Conference Report INTERFACE ’87: HUMANITIES AND TECHNOLOGY— ATLANTA, GEORGIA, OCTOBER 22-23, 1987 ALFRED L. RECOULLEY Interface ’87, the eleventh annual humanities and technology con ference, met at the Northwest Atlanta Hilton Hotel on October 2223 , 1987. This multidisciplinary conference, directed by the Depart ment of Humanities and Social Sciences of Southern College of Tech nology in Marietta, continues to be a national forum for the interaction of humanistic, scientific, and technological issues and concerns. One hundred six participants from twenty states delivered and dis cussed sixty-two papers grouped into nineteen sessions. Academicians, philosophers, artists, architects, engineers, businessmen, scientists, li brarians, historians, and physicians explored and debated a wide va riety of issues from the points of view of their various professions. In one session, for example, a communications expert, an architect, a historian, a philosopher, and a computer expert discussed various approaches to interfacing science and the humanities; in another, an electrical and computer engineering technologist led a discussion on the problems and opportunities of technological growth and higher education. Other multidiscipline sessions focused on such subjects as “The Nature of Scientific Inquiry and the Humanities,” “Ethics, Med icine, and Technology,” “Technology as Art,” and “Science and Phil osophical Perspectives.” Through the interplay of diverse topics— “The Alarmist View of Technology,” “Technique, the Image, and the Word,” “Simulation Games in S/T/S Education,” “Technology and the University Contracting System,” “The Humanities and the Primrose P.C.,” and “Native North American Perspectives on Wholeness and the Role of Technology”—there emerged a multilevel perspective on modern society from which the conference derived its focus. Dr. Recoulley is assistant professor of English at Southern College of Technology and was a co-director of the Interface conference.© 1988 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040- 165X/88/2903-0008$01.00 661 662 Alfred L. Recoulley The keynote address was a particularly timely delivery, “Human Genetics and Its Revolutionary Impact on Science and Humanity.” Louis J. Elsas II, M.D., professor of pediatrics and director of medical genetics at Emory University School of Medicine, defined what he termed the revolution in genetic biology and the ethical problems involved by using a lively wit, presenting slides, and inviting questions from the audience. Tracing informational flow at the molecular level, Elsas explored the possibilities of recombinant genetic engineering, what directions research seemed to be taking, and scientific oversight of these directions at the local and federal levels. His “translation” of the highly technical procedures and techniques involved in molecular biology and genetic research was extraordinarily effective and ani mated. And members of the audience responded with probing ques tions on moral, financial, ethical, and philosophical implications of genetic research currently under way and Elsas’s suggestions for its further new directions. Dr. Elsas applauded the audience’s interest and concern for the questions raised and suggested that public forums such as Interface ’87 were the ideal educational means of coming to grips with the effect of current research on science and humanity, as well as with the role of technology in general in society’s values. ...
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