Technology
By the mid 20th century, humans had achieved a mastery of technology
sufficient to leave the atmosphere of the Earth for the first time and
explore space.
Technology is the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of
tools,
machines, techniques,
crafts,
systems,
methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a
preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal or perform a specific
function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery,
modifications, arrangements and procedures. Technologies significantly
affect human as well as other animal species' ability to control and
adapt to their natural environments. The word
technology comes from
Greek τεχνολογία (technología); from
τέχνη (téchnē), meaning "art, skill, craft", and
-λογία (-logía), meaning "study of-".
[1] The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include
construction technology,
medical technology, and
information technology.
The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The
prehistorical discovery of
the ability to control fire increased the available sources of food and the invention of the
wheel helped humans in travelling in and controlling their environment. Recent technological developments, including the
printing press, the
telephone, and the
Internet, have lessened physical barriers to
communication
and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale. However, not
all technology has been used for peaceful purposes; the development of
weapons of ever-increasing destructive power has progressed throughout history, from
clubs to
nuclear weapons.
Technology has affected
society and its surroundings in a number of ways. In many societies, technology has helped develop more advanced
economies (including today's
global economy) and has allowed the rise of a
leisure class. Many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as
pollution, and deplete natural resources, to the detriment of the
Earth and its
environment. Various implementations of technology influence the
values of a society and new technology often raises new ethical questions. Examples include the rise of the notion of
efficiency in terms of human productivity, a term originally applied only to machines, and the challenge of traditional norms.
Philosophical debates have arisen over the present and future use of
technology in society, with disagreements over whether technology
improves the
human condition or worsens it.
Neo-Luddism,
anarcho-primitivism,
and similar movements criticise the pervasiveness of technology in the
modern world, opining that it harms the environment and alienates
people; proponents of ideologies such as
transhumanism and
techno-progressivism
view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the
human condition. Indeed, until recently, it was believed that the
development of technology was restricted only to human beings, but
recent scientific studies indicate that other
primates and certain
dolphin communities have developed simple tools and learned to pass their knowledge to other generations.
Definition and usage
The use of the term
technology has changed significantly over
the last 200 years. Before the 20th century, the term was uncommon in
English, and usually referred to the description or study of the
useful arts.
[2] The term was often connected to technical education, as in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (chartered in 1861).
[3] "Technology" rose to prominence in the 20th century in connection with the
Second Industrial Revolution. The meanings of technology changed in the early 20th century when American social scientists, beginning with
Thorstein Veblen, translated ideas from the German concept of
Technik into "technology." In German and other European languages, a distinction exists between
Technik and
Technologie
that is absent in English, as both terms are usually translated as
"technology." By the 1930s, "technology" referred not to the study of
the industrial arts, but to the industrial arts themselves.
[4]
In 1937, the American sociologist Read Bain wrote that "technology
includes all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments, housing,
clothing, communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which
we produce and use them."
[5]
Bain's definition remains common among scholars today, especially
social scientists. But equally prominent is the definition of technology
as applied science, especially among scientists and engineers, although
most social scientists who study technology reject this definition.
[6]
More recently, scholars have borrowed from European philosophers of
"technique" to extend the meaning of technology to various forms of
instrumental reason, as in Foucault's work on
technologies of the self ("techniques de soi").
Dictionaries and scholars have offered a variety of definitions. The
Merriam-Webster
dictionary offers a definition of the term: "the practical application
of knowledge especially in a particular area" and "a capability given by
the practical application of knowledge".
[1] Ursula Franklin,
in her 1989 "Real World of Technology" lecture, gave another definition
of the concept; it is "practice, the way we do things around here".
[7] The term is often used to imply a specific field of technology, or to refer to
high technology or just
consumer electronics, rather than technology as a whole.
[8] Bernard Stiegler, in
Technics and Time, 1, defines technology in two ways: as "the pursuit of life by means other than life", and as "organized inorganic matter."
[9]
Technology can be most broadly defined as the entities, both material
and immaterial, created by the application of mental and physical
effort in order to achieve some value. In this usage, technology refers
to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It
is a far-reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a
crowbar or wooden
spoon, or more complex machines, such as a
space station or
particle accelerator. Tools and machines need not be material; virtual technology, such as
computer software and
business methods, fall under this definition of technology.
[10]
The word "technology" can also be used to refer to a collection of
techniques. In this context, it is the current state of humanity's
knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to
solve problems, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants; it includes technical
methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials. When
combined with another term, such as "medical technology" or "space
technology", it refers to the state of the respective field's knowledge
and tools. "
State-of-the-art technology" refers to the
high technology available to humanity in any field.
Technology can be viewed as an activity that forms or changes culture.
[11]
Additionally, technology is the application of math, science, and the
arts for the benefit of life as it is known. A modern example is the
rise of
communication technology, which has lessened barriers to human interaction and, as a result, has helped spawn new subcultures; the rise of
cyberculture has, at its basis, the development of the
Internet and the
computer.
[12] Not all technology enhances culture in a creative way; technology can also help facilitate
political oppression and war via tools such as guns. As a cultural activity, technology predates both
science and
engineering, each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor.
Science, engineering and technology
The distinction between science, engineering and technology is not always clear.
Science is the
reasoned investigation or study of phenomena, aimed at discovering enduring principles among elements of the
phenomenal world by employing
formal techniques such as the
scientific method.
[13] Technologies are not usually exclusively products of science, because they have to satisfy requirements such as
utility,
usability and
safety.
Engineering is the
goal-oriented
process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural
phenomena for practical human means, often (but not always) using
results and techniques from science. The development of technology may
draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering,
mathematical,
linguistic, and
historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result.
Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering —
although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For
example, science might study the flow of
electrons in
electrical conductors,
by using already-existing tools and knowledge. This new-found knowledge
may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as
semiconductors,
computers,
and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and
engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are
often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference.
[14]
The exact relations between
science and technology
in particular have been debated by scientists, historians, and
policymakers in the late 20th century, in part because the debate can
inform the funding of basic and applied science. In the immediate wake
of
World War II,
for example, in the United States it was widely considered that
technology was simply "applied science" and that to fund basic science
was to reap technological results in due time. An articulation of this
philosophy could be found explicitly in
Vannevar Bush's treatise on postwar science policy,
Science—The Endless Frontier:
"New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous
additions to knowledge of the laws of nature... This essential new
knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research." In
the late-1960s, however, this view came under direct attack, leading
towards initiatives to fund science for specific tasks (initiatives
resisted by the scientific community). The issue remains
contentious—though most analysts resist the model that technology simply
is a result of scientific research.
[15][16]
History
Paleolithic (2.5 million – 10,000 BC)
The use of tools by
early humans was partly a process of discovery, partly of evolution. Early humans evolved from a
species of
foraging hominids which were already
bipedal,
[17] with a brain mass approximately one third that of modern humans.
[18] Tool use remained relatively unchanged for most of early human history, but approximately 50,000 years ago, a
complex set of behaviors and tool use emerged, believed by many archaeologists to be connected to the emergence of fully modern
language.
[19]
Stone tools
Human ancestors have been using stone and other tools since long before the emergence of
Homo sapiens approximately 200,000 years ago.
[20] The earliest methods of
stone tool making, known as the
Oldowan "industry", date back to at least 2.3 million years ago,
[21] with the earliest direct evidence of tool usage found in
Ethiopia within the
Great Rift Valley, dating back to 2.5 million years ago.
[22] This era of stone tool use is called the
Paleolithic, or "Old stone age", and spans all of human history up to the development of
agriculture approximately 12,000 years ago.
To make a stone tool, a "
core" of hard stone with specific flaking properties (such as
flint) was struck with a
hammerstone.
This flaking produced a sharp edge on the core stone as well as on the
flakes, either of which could be used as tools, primarily in the form of
choppers or
scrapers.
[23] These tools greatly aided the early humans in their
hunter-gatherer lifestyle to perform a variety of tasks including butchering carcasses (and breaking bones to get at the
marrow); chopping wood; cracking open nuts; skinning an animal for its
hide; and even forming other tools out of softer materials such as bone and wood.
[24]
The earliest stone tools were crude, being little more than a fractured rock. In the
Acheulian era, beginning approximately 1.65 million years ago, methods of working these stone into specific shapes, such as
hand axes emerged. The
Middle Paleolithic, approximately 300,000 years ago, saw the introduction of the
prepared-core technique, where multiple blades could be rapidly formed from a single core stone.
[23] The
Upper Paleolithic, beginning approximately 40,000 years ago, saw the introduction of
pressure flaking, where a wood, bone, or antler
punch could be used to shape a stone very finely.
[25]
Fire
The discovery and utilization of fire, a simple
energy source with many profound uses, was a turning point in the technological evolution of humankind.
[26] The exact date of its discovery is not known; evidence of burnt animal bones at the
Cradle of Humankind suggests that the domestication of fire occurred before 1,000,000 BC;
[27] scholarly consensus indicates that
Homo erectus had controlled fire by between 500,000 BC and 400,000 BC.
[28][29] Fire, fueled with
wood and
charcoal,
allowed early humans to cook their food to increase its digestibility,
improving its nutrient value and broadening the number of foods that
could be eaten.
[30]
Clothing and shelter
Other technological advances made during the Paleolithic era were
clothing
and shelter; the adoption of both technologies cannot be dated exactly,
but they were a key to humanity's progress. As the Paleolithic era
progressed, dwellings became more sophisticated and more elaborate; as
early as 380,000 BC, humans were constructing temporary wood huts.
[31][32] Clothing, adapted from the fur and hides of hunted animals, helped humanity expand into colder regions; humans began to
migrate out of Africa by 200,000 BC and into other continents, such as
Eurasia.
[33]
Neolithic through classical antiquity (10,000BC – 300AD)
An array of Neolithic artifacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools.
Man's technological ascent began in earnest in what is known as the
Neolithic period ("New stone age"). The invention of polished
stone axes was a major advance because it allowed forest clearance on a large scale to create farms. The discovery of
agriculture allowed for the feeding of larger populations, and the transition to a
sedentist
lifestyle increased the number of children that could be simultaneously
raised, as young children no longer needed to be carried, as was the
case with the nomadic lifestyle. Additionally, children could contribute
labor to the raising of crops more readily than they could to the
hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
[34][35]
With this increase in population and availability of labor came an increase in labor specialization.
[36] What triggered the progression from early Neolithic villages to the first cities, such as
Uruk, and the first civilizations, such as
Sumer, is not specifically known; however, the emergence of increasingly
hierarchical
social structures, the specialization of labor, trade and war amongst
adjacent cultures, and the need for collective action to overcome
environmental challenges, such as the building of
dikes and
reservoirs, are all thought to have played a role.
[37]
Metal tools
Continuing improvements led to the
furnace and
bellows and provided the ability to
smelt and
forge native metals (naturally occurring in relatively pure form).
[38] Gold,
copper,
silver, and
lead,
were such early metals. The advantages of copper tools over stone,
bone, and wooden tools were quickly apparent to early humans, and native
copper was probably used from near the beginning of
Neolithic times (about 8000 BC).
[39]
Native copper does not naturally occur in large amounts, but copper
ores are quite common and some of them produce metal easily when burned
in wood or charcoal fires. Eventually, the working of metals led to the
discovery of
alloys such as
bronze and
brass (about 4000 BC). The first uses of iron alloys such as
steel dates to around 1400 BC.
Energy and transport
The
wheel was invented circa 4000 BC.
Meanwhile, humans were learning to harness other forms of energy. The earliest known use of wind power is the sailboat.
[40] The earliest record of a ship under sail is shown on an Egyptian pot dating back to 3200 BC.
[41]
From prehistoric times, Egyptians probably used the power of the Nile
annual floods to irrigate their lands, gradually learning to regulate
much of it through purposely built irrigation channels and 'catch'
basins. Similarly, the early peoples of Mesopotamia, the Sumerians,
learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for much the same
purposes. But more extensive use of wind and water (and even human)
power required another invention.
According to archaeologists, the
wheel was invented around 4000 B.C. probably independently and nearly-simultaneously in Mesopotamia (in present-day
Iraq), the Northern Caucasus (
Maykop culture)
and Central Europe. Estimates on when this may have occurred range from
5500 to 3000 B.C., with most experts putting it closer to 4000 B.C. The
oldest artifacts with drawings that depict wheeled carts date from
about 3000 B.C.; however, the wheel may have been in use for millennia
before these drawings were made. There is also evidence from the same
period of time that wheels were used for the production of
pottery.
(Note that the original potter's wheel was probably not a wheel, but
rather an irregularly shaped slab of flat wood with a small hollowed or
pierced area near the center and mounted on a peg driven into the earth.
It would have been rotated by repeated tugs by the potter or his
assistant.) More recently, the oldest-known wooden wheel in the world
was found in the Ljubljana marshes of Slovenia.
[42]
The invention of the wheel revolutionized activities as disparate as
transportation, war, and the production of pottery (for which it may
have been first used). It didn't take long to discover that wheeled
wagons could be used to carry heavy loads and fast (rotary) potters'
wheels enabled early mass production of pottery. But it was the use of
the wheel as a transformer of energy (through water wheels, windmills,
and even treadmills) that revolutionized the application of nonhuman
power sources.
Medieval and modern history (300 AD —)
Innovations continued through the
Middle Ages with innovations such as
silk, the
horse collar and
horseshoes in the first few hundred years after the fall of the
Roman Empire.
Medieval technology saw the use of
simple machines (such as the
lever, the
screw, and the
pulley) being combined to form more complicated tools, such as the
wheelbarrow,
windmills and
clocks. The
Renaissance brought forth many of these innovations, including the
printing press (which facilitated the greater communication of knowledge), and technology became increasingly associated with
science,
beginning a cycle of mutual advancement. The advancements in technology
in this era allowed a more steady supply of food, followed by the wider
availability of consumer goods.
The
automobile revolutionized personal transportation.
Starting in the United Kingdom in the 18th century, the
Industrial Revolution was a period of great technological discovery, particularly in the areas of
agriculture,
manufacturing,
mining,
metallurgy and
transport, driven by the discovery of
steam power. Technology later took another step with the harnessing of
electricity to create such innovations as the
electric motor,
light bulb and countless others. Scientific advancement and the discovery of new concepts later allowed for
powered flight, and advancements in
medicine,
chemistry,
physics and
engineering. The rise in technology has led to the construction of
skyscrapers and large cities whose inhabitants rely on
automobiles or other powered transit for transportation. Communication was also greatly improved with the invention of the
telegraph,
telephone,
radio and
television. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a revolution in transportation with the invention of the
steam-powered ship,
train,
airplane, and
automobile.
The 20th century brought a host of innovations. In
physics, the discovery of
nuclear fission has led to both
nuclear weapons and
nuclear power.
Computers were also invented and later
miniaturized utilizing
transistors and
integrated circuits. The technology behind got called
information technology, and these advancements subsequently led to the creation of the
Internet, which ushered in the current
Information Age. Humans have also been able to
explore space with
satellites (later used for
telecommunication) and in manned missions going all the way to the moon. In medicine, this era brought innovations such as
open-heart surgery and later
stem cell therapy along with new
medications and treatments. Complex
manufacturing and
construction techniques and organizations are needed to construct and maintain these new technologies, and entire
industries
have arisen to support and develop succeeding generations of
increasingly more complex tools. Modern technology increasingly relies
on training and education — their designers, builders, maintainers, and
users often require sophisticated general and specific training.
Moreover, these technologies have become so complex that entire fields
have been created to support them, including
engineering,
medicine, and
computer science, and other fields have been made more complex, such as
construction,
transportation and
architecture.
Technology and philosophy
Technicism
Generally,
technicism
is a reliance or confidence in technology as a benefactor of society.
Taken to extreme, technicism is the belief that humanity will ultimately
be able to control the entirety of existence using technology. In other
words, human beings will someday be able to master all problems and
possibly even control the future using technology. Some, such as
Stephen V. Monsma,
[43] connect these ideas to the abdication of religion as a higher moral authority.
Optimism
Optimistic assumptions are made by proponents of ideologies such as
transhumanism and
singularitarianism, which view
technological development
as generally having beneficial effects for the society and the human
condition. In these ideologies, technological development is morally
good. Some critics see these ideologies as examples of
scientism and
techno-utopianism and fear the notion of
human enhancement and
technological singularity which they support. Some have described
Karl Marx as a techno-optimist.
[44]
Skepticism and critics of technology
On the somewhat skeptical side are certain philosophers like
Herbert Marcuse and
John Zerzan,
who believe that technological societies are inherently flawed. They
suggest that the inevitable result of such a society is to become
evermore technological at the cost of freedom and psychological health.
Many, such as the Luddites and prominent philosopher
Martin Heidegger, hold serious, although not entirely deterministic reservations, about technology (see "
The Question Concerning Technology[45])". According to Heidegger scholars
Hubert Dreyfus
and Charles Spinosa, "Heidegger does not oppose technology. He hopes to
reveal the essence of technology in a way that 'in no way confines us
to a stultified compulsion to push on blindly with technology or, what
comes to the same thing, to rebel helplessly against it.' Indeed, he
promises that 'when we once open ourselves expressly to the essence of
technology, we find ourselves unexpectedly taken into a freeing claim.'
[46]"
What this entails is a more complex relationship to technology than
either techno-optimists or techno-pessimists tend to allow.
[47]
Some of the most poignant criticisms of technology are found in what
are now considered to be dystopian literary classics, for example
Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World and other writings,
Anthony Burgess's
A Clockwork Orange, and
George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four. And, in
Faust by
Goethe,
Faust's selling his soul to the devil in return for power over the
physical world, is also often interpreted as a metaphor for the adoption
of industrial technology. More recently, modern works of science
fiction, such as those by
Philip K. Dick and
William Gibson, and films (e.g.
Blade Runner,
Ghost in the Shell) project highly ambivalent or cautionary attitudes toward technology's impact on human society and identity.
The late cultural critic
Neil Postman
distinguished tool-using societies from technological societies and,
finally, what he called "technopolies," that is, societies that are
dominated by the ideology of technological and scientific progress, to
the exclusion or harm of other cultural practices, values and
world-views.
[48]
Darin Barney has written about technology's impact on practices of
citizenship
and democratic culture, suggesting that technology can be construed as
(1) an object of political debate, (2) a means or medium of discussion,
and (3) a setting for democratic deliberation and citizenship. As a
setting for democratic culture, Barney suggests that technology tends to
make
ethical
questions, including the question of what a good life consists in,
nearly impossible, because they already give an answer to the question: a
good life is one that includes the use of more and more technology.
[49]
Nikolas Kompridis has also
written about the dangers of new technology, such as
genetic engineering,
nanotechnology,
synthetic biology and
robotics.
He warns that these technologies introduce unprecedented new challenges
to human beings, including the possibility of the permanent alteration
of our biological nature. These concerns are shared by other
philosophers, scientists and public intellectuals who have written about
similar issues (e.g.
Francis Fukuyama,
Jürgen Habermas,
William Joy, and
Michael Sandel).
[50]
Another prominent critic of technology is
Hubert Dreyfus, who has published books
On the Internet and
What Computers Still Can't Do.
Another, more infamous anti-technological treatise is
Industrial Society and Its Future, written by
Theodore Kaczynski (aka The
Unabomber)
and printed in several major newspapers (and later books) as part of an
effort to end his bombing campaign of the techno-industrial
infrastructure.
Appropriate technology
The notion of
appropriate technology, however, was developed in the 20th century (e.g., see the work of
Jacques Ellul)
to describe situations where it was not desirable to use very new
technologies or those that required access to some centralized
infrastructure or parts or skills imported from elsewhere. The
eco-village movement emerged in part due to this concern.
Technology and competitiveness
In 1983 a classified program was initiated in the
US intelligence community to reverse the US declining economic and military competitiveness. The program,
Project Socrates,
used all source intelligence to review competitiveness worldwide for
all forms of competition to determine the source of the US decline. What
Project Socrates determined was that technology exploitation is the
foundation of all
competitive advantage
and that the source of the US declining competitiveness was the fact
that decision-making through the US both in the private and public
sectors had switched from decision making that was based on technology
exploitation (i.e., technology-based planning) to decision making that
was based on money exploitation (i.e., economic-based planning) at the
end of World War II.
Technology is properly defined as any application of science to
accomplish a function. The science can be leading edge or well
established and the function can have high visibility or be
significantly more mundane but it is all technology, and its
exploitation is the foundation of all competitive advantage.
Technology-based planning is what was used to build the US industrial giants before WWII (e.g.,
Dow,
DuPont,
GM) and it what was used to transform the US into a
superpower. It was not economic-based planning.
Project Socrates determined that to rebuild US competitiveness,
decision making throughout the US had to readopt technology-based
planning. Project Socrates also determined that countries like China and
India had continued executing technology-based (while the US took its
detour into economic-based) planning, and as a result had considerable
advanced the process and were using it to build themselves into
superpowers. To rebuild US competitiveness the US decision-makers needed
adopt a form of technology-based planning that was far more advanced
than that used by China and India.
Project Socrates determined that technology-based planning makes an
evolutionary leap forward every few hundred years and the next
evolutionary leap, the Automated Innovation Revolution, was poised to
occur. In the Automated Innovation Revolution the process for
determining how to acquire and utilize technology for a competitive
advantage (which includes R&D) is automated so that it can be
executed with unprecedented speed, efficiency and agility.
Project Socrates developed the means for automated innovation so that
the US could lead the Automated Innovation Revolution in order to
rebuild and maintain the country's economic competitiveness for many
generations.
[51][52][53]
Other animal species
This adult
gorilla uses a branch as a
walking stick to gauge the water's depth; an example of technology usage by non-human primates.
The use of basic technology is also a feature of other animal species apart from humans. These include primates such as
chimpanzees, some
dolphin communities,
[54][55] and
crows.
[56][57]
Considering a more generic perspective of technology as ethology of
active environmental conditioning and control, we can also refer to
animal examples such as beavers and their dams, or bees and their
honeycombs.
The ability to make and use tools was once considered a defining characteristic of the genus
Homo.
[58]
However, the discovery of tool construction among chimpanzees and
related primates has discarded the notion of the use of technology as
unique to humans. For example, researchers have observed wild
chimpanzees utilising tools for foraging: some of the tools used include
leaf sponges, termite fishing probes,
pestles and
levers.
[59] West African
chimpanzees also use stone hammers and anvils for cracking nuts,
[60] as do
capuchin monkeys of
Boa Vista, Brazil.
[61]
Future technology
Theories of technology often attempt to predict the future of technology based on the
high technology and science of the time.
See also
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