Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






Re-Inventing the World

Periods of invention can easily be categorised by the dominant technology – the age of the wheel, of steam, of industrialisation, of electricity, of radio and so on. But the post-war 20th century was remarkable because it was the age of many technologies simultaneously. The atomic age, the space age, the computer age, the information revolution, the genetics era – all these terms have been coined to describe the past 55 years.

The world underwent a remarkable acceleration in technological achievement after the Second World War. A second industrial revolution revolved around two key developments: the invention of the transistor in 1947 and the exploitation of the gene after the discovery of its structure in 1953.

By the end of the 20th century, these two innovations resulted in technology setting the agenda in most spheres of society. Breakthroughs in genetics have had a profound effect on our attitudes to fundamental issues. They meant we can now tinker with our own existence and that of other life forms. The moral and social ramifications of changing the nature of foodstuffs, altering inherited characteristics or even cloning ourselves far exceed the technological complexities involved in their execution.

The consequences of the invention of the transistor in 1947 have been similarly profound. As a result of the transistor and its evolution into the silicon microchip, we can now carry more computing power in our pockets than was collected in all of the room-sized computers across the world in 1950. The transistor and microchip made possible the mobile phone, the internet, desktop computers, space travel, colour television, the video recorder, satellites, portable calculators and many other applications, including the mapping of the human genome, our entire genetic makeup.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, technology was often accused of inflicting some of the most destructive actions on humanity; certainly the harnessing of nuclear power was accompanied by the terrible destruction power of the atomic bomb. But the technology was also central to man’s single greatest extension of his environment, the exploration of space.

In the first years of the 21st century, technology and invention present society with a dichotomy. Invention is acknowledged as one of the most formative and persistently creative themes in our development, but it is still regarded with suspicion, its contribution to our improved living standards weighed against the threat of technological self-destruction, ecological imbalance and silicon-chip hegemony. Certainly, if computers continue to increase in power at the current rate (a doubling of power every 18 months, according to one of the pioneers of the silicon microchip), then by 2025 artificial intelligence systems could rival human intelligence.

It has thus become commonplace to blame inventors, scientists and engineers for many of society’s ills. While this position rightly reflects the central role of science and technology in today’s society, it often disregards the fact that scientific discovery and technological invention are merely tools in our hands, and their misuse a reflection of human frailty. Invention is the one characteristic that sets us apart from other species yet it continues to be devalued in cultural terms. And as Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft, famously remarked, “But for the silly chaps we would still be living in the Stone Age.”



Text B

Toward the Future

Each new idea, each new development in science leads to many others. The pace of scientific and technological progress appears to speed up all the time. New inventions appear and quickly make hundreds of existing devices and procedures obsolete.

 

Automation

There is something mesmeric about watching lines of industrial robots swinging this way and that as they make things. But to some it’s a sinister sight, seeing the work of thousands of people performed by machines that never need a tea break or crave a fortnight’s holiday in the sun.

Automation was a natural progression from the application of science to manufacturing. The first major company to embrace automation was one synonymous with mass production: Ford. By 1946, a significant part of Henry Ford’s Detroit production was undertaken by automata, with engine blocks being made by machines that could automatically adjust themselves to the task in hand.

As electronic computers became more powerful in the early 1950s, so-called numerical control methods started to emerge allowing machines to be programmed to deal with a range of tasks, rather than just one. The first robot which had mechanical arms was devised in 1956. Increased automation led to an interest in the idea of putting the whole process of manufacturing under computer control. The first to succeed was a British company which specialized in the manufacture of cigarette-making equipment.

Automation has since spread far beyond the factory floor, from “hole in the wall” bank machines to the microwave cooker. Much has been made of the impact of automation on jobs, and the failure to plough the resulting increased profits and tax revenues into retraining. But it is also true that the growth of automation has relieved many people of hard, boring and dangerous work.

Satellite

When the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, on October 4, 1957, science fiction became a matter of urgent political reality. It stimulated a space race that led to the step by humankind into space, when Yuri Gagarin made the first orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961, and to Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

In order to develop these ambitious and costly programmes, America and the Soviet Union conducted extensive experiments with satellites in the Earth orbit. From these they began to acquire a wealth of new resources, information and communication capacity. Some of these derived from the facility provided by satellites for observing the Earth. It included vastly improved weather forecasting from meteorological satellites and a range of useful information about geology and land use from photographic and remote-sensing equipment in space. Enormously valuable scientific information was obtained from instruments placed in satellite orbits to observe the sun, the planets and the stars without the interference of the Earth’s atmosphere.

The most immediate impact of satellite technology has been through the great expansion of communications which it facilitated. Satellites have been adopted for a range of telephone, television, and information technology services that made possible as never before a worldwide instantaneous exchange of communication. There are now dozens of these satellites in synchronous orbit, serving military, commercial and public operators, bringing practical benefits that have helped to justify the great expense of space research.

3. Genetic engineering – the unimaginable face of the future?

If we now know enough to be able to make changes in the genetic material that we hand on to our children, why not seize the power? Why not control what has been left to chance in the past? Can we really reject positive genetic influences on the next generation’s minds and bodies when we accept the rights of parents to benefit their children in every other way?

It seems inevitable that genetic engineering will eventually be used. It will probably begin in a way that is most ethically acceptable to the largest portion of society, to prevent babies from inheriting conditions that have a severe impact on the quality of life, such as heart or lung conditions. Then geneticists could begin to expand their services to prevent the inheritance of genes leading to other disorders that have a less severe impact. At the same time, other genes could be added to improve various health characteristics and disease resistance in children.

The final frontier will be the mind and the senses. Here, genetic engineering could have enormous benefits. Alcohol addiction could be eliminated, along with tendencies toward mental disease and antisocial behaviour like extreme aggression. People’s senses of sight and hearing could be improved, allowing for new dimensions in art and music. And when our understanding of brain development has advanced, geneticists will be able to provide parents with the option of enhancing various intellectual attributes as well.

Is there a limit to what can be accomplished with genetic enhancements? Some experts say there are boundaries beyond which we cannot go. But humans have a tendency to prove the experts wrong. In the short term, though, genetic enhancements will provide little fixes to all of the naturally occurring genetic defects that shorten the lives of so many people. They will enrich physical and cognitive attributes in small ways. But as the years go by over the next two centuries, the number and variety of possible genetic extensions to the basic human genome will rise dramatically. Extensions that were once unimaginable will become indispensable – to those parents who are able to afford them.

8. Do you think these qualities are:

· inherited from one or both parents?

· developed through a good education?

· enhanced by a healthy environment?

· encouraged by different circumstances?

· related to national background?

V-Chip

Shocked by the massacre of 14 female college students in Montreal in 1989 linked to violence on TV, Tim Collings, an engineer at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, came up with a system that would enable parents to control the content and quality of TV programmes in their homes.

The prototype developed in 1991 is known as the “V-Chip”. Since January 1, 2000 it must be built into all televisions sold in America. It enables parents to block programmes they regard as too violent, sexual or profane by setting the V-Chip to block or allow viewing according to a six-step scale, based largely on age. All American programmes are required to carry V-Chip codes.


Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1524


<== previous page | next page ==>
Alternative Sources of Energy | Self-Cleaning House
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.007 sec.)