Technology and the Environment

Abstract

A BELIEF that the application of science to the solution of practical problems represented a sure foundation for human progress has been a persistent theme in American intellectual and economic history [26, 64]. During the two decades following World War II this belief was seemingly confirmed by the dramatic association between the progress of science and technology and rapid economic growth. The technological revolution in American agriculture, the growth of industrial productivity, the contributions of science to military and space technology, and the virtual elimination of the business cycle seemed to reinforce this perspective. By the late 1960's, however, the formula that had permitted the United States to move into a position of scientific, economic, and political leadership in the world community was faced with both an intellectual and a populist challenge.1 A view has emerged that the potential consequences of the power created by modern science and technology-reflected in the cataclysm of war, degradation of the environment, and psychological cost of rapid social changeare obviously dangerous to the modern world and to the future of man. The result has been to seriously question the significance for human welfare of scientific progress, technical change, and economic growth.