PRE-COLONIAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE THIRD WORLD

It defines science as not necessarily solely coincident with the scientific practice of Europe and America today or in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, the time when the scientific revolution is said to have taken root in Europe.  It defines the scientific pursuit in a much wider sense, as the search for valid explanations of physical reality.  Included in this search for physical reality are not only the physical sciences but also the social sciences, in which man's interactions with man are studied.

Aspects of physical reality described by modern science in quantum physics and relativity, however, transcend the simple Cartesian dichotomy and question the simplistic separation of two worlds: the scientific observer on the one hand, and the observed physical reality on the other. 

Defined in such broad terms, a formalized search for physical knowledge - as well as a search for knowledge in general - has occurred in West, South and East Asia from very early times.  Specialized communities developed in each of these areas and devoted considerable time to the search for this reality.  

Some Pre-Colonial Paradigms and World Views

I  have  taken  a broad definition of science  in  this  chapter, namely  the  search  for valid  knowledge  of  material  reality, embracing both the physical and the social sciences.  In the pre-colonial period, knowledge in the non-European world encompassed knowledge systems of two kinds: firstly, of physical elements that may be manipulated by means and instruments available at the time; secondly, the mental maps and knowledge systems that man constructed about phenomena outside the realm of the immediately manipulable.  I will limit  my field of enquiry - because of my own limitations - to the  world-views and concepts of the physical world developed in South Asia.       The  Indian  physical  concepts were  also  integrated  with 'religious'  philosophical  and psychological systems so  that  a unified  view of the world was presented.  The doctrine of the five elements pervaded all  strands of South Asian thought and explanatory systems.

The  Nyaya Vaisesika  atoms are in constant motion and they are  capable  of combination to form dyads.  The atom, according  to this system, is sometimes active and sometimes not. Atoms  were  thought  to be constantly  undergoing  change.   Different physical  bodies  have different elements and  so  are  perceived differently.  The  core  South Asian impetus concept dates from  the  Vaisesika period,  that is, circa the 7th Century BC; it developed  into  a recognizable  form  by the 5th Century AD  (ibid.).        In the pancha bhutas concept, akasa occupies a  non-material place.   Together  with akasa, space and  time  are  non-material elements  of the physical world which are important in the  South Asian system.

The Jains had, in addition, a deeper concept of time, a nominal time which underlay this simpler phenomenal concept of time.  In contrast to both the Jain and Nyaya Vaisesika concepts of time, the  Buddhists  appeared  to deny the existence of time as  an  objective reality.

Other physical  concepts, such as heat, light,  and  sound, have  also been dealt with in the South Asian tradition.  In  the Nyaya Vaisesika system, heat and light are explained in terms  of one  of  the pancha bhutas, namely fire  (tejas).   Sound in the Nyaya Vaisesika system is divided into modulated and articulated, sound and noise (ibid. p. 481).       In the above discussion, I have isolated some key conceptual elements  used  to describe physical reality in the  South  Asian region. 

Legal and Ethical Aspects of Cloning

In the last two or three years the subjects of animal and human cloning have been discussed very intensively in Germany. The Bureau for Technical Assessment of the German Bundestag demanded the Research Centre for Biotechnology and Law of the European Academy for Environment and Economy at the end of 1997 to make a report concerning the legal aspects of animal and human cloning. The report will be presented to the German Bundestag to help them decide if certain regulation is needed.

In this report the legal situation of animal and human cloning has been examined in the United States and some other countries of the European Community including Great Britain, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Greece. This paper reports the results of this report as a short overview about animal and human cloning in Germany, other European countries and the United States 

1. Legal aspects of human cloning in Germany

Human cloning by embryo-splitting is prohibited by ß6 of the Embryo Protection Law (Embryonenschutzgesetz ñ ESchG), a federal law. By interpretation of this article nuclear cell transfer will be prohibited too. ß 5 ESchG is not applicable for both cloning methods.

On the European level there is currently no regulation, applicable in Germany. Germany hasn't signed the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine nor the additional protocol containing an explicit prohibition of cloning. The convention and the protocol are both international treaties having no national effect if they aren't signed and ratified.

The examination of the permission of this human cloning prohibition under constitutional law aspects shows that ß 6 ESchG corresponds to the Constitution and isn't an intrusion into the fundamental rights of Art. 5 Abs. 3, 12 Abs. 1, 2 Abs. 2 and 2 Abs. 1 GG.

An intrusion into the liberty of research after Art. 5 Abs. 3 GG by a cloning prohibition is allowed because of human dignity. Human dignity, regulated in Art. 1 Abs. 1 GG, is the highest value of the Constitution and will not be changed even if the Constitution changes, so it is fixed in Art. 79 Abs. 3 GG. Human dignity means the identity and the self-value of a person by use of his personality. A person shouldn't become a simple object or be treated by a measure denying his subject quality. By his role as an organ donor or other materials a person should not become a simple object or a "spare part stock" for other people. Human dignity collides with another fundamental right, that of the liberty of research and in this way this dignity is a limit coming out of the Constitution itself.

An intrusion in the protected area of the freedom of choose and carrying out one's career is justified by the limit of Art. 12 Abs. 1 S. 2 GG. The cloning of many people is in any case a violation of humans dignity, Art. 1 GG. So there are some reasons of common law justifying a cloning prohibition.

The intrusion in Art. 2 Abs. 2 GG is justified by the limits of Art. 2 Abs. 2 S. 3 GG. Furthermore there is no intrusion in Art. 2 Abs. 1 GG because the prohibition of applying a cloning method for reproduction corresponds to the Constitution under the aspect of preservation of human dignity. People have the right to reproduction which is part of the personality right protected by Art. 2 Abs. 1 GG but this right includes only the methods of sexual reproduction. The nuclear cell transfer without any fertilization isn't protected by Art. 2 Abs. 1 GG. There is a fertilization by embryo-splitting but the cloned person would become in any case an object so there will be a violation of Art. 1 Abs. 1 GG. Human cloning is prohibited.

2. Legal aspects of human cloning in foreign countries

The constitutional situation and the laws concerning human cloning in Great Britain, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Greece, Switzerland and the United States are described below. Human cloning is explicitly prohibited in the European countries or can be concluded by interpretation of the Constitution.

In Switzerland there is a Constitutional prohibition of human cloning by embryo-splitting and nuclear cell transfer, Art. 24 novies par. 2 c. Intrusions into the genetic material of human germ cells and embryos are inadmissible ( Art. 24 novies Abs. 2 a). The planed entire revision of the Federal Constitution Art. 111 Abs. 2 letter a should be introduced and then all kinds of cloning and intrusions into genetic material of human germ cells should be prohibited.

In Great Britain sect. 3 of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act prohibits the human cloning by nuclear cell transfer expressively. Furthermore the authority giving the research authorizations previewed in this act, the human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, has clearly decided not to allow the research of embryo-splitting and nuclear cell transfer. This authority is an ethical committee. The British government has condemned human cloning under ethical aspects. The Science and Technology Committee as well as the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority and the Department of Health demand for a clear prohibition for human cloning by law .

In Austria cloning is prohibited after ß 9 Abs. 1 S. 1 of the Medical Reproduction Act (Fortpflanzungsmedizingesetz). This Act only allows reproduction methods to be practiced for a pregnancy. In this way every research with in-vitro embryos is prohibited. Intrusions into germ cells aren't allowed, ß 9 Abs. 2.

In France the wording of Art. 16 Abs. 4 Code civil, changed by the Bioethic-Law number 94-653 from 24.07.1994, contains no human cloning prohibition. The French president has asked the national ethical committee, the Comite Consultatif National d'Ethique (CCNE), to make an entire report about the existing regulations of the Bioethic-Laws and the probable need of regulations concerning the human cloning. In its response to the president in 1997, the CCNE shows that human cloning violates the human dignity, so that after Art. 16 Abs. 4 Code civil human cloning is prohibited. This is the special case that the prohibition itself isn't mentioned in the article but is interpreted in this regulation by the CCNE, a committee without legislative competence. The Bioethic-Law number 94-654 from 29.07.1994 contains the regulation that in-vitro fertilization of human embryos for research or experiments is not allowed. The regulation applies to embryo-splitting but not the nuclear cell transfer.

France, Greece and the Netherlands have signed the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine as well as the additional protocol. In France both treaties have to be ratified. In Greece the Convention is already ratified. The law for the protocol is being prepared. Human cloning is a technique violating human dignity protected by the Constitution. Under this aspect a limitation of the liberty of search is possible. In the Netherlands a law is being prepared prohibiting human cloning.

In the United States until now, there is no law regulating human cloning or prohibiting it. The American president asked the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on 24.02.1997 to examine the legal and ethical aspects of the use of the new cloning methods. The Commission only examined the method of nuclear cell transfer and reported that at moment neither in private area nor in public area, that means in research or in medicine, it is justifiable to reproduce a child by nuclear cell transfer. In consequence the American president proposed the congress the Cloning Prohibition Act. Till now it hasn't become a law. Beside this the president ordered a memorandum prohibiting the use of federal funds for human cloning. Some different State laws even prohibit the private founded research.

Legal aspects of animal cloning in Germany

The German law of animal breeding (Tierzuchtgesetz) contains no regulations for animal cloning. The Animal Protection Law (Tierschutz-gesetz - TierSchG) has no regulation too. The cloning methods are always in an experimental stage so that ß 7 Abs. 1 TierSchG could be applicable. But the cloning methods of embryo-splitting and the nuclear transfer aren't at any time an animal experiment. In consequence ß 7 Abs. 1 TierSchG doesn't protect the animals against cloning.

Neither the extraction of an egg or a body cell nor the artificial fertilization nor the finally extraction of the totipotent cells are an animal experiment in consideration of ß 7 Abs. 1 TierSchG. The transplantation of the cloned, but by embryo-splitting not genetically changed, egg cells to the mother (pregnant) animal doesn't correspond to the conditions of ß 7 Abs. 1 TierSchG.

The extraction and the transfer of the nuclear of a body cell aren't involved by ß 7 Abs. 1 TierSchG too. The extraction of the cell nuclear of the egg cell is not an animal experiment because this cloning method doesn't cause a genetic change in a jurisprudential sense. That is the reason why the transfer of the egg cell into the mother (pregnant) animal is not an animal experiment.

The animal cloning for the research will not be limited by ß 11 b TierSchG. The cloning methods are still in an experimental stage. ß 11 b TierSchG will be applicable, when these methods are ready to be practiced and are used for example for the production of agricultural working animals.

On the European level neither the "Treaties of Amsterdam", signed the 02.10.1997, nor the "European regulation from 18.03.1986 for the protection of the vertebrates used for experiments and other scientific aims" contain any regulation about animal cloning.

Under constitutional law aspects the introduction of a regulation of cloning as a cloning prohibition would violate the fundamental rights of the researcher after Art. 5 Abs. 3 and 12 Abs. 1 GG (Constitution), the rights of the other working people and employers after Art. 12 Abs. 1, Art. 5 Abs. 3 and Art. 12 Abs. 1 GG too. A cloning prohibition or another limitation of the cloning would be an intrusion on the liberty of science guaranteed by the Constitution. A limit coming out of the Constitution by itself and justifying the intrusion doesn't exist. Animal protection isn't till now regulated by the Constitution. With respect to Art. 20 a GG the animal protection is involved in this article as basic of humans life under the aspect of preservation of the different sorts of animals and protection of the habitat of free living animals. But this article means not an individual animal protection. An Art. 20 b is planed to be introduced to be introduced into the Constitution. This regulation foresees the respect of animals as "Mitgeschˆpf", this means member of life, and their protection of avoidable pain and suffering. In May 1998 the German Bundestag has discussed about the introduction of this article without any concrete decision. We have to wait for the next parliamentary term.

After Art. 12 Abs. 1 GG a cloning prohibition is against the Constitution because it doesn't correspond to the common will and is not involved by the legal reserve of Art. 12 Abs. 1 S. 2 GG. Only in the agricultural area would a cloning prohibition be acceptable. The cloning would only be used to increase the yield because the supply of foods for the people is assured. The need of increased quality cannot be understood because healthy nutrition can be guaranteed. The cloning methods first would serve to higher the profit motives of the agricultural enterprises.

Art. 2 Abs. 2 GG contain no duty of the State to limit the animal cloning for the protection of third people not be violated in their physical health. That is the reason why the protection area of this article is not touched. Thus animal cloning is possible. 

Legal aspects of animal cloning in foreign countries

There is no cloning prohibition in any of the examined countries. Only in the Switzerland it could be possible because of the Art. 24 novies Abs. 3 of the Federal Constitution makes animal protection a constitutional right. Furthermore in this country an entire reformation of the Constitution is prepared as well as law projects concerning non human gene technology.

A law about animal cloning only exists in the Netherlands (Animal Health and Welfare Act of 1992) regulating that animal cloning by nuclear cell transfer needs an authorization. This authorization is given by the Minister of Agriculture, Nature conservation and Fishery. He will be assisted by a Biotechnology Committee "Commissie Biotechnologie bij Dieren". The members of this Committee are fixed by the Animal Biotechnology Decree from 09.12.1996. There should be only nine members from the ethical area, the social science, the veterinary medicine and the biology. The authorization has to be given, when there is an important interest in nuclear cell transfer or in a genetic changing of an animal as well as the ethical acceptance of the project. Unacceptable effects for health and welfare of the animals shouldn't exist. In Greece is no specific regulation. Cloning experiments are under the constitutional protection of the liberty of research.

There are no laws about cloning in the other countries. Indeed there exist animal protection laws but only living animals are protected by them and not foetuses. So in fact animal cloning is not regulated by the animal protection laws.

In Great Britain the "Animal Act" from 1996 regulates the realization of animal experiments, controlled by the "Animal Procedures Committee". This is the only law, whose protection area includes beside the living animals, living foetuses. But nevertheless this law isn't applicable for cloning till the scientific proof is given that cloning creates pain and suffering for the animals.

Result

Animal cloning is allowed in Germany, Great Britain, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece and The United States. There are no animal protection laws regulating the methods of animal cloning.

Human cloning is prohibited by law in Germany, Great Britain, France, Austria and Switzerland. No regulation and no prohibition exist in the Netherlands, Greece and the United States. But the Netherlands and Greece have signed the European Biomedicine Convention as well as the additional protocol.

References 

BVerfGE 30, 1 (25). 

BVerfGE 50, 166 (175). 

Royal Society, Whither Cloning, January 1998, p. 7. 

Human Genetics Advisory Commission and Human Fertilization & Embryology Authority, "Cloning issues in reproduction, science and medicine, 1998, p. 11. 

House of Commons Official Report, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) 26 June 1997, Column 615. 

Fifth report from the Science and Technology Committee, Session 1996-97, p. 13. 

CCNE, "Reponse au President de la Republique au sujet du clonage reproductif" from 22.04.1997, p. 34. 

Report and recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, Cloning human beings, June 1997, p. iii. 

White House Press Releases Database: Memorandum of March 4, 1997. 

Schmidt-Bleibtreu/Klein, Art. 20 a, Rz. 11.

"Sociological Aspects of Science and Technology"

"Although often assumed to be separate from the rest of society,scientific knowledge and practice share much in common with other forms of culture, and can profitably be studied as a sociological enterprise. A critical and nuanced understanding ofthe ways scientists work and of how technologies are developed and used allows us to make informed decisions and take responsible actions on the social, political and ethical aspects of scientific and technological progress."
And if we review what we read and discussed about science as culture and practice we can see that our goal has been to understand howsocial interactions and cultural values influence how scientists work, how scientific knowledge is produced, how technologies are developed and how technologies are used.

So rather than looking for the effects of science and technology on society - which implies that they are somehow separate from society - our objective has been to see how our social and cultural lives simultaneously shape, and are shaped by, science and technology.

This involves questioning some of the traditional barriers between science, philosophy, politics, economics, ethics, sociology and anthropology. Rather than accepting these boundaries as 'normal' or 'natural' we have focussed on how the boundaries are made - and changed - in our daily lives. In this way science and technology can be understood in terms of processes with particular interests and values, instead of as neutral or objective products.

Not only does this impact our understanding of science and technology, but it asks us to critically evaluate our knowledge of sociology and anthropology as well.

"Effects of Science and Technology on Society"

Science and technology may be partly responsible for many of the problems that face us today. The problems are the advancement of weapons, bombs, biochemical and nuclear weapon, which brought us violence amongst ourselves and others. Another problem is human dependences on technology, such as the internet, computers, cell phones etc. Yet one of the biggest problems is pollution. Three types of pollution that dominate they are water, air and noise pollution. 

Water is one of the several resources that we need most, many people can survive without food for several weeks but they cannot survive without water for less then a week. According to Water Pollution web site “millions of liters of water are needed every day worldwide for washing, irrigating crops, and cooling industrial processes.” The advancement of science and technology causes much water pollution, such as dumping toxic waste into rivers, ponds, oceans, and even small creeks. For example, many Third World countries that are trying to get their country industrialized lack the funds to dispose of their wastes probably. But instead, they dump their toxic pollutants into surrounding bodies of water. All of the toxins that they dump, can be washed out into the rivers, seas, or oceans can contaminate our water we use everyday to wash our face, hands, clean our dishes, and much more. 

The air that we breath everyday to keep us alive, imagine if the air are been polluted through our industrial everyday. According to Air Pollution and Respiratory Health web site, “In 1991 American industry emitted more than 2.4 billion pounds of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere. In 1991, 98 areas exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended levels for ozone, and an estimated 140 million Americans lived in those areas.” Of all those pollution in the atmosphere and over thousand, even hundred of thousand as breathing it everyday it can cause many health problems to a lot of people. The advancement of our industrial not only causes us health problem only but it also depleting our ozone and cause us global warming. The technologies that we build some of them which contain CFC Chlorofluorocarbon, a compound consisting of chlorine, fluorine, and carbon, CFC are commonly been used in refrigerators, solvents, cars, and many more. The CFC can break down by strong ultraviolet light in the stratosphere and release chlorine atoms that then deplete the ozone layer. If the ozone layer been depleted the ultraviolet light will go through and can cause us skins cancer. 

Sound are very commonly use in our life that we often overlook all that it can do. It can give se pleasure such as when we listening to music, or listening to the nature. It also can be use as a communication tool, for example when we hear a siren is to let us know to be alert. For engineering it can be a tool to help them in their job for example mechanical engineering listening to the sound motor of a car to figure out what wrong with it. But in the modern society many sound can be annoying and unpleasant, and it called noise. As more science and technology are being develop the more the country are being industrialize. More factories and business are being built. More airports more vehicles and more trains are being made. Those are the many causes of noise pollution. For example, the modern large planes have been changing from pure jet engine to fan jet engine which decrease the amount of noise it made. However as the quieter the planes get the more the airports grow, it will become more busy and handling more planes everyday. There are many people live near the commercial and military airports, imagine that planes fly over your neighborhood every night and makes annoying noises that could wake you up from your sleep. For many people who live around those neighborhoods, even though they have moved to somewhere else but those noise still affected them and awoke the every night. The more the country are being industrialize the more factories and building are being built. Industrial noise comes from either establish of a factory or by building works. The noise not only affect the workers it also affect those who live around it. 

The advancement of science and technology affected us in many negative ways in term of destruction, pollution, insecurity in daily life, and health problem. Weapons which brought destruction and which help to created war. Harmful affects of chemical such as CFC in our cars, refrigerator, and machinery that destroy the ozone, which protect us from the heat of the sun and also prevent us from have skins cancer. The more machineries and technology we built the more resources we need. The more natural habitat will be destroy so people could get those resources, and the natural habitat is to help us from polluting the air and protect our ozone. So science and technology are responsible for many of the problems that face us today.

"THIRD WAVE TECHNOLOGIES" by: Alvin Toffler

.....In the earsplitting clamor over the energy crisis [of 1973]..., so many plans, proposals, arguments, and counter-arguments have been hurled at us that it is difficult to make sensible choices. Governments are just as confused as the proverbial man in the street.

One way to cut through the murk is to look beyond the individual technologies and policies to the principles underlying them. Once we do, we find that certain proposals are designed to maintain or extend the Second Wave energy base as we have known it, while others rest on new principles. The result is a radical clarification of the entire energy issue.

The Second Wave energy base, we saw earlier, was premised on non-renewability; it drew from highly concentrated, exhaustible deposits; it relied on expensive, heavily centralized technologies; and it was no diversified, resting on a relatively few sources and methods. These were the main features of the energy base in all Second Wave nations throughout the industrial era.

Bearing these in mind, if we now look at the various plans and proposals generated by the oil crisis we can quickly tell which ones are mere extensions of the old and which are forerunners of something fundamentally new. And the basic question becomes not whether oil should sell at forty dollars per barrel or whether a nuclear should rise at Sea-brook or Grohnde. The larger question is whether any energy base designed for industrial society and premised on these Second Wave principles can survive. Once asked in this form, the answer is inescapable.

Through the past half-century, fully two thirds of the entire world's energy supply has come from oil and gas. Most observers today, from the most fanatic conservationists to the deposed Shah of Iran, from solar freaks and Saudi Sheikhs tote button-down, briefcase-carrying experts of many governments, agree that this dependency on fossil fuel cannot continue indefinitely, no matter how many new oilfields are discovered...

.....Whether the end comes in some climatic gurgle or, more likely, in succession of dizzyingly destabilizing shortages, temporary gluts, and deeper shortages, the oil epoch is ending. Iranians know this. Kuwaitis and Nigerians and Venezuelans know it. Saudi Arabians know it--which is why they are racing to build an economy based on something other than oil revenues. Petroleum companies know it-which is why they are scrambling to diversify out of oil...

.....However, the debate, over physical depletion is almost beside the point. For in today's world it is price, not physical supply, that has the most immediate and significant impact. And here, if anything, the facts point even more strongly to the same conclusion.

In a matter of decades energy may once more become abundant and cheap as a result of startling technological breakthroughs or economic swings. But whatever happens, the relative price of oil is likely continue its climb as we are forced to plumb deeper and deeper depths, to explore more remote regions, and to compete among buyers. OPEC aside, an historic turn has taken place over the past five years: despite skyrocketing prices, the actual amount of confirmed, commercially recoverable reserves of crude oil has shrunk, not grown -- reversing a trend that had lasted for decades. Further evidence, if needed, that the petrologic era is screeching to a halt.

Meanwhile, coal, which has supplied most of the remaining third of the world energy total, is in ample supply.  Any massive expansion of coal usage, however, entails the spread of dirty air, a possible hazard to the world's climate (through an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere); in ravaging of the earth as well. Even if all these were accepted as necessary risks

over the decades to come, coal cannot fit into the tank of the automobile nor carry out many other tasks now performed by oil or gas. Plants to gasify or liquefy coal require staggering amounts of capital and water (much of it needed for agriculture and are so ultimately inefficient and costly that they too must be seen as no more than expensive, diversionary, and highly temporary expedients.

Nuclear technology presents even more formidable problems at its present stage of development. Conventional reactors rely on uranium, yet another exhaustible fuel, and carry safety risks that are extremely costly to overcome--if, indeed, they ever can do. No one has convincingly solved the problems of nuclear waste disposal, and nuclear costs are so high that until now government subsidies have been essential to make atomic power remotely competitive with other sources.

"THE SECOND WAVE" by: Alvin Toffler

Three hundred years ago, give or take a half-century, an explosion was heard that sent concussive shock waves racing across the earth, demolishing ancient societies and creating a wholly new civilization. This explosion was, of course, the industrial revolution. And the giant tidal force is set loose on the world--the Second Wave--collided with all the institutions of the past and changed the way of life of millions.

During the long millennia when First Wave civilization reigned supreme, the planet’s population could have been divided into two categories--the “primitive’ and the civilized.”The so-called primitive peoples, living in small bands and tribes and subsisting by gathering, hunting, or fishing, were those who had been passed over the agricultural revolution.

The “civilized” world, by contrast, was precisely that part of the planet on which most people worked the soil. For wherever agriculture arose, civilization took root. From China and India to Benin and Mexico, in Greece and Rome, civilizations rose and fell, fought and fused in endless, colorful admixture.

However, beneath their differences lay fundamental similarities. In all of them, land was the basis of economy, life, culture, family structure, and politics. In all of them life was organized around the village. In all of the, a simple division of labor reviled and few clearly defined castes and classes arose: nobility, priesthood, warriors, helots, slaves or serfs. In all of them, power was rigidly authoritarian. In all of them, the economy was decentralized, so that each community produced most of its own necessities.

There were exceptions--nothing is simple in history. There were commercial cultures whose sailors crossed the seas, and highly centralized kingdoms organized around giant irrigation systems. But despite such differences, we are justified in seeing all these seemingly distinctive civilization as special cases of a single phenomenon: agricultural civilization the civilization spread by the First Wave.

During its dominance there were occasional hints of things to come. There were embryonic mass-production factories in ancient Greece and Rome. Oil was drilled one of the Greek islands in 400 B.C. and in Burma A.D. 100.Vast bureaucracies florists in Baby like and Egypt. Great urban metropolis grew up in Asia and South America. There was money and exchange. Trade routes crisscrossed the deserts, oceans and mountains from Cathay to Calais Corporations and incipient nation’s existed. There was even in ancient Alexandria, a startling forerunner of the steam engine.

Yet nowhere was there anything that might remotely have been termed an industrial civilization. These glimpses of the future, so to speak, were mere oddities in history, scattered through different places and periods. They never were brought together into a coherent system, nor could they have been. Until 1650-1750, therefore, we can speak of a first Wave world. Despite patches of primitivism and hints of the industrial future, agricultural civilization dominated the planet and seemed destined to do so forever.

This was the world in which the industrial revolution erupted, launching the Second Wave and creating a strange, powerful, feverishly energetic counter civilization. Industrialism was more than smokestacks and assembly lines. It was a rich, many-sided social system that touches every aspect of human life and attacked every feature of the first Wave past. It produced the great Willow Run factory outside Detroit, but it also put the tractor on the farm, the typewriter in the office, the refrigerator in the kitchen. It produced the daily newspaper and the cinema, the subway and the DC-3. It gave us cubism and twelve-tone music. It gave us Bauhaus buildings and Barcelona chairs, sit-down strikes, vitamin pills, and lengthened life spans. It universalized the wristwatch and the ballot box. More important, it linked all these things together--assembled them, like a machine--to form the most powerful, cohesive and expansive social system the world had ever know: Second Wave civilization.

TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY IN THE 20TH CENTURY Peter F. Drucker

Technological activity during the 20th century has changed in its structure, methods, and scope. It is this qualitative change which explains even more than the tremendous rise in the volume of work the emergence of technology in the 20th century as central in war and peace, and its ability within a few short decades to remake man's way of life all over the globe.

Throughout the 19th century technological activity, despite tremendous success, was still in its structure almost entirely what it had been through the ages: a craft. It was practiced by individuals here, there, and yonder, usually working alone and without much formal education. By the middle of the 20th century technological activity has become thoroughly professional, based, as rule, on specific university training. It has become largely specialized, and is to a very substantial extent being carried out in a special institution—the research laboratory, particularly the industrial research laboratory--devoted exclusively to technological innovation.

Each of these changes deserves a short discussion. To begin with, few of the major figures in 19th-century technology received much formal education. The typical inventor was mechanic who began his apprenticeship at age fourteen or earlier. The few who had gone to college had not, as a rule, been trained in technology or science but were liberal arts students, trained primarily in Classics. But in general, technological invention and the development industries based on new knowledge were in the hands of craftsmen and artisans with little scientific education but a great deal of mechanical genius. These men considered themselves mechanics and inventors, certainly not "engineers" or "chemists" & let alone "scientists."

The 19th century was also the era of technical-university building.  Still, in the opening decades of the 20th century the momentum of technical progress was being carried by the self-taught mechanic without specific technical or scientific education.

Technological work has thus become a profession. The inventor has become an "engineer," the craftsman, a "professional."In part this is only a reflection of the uplifting of the whole educational level of the Western world duringthelast150 years. The college-trained engineer or chemist in the Western world today is not more educated, considering the relative standard of his society, that the craftsman of 1800 (who, in a largely illiterate society, could read and write).It is our entire society--and not the technologist alone--that has become formally educated and professionalized. But the professionalization of technological work points up the growing complexity of technology and the growth of scientific and technological knowledge. It is proof of a change in attitude toward technology, an acceptance by society, government, education, and business that this work is important, that it requires a thorough grounding in scientific knowledge, and, above all, that it requires many more capable people that "natural genius" could produce.

Technological work has become increasingly specialized, also, during the 20th century.  This professionalization and specialization have been made effective by the institutionalization of work in the research laboratory. The research laboratory—and especially the industrial research laboratory--has become the carrier of technological advance in the 20th century. It is increasingly the research laboratory, rather than the individual, which produces new technology. More and more, technological work is becoming a team effort in which the knowledge of a large number of specialists in the laboratory is brought to bear on a common problem and directed toward a joint technological result.

During the 19th century the "laboratory" was simply the place where work was done that required technical knowledge beyond that of the ordinary mechanic. In industry, testing and plant engineering were the main functions of the laboratory; research was done on the side, if at all. Similarly, the government laboratory during the 19th century was essentially place to test, and all the large government laboratories in the world today (such as the Bureau of Standards in Washington) were founded for that purpose. In the 19th-century College or university, the laboratory was used primarily for teaching rather than for research.

Before World War I the research laboratory was still quite rare. Between World War I and World War II it became standard in a number of industries, primarily the chemical, pharmaceutical, electrical, and electronics industries. Since World War II research activity has become as much of a necessity in industry as a manufacturing plant, and as central in its field as is the infantry soldier for defense, or the trained nurse in medicine.