Runaway Technology

Law can keep up with rapid technological change by reflecting our evolving understanding of how humans use language to cooperate.

"While other books have addressed isolated aspects of recent developments in the biomedical sciences, Biotechnology: Between Commerce and Civil Society is the first book tgo engage with the full range of biotechnology's implications for social science and for society at large." -Professor Volker Meja New scientific knowledge is no longer merely the key to unlocking the secrets of nature and society. It now represents the "becoming" of a new world. Scientific developments affect the ways in which we conduct our affairs, as well as how we comprehend the changes underway as the result of novel technical artefacts and scientific knowledge. The practical fruits of biotechnology are a case in point; they have grasped our imaginations, and generated worldwide debate and concern. Debates on biotechnology shift between images of utopia and dystopia. The social sciences deserve a voice in the debate, and can do so through sober examination of the economic, social, and cultural implications of biotechnology. Some economists even predict that the importance of biotechnology as the technology of the future will far exceed that of the information technologies, in particular the Internet. The contributors to this volume are drawn from a broad spectrum of the social sciences, and include Nico Stehr, Gene Rosa, Steve Fuller, Steve Best and Douglas Kellner, Nikolas Rose, Fred Buttel, Javier Lezaun, Anne Kerr, Susanna Hornig Priest and Toby Ten Eyck, Martin Schulte, Alexander Somek, Steven P. Vallas, Daniel Lee Kleinman, Abby Kinchy and Raul Necochea, Herbert Gottweis, J. Rogers Hollingsworth, Gysli Pblsson, Elizabeth Ettore, Richard Hindmarch and Reiner Grundmann. The impact of science on society is destined to be a fundamental concern in the new century. This volume illustrates the contributions anthropology, law, political science, and sociology can make to the ongoing discussions about the role of biotechnology in modern societies. Nico Stehr is senior research associate, Institut for Technikfolgenabschotzung, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe and Institut for Kostenforschung, GKSS, Germany. He also is a fellow in the Center for Advanced Cultural Studies in Essen, Germany, editor of the Canadian Journal of Sociology, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Among his recent books are Werner Sombart: Economic Life in the Modern Age (with Reiner Grundmann, published by Transaction); The Fragility of Modern Societies: Knowledge and Risk in the Information Age; Knowledge and Economic Conduct: The Social Foundations of the Modern Economy; and Wissenspolitik: Die ?berwachung des Wissens.

Technology is championed as the solution to modern security problems, but also blamed as their cause. This book assesses the way in which these two views collide in the debate over ballistic missile defence: a complex, costly and controversial system intended to defend the United States from nuclear missile attacks. Columba Peoples shows how, in the face of strong scientific and strategic critique, advocates of missile defence seek to justify its development by reference to broader culturally embedded perceptions of the promises and perils of technological development. Unpacking the assumptions behind the justification of missile defence initiatives, both past and present, this book illustrates how common-sense understandings of technology are combined and used to legitimate this controversial and costly defence programme. In doing so it engages fundamental debates over understandings of technological development, human agency and the relationship between technology and security.

Maps the future of phenomenological thought, accounting for how technology expands our means of experiencing the world.

Asks the hard questions about partnerships between big business and American universities.

In his 1958 "kitchen debate" with Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon argued that the freedom to consume defined the American way of life. High wages, full employment, new technologies, and a rapid growth in population known as the "Baby Boom" ushered in a golden age of economic growth. By the end of the twentieth century, consumerism triumphed over communism, socialism, and all other isms seeking to win hearts and minds around the world. Advertising, popular culture, and mass media persuaded Americans that shopping was both spiritually fulfilling and a patriotic virtue. Mark Lytle argues that Nixon's view of consumer democracy contained fatal flaws -- if unregulated, it would wholly ignore the creativedestruction that, in destroying jobs, erodes the capacity to consume. The All-Consuming Nation also examines how planners failed to take into account the environmental costs, as early warning signs--whether smog over Los Angeles, the overuse of toxic chemicals such as DDT, or the Cuyahoga River in flames--provided evidence that all was not well. Environmentalists from Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrlich to Ralph Nader and Al Gore cautioned that modern consumerism imposed unsustainable costs on the natural world. Not for lack of warning, climate change became the defining issue of the twenty-first century. The All-Consuming Nation investigates the environmental and sociocultural costs of the consumer capitalism framework set in place in the 20th century, shedding light on the consequences of a national identity forged through mass consumption.