Science, Technology and Society

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY 

Science, Technology and Society

Science, technology, and society are important to us in our daily lives. Technology is the use of scientific knowledge to solve a problem. Our society is made up of many individuals who must work together. Science, technology, and society are all connected to one another. When you are faced with a problem, science skills can help you under­stand the problem and technology may help you deal with it. For ex­ample, suppose you want to save half a cur onion for future use. You decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh. However, you re­member that the strong onion odor can flavor other foods, like milk, if they are stored together in the refrigerator. To solve the problem, you place the onion in a container designed to seal in the onion's odor and to keep it fresh.

A member of society has a responsibility to learn about and use sci­ence and technology to make informed personal decisions. For in­stance, suppose that you get tar on the bottom of your running shoe and track it onto the kitchen floor. You can scrape the tar off the floor with a knife, or you can use a strong cleaner, developed by science and technology, to clean the tar off. But what if your younger sister has an allergy to the cleaner? And how will you dispose of any unused cleaner later? What effect will it have on the environment? When science skills identify a problem, and technology is used to solve the problem, every effort must be taken to ensure that other members of society are not negatively affected by the solution. In this way, science, technol­ogy, and society are interconnected.

Members of society must often make personal decisions about an issue, a topic about 'vvhich people have different points of view. Many issues are neither easy to describe nor easy to understand, because people have different personal, cultural, religious, political, or eco­nomic points of view about the same issue. For example, if the num­ber of salmon in Washington were steadily decreasing, should the quota (the number of salmon caught over a particular period of time) for sport or commercial fishing be reduced? A sport fisher who enjoys salmon fishing four days a year might not see how lowering the quota from four to two salmon a day would solve the problem. A commer­cial fisher whose family's only source of income is based on the num­ber of salmon caught might feel that reducing the quota is unfair. An ecologist might say that reducing the quota is the only way to save the supply of salmon for the future.

People with different viewpoints on the same issue often experience ~trong emotions such as anger or frustration. These emotions some­::lmes cause individuals to make decisions about an issue that they 'ght not have made had they approached it in the same way as you se science skills to solve a problem. Science can allow people to un­";erstand the issue, and technology can help them react to it. When you must make a decision about an issue, it is important to identify the issue, collect as much information aboutit as you can, analyze the information you have collected, and then make a decision based on thee information you have collected and analyzed.

Posted in Technology