The Technological Imperative—Social Implications of Professional Technology

Abstract

Engineers and technologists have always con sidered themselves to be protagonists and leaders in man's struggle against nature. Each successful engineering project has been conceived as one more victory in the campaign to master the natural environment. By virtue of their successes, feeling has grown that there were no results that could not be achieved. But should man consider nature his enemy? If so, how can we win? Each time that technology has changed nature, there have been negative effects which had not been foreseen. These negative spillovers have rapidly multiplied the total environmental problem of the planet. It has now become clear that increasing population and changes in the rate of energy consumption are pushing toward a destructive total thermodynamic balance. If this change is not to be catastrophic, man will have to find a way to achieve an energy equilibrium. The technologist and engineer must be at the forefront of this search. For some reasonable expectation of success, a new approach will have to become part of technological problem-solving. This approach must involve technological assessments and evaluations that include much broader constraints than have been imposed in the past. The technological imperative calls for the reconstruction of engi neering and technological curricula to include truly effective evaluation and assessment of proposed solutions to techno logical problems.