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Science, Technology, and Human Ethics
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10615 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1986 |
2,335 Words |
| Author
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Shamsher Ali
Shamsher Ali is Professor of Physics at Dhaka University,
Dhaka, Bangladesh. |
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
By John Donne
Never before in history has mankind faced so many ironic situations as it does today. Some of the most striking of these are found in the arena of science and technology.
First of all, speaking as a Muslim natural scientist who has faith in religion as well as science, I recognize the great irony that although it was religion that urged man to acquire science and technology "to gain dominion," now--after having had only some limited access to science and technology--many scientists are turning away from religion.
Secondly, we see that science and technology have evolved as instruments of change and it has been assumed that, as they developed, they would be applied equally to mankind as a whole. Yet today we have a situation in which one part of the planet has too much science and technology (with its associated ills) while other parts suffer from a lack of science and technology. Today development experts categorize members of the human family by such labels as "developed," "developing," "less developing," "the least of the less developing," "the group of 77," "the North and the South," etc.
In the beginning, it was thought that science and technology could be utilized to bridge the gap between these societies wearing different label and that, as technology advanced, the societies would come closer together, yet our experience has been just the opposite. When the United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development (UNSTED) took stock of the science and technology scenario of the world (Vienna, 1979), it was shown that the gap was becoming wider.
A third irony relating to the scientific and technological efforts of mankind has arisen as man used some of his scientific techniques in the name of development to conquer nature. Then, later, he began to worry about restoring the ecological balance of nature. In the process, man has realized that nature cannot be conquered in an open-ended fashion, and that, in the ultimate
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