Man and Science: A Rocky Relationship

Science has played a major role in shaping the contemporary world. Be it natural or artificial, every aspect of daily life is impacted by science. Among other benefits, science provides technological enhancements within the fields of education, health and industry. Yet despite all the good it has done; science and man share an abusive relationship. Not everything science has brought man has been universally beneficial; in their respective works, Sherry Turkle, Dinesh D’souza and Ramazan Sari with Ugur Soytas all discuss various harms and potential harms brought about by certain types of technology. But a relationship is a two-way street, and with regard to mankind’s relationship with science it is mankind that enjoys the bulk of the influence. It is the contention of this paper that science itself is neither good nor evil, that while science has been kind to man, man has exploited its bounty in self-interest and ultimately coupled that kindness with harm that threatens man’s mind, freedom and environment.

Technology has brought information and education to the masses in an unprecedented manner. Today, anyone with an internet connection can access stores of information most vast than anything contained within even the largest physical library. For centuries science has been taught in the classroom, but only in recent decades have major technological advancements themselves been utilized as teaching aids. In her article How Computers Change the Way We Think, author Sherry Turkle describes how children are introduced to adult technology at an early age, how “e-mail, word processing, computer simulations, virtual communities, and Powerpoint software” have become integrated into the classroom experience (723). Such programs have radically changed the field of education with the emergence of technology-based-learning. Within computers schools can house entire scholarly libraries for lesser or no monetary cost, providing a wealth of information to students and conserving learning space simultaneously. Computer learning programs have made studying more interactive for younger students, and programs like PowerPoint have revolutionized the transmission and presentation of information. Since the article was written further forms of technology have since been introduced to the cultural mainstream, such as texting and social media, and while the latter has changed the way many institutions interact with their students, nothing has revolutionized the proliferation and transmission of teaching materials quite like e-mail.

But Turkle believes that when such technology is introduced too early and utilized too regularly, students may suffer potentially harmful cognitive results. While Turckle claims technology itself “cannot be blamed for lower intellectual standards,” she claims that use of PowerPoint “does more than provide a way of transmitting content. It carries its own way of thinking . . . which not surprisingly shows up in the aesthetic of college freshmen” (724). This means that PowerPoint emphasizes its own method of presentation and thus overshadows the actual material being presented. Furthermore, Turkle argues that word processing too has a detrimental impact on the thought process, that “the ability to quickly fill the page, to see it before you can think it, can make bad writers even worse” and for regular users of word processing “the idea of thinking ahead has become exotic” (725). Because word processing does not require preplanning, Turkle seems to argue that the software encourages writers to avoid planning their work entirely. This becomes habitual, and in the most extreme cases this process can even extend to the world away from the keyboard.

But for Turkle, the potentially harmful cognitive effects of contemporary technology do not end with presentation and writing software. She also claims that people who frequent internet communication venues like chat rooms and role-playing games “may find it harder to develop authentic selves” (723). That is to say, the demands of online companionship are laxer than those of the real world; within the aforementioned forums there is generally nothing requiring people to convey their true selves, assuming such thought even arrives. Because relationships within the online world generally require no substantial or legitimate emotional investment, it should not be surprising that such relationships do little to develop one’s character.

The reach of scientific advancement does not end within the academic world; the medical field too has enjoyed revolutionary benefits from technology. In his article Staying Human, Dinesh D’Souza declares the internet to be only the second greatest technological advancement of recent times, losing the gold medal to biotechnology (733). Much of the article is devoted to the debate surrounding the use of the aforementioned technological field, but while presenting the debate D’Souza inevitably presents the universal benefits of this particular field of science such as its ability “to cure disease” and “prevent it from being transmitted to the next generation” (737). He goes on to highlight the potential benefits of cloning, explaining that “the cloning of animals can provide organs for transplant as well as animals with medicinal properties” and that the process even “offers the prospect of a biological child to marries couple who might not otherwise be able to have one” (737). D’Souza clearly believes the field of biotechnology has done substantial good for the medical field and significant potential for further progress remains.

While much of the work within the field of biotechnology is widely hailed as beneficial, one particular branch of the field has been the subject of substantial debate. D’Souza explains that some techno biologists seek to introduce a process of “genetic enhancement” to allow parents the possibility of “design[ing] their own offspring” (733). The first half of D’Souza’s article is dedicated to addressing the potential over harms of this practice. He cites a Jeremy Rifkin who believes the genetic engineering of humans will lead to an age “where people are identified, stereotyped, and discriminated against on the basis of their genotype” (qtd. in D’Souza 734). This means that man’s long fight against discrimination, a fight which has surely cost countless lives throughout history, would only be renewed should this practice be established. According to D’Souza, the techno-utopian counterargument to this point is that “two such [societal] classes exist now, even in the absence of such [genetic] therapies” and D’Souza goes on to cite a Freeman Dyson who claims “genetic enhancement might be costly at first, but won’t remain permanently expensive” (qtd. in 735). D’Souza questions whether people who can just barely tolerate inequalities conferred by chance can “countenance the deliberate introduction of biological alterations that give some citizens a better chance to succeed than others” (735). D’Souza’s fear, it would seem, is that the gap between rich and poor would only grow if this process of bioengineering children becomes standardized. Despite these fears, D’Souza expresses even graver concern over another potential casualty of this practice—human freedom.

In the latter half of his article, D’Souza delivers his own scathing critique of the practice of bioengineering children: he refers to it as an attack on human life and goes so far as to invoke the arguments of Abraham Lincoln to compare it to slavery, saying “parents have no right to treat their children as chattels; but this is precisely the enterprise that is being championed by the techno-utopians” (740). D’Souza is quick to clarify that he also believes parents exerting excessive pressure upon children would be equally unjust, calling such an act “a betrayal of the true meaning of parenthood” (739-740). What D’Souza is arguing is that while parents may be accustomed to thinking of their children as possessions, they are anything but; they are sentient beings all their own and thus have a right to shape their own characters and determine their own paths as much as humanly possible. Thus, it would seem D’Souza’s primary issue with genetic engineering is not the process itself, but the manner in which it’s forced upon others without meaningful consent.

Perhaps the most underappreciated benefit science has brought to the world is energy. Energy comes in a multitude of flavors and has even more uses. During the Industrial Revolution coal was used to fuel the locomotive and it is now used to power millions of homes across the United States. As coal reserves begin to dwindle, natural gas is being considered as a viable alternative. Whether it be for business or pleasure, technology has brought about a host of new methods to travel, many of which rely on oil to fuel them. Many people rely on cars just to get to work every day; those need oil to run. Trucks use oil to transport goods from place to place. Airplanes can take people across the world in a matter of hours, and these too require oil to run. With all these uses for energy, it should hardly be a surprise that the energy industry has become so lucrative that the Federal government regulates it in the United States. For some countries, supplying energy is so lucrative that entire economies have been built on the practice.

The problem with all of the aforementioned energy sources it that they are harmful to the environment, both in their extraction and in their use. In their work on global warming and economics, Ramazan Sari and Ugur Soytas claim that “the main source of global warming is emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), and the main source of GHG emissions is believed to be energy consumption” (1887). Sari and Soytas state that “reducing energy consumption would . . . decrease the emission levels,” but for countries that rely on energy to extract and sell fuel, the problem with shifting to green energy sources is that the interim transmission process could bring detriment to their respective economies (1887). In response to this concern these authors conducted a study on five countries whose economies rely heavily on the continued extraction and sale of crude oil. The study found that “none of the countries [would] need to sacrifice economic growth in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions” (Sari and Soytas, 7), meaning that these countries could shift to green energy sources and still maintain their economies without contributing to global warming. Yet thus far, despite clear evidence of global warming across the globe, these countries have yet to take any such action and the environment continues to suffer.

The greatest common denominator shared by all the above sciences is their master, mankind. D’Souza invokes the image of Victor Frankenstein to present a powerful message, warning that “in seeking to become gods, we are going to make monsters of ourselves” (740). This sentiment is echoed in the way man’s technological problems have become so severe that the only solution it will consider for such problems is more technology; for example, despite all the evidence for global warming, the only feasible solution mankind has considered to combat the problem is shifting to less harmful or harmless sources of energy. Mankind has gone lifetimes without cell phones or computers, but today many can scarcely stand to go five minutes without. Technology is not the enemy in this fight, but until man can separate himself from obsession it would seem prudent for him to take a step back and take a good, hard look at the path he walks before that path comes to an end.

Ultimately, it would seem the problems and potential problems noted in this paper could be and could have been avoided through patience, study, and moderation. If man continues to abuse science, his mind, dignity and environment will continue to suffer. Technology is no foe to man — if anything, man is the enemy of technology, or at best a poor friend, for should the world be destroyed by technology the loss of technology will be man’s burden to bear.

Works Cited

D’Souza, Dinesh. “Staying human.” The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. Twelfth ed. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 733-40. Print.

Sari, Ramazan and Soyta, Ugur. “Are global warming and economic growth compatible?” Applied Energy 86 (2009): 1887-1893. Google Scholar. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

Turkle, Sherry. “How computers change the way we think.” The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. Twelfth ed. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 721-26. Print.