and uses:
Technology as tool
Technology can be most broadly defined as the material entities created by the application of mental and physical effort to nature in order to achieve some value. In its most common use, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to help solve problems. In this use, technology is a far-reaching term that may include both simple tools, such as a wooden spoon, and complex tools, such as a space station or the written sets of procedures and maintenance manuals for it.
Technology as technique
In this use, technology is the current state of our knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants. Technology in this sense includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials (for example, in such uses as computer technology, construction technology, or medical technology).
Technology as a cultural force
Technology can also be viewed as an activity that forms or changes culture (such as in manufacturing technology, infrastructure technology, or space-travel technology). (McGinn)
As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering, each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor. This is not to imply that technology is the only, or the dominant, culture-forming activity. Culture itself acts strongly upon, and shapes, the form and nature of technology. However, due to the increasingly widespread use of ever more complex technologies and their frequently unintended consequences, problems may arise in their use, many of which have been separately studied. Such topics include technological ethics, environmental effects, technological byproducts, and technological risk. The cultural force of technology (e.g., as seen in the invention of writing) may be said to be the driving force that sets us apart from other species.
Science, engineering and technology
The distinctions between science, engineering and technology are not always clear. Generally, science is the reasoned investigation or study of nature, aimed at discovering enduring relationships (principles) among elements of the (phenomenal) world. It generally employs formal techniques, i.e., some set of established rules of procedure, such as the scientific method. Engineering is the use of scientific principles to achieve a planned result. However, technology broadly involves the use and application of knowledge (e.g., scientific, engineering, mathematical, language, and historical), both formally and informally, to achieve some "practical" result (Roussel, et al.).
For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors. This knowledge may then be used by engineers to create artifacts, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists, but scientists generally less so.
History of technology
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The earliest technologies converted readily occurring natural resources (such as rock, wood and other vegetation, bone and other animal byproducts) into simple tools. Processes such as carving, chipping, scraping, rolling (the wheel), and sun-baking are simple means for the conversion of raw materials into usable products. Anthropologists have uncovered many early human habitations and tools made from natural resources. Birds and other animals often build elaborate nests and some simple tools out of various materials. We normally don't consider them to be performing a technological feat, primarily because such behavior is largely instinctive. There is some evidence of occasional cultural transferrence, especially among the other, nonhuman primates. Nevertheless, there is now considerable evidence of such simple technology among animals other than humans.
The use, and then mastery, of fire (circa 1,000,000 - 500,000 BC [1]) was a turning point in the technological evolution of humankind, affording a simple energy source with many profound uses. Perhaps the first use of fire beyond providing heat was the preparation of food. This enabled a significant increase in the vegetable and animal sources of food, while greatly reducing perishability.
The use of fire extended the capability for the treatment of natural resources and allowed the use of natural resources that require heat to be useful. (The oldest projectile found is a wooden spear with fire hardened point, circa 250,000 BC.) Wood and charcoal were among the first materials used as a fuel. Wood, clay, and rock (such as limestone), were among the earliest materials shaped or treated by fire, for making artifacts such as weapons, pottery, bricks, and cement. Continuing improvements led to the furnace and bellows and provided the ability to smelt and forge native metals (naturally occurring in relatively pure form). Gold, copper, silver, and lead, were such early metals. The advantages of copper tools over stone, bone, and wooden tools were quickly apparent to early humans, and native copper was probably used from near the beginning of Neolithic times (about 8000 BCE). Native copper does not naturally occur in large amounts, but copper ores are quite common and some of them produce metal easily when burned in wood or charcoal fires.
Meanwhile, humans were learning to harness other forms of energy. The earliest known use of wind power is the sailboat. The earliest record of a ship under sail is shown on an Egyptian pot dating back to 3200 BCE. From prehistoric times, Egyptians probably used "the power of the Nile" annual floods to irrigate their lands, gradually learning to regulate much of it through purposely built irrigation channels and 'catch' basins. Similarly, the early peoples of Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for much the same purposes. But more extensive use of wind and water (and even human) power required another invention.
It is still a mystery as to who invented the wheel and when and why it was invented. According to some archaeologists, it was probably originally invented about 8000 B.C. The wheel was almost certainly independently invented in Mesopotamia -— present-day Iraq. Estimates on when this may have occurred range from 5500 to 3000 B.C., with most guesses closer to a 4000 B.C. date. The oldest artifacts with drawings that depict wheeled carts date from about 3000 B.C., though for all anyone knows, the wheel may have been in use for millennia before these drawings were made. But there is also evidence from the same period of time that wheels were used for the production of pottery. (Note that the original potter's wheel was probably not a wheel -— but rather an irregularly shaped slab of flat wood with a small hollowed or pierced area near the center and mounted on a peg driven into the earth. It would have been rotated by repeated tugs by the potter or his assistant.) More recently, the oldest-known wooden wheel in the world was found in the Ljubljana marshes of Slovenia.
The invention of the wheel revolutionized activities as disparate as transportation, war, and the production of pottery (for which it may have been first used). It didn't take long to discover that wheeled wagons could be used to carry heavy loads and fast (rotary) potters' wheels enabled early mass production of pottery. But it was the use of the wheel as a transformer of energy (through water wheels and windmills and even treadmills) that revolutionized the application of nonhuman power sources.
Tools include both simple machines (such as the lever, the screw, and the pulley), and more complex machines (such as the clock, the engine, the electric generator and the electric motor, the computer, radio, and the Space Station, among many others).
As tools increase in complexity, so does the type of knowledge needed to support them. Complex modern machines require libraries of written technical manuals of collected information that has continually increased and improved -— their designers, builders, maintainers, and users often require the mastery of decades of sophisticated general and specific training. Moreover, these tools have become so complex that a comprehensive infrastructure of technical knowledge-based lesser tools, processes and practices (complex tools in themselves) exist to support them, including engineering, medicine, and computer science. Complex manufacturing and construction techniques and organizations are needed to construct and maintain them. Entire industries have arisen to support and develop succeding generations of increasingly more complex tools.Electronics
Electronics items have grown ever smaller and more sophisticated. Components have progressed from vacuum tubes, through transistors, to integrated circuits.
Moore's law is about the empirical observation, that at our rate of technological development, the complexity of an integrated circuit, with respect to minimum component cost, will double approximately every 18 months.
It is attributed to Gordon E. Moore,<ref>Not to be confused with another G.E. Moore, the philosopher George Edward Moore, the creator of Moore's paradox.</ref> a co-founder of Intel. However, Moore had heard Douglas Engelbart's similar observation possibly in 1965. Engelbart, a co-inventor of today's mechanical computer mouse, believed that the ongoing improvement of integrated circuits would eventually make interactive computing feasible.
These advances have pervaded many aspects of life in the industrialized world, such as leading to personal computers, advanced telecommunications, computerized parts within many simpler machines, and digital entertainment.
But unintended consequences include potential for identity theft. In addition, equipment such as cellular phones can backfire by connecting people to their work more, instead of giving them freedom from their work.
Economics and technological development
Economics can be said to have arrived on the scene when the occasional, spontaneous exchange of goods and services began to occur on a less occasional, less spontaneous basis. It probably didn't take long for the maker of arrowheads to realize that he could probably do a lot better by concentrating on the making of arrowheads and barter for his other needs. Clearly, regardless of the goods and services bartered, some amount of technology was involved—if no more than in the making of shell and bead jewelry. Even the shaman's potions and sacred objects can be said to have involved some technology. So, from the very beginnings, technology can be said to have spurred the development of more elaborate economies.In the modern world, superior technologies, resources, geography, and history give rise to robust economies; and in a well-functioning, robust economy, economic excess naturally flows into greater use of technology. Moreover, because technology is such an inseparable part of human society, especially in its economic aspects, funding sources for (new) technological endeavors are virtually illimitable. However, while in the beginning, technological investment involved little more than the time, efforts, and skills of one or a few men, today, such investment may involve the collective labor and skills of many millions.
Funding
Consequently, the sources of funding for large technological efforts have dramatically narrowed, since few have ready access to the collective labor of a whole society, or even a large part. It is conventional to divide up funding sources into governmental (involving whole, or nearly whole, social enterprises) and private (involving more limited, but generally more sharply focused) business or individual enterprises.
Government funding for new technology
The government is a major contributor to the development of new technology in many ways. In the United States alone, many government agencies specifically invest billions of dollars in new technology.
[In 1980, the UK government invested just over 6 million pounds in a four-year programme, later extended to six years, called the Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP), which was intended to give every school in Britain at least one computer, microprocessor training materials and software, and extensive teacher training. Similar programmes have been instituted by governments around the world.]
Technology has frequently been driven by the military, with many modern applications being developed for the military before being adapted for civilian use. However, this has always been a two-way flow, with industry often taking the lead in developing and adopting a technology which is only later adopted by the military.
Entire government agencies are specifically dedicated to research, such as America's National Science Foundation, the United Kingdom's scientific research institutes, America's Small Business Innovative Research effort. Many other government agencies dedicate a major portion of their budget to research and development.
Private funding
Research and development is one of the biggest areas of investments made by corporations toward new and innovative technology.
Many foundations and other nonprofit organizations contribute to the development of technology. In the OECD, about two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20 percent and 10 percent respectively by universities and government. But in poorer countries such as Portugal and Mexico the industry contribution is significantly less. The U.S. government spends more than other countries on military research and development, although the proportion has fallen from about 30 percent in the 1980s to less than 20 percent. [2]
Other economic considerations
- Intermediate technology, more of an economics concern, refers to compromises between central and expensive technologies of developed nations and those which developing nations find most effective to deploy given an excess of labour and scarcity of cash. In general, a so-called "appropriate" technology will also be "intermediate".
- Persuasion technology: In economics, definitions or assumptions of progress or growth are often related to one or more assumptions about technology's economic influence. Challenging prevailing assumptions about technology and its usefulness has led to alternative ideas like uneconomic growth or measuring well-being. These, and economics itself, can often be described as technologies, specifically, as persuasion technology.
- Technocapitalism
- Technological diffusion
- Technology acceptance model
- Technology lifecycle
- Technology transfer
Sociological factors and effects
The most subtle side effects of technology are often sociological. They are subtle because the side effects may go unnoticed unless carefully observed and studied. These may involve gradually occurring changes in the behavior of individuals, groups, institutions, and even entire societies.
Values
The implementation of technology influences the values of a society by changing expectations and realities. The implementation of technology is also influenced by values. There are (at least) three major, interrelated values that inform, and are informed by, technological innovations:
- Mechanistic world view: Viewing the universe as a collection of parts, (like a machine), that can be individually analyzed and understood (McGinn). This is a form of reductionism that is rare nowadays. However, the "neo-mechanistic world view" holds that nothing in the universe cannot be understood by the human intellect. Also, while all things are greater than the sum of their parts (e.g., even if we consider nothing more than the information involved in their combination), in principle, even this excess must eventually be understood by human intelligence. That is, no divine or vital principle or essence is involved.
- Efficiency: A value, originally applied only to machines, but now applied to all aspects of society, so that each element is expected to attain a higher and higher percentage of its maximal possible performance, output, or ability. (McGinn)
- Social progress: The belief that there is such a thing as social progress, and that, in the main, it is beneficent. Before the Industrial Revolution, and the subsequent explosion of technology, almost all societies believed in a cyclical theory of social movement and, indeed, of all history and the universe. This was, obviously, based on the cyclicity of the seasons, and an agricultural economy's and society's strong ties to that cyclicity. Since much of the world (i.e., everyone but the hyperindustrialized West) is closer to their agricultural roots, they are still much more amenable to cyclicity than progress in history. This may be seen, for example, in Prabhat rainjan sarkar's modern social cycles theory. For a more westernized version of social cyclicity, see Generations : The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (Paperback) by Neil Howe and William Strauss; Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (September 30, 1992); ISBN 0688119123, and subsequent books by these authors. just call me H
Ethics
Winston provides an excellent summary of the ethical implications of technological development and deployment. He states there are four major ethical implications:
- Challenges traditional ethical norms.
- Creates an aggregation of effects.
- Changes the distribution of justice.
- Provides great power.
Template:Sectstub But the most important contribution of technology is making life of common people much easier and helping them achieve what was previously not possible.
Lifestyle
Technology, throughout history, has allowed people to complete more tasks in less time and with less energy. Many herald this as a way of making life easier. However, work has continued to be proportional to the amount of energy expended, rather than the quanitiative amount of information or material processed. Technology has had profound effects on liftestyle throughout human history, and as the rate of progress increases, society must deal with both the good and bad implications.
In many ways, technology simplifies life.
- The rise of a leisure class
- A more informed society can make quicker responses to events and trends
- Sets the stage for more complex learning tasks
- Increases multi-tasking
- Global Networking
- Creates denser social circles
- Cheap price
In other ways, technology complicates life.
- Sweatshops and harsher forms of slavery are more likely to be found in technologically advanced societies, relative to primitive societies. However, the replacement of workers with machines and social progress such as emancipation transcends this in many post-industrial societies.
- The increasing disparity between technologically advanced societies and those who are not.
- More people are now starving now that at any point in history or pre-history, however the majority of these people live in subsistence and therefore less technological societies. This is also relative to the world's population explosion. Technology, such as genetics, hopes to alleviate the stress put on resources.
- Work to drive to drive to work to work to drive -- consequently dealing with the traffic jams. The increase in transportation technology has brought congestion in some areas.
- Technicism
- New forms of danger existing as a consequence of new forms of technology, such as the first generation of nuclear reactors.
- New forms of entertainment, such as video games and internet access could have possible social effects on areas such as academic performance.
- Creates new diseases and disorders such as obesity, laziness and a loss of personality.
Institutions and groups
Technology often enables organizational and bureaucratic group structures that otherwise and heretofore were simply not possible. Example of this might include:
- The rise of very large organizations: e.g., governments, the military, health and social welfare institutions, supranational corporations.
- The commercialization of leisure: sports events, products, etc. (McGinn)
- The almost instantaneous dispersal of information (especially news) and entertainment around the world.
International
Technology enables greater knowledge of international issues, values, and cultures. Due mostly to mass transportation and mass media, the world seems to be a much smaller place, due to the following, among others:
- Globalization of ideas
- Embeddedness of values
- Population growth and control
- Others
Environment
Some technologies have negative environmental side effects, such as pollution and lack of sustainability. Some technologies are designed specifically with the environment in mind, but most are designed first for economic or ergonomic effects.
The effects of technology on the environment are both obvious and subtle. The more obvious effects include the depletion of nonrenewable natural resources (such as petroleum, coal, ores), and the added pollution of air, water, and land. The more subtle effects include debates over long-term effects (e.g., global warming, deforestation, natural habitat destruction, costal wetland loss)
Each wave of technology creates a set of waste previously unknown by humans: toxic waste, radioactive waste, electronic waste.
Control
Autonomous technology
In one line of thought, technology develops autonomously, in other words, technology seems to feed on itself, moving forward with a force irresistible by humans. To these individuals, technology is "inherently dynamic and self-augmenting." (McGinn, p. 73)
Jacques Ellul is one proponent of the irresistibleness of technology to humans. He espouses the idea that humanity cannot resist the temptation of expanding our knowledge and our technological abilities. However, he does not believe that this seeming autonomy of technology is inherent. But the perceived autonomy is due to the fact that humans do not adequately consider the responsibility that is inherent in technological processes.
Another proponent of these ideas is Langdon Winner who believes that technological evolution is essentially beyond the control of individuals or society.
Government
Individuals rely on governmental assistance to control the side effects and negative consequences of technology.
- Supposed independence of government. An assumption commonly made about the government is that their governance role is neutral or independent. Often, if not usually, that assumption is misplaced. Governing is a political process, more so in some countries than in others, therefore government will be influenced by political winds of influence. In addition, government provides much of the funding for technological research and development. Therefore, even government has a vested interest in certain outcomes.
- Liability. One means for controlling technology is to place responsibility for the harm with the agent causing the harm. Government can allow more or less legal liability to fall to the organizations or individuals responsibile for damages.
- Legislation.
Choice
Society also controls technology through the choices it makes. These choices not only include consumer demands; they also include:
- the channels of distribution, how do products go from raw materials to consumption to disposal;
- the cultural beliefs regarding style, freedom of choice, consumerism, materialism, etc.;
- the economic values we place on the environment, individual wealth, government control, capitalism, etc.
Technology and philosophy
Technicism
Generally, technicism is an over reliance or overconfidence in technology as a benefactor of society.
Taken to extreme, some argue that technicism is the belief that humanity will ultimately be able to control the entirety of existence using technology. In other words, human beings will eventually be able to master all problems, supply all wants and needs, possibly even control the future. (For a more complete treatment of the topic, see the work of Egbert Schuurman, for example at [3].) Some, such as Monsma, et al., connect these ideas to the abdication of God as a higher moral authority.
More commonly, technicism is a criticism of the commonly held belief that newer, more recently-developed technology is "better." For example, more recently-developed computers are faster than older computers, and more recently-developed cars have greater gas efficiency and more features than older cars. Because current technologies are generally accepted as good, future technological developments are not considered circumspectly, resulting in what seems to be a blind acceptance of technological developments.
Optimism, pessimism and appropriate technology
Pessimism
On the somewhat pessimistic side are certain philosophers like Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ellul, and John Zerzan, who believe that technological societies are inherently flawed a priori. They suggest that the result of such a society is to become evermore technological at the cost of freedom and psychological health (and probably physical health in general, as pollution from technological products is dispersed).
Perhaps the most poignant criticisms of technology are found in what are now considered to be dystopian literary classics, for example Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and other writings, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Optimism
On the other hand, the optimistic assumptions are made by proponents of views or ideologies such as transhumanism and singularitarianism, that view technological development as generally having beneficial effects for the society and the human condition. In these ideologies, technological development is morally good. Some critics see these ideologies as examples of scientism or techno-utopianism and fear the idea of technological singularity which they support. Some technological optimists are Karl Marx and James Hughes.
Attitude towards technology
The difference in a persons attitude towards technology is dependent on that persons exposure to it rather than the notion that it is age that determines positivity/negativity.
Appropriate technology
The notion of appropriate technology, however, was developed in the 20th century to describe situations where it was not desirable to use very new technologies or those that required access to some centralized infrastructure or parts or skills imported from elsewhere. The eco-village movement emerged in part due to this concern.
- Campus Center for Appropriate Technology Humboldt State University
- Appropriate Technology Projects Wiki Humboldt State University
- National Center for Appropriate Technology
- Student Projects Appropriate Technology Humboldt State University
Theories and concepts in technology
There are many theories and concepts that seek to explain the relationship between technology and society:
- Appropriate technology
- Diffusion of innovations
- Jacques Ellul's Technological Society is considered a classic criticism of modern culture's pursuit of technology for its own sake. For more on these ideas, see [4].
- Posthumanism
- Precautionary principle
- Strategy of technology
- Radovan Richta's theory of technological evolution
- Techno-progressivism
- Technocriticism
- Technological determinism
- Technological singularity
- Technorealism
- Transhumanism
See also
- Appropriate Technology
- Golden hammer
- History of science and technology
- High technology
- Innovation
- Internet
- Knowledge economy
- Lewis Mumford
- Technique
- Technology assessment
- Timeline of invention
- Technological convergence
- Technology Tree
- List of technologies
- List of "ologies"
- Technological superpowers
References
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- Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance, Cornell University Press, 1990.
- McGinn, Robert E. Science, Technology and Society, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991.
- Monsma, S.V., C. Christians, E.R. Dykema, A. Leegwater, E. Schuurman, and L. VanPoolen. Responsible Technology. Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA): W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986.
- Nobel, David. Forces of Production: a social history of industrial automation, New York: Knopf 1984, Paperback Edition: Oxford University Press, 1990.
- Roussel, P.A., K. N. Saad, and T. J. Erickson. Third Generation R&D, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press, 1991.
- Smil, Vaclav. Energy in World History, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994, pp. 259-267, as quoted in http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/Technology/Technology.html, maintained by David W. Koeller, Northpark University, Chicago, Illinois (USA), downloaded September 11, 2005.
- Winston, M.E. "Children of Invention", in Society, Ethics, and Technology, Second Edition, M.E. Winston and R.D. Edelbach (eds.), Belmont, California (USA): Wadsworth Group/Thomson Learning, 2003.
External links
- Engines of Our Ingenuity, site for a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity.
- Examples for Innovation and New Technologies
- Technology News Aggregated technology news from various news sources.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Technology".
