MANUEL MEDINA

THE PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT

INTRODUCTION

The emergence of the new culture of risk (Beck, 1986; Lagadec, 1981) isobviously tied to the technological innovations characteristic of our timeand to the failure to rectify the environmental and social risks of contempo­rary techno-science. We have a long list indeed of crises associated with thisculture of risk: aecidents in nuclear, chemical, and annament industries, re­lated as much to production as to transportation; the continuous poIlution ofthe environment and vital products by ehemical processes and substances;the propagation of acid rain; the growing deterioration of the ozone layer;the prospective climate changes due to global warming; the poverty, thehunger, and the permanent economic and social crises in the so-called ThirdWorld, where the greater part of the world's population lives, multiplyingincessantly; the threat of the eventual employment of chemical, biological,and nuclear weapons in war.

Surely, this situation is not unheard of in history. Sinee the most ancienttimes, technical changes have arisen, whether generated internal1y or im­posed by strangers, that have placed certain cultures in crisis, bringing abouttheir transformation or their disappearance. But perhaps the risks were neveras impressive nor the future possibilities as radical1y open and unpredict­able. The potential transformations affect not only our forms of life, om po­litical and social configurations, or our cosmic visions, but may also impactradically on the very nature of man and his planet.

Awareness of the serious ecological and social problems presented by theindiscriminate application of new technologies has been growing in the pub­lie sectors of several countries and, albeit slowly, the need for urgent solu­tions and new approaches has become increasingly accepted. Evenprofessional politicians have began to aeknowledge the far-reaching signifi­canee of the new technological transformations. Judging by the latest eventsin international politics, we may expect that its central themes will shiftfrom the Cold War to the great global ecological problems, e.g., pollutionacross borders and the climate changes caused by global warming. In anyevent, ít is becoming evident that the solution to overcoming the risksderived from the present technological development offers the greatest chal­lenge of our time to political and social action, as it does to educational re­form and academic research.

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G. Mwzévar (ed.), Spanish Studies in the Philosophy 01Science, 201-226.© 1996 KlulVer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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In the most conscientious societies there is a rush to find a variety of ave­nues of solution. But the preferred avenue of modern societies stil1 consistsin the search for techno-scientific answers to the environmental and socialproblems caused by teehno-scientific development in the first place. Thefirst discussions and writings about technological risks and the need forevaluating technologies appeared toward the end of the Sixties in the U.S.A,together with the rise of the ecological movement and the public concern forenvironmental problems. In 1971 the U.S. Congress demanded an environ­mental impact evaluation for certain types of projects, and in 1972 it createdthe Office of Technology Assessment (aTA). The evaluation of technolo­gies and of environmental impacts acquired a probabilistic orientation be­cause of its connection with the evaluation of possible accidents in nuclearpower plants, in which the evaluation of risks appeared as a modality of theevaluation of technologies. The statistical treatment of risk was combinedwith conventional economic evaluation in the form of risk-costibenefitanalysis, and subsequently the trend was to adopt the formal methods of de­cision theory, game theory, and systems analysis.

In the decade of the Seventies, as a consequence of the growing aware­ness by the public of teehnological risks and the demand for governmentalprotection, there sprung in the U.S.A. a series of regulatory agencies, suehas the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safetyand Health Administration (OSHA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commis­sion (NRC), to deal with the impact of technological developments. Theseorganizations and the Congress used technology and risk evaluation studiesfor the purpose of supporting important regulatory legislation. In several ofthe most industrialized countries of Europe a similar process took place, al­beit a few years later, that created national agencies such as the NetherlandsOrganization for Technology Assessment (NOTA) and programs of the Eu­ropean Community, such as FAST (Forecasting and Assessment of Scienceand Technology).

The dominant trend in the evaluation of technologies is the standard mod­el developed for the Office of Technology Assessment. According to thismodel, the evaluation of technologies and the management of risks shouldbe based on the knowledge of experts about the interactions betweentechnology, nature, and society. This knowledge should be presented in theform of scientific reports concerning social and envíronmental impacts. Theapplication of such reports presumably pennits an appropriate techno­scientific intervention and a polítically legitimate action. More specifically,this model of evaluation starts from the existence of causal scientifíc theo­ríes that lead to predictions abollt the impact of technological developmentsin time to isslle an early warning. The object of thís impact analysis is theidentification of specific impacts and their estimation in terms of cost-

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benefit analysis. And finally, the aim is to analyze, given the causal systemsestablished "scientifically," the options for political decision and interven­tion in the face of the negative or positive consequences.

Despite its increasing entrenchment in North American and Europeangovernment agencies, this model of evaluation of technological impactshasentered a period of crisis. According to its crities, the model' s main limita­tions and deficiencies are derived from its exclusive orientation toward thereports of scientific experts and have much to do with the problems of effi­cient prediction of technological developments and with the analysis of fu­ture impacts. An additional criticism is that none of the modalities oftechnological evaluation based on prediction and analysis of impacts hasmanaged to account effectively for the deveIopment of scientific change(Fricke, 1990; Naschold, 1987).

Moreover, it has been shown that the social perception and evaluation oftechnological risks diverge very significantly from the estimates offered inthe expert reports, which, incidentaIly, do not succeed in influencing publicopinion in a relevant way, neither in the social attitudes with respect to theevaluation nor in the acceptance of certain technologies (Morone andWoodhouse, 1989). On the contrary, one can sense a lack of confidence to­ward such studies, which are rejected as pro-technology and anti-regulation.Great technological disasters, such as the explosion of the space slmttleChaIlenger, ChernobyI, and the fire in the Sandoz chemical stores in Basilea(alI of which took place in 1986, within a few months of each other) havedecisively undermined the estimates given in risk-evaluation studies. Fur­thermore, the controversies between the experts themselves complete themethodologicaI crisis as the experts cIaim for themselves the unanimous en­dorsement of scientific legitimacy while at the same time defending, inmany cases, opinions and theories that lead to completely divergent conclu­sions about the evaluation of risks, and in relation to which interventionmeasures are proposed that may be not only different but actually work oneagainst the other, and which seem to vary according to who requests the re­pOltS. AlI this point to the notion that the evaluation of technological risksand impacts has more to do with processes of social construction than withthe presumed scientific objectivity.

FinalIy, there has begun a radical questioning of the relevance of mathe­matical and computer simulation models and methods employed in theevaluation and management of risk, as well as of their ability to overcomefundamental uncertainties in their predictions and to represent adequatelythe evaluation factors pertinent to the deterioration of environment, health,safety, or cultural values (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1990). The crisis of thestandard evaluation modeI testifies to, among other things, the failure of theconceptions on which its justification is based. The worrisome risks that

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emanate from the new technologies are faced, in general, by using evalu­ation and management approaches to science and technological innovationanchored in conceptions of nature, science, and society, and in models ofintervention, that can be placed at the origin of the very crises they are in­tended to solve.

THE STANDARD CONCEPTIONS OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, NATURE,AND SOCIETY

The character of the conceptions of science, technology, nature,and societythat underlie the standard model of evaluation is quite obvious. Both societyand nature are represented as entities separated from and in opposition totechnology and science, from which they may receive certain impacts. Thedivide between science and politics is likewise expressed. To science andtechnology (understood as applied science) fall the questions of fact(prediction and control of causal processes), to politics the questions of right(decision and regulation).

The standard conceptions of science and technology are based fundamen­tally on characteristically philosophical prejudices that were already articu­lated in ancient Greek philosophy, and in which "authentic" knowledge isreduced to linguistic assertions and science, or superior knowledge, is con­ceived as theoretical description. On these assumptions was built the pre­sumed hegemony, not just epistemological but ethical and political, oftheory (Medina, 1989, 1990). The identification of science with theoreticalknowledge (which in tum is identified with universal reason, trans­historical and trans-cultural) leads in philosophy of science to an analyticaltreatment in terms of discourse and propositionallogic, in which conceptual,logical and formal questions have primacy. These analytic conceptions,which have taken the philosophy of science to an academic dead end, threat­en to achieve the same in the analytic trends of the philosophy of technolo­gy. The analytic interpretation of technology tends to reduce it torudimentary variants of theoretical knowledge or else, more or less explicit­ly, to applied science. Other features inherited from analytic philosophy arethe historical myopia (bordering on blindness) and the allergy to social con­texts, both of which cripple the understanding of science and technology,based on their historical genesis, as a human activity carried out in concretesocial and environmental contexts.

The objectivist conceptions of science have been likewise translated intoparallel mystifications of nature and society. Nature is conceived as an ob­ject separated from society and from the scientific activity itself, with itsown laws that presumably constitute the object of scientific investigation.

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Environmental problems are thus presented, for example, as problems in thefunctioning of the "system" nature. The solutions to those problems shouldbe based on the scientific knowledge of the functional processes in question.Through the adequate technological application of such knowledge it wouldbe possible to control and correct the dysfunctions of nature, thereby bring­ing about the desired processes.

Nature appears thus as an object independent of theoretical investigation,govemed by objective laws which, in reality, do not represent anything oth­er than the capacity for operative control over devices, processes andtechno-scientific organizations together with their social institutionalization.Relations with nature are thus conceived, on the one hand, as relations oftheoretical contemplation and, on the other, as relations subordinated totechno-scientific intervention. This distinction between science and natureallows for the subordination of nature to our techno-scientific intervention.The situation with respect to society is very similar mutatis mutandis. Soci­ety, as an object independent from scientific investigation, is likewise sus­ceptible of techno-scientific intervention based on the knowledge derivedfrom such investigation.

The philosophical exaltation of theoretical elaboration as the only authen­tic and rational knowledge leads, ultimately, to the proc1amation of the"neutrality" of scientific knowledge. The c1aim of scientific neutrality hasserved to justify, as the maximum expression of rationality, modes of inves­tigation with results that imply very high risks. Nevertheless, more surpris­ing still is the success of the philosophical attempts to extend such c1aims totechnology. The theses of the neutrality of science and technology are inter­related with another, less explicit c1aim, of the value-free character of thevery studies of science and technology. According to this assumption, suchstudies are not competent to deal with nonnative or evaluative questions.The doctrines of value neutrality are based on philosophical dogmas such asthat of the primacy of theoretical knowledge, in which we find included notonly science but the philosophy of science and the philosophy of technolo­gy. Given that, as it is stated very seriously, there exist an unbridgeable gapbetween the domain of theoretical reason and that of practical reason, it isuseless to attempt to construct a bridge between theoretical investigationand the political evaluations and decisions. Perhaps the greatest success ofanalytic mystification has been the distortion of the operative and historicalevidence to the effect that scientific investigation has always remainedclosely tied to practice, firmly anchored in technical and social activity.

Undoubtedly, however, the most significant consequences of the analyticmystifications are those that derive from the fatal philosophical attempt tointegrate the identification of science with theoretical rationality and ofscientific technology with practical rationality together with the neutrality of

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both. This road leads to the justification of techno-scientific developmentsand technocratic management as results of the exercise of reason itself. Inthis case it would be better, though, to speak of rational strayings, in viewof the serious crises, ecological and social, created by those developments.If we wish to respond decisively to the serious problems and risks deriveddirectly or indirectly from techno-scientific developments, we must beginby proposing a profound revision of the current conceptions of science,technology, nature, and society, as well as their interrelations. That is, wemust begin with a new philosophy of the evaluation of science and technolo­gy. In this context, this paper intends to contribute to an analysis of the stan­dard model of evaluation along constructivist lines. To do this it is necessaryto confront the big black box of the techno-science of our times and toevaluate techno-scientific philosophy, to which such a model belongs. 1 wilIfirst treat historically and systematicaIly the reconstruction of the techno­scientific conceptions and modes of intervention and their role in the rise ofwhat has been caBed the risk-culture. 1 wilI then criticize the modalities ofevaluation and management characteristic of the techno-scientific modeland contrast them with the approaches of a constructi vist philosophy andmodel of evaluation, which 1 believe offer a more promising solution to therisks of our techno-scientific culture.

THE HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION OF TECHNO-SCIENCE.

Since humans developed their most specific technical ability, language, ev­ery human culture has represented, interpreted, and justified in sorne lin­guistic form the framework of its technical systems and its socialorganization as a fundamental part of their cosmic visiono A culture' s char­acteristic conceptions of the origin, structure and destiny of nature and soci­ety are closely related to the technical innovations that shape the forms ofinteraction with the environment and the social technics dominant in it.

The interrelations between technical innovations, cosmic visions, andpolitics are already clearIy confirmable in the great ancient oriental cultures.In their origin we find the revolutionary transformation of agricultural tech­niques through the invention of the plough and of symbolic representationthrough the introduction of writing, by royal functionaries, over five thou­sand years ago. These innovations accompanied and made possible a tran­scendental revolution of the forms of social and political organization,which in turn brought about large cities, class societies, and immense,centralized empires.

Among the great mythical cosmologies of that period we find of particu­lar relevance those belonging to ancient Babylonian culture because of its

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infiuence upon Western cosmic visions through Greek and Judeo-Christianmythologies. The most fundamental is the hierarchical and hegemonic cos­mie vision that exalts and legitimatizes the incipient order of the state andthe expansionism of royal power. Order in nature, as that of the city, is im­posed upon the stars and the gods of the subjeet cities, as it is on men, by asupra-human will personified by the protecting godo This divine ordering isthe souree of legitimation of the modes of social organization and technicalproduction that sustain the absolute power of the monarch.

Beginning in the 6th Century B.C., there appeared in Greek philosophy atype of eosmic vision that would become the most characteristic of Euro­pean culture. In it, the singular personalities of the ancient gods are replacedby abstract elements and entities, and in place of divine actions we findtheoretical principIes instead. In consonance with the supremacy of verbaland discursive activities found in the idle community of philosophers, natureis treated as an independent entity that becomes an object of passive con­templation and theoretical representation. According to philosophers, the"real world" is simple and coherent, it can be described in a uniform way,and is accessible only to the theoretical discourse that they have just in­vented and continue to praise as "reason" - in contrast with the presumedignorance and incompetence of traditional technical knowledge. A humanbeing is conceived of as a passive subject separated from the world, andtechnical knowledge is reduced to mere subjective knowledge. In oppositionto it, the declarative representations born from theoretical meditation arepresented as knowledge, properly speaking, or science (Medina, 1988).

The predominant theoretical cosmic vision of ancient philosophy was theorganic conception of nature, whose most sophisticated elaboration was ac­complished by Aristotle. Nature or physis is defined primarily in oppositionto the teehniques of craftsmen. According to the Aristotelian conception, anatural object has within itself the principIe of its own development and isthe opposite of a craft, which is the result of an activity external to the ob­ject. Thus no knowledge involved in a craft can be considered knowledge ofnature. Even theoretical mechanics is left on the margins of the science oínature or physics.

However obvious may seem the opposition between the natural and thetechnical, it is slanted from its very beginnings. It also constitutes the basisfor the first theoretical evaluation of technical innovation. In faet the organieconeeption of nature is based on theoretieal extrapolations that give primaeyto a certain type of teehniques, that is, the bio-teehnologies of traditionalagriculture, what we might call "natural crafts." By contrast, the teehniealinnovations of craftsmen are identified with the technique which, in itself,opposes nature. Nevertheless, the reason for this cosmologieal discrimina­tion is not so much theoretical as it is politica!. Agriculture is granted a

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prominent place, higher than that of the crafts, for it constitutes the powerbase of the landed aristocracy, which is supported by both Plato and Aris­tode. The techniques of craftsmen instead lay the foundations of, and sus­tain, urban democracy, which is combatted by both philosophers. Theirconceptions and theories about nature, science, and craft have a decidedlyanti-democratic character and aim to justify an aristocratic political systemthat exc1udes craftsmen from polítical participation (Medina, 1990).

This contrast between nature and craft runs paraIlel to the theoreticalIyconstructed contrast between the productive activity of craftsmen, or poie­sis, and the praxis, or non-productive activities of the idle c1asses, amongwhich theorizing excelso Praxis is presented as the activity of the free man,who is normalIy a user who produces nothing. Por Aristotle, membership inthe domain of productive craft disqualifies the person from participation inthe po1itical domain. Political deliberation is a matter of theoretical dis­course, for which craftsmen are both epistemologically and practically inca­pacitated. Theoretical knowledge about "human goodness" constitutes, inAristotelian philosophy, the indispensable foundation of alI political activ­ity. His political system is based, in short, on theoretical expertocracy(Medina, 1990). Despite their large formal difference, the philosophical cos­rnic visions coincide with their mythical precursors in the function of evalu­ating and legitimating the technical forms of social produetion andorganization that sustain a speeific polítical power. On the summit of so­phisticated theoretical elaborations we even find again the divine ordererfrom whom emanates the hierarchical organization of world and society.

In the middle ages the theoretieal cosrnic visions of the ancient philoso­phers fused with cosmic visions with a mythical and religious character innew theological versions, also directed to the legitimization of secular andecclesiastic power on the basis of its divine origino The medieval theologicaJ.and philosophical re-elaborations of ancient cosmology were displaced bythe new vision of the world with which modern science was established inthe 17th Century. With the new conception of nature, the mechanical engi­neering that had been establishing itself as a dominant eraft in the Renais­sance, thanks to the important innovations of medieval techniques, achievesthe rank of "natural eraft." The new philosopher-engineers, such as Galileoand Descartes,. combat decidedly the separation between the domain of na­ture and that of mechanics, and argue for placing mechanics on the level ofnatural science. Against the traditional organic eonception, the theory of na­ture finalIy evolves into a science that assimilates the hard techniques oferaftsmen and engineers. Mechanical artifacts wilI no longer be contra natu­ra nor will amount to, as Aristotle c1aimed, a elever deception of nature forone's own self interest, that is, a machination, but, on the eontrary,

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mechanical devices will make manifest the laws of nature. The laws of arti­facts, that is, mechanical regularities, evolve into naturallaws.

The procedures of mechanical engineering leading to the invention andcontrol of artifacts was transferred to other areas of the production ofknowledge. Prom the 17th Century on, systematic experimentation, joinedwith theoretical conceptualization and systematization and with the measur­ing and mathematical approach, increasingly revolutionized more and morethe other technical domains. With Boyle and his vacuum pump scientificlaboratories established themselves as the supreme arbiters for settling dis­putes of fact. The phenomena produced and control1ed through instrumentsof mechanical construction, in the course of experiments that were repro­ducible and accessible to everyone, constitute scientific facts. The facts con­structed by technical scientific practice represent the genuine phenomena ofmodern nature, c1early contrasted and separated from society, as scientificknowledge is from politics (Shapin and Schaffer, 1985; Latour, 1990).

Modem science was shaped as the conjunction of the technological labo­ratory production and the theoretical treatment of its technological systems.In turn, the new theoretical mechanics was extrapolated to theorizing in oth­er domains, such as that of astronomy, culminating in the Newtonian syn­thesis of terrestrial mechanics and astronomy. The naturalist conception ofmechanical craft or technics finally led to a techno-mechanical vision of thecosmos, nature, and society. The modern cosmic vision not only consoli­dated the position of the engineering techniques and did justice to their po­lítical relevance, but in addition promoted and legitimized the transferenceof the experimental procedures of invention and of mechanical control to aHfields of research and of ordinary life.

The new philosophy of science, such as that ofBacon and Descartes, re­inforced the program of methodological and technological transference,which aimed to uniformIy model scientific practice in accordance with thelaboratory mode of intervention. Research must yield only procedures andtheories that report capabilities to control processes in the mechanical man­ner. ReIations with nature were then presented, on the one hand, as cognitiverelatiolls of the passive human subject facing an object different from and incontrast to him and society, and, on the other hand, as relations of operativecontrol. The methodology for dealing with nature was based on the fictionthat nature was nothing but a machine that functioned reguIarIy in accor­dance with fixed laws. Technical construction and efficiency, presented asthe operative domain over nature, became two of the main characteristics ofthe new conception of science (Price, 1984).

With modern science a new version of the oId political conceptions basedon expeltocracy emerges. The model of the new polítical system is technoc­racy. In Bacon's Nova Atlantis we find the first vision of a technocratic

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society, in which political power is already in the hands of the minority thatpossesses "wisdom." Scientific knowledge, however, no longer springs fromthe theoretical contemplation of Justice or Goodness (as in Plato or Aris­totle), but from operative investigation. For Bacon "knowledge is power"and this is none other than the presumed power of nature "that the scientisthas appropriated by force. The possession of "natural power" legitimatizeshis wielding of power in a non-democratic manner. No matter how one em­phasizes the differences between the ancient and the modern expertocraticlegitimization of politics, they both follow the same plan based on the privi­leges that a minority superior knowledge confers on the experts. In Antiqui­ty preparation for politics emphasized the theoretical political virtues; inModernity, the operative scientific capabilities.

In appropriating the experimental mechanical procedures, modern sciencegets a hold of a field of technological production aH its own (Bohme, Daeleand Krohn, 1978). The interaction between technological production and itstheoretical examination in the haven of scientific investigation would bringabout, in the 19th century, a techno-scientific revolution. A new physicsarose from the industrial and scientific technological innovations in thefields of transformation and synthesis of substances and of production ofenergy effects and processes. The techno-scientification of those two fieldsled to the institutionalization as scientific disciplines of synthetic chemistryand of the new physics based on thermodynamics, electricity, magnetismand, later, radioactivity. Those two fields constituted the original techno­science. It gave rise to a new "science of nature" in which physico-chemicalinteractions displace the mechanical ones from their prominent position andtheoretical elaborations are at the service of technological results.

Following the techno-scientific revolution, then, the new technologies ofchemical, nuclear, and genetic transformation and synthesis displaced thepredominance of mechanics. As in the original case of mechanics, to the ex­tent that different domains of human actions and their environments havebeen shaped by the new technologies, these have become the dominant "na­tural crafts." The scientific cosmic vision has been modified accordinglyand we have passed from the cold universe of the mechanical conception ofnature to the hot universe in which nature is interpreted in terms of chemis­try, thermodynamics, nuclear physics, etc. (Moscovici, 1977). Once again,the contents of cosmic visions are modified to conform to technological in­novations and serve as the basis for the naturalist justification of the newtechnologies. Nature is depicted as ruled by laws that, in reality, representnothing but the capacity for operative control over devices, processes, andtechnologicaI systems. Such a capacity for technological control is subli­mated theoretically as cosmological explanatory principIes, in such a waythat the technologies originally theorized fit in as authentic progress in the

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corresponding theoretical cosmic vision of the origin, development, and des­tiny of nature, society, and human culture. From that point on, it is easilyconcluded that experts in such technologies are most able to guide societyalong the road to real progress. The latest technological innovations definewhat is considered rational and efficient, that is, the criteria for techno­scientific evaluation.

Techno-scientific investigation and intervention are characterized by theirmechanico-synthetic procedures developed in their laboratories and centeredon inventions and on the planning and forcing of processes. Their controland reproduction are achieved either by the design and construction of arti­facts, devices, and apparatuses of aH kinds, or else by the transformation,the replacement, and the recombination of elements in processes alreadyavailable. Through the continuous transference of the techno-scientific pro­cesses to all the areas of scientific investigation and intervention, the modelof techno-sdentific investigation has become the basis for the rational man­agement and solution of problems. Consequently, techno-scientific manage­ment and politics have become participants in the naturalist justification ofthe new technologies, thus emerging a circle of mutual reinforcement. Thetechno-scientific conceptions of science, nature, and society justify thetechno-scientific model of intervention and management as the paradigm ofefficiency and rational action and, in turn, the implementation of such amodel as political reality stabilizes the implied conceptions as adequate re­presentations of the real world.

TECHNO-SCIENCE IN ACTION: THE TECHNO-SCIENTIFIC IMPERATIVE

Although brief, this historical reconstruction already reflects the growingimportance, during the last hundred years, of the forms of techno-scientificinvestigation, together with the success of the mystification that has man­aged to turn them into the paradigm of rational action and to extend them, inthe name of the presumed universality of theoretical laws, to every field ofintervention and human environment. In the 20th Century, techno-scientificinvestigations have brought about the so-called new technologies. Theirrelation to the unleashing of the problems and risks characteristic of ourtime is, today, quite obvious in the majority of cases. We may confirm im­mediately that the most extreme risks and the most irreversible conse­quences are derived from technologies sueh as synthetic chemistry, nucleartechnology, and genetic or information technologies. Nevertheless, the glob­al process of the genesis of such problems and risks is not perceptible insuch an immediate manner but require precise analysis and reconstructíonthat go beyond mere explanations and technical evaluations.

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That process is rooted in a technological transference that consists in thediffusion of the technological systems produced in the techno-scientific in­vestigation laboratories to aH socio-technical domains. Such a transferencemanipulates the continuous techno-scientification of the culture originatedin Europe and, through its trans-cultural exports, the homogenization of di­verse cultures on a planetary scale. The techno-scientific transformation ofthe most diverse environments of ordinary practice brings about increasing­ly techno-scientified environments, that is, environments shaped as socio­technical frameworks that are more and more predictable and controHable.Por techno-scientific innovations can be implemented, that is, the proce­dures for techno-scientific intervention can be effective, only if the originallaboratory conditions of which they form part and which guarantee theirfunctioning can be transferred to the many different particular environ­ments. In this fashion potentially uncontroIlable perturbations are eliminatedand the processes in question can be reproduced and controlled in themechanico-synthetic manner. The global techno-scientification of culture isprecisely the origin of our culture of risk (Beck, 1986).

Undoubtedly, one of the most representative cases of techno­scientification is found in the bio-technical fields of agriculture, cattle­raising, and traditional medicine. Since their pre-historic origins, these fieldshave been characterized by their soft intervention techniques, that is, basedmainly on anticipatory processes that respected, to a large extent, the origi­nal spontaneity and autonomy of the processes in question, but which helpedcondition them adequately. Today's development, by contrast, favors hardtechnologies, that is, technologies of intervention and techno-scientific con­trol, in which primacy is given to procedures and products developed in syn­thetic chernistry and genetic engineering laboratories, and in which there isa tendency to annul the original autonomy and spontaneity of the intervenedprocesses. In this manner, the techno-scientification of agriculture, cattle­raising, and food production in general has followed an accelerated processthat ranges from the first use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to theemployment of synthetic hormones and aH types of chemical substances, aswell as the most recent biotechnological and genetic procedures for the re­productíon, selection, and creation of species. Their effects on environmen­tal deterioration and the serious risks to human health and the survival ofcertain species have followed the same fast tempo.

The rigorous techno-scientification of the bio-technical domain is a rela­tively recent process, still under way, and the latest chapter in the history ofscientific biology. The first scientific account of ordinary bio-techniqueswas theoretical and consisted fundamentaIly in its conceptualization and itstaxonomic and theoretical systematization. These tasks were begun by an­cient science in works such as Corpus Hippocraticum or the Aristotelian

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treatises on animals. Starting in the 17th Century, theoretical biology turnedincreasingly into a sophisticated conceptual and taxonomic system thatyielded the great evolutionary theories of the 19th Century. In the secondhalf of that century we can clearly see the modern scientific handling of bio­techniques in transformation procedures using micro-organisms, with thedevelopment of microbiology, whose technologies were intended for thecontrol or processes of fermentation or of infection. Likewise at that timewe can see the rise of organic chemistry and, later, of biochemistry in rela­tion to the control of the procedures for the transformation and synthesis ofbio-substances and of agricultural processes.

During the 20th Century the techno-scientific approach was unleashedwith the massive transference of practices and laboratory instrumentationfrom physics and chemistry to biological research. Such transference waspromoted by famous physicists and chemists, such as Erwin Schrodingerand Linus Pauling, who moved to biology with arms and equipment to de­fend the theorization and handling of biological processes in molecularterms. The physico-chemical (i.e., techno-scientific) articulation and sys­tematization of biological research led to the theoretical developments ofmolecular biology and genetic engineering. This last field represents theculmination of the process of bio-techno-scientification in the developmentof the techniques of recombinant DNA, designed to cause and control bio­logical processes and generate new organisms by the replacement and re­combination of genetic elements. Such techniques have nothing to do withthe improvement of vegetable and animal species by the traditional methodsof selection but are clearly the result of techno-scientific innovations. 1

The new technologies have not allowed practically any area of the tradi­tional bio-environment, that is, of what is conventionally called "nature,"out of the reach of techno-scientific investigation. Not only is there competi­tion in the invisible Olympic games of the Nobel Prizes, researching and de­veloping new technologies for the manipulation, production, andreproduction of animal and vegetable species, but the traditional practicesmost common in agriculture and animal husbandry are disappearing in favorof an industIiallaboratory environment. Even the landscape, ruined as a di­rect or indírect consequence of techno-scientific production, is now beingre-naturalized by an eco-management that makes use of the most advancedforms of techno-scientífic íntervention (Bohme, 1990). Human nature itself,the human body and its processes of reproduction, is a high-priority objec­tive for a techno-scientific expansion that ranges from organ transplants, thecontrol and technological achievement of organic processes (pacemakers,dialysis, artificial hearts, etc.), to the operative and hormonal manipulationof sexual behavior, and to genetic interventions. Above aH, it is in humanprocreation where techno-scientific intervention is most significant. Today,

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the researchers, the professionals, and the medical industry are leading hu­man procreation toward a techno-scientific process with functional objec­tives, caused, guided, and controlled by technologies for diagnosis,fertilization, and genetic intervention (Sanmartin, 1987, 1990).

In general, the tendency points clearly towards a total techno­scientification that seems guided by a techno-scíentific imperative: Theforms of techno-scientific intervention must be extended to al! domains thatcould serve as its objects. The key to, and catalyst of, the global techno­scientification of culture has been the original techno-scientification ofscientific culture which, as the matrix for techno-science, has given impulseto the technological imperative and has made possible its operative imple­mentation and its theoretical justification. The history of the continuoustechno-scientification of scientific culture is the history of the new technolo­gies that have become the present paradigm of knowledge and of scientificresearch and intervention. Strictly speaking we should refer instead to thehistory of techno-sciences, for nuclear and genetic technologies form in­separable frameworks with sciences such as nuclear physics and molecularbiology. Operative procedures and theoretical accounts are tightly entwinedin laboratory research and development, which are characteristically basedon experimental construction, on the decomposition into and isolation ofelements, and on manipulation, replacement and recombination, with theaim of reproducing at will and controlling completely the desired processesthrough the elimination of perturbations in experimental arrangements.

Thus, for example, the analysis and theoretical systematization of thephysical properties of materials in terms of atoms, elementary particles andatomic structures intertwines with experimental atomic physics in the areaof nuclear technologies, just as in chemistry theorizing about chemical prop­erties is inseparable, and is at the service of, the technologies of chemicalsynthesis. Contemporary physics and chemistry are fundamentally nothingbut new technologies, i.e., techno-sciences (Gleich, 1991). As I have indi­cated, since the beginning of the century the physico-chemical methodologyand theories have been exported to the field of biological research, where animportant aim was to fiod, behind the diversity of the achievements and op­erative capacities of the new techno-scientific biology, the ultimate, funda­mental components which - just as atoms in physics - can be theoreticallyput forward as responsible for organic properties (Brush, 1988). In this man­ner genes and genetic structures carne to be "discovered" and molecularbiology to be developed, with the subsequent avalanche of new biotechnolo­gies and genetic engineering.

The techno-scientification of the most immediate human bio­environment, however, eventualIy stirred up considerable worry and socialresistance that reveal cultural demarcations still latent in the common

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conception of nature.2 So as to enable techno-scientification to take totalcontrol without cultural hindrance, the scientific conception of nature hasbeen re-elaborated to justify the investigation, development, and imple­rnentation of the new technologies. The naturalization of techno-science andthe techno-scientification of nature support each other with the help and au­thority of scientific theories. The techno-scientific transfers to the domain of"nature" became justifiable in the name of the unity of the universe and theuniversality of scientific laws, and the eventual suspicions and resistancenow could be discarded as manifestations of a cultural lag produced by therapid changes caused by scientific progress, to which some traditional, non­scientific conceptions have not had enough time to adapto In this context theconceptual and super-theoretical framework common to the physicalsciences and molecular biology makes possible the extrapolation to the bio­techno-scientific domain of the very theoretical laws that presumably gov­em the universe. The technological systems produced by techno-scientificresearch appear then as processes that obey nothing but the naturallaws dis­covered by physical science. Thus there is an attempt to justify the imple­mentation of such technologies, e.g., in genetic engineering, as thelegitimate application of naturallaw.

In this context use is made even of the theory of evolution to characterizetechno-scientific development as an evolutionary process, in which the newtechnologies represent a techno-evolution, Le., a new evolutionary phasethat continues and culminates the previous bio-evolutionary phase. Thetechno-scientific evolution is then converted in an autonomous and unstop­pable process, in accordance with the thesis of techno-scientific determin­ism (Winner, 1977). Neveliheless, the naturalist theoretical justification ofthe techno-scientification process confirms, paradoxically, the constructivecharacter of nature. If, as it is implicitly assumed, everything producedtechno-scientifically lorms part 01 nature3

, then nature is technologically re­producible. That is, nature is a social and historical construction of man(Bohme, 1990).

THE TECHNO-SCIENTIFIC CONSTRUCTION OF RISK

The versatile technical capabilities developed by human cultures havecreated a great variety of environments that have become part of their vitalenvironments, together with the original bio-environment. In our Europeanculture, not only has the bio-environment been amply techno-scientified butthe techno-scientific innovations have continuously transformed the globalframework of the many socio-technical domains, during a process of

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generalized and indiscriminate techno-scientification of the totality of cul­ture and of the vital environment.4

The problems and risks derived from techno-scientific proliferation donot represent transitory unbalances or maladaptations, but are inherent to thevery process of techno-scientification, which once begun tends to becomecompulsive and absolute. As it develops, the techno-scientification of políti­cal intervention plays a decisive role. The political domain, which has beenbased traditionalIy on norms and laws, on systems of interaction, organiza­tion, and social control, and on polítical visions and desires, now tends tobecome a domain that gives primacy to the model of intervention and con­trol based on techno-scientific systems.

As 1 have pointed out repeatedly, the techno-scientific model of interven­tion and management is based on the total control and forcing of processes.Its monopoly leads to the transformation of the framework of socio­technical domains into socio-techno-scientific systems. In fol1owing the log­ic of the techno-scientific imperative and the identification of safety withcontrol, the management and stabilization of the eventual problems andrisks is posed in terms of peifectíng technical systems through their techno­scientific design.5 That is, when "rational" management is defined as a func­tion of control optimization, the tendency toward total techno-scientificationof the vital environment evolves into a compulsion. In this manner, the poli­tics of the techno-scientific model tends, by its own dynamics, to transforrnand organize society and nature into techno-scientific systems, i.e., into hy­brid frameworks of human and non-human components completely predict­able and controllable (Latour, 1988).

Now, with the expansion of the process of techno-scientification, thetechno-scientific systems increase in complexity every day and form net­works that range over the totality of the vital environment. This frameworkitself evolves greater complexity aH the time, as weIl as a propensity to haverelatively smaIl failures turo into great catastrophes. As it has become evi­dent in the case of nuclear technology, synthetic chemistry, or genetic engi­neering (which are especialIy problematic in that they cannot be compatiblewith minor failures without incurring the risk of in'eversible consequences)with the greater ability for intervention and control grows the potential forrisk. The very techno-scientific management of risk leads to a spiral of risks.For it implies an increase in the control of technological systems achievableonly through a greater techno-scientification of the environment which, intum, is the source of new potential risks, generaIly of greater reach andmore extreme consequences. Apart from that, the management of the risksthat eventually derive from a run-away techno-scientific production presup­poses an expansion of the evaluation of impacts and risks that is practicalIyunattainable.6

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When the slightest loss of control runs the risk of turning into a catas­trophe, it is understandable that the management and rational solution beidentified with a techno-scientific control more stringent still. Nevertheless,total techno-scientification, completely exempt of failure, has not been at­tained nor is practically attainable in a large scale, not even in the techno­logical systems considered most advanced, such as synthetic chemistry ornuclear technology (Gleich, 1991). Still less should we expect that it be­come reality in the complex framework of the social domains, in spite of thepersistent prophecies about a happy world and the futurist versions of a vitalenvironment transformed into a perfect biological and social mega-machine,thanks to the total techno-scientific design and construction of nature andsociety (Sanmartin, 1987, 1990). The evident ecological and social failure ofthe techno-scientific model lies in the impossibility of an absolute attain­ment of the techno-scientific imperative.

Apart from the specific risks, the compulsive process of techno­scientification carries a global cultural risk of even greater significance:techno-scientific uni-dimensionality. The techno-scientification of a domain,Le., its transformation into a techno-scientific system, eventually generatesincompatibilities with other socio-technical domains not yet techno­scientified that jointIy form a determined environment. On the one hand, thedevelopment of the traditional domains comes to be impossible in an in­creasingly techno-scientified framework, and, on the other hand, these do­mains turn out to be dysfunctional within the techno-scientific systems andtend to be absorbed by the imperative of techno-scientification. Every tech­nical system corresponds to determined forms of intervention and interac­tion. The systems of soft intervention are not feasible in an intenselytechno-scientified milieu with forms of intervention and interaction basedon absolute control. The imperative of total techno-scientification leads totechno-scientific homogeneity, because of the disappearance not only ofbiologicaI species but also of cultural species based on sophisticated softtechnical systems.

CONSTRUCTIVIST PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY EV ALUATION

Culture centered on the unlimited precedent of techno-scientific interventioncannot fail to be fundamentally a risk culture, for its characteristic risks are,in the last instance, techno-scientific constructions. The limitations and fail­ures of the model of evaluation and political intervention based on thetechno-scientification of those very risks lie precisely in that we can place itat the origin of the very ills it intends to remedy. But do we need to assumeas necessary and inevitable both the risks of techno-scientific culture and its

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model of evaluation and management? An affirmative answer agrees withthe thesis of technological determinism (Winner, 1977) and can be summa­rized in the motto "science discovers, genius invents, industry applies, manadapts or is shaped by the new things.,,7 According to determinist doctrine,just as the evolution of nature is determined by natural laws, technologicaldevelopment is also determined autonomously. In turn, technolagy deter­mines social and economic development, and thus the only human option isto adapt to the laws in question and to try to obtain an aptimal shaping.

Technological determinism is based on the same standard conceptions oftechnology and society, of science and nature that, in the last analysis, justi­fy the imperative of techno-scientific culture. It is then said, more or lessexplicitly, that scientific discovery and technological innovation are twomeans of augmenting our knowledge and our domination of nature and soci­ety and, thus, the freedom to investigate and innovate (in accordance withthe techno-scientific model, of course) not only must be guaranteed but itsexercise amounts to a moral duty (Jelsma). That is, techno-science pour latechno-science.

Nevertheless, during the last twenty years the social studies of scienceand technology have completed a radical turn that has made definitely un­tenable the conceptions of science and technology inherited from traditionalphilosophy and history. Scientific practice directly studied in laboratoriesand in the bosom of scientific groups and networks has nothing to do withthe methodology of science or the rational argumentation disseminated byanalytic philosophers and logicians. Nor does the history of science, recon­structed in such a context, correspond to the hagiography propagated by thehistorians of ideas and of scientific geniuses. De-mystified science appearsto us as a normal enterprise, i.e., with an essentially social character thatmakes it accessible to sociological study, and to which it is not proper to as­sign any special epistemological attributes or ethical and political privileges.Just as the other cultural achievements of man, science and technology aresocial constructions.

The very initials STS of Science and Technology Studies serve to desig­nate also the Science, Technology and Society programs that sprung up inthe U.S.A in the late Sixties, together with the first stirrings of public con­cern about the environmental and social problems related to scientific andtechnological development. From their inception, the Science, Technologyand Society programs have insisted on the need for general education andthe formation of scientists and technologists of interdisciplinary character,capable of understanding the complex framework that connects science andtechnology with economic, social, and political processes. This would facili­tate the indispensable citizen participation in the discussion and

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management of the serious problems created by technological innovationand its industrial application.

In spite of their kinship in pointing out the social implications of scienceand technology, the general character of the Science, Technology and Soci­ety programs, of North American origin, is quite different from that of thosebased on the Social Studies of Science and Technology programs, of Euro­pean origino The former are basically programs of education and social con­sciousness raising, with an evaluative orientation, often a critical one, thatattempt to influence in some way the educational, scientific, and technologi­cal policy. The latter are rather theoretical programs, interested in theoreti­cal explanation and empirical description, that are implemented in the studyof very concrete particular cases (case studies). Nevertheless, it could besaid that both types of programs have a common philosophy that affirms thefeasibility of social and political intervention in technological change.

More specifically, the constructivist investigations8 in the studies of sci­ence and technology have contributed decisively to dismantling the thesesof technological determinism, thereby posing anew the question about theinevitable character of techno-scientific culture and its risks. Against all de­tenninistic visions, the sociological studies have emphasized the contingen­cy and the flexibility of scientific and technological development. And inopposition to the traditional conceptions that separate science from society,and set up both against nature, they have made evident the social processesinherent in scientific discoveries and technological innovations. The greattechnological systems and science itself are constituted as a flexible socio­technical framework stabilized in a process of social closure, within certainstructural constraints (Bijker, 1990). Just as scientific and technologicalchange, nature - as environment and as cosmic vision - also has a histori­cal character and is the result of constructive processes (Latour, 1987).

In light of such results, the analytical contribution of the social studies ofscience and technology to the issues posed by the scientific and technologi­cal evaluation and policy seel11S obvious enough. "The deconstructive abil­ity... [of these studies] can be used effectively to demonstrate interpretativeflexibility, to suggest the possibility of alternative choices, to unl11ake thesocio-technical complexes built by the powerful.,,9 But is it possible to gobeyond this analytical and theoretícal deconstruction in the integration ofresearch studies and evaluation tasks? The answer is not easy, but it is be­cOl11ing obvious that the relevance to evaluation of the social studies of sci­ence and technology depends, among other things, on the deveJ.0pl11ent of aconstructivist philosophy capable of overcoming its restriction to micro­sociologicaJ. contexts (case studies).

A philosophical turn is required to pose anew the fundamental questionsrelative to a conceptualization and theorizing that surmount the traditional

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divisions and contrasts between society, technology, science and nature(Latour, 1991a). Likewise we must establish theoretically the nexus betweenthe micro-contexts characteristic of case studies and the macro-contexts inwhich the issue of the evaluation and policy of science and technology israised. Another condition which, to my understanding, is important in orderto integrate the descriptive and the evaluative refers to the account of con­tent. This is not an issue of merely analyzing formally the social processesthat bring particular scientific facts and technological illnovations to a close.The intent is to address also the "sense" of the content of such social con­structions, i.e., their suitability, compatibility or incompatibility with theglobal context of our basic individual and social practice, our vital ends andneeds. lO

The integration in the studies of science and technology of theoretical andevaluative questions, which generally take different paths, requires the de­velopment of a philosophy capable of fruitfully interrelating particular em­pirical studies, theoretical research and historical reconstructions with theevaluation of technology, the management of risk, and the politics andeducation in science and technology. This presumes an interdisciplinary ap­proach that includes the technological aspects of science as much as thetheoretical aspects of technology, the theoretical results of research as muchas the devices, the operative procedures, and the social interactions of thesame, the present performance as much as the historical genesis, the aca­demic and scientific milieu as much as the social and political environment,the material products and goods as much as the cultural and politicalsources.

But for a constructivist philosophy the highest priority is the profoundrevision of the standard conceptions of science and technology, as well asthose of nature and society, in light of their conceptualization as operativeconstructions within a concrete local, social, and historical contexto Thestarting point for such a construction is constituted by a radical inversion ofapproach in which the priority traditionally given to theory is now bestowedupon practice, understood in a wide sense as knowledge, capabilities, andoperative schemes for action and social interaction, and as the primary his­torical and methodological form of knowledge in general, on which aH otherlinguistic and theoreticaI forms of knowledge are built.

In techno-science it is not theories that have priority but rather the tech­nological and operative content, which is fundamentally social, historicaland value-Iaden. Technology is not applied science but, on the contrary,scientific theories are products of theorizing about technological goods andprocesses. The relations between humans and their natural and social envi­ronments are not fundamentally relations of passive theoretical contempla­tion, but are derived fram their metabolic, technical, and social activity.

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What nature and society represent for a certain culture is the result of a con­struction given by the socio-technical systems of that culture.

The social studies of science and technology are not the only ones thathave made evident that scientific and technological change represent a so­cial process. The new social studies of evaluation and communication ofrisks point in the same direction (Nelkin, 1989; Krimsky and Plough, 1988;Friedmann, 1990; Nowotny and Eisikovic, 1990). According to their mostimportant results, risk must be considered fundamentally as a constructionand its evaluation as a social process. Now, if science and technological sys­tems are the result of processes constituted by a framework of social evalu­ative interactions, then techno-scientific development, innovation, and risksare not be evaluated and eventuaUy regulated in purely techno-scientificterros, but in terms of their particular socio-technical framework. Interven­tion in scientific and technological change is thus opened to new possibili­ties in the direction of constructive models of the evaluation of science andtechnology.

Along these lines, models of constructive evaIuation of technology havebeen developed, particularIy in The Netherlands and Sweden, that considertechnological change as a socio-technical framework and that start from thepossibility of shaping it democratically and of making it conform to theneeds and objectives of society through the social processes of learning(Rip, 1991; Rip and Belt, 1988; Slaa and Tuininga, 1989). In the milieu ofsocial studies of evaluation and management of risk there is a strong moveto build models denominated cultural or social ll that coincide with thesocio-constructivist conception of risk and that advocate social forms ofevaluation and management (Krimsky and Plough, 1988; Friedmann, 1990;Nelkin, 1989).

The feasibility of the constructive models depends, in good measure, onslowing down the accelerated process of techno-scientification and headingoff the monopoly of techno-scientific intervention. To accomplish this weneed a radical tum in a techno-scientific polícy that indiscriminately pro­motes and finances the proliferation of technological innovations and onlylater, when threatened by serious risks or by the actual occurrence of thefirst catastrophes, worries about impacts and consequences. In this situation,any eventual public discussion is essentially inhibited by the weight of thelarge investments already made (Beck, 1991) as well as by the entrenchmentof the new technologies, and the investigation of possible risks cannot keepup with the unbridled rhythm of techno-scientific production. 12

The attempts to achieve techno-scientific management must gíve way tothe prevention and minimizing of risks by means of self-limitation and softintervention and to the development of altematives to techno-scientific in­vestigation, such as those that are already being produced in sorne fields of

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chemistry, energy and bio-technology (Gleich, 1991). Por a constructivistphilosophy of the evaluation of techno-science, the key question deals withthe social and environmental incompatibilities generated by techno­scientific extrapolations and innovations. The task is to fix the limits of thetechno-scientific imperative, differentiate between technical domains, dis­ceming compatibilities and incompatibilities and deciding priorities so as todetermine the reach of techno-scientification, that is, which domains are tobe preserved from techno-scientific exports.

A complete renunciation of techno-scientific intervention in our world isalmost unthinkable and practically unfeasible. Nevertheless this is no reason- exactIy the opposite - to renounce a development oriented towards a cul­ture and an environment in which, in a differentiated manner, it is possiblefor techno-scientific domains to co-exist with socio-technical domains of adifferent kind, and which preserves not only biological diversity, as a richinheritance, but also a technical and cultural multi-dimensionality.

Without doubt, one of the basic characteristics of the constructive ap­proaches consists in the delegitimation of the exclusive competence of ex­perts, whether they are scientists, technologists, or self-proclaimedtechnology assessors. The evaluation and shaping of science and technologymust be "politicized." For, "if science and technology are politics by othermeans, then the only avenue to achieve democracy is to introduce it into sci­ence and technology,"13 i.e., to reshape those very socio-technical domains.Neither science nor technology can be separated from society, for the at­tempt to stabilize a techno-scientific system is itself modeled on society.The issue is not whether technology determines society or whether societyshould control technology, but rather how to redistribute roles and functionsin the socio-technical complexes assembled by the experts and the powerful.We must tie together Science, Technology, and Society, i.e., we must inte­grate science and politics, as well as reconstruction and evaluation, insteadof keeping them separate not only in research but in education. The funda­mental task of a constructivist philosophy of science and technology con­sists in exposing and then contributing to dismantling the theoretical andsocio-technical constructions that have tried to establish a great division be­tween nature and society, science and politics, thus unleashing the prolifera­tion of the techno-scientific hybrids characteristic of our culture (Latour,1991b).

It is obvious that constructivist models based on active social evaluationand intervention can shape scientific and technological change only if thereis a prior re-orientation of the practice and the content of scientific and tech­nological education and training, hamessing interdisciplinary integration,and breaking with the tradition of uni-dimensional teaching at aH levels(Medina and Sanmartin, 1989). Participation in evaluation and intervention

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presupposes the corresponding educative training. The point is that the newgenerations of citizens, engineers and educators come to possess an inte­grated vision of the development of science and technology and of theircomplex socio-technical frameworks. The constructivist reconstruction andunderstanding of the historical and sociological framework of today' s sci­ence and technology can help reclaim the capacity for deliberation, the free­dom of decision and enterprise, counteracting the official preponderance ofthe techno-scientific imperative and monopoly and of their rationalist mysti­fications. We must not forget, however, that the study of science andtechnology should not become a substitute for democratic participation, butthat we make available the constructivist framework so that evaluation andactive intervention can be carried out by aH of society.

Universidad de Barcelona

NOTES

. Techno-scientific innovation is not exclusive to genetic technologies, but brands the set ofnew bio-techno10gies, as in the case of micro-biological and germinal technologies.Microbiological technologies isolate and select micro-organisms to manipulate certainprocesses and to produce industrially certain substances. Germinal technologies deal withprocesses of extra-corporal fertilization, cellular fusion, and cloning (Sanmartin, 1987, 1990).2 In traditional cultures there are limitations to the original technical domains that implicitlyexclude certain transferences between them. In the beginnings of our European culture, forexample, the Aristotelian contrast between nature and craft represents the demarcation of thebio-technical domain from the hard crafts, especially the mechanical ones, and sanctions theseparation between them (Medina, 1988, 1990). Today, the Catholic Church tries to preservea similar demarcation of the bio-technical domain and human reproduction, by forbiddingseveral types of bio-techno-scientific inlervention. When the transference of hard techniquesto originally soft domains requires a transgression of cultural demarcations, it is generallynecessary to legitimate it in a way that can appease evenlual cultural resistance and makesocially acceptable the new forms of lecnological inlervenlion.3 This assertion could be called the "principIe of lechno-naturalization."4 Thus the framework of social and symbolic domains is characterized by procedures of softintervention. For example, the traditional practices of educalíon, socialization, and resolutíonof conflicts or problems related to aggression or aggressive behavior are centered oncommunication, and on personal and social inleraction. Today, in the conlext of proceduresconsidered more advanced, the solulion lo difficult problems of education or that deal wilhabnormal, agressive, or asocial behavior tends to be formulaled in terms of hard intervention,such as neurochemical trealment, funclional control of impulses and mental stales throughdrugs, or even genelic inlervention. Just as clearly seen is the course of lechno-scientificationin the completely different domain of energy techniques and job implementation. Thisdomain originally included biotechniques (such as those related lo the development ofmuscular strength and the employment of animals) and sociolechniques implemented with theaid of symbolic techniques (e.g., planning and organization of the work of large colleclives).Towards the end of antiquity and during the Middle Ages, the biotechniques were

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complemented with mechanisms (e.g., big wheels rotated by teams of horses) and there beganthe development of the mechanical crafts (hydraulic wheels, wind mills) that in the ModemAge would be the object of engineering development (steam engines, turbines) and of themodem technological treatment. With techno-science, there appeared the energy technologiescharacteristic of our time, such as electrical motors, combustion engines, nuclear reactors,etc., which are the result of the combination of mechanical technologies and newtechnologies of transformation and synthesis.5 Techno-scientific design, e.g., test-tube babies, is presented as progress toward aperfection of society and the bio-environment that will allow the solution to problems thatneither natural evolution nor social history have been able to solve.6 As is obvious, e.g., in the specific case of synthetic chemistry (Gleich, 1991).

Guide to the Chicago World Fair (1933).For a general view see Bijker, Hughes and Pinch, 1987a; Bloor, 1976, 1981; Collins,

1985; Golinski, 1990; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay, 1983; Latour, 1987,1988, 1990, 1991a, 1991b; Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Pinch and Bijker, 1984; Woolgar,1988, 1991.9 Bijker, 1990, p.1 O.10 To this end we would have to have, in the field of social studies of science andtechnology, less emphasis on the distant and sceptical observer who is interested only in theimpartial search for causal laws so as to explain theoretically and to anticipate beliefs,actions, and social processes related to science and technology. This posture must give way toan analysis that ineludes the evaluative intentionality of critical participants who try tounderstand and improve their own practice and their own culture.Il The new approaches, officially promoted in the U.S.A by institutions such as the NationalResearch Council (1989), have as a basic characteristic a conception of risk that incorporatesthe social, political, and cultural factors, and which elearly distance themselves from thetechno-scientific model in that they place special emphasis on the communication of risk bymeans of the exchange of infonnation between individuals, groups, and institutions, as wellas on the fonns of social participation and on the integration of the personal knowledge andexperience of those affected, as a complement to the experts' technological studies.12 As in the case of synthetic chemistry and its production of thousands of new substanceswith uncontrolled and uncontrollable effects, Gleich, 1991.13 Latour, 1988, p.38.

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