The 1998 Barbour Lecture: Responding to Nature—The Interaction of Technology and Worldviews

Abstract

Technology interfaces with society in several ways, one of the most important of which is in the domain of values. Technology is values driven. These values are sometimes expressed in dramatic rhetoric and visual images that qualify as metaphysical or even religious proposals. The flamboyance of these proposals is ap parently necessary in order to galvanize public support for the technologies in question. This article focuses on the prominent value in our culture to shape and reshape nature and takes as case studies recent National Aeronautics and Space Administration proposals and the Human Genome Project. The conclu sion is that a kind of spirituality drives the use of technology, and this fact ought to be recognized and reflected upon.