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Society, Religion and Technology Project Church of Scotland Looking at the ethics of technology for a New Millennium

The Society, Religion and Technology Project made in November a submission to the UK Government towards the 1993 White Paper on Science and Technology. This excerpt was published as an annex to the report of the Board of National Mission to the 1993 Churhc of Scotland General Assembly. It prefigures a number of issues later identified, in a very much more receptive political climate 9 years later, in the House of Lords' seminal report "Science and Society" in February 2000.

The changed perception of the value and standing of science and technology is one of the most important single questions which should be appreciated as a background to this consultation, and to the White Paper itself. In the early 1970's, the predominant view was still that science would be able to address many or even most of mankind's problems through the application of ever more advanced technology. Man had set foot on the moon, as the symbol and pinnacle of what could be achieved if enough money, skill and dedication were once put to a task . Energy was cheap and abundant in the form of oil. Over the next few years the communications and information technology revolution would open up immense new realms. The promised New World was there to be explored and exploited, almost as a new continent.

Now we live in a very different attitude to the great exploratory quest. Too many things have gone wrong for the Technological expedition to go on without questions asked about its purpose, direction, the competence of its leaders, and, indeed, even their motives in pursuing it. We live in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the Exxon Valdez, Bhopal and Seveso, of acid rain-spoilt forests, of serious polar ozone depletion, of car exhaust pollution of cities, and, perhaps above all, of global warming. For the first time, we have become aware that the excesses of unbridled technological exploitation are causing trans-national damage to a fragile planet that may not necessarily be reversible by the application of better technology. In the 1980's we looked smugly back on the prophets of doom from the 70's oil price hike. They are now seen as the heroic visionaries who saw the truth and spoke out, unheeded.

We are also now vastly more aware of what is happening round the globe. Our TV shows us all life instantly, as it is happening. So we have also become aware of the immense scale of military technology and its self-perpetuating nature, refining ever more sophisticated means of mass destruction. At the same time, and in stark contrast, we are aware of the fragility of even basic life for two-thirds of the world. For so many having water, food, basic sanitation and health or a survival crop are often all too delicately poised to survive the vagaries of climatic variation or the ravages of civil war.

In short, we are aware of so much that has gone wrong. We are aware of the damage to our environment as never before. A tension has emerged between the good of our planet and the exploitation of science and technology. These two are increasingly viewed as at odds. The former prestige of science and the great hopes from technology have been replaced by a sense of disquiet and questioning which runs deep, especially in the younger generation, cautious and even suspicious about its use. Yet we also want to keep the unprecedented creature comforts of which technology has been the agent. We are selective in our awareness and in what we single out for censure, but the cries of censure have become loud and long.

In this light, the future of science and technology is not a simple extrapolation of what has gone on for the previous 30 years. We can no longer take for granted anything like the level of the popular support. Many people have felt cheated by the expectations they were led to believe in, by the promoters of the post-war technological revolution. They trusted what they were told and feel they have been let down. A lot of the promised future now looks like so much shoddy merchandise. There is a growing feeling among ordinary people of being remote, and therefore increasingly alienated, from the whole scientific and technological process in which they seem to have no say. It looks, from the outside, like experts, with who knows what vested interests, running a game for themselves. We are hearing increasingly that the public want to know what's going on, and want to have a say that counts in the places where these things are being decided.

There is, in short, a groundswell change of attitude towards S&T. In future, if science wants public support, it will have to work for it to get it. It can no longer just assume it. Too much goodwill has been lost for that. To make the case for some new venture people may well need to be persuaded that, despite past failures, "this time, it really is all right" to go ahead. We have also noted the emergence of a series of public attitudes and perceptions, not all of them commendable, sometimes not even very rational, but they are real and will have to be addressed, whether the scientist likes it or not. We are referring to such matters as:

the "Not In My Back Yard" syndrome applied to just about anything; the concept that if there is any risk at all, or if science finds any way of measuring the merest traces of some pollutant, that the process, or whatever, is unacceptable; the commonly held idea that "absolute safety" is something which can and therefore must be guarenteed, underlying which is often attitude d). below; a distinctly selective attitude to what is regarded as acceptable, which may give a bias :
in favour of the familiar, that is perceived as safe, no matter how risky it may be, against the unknown which may be very suspicious, or in favour of "alternatives", no matter how unrealistic the expectation put on them, as opposed to the current technology that is perceived to have failed .

These attitudes will probably be only selectively applied. There will still be many areas where we will welcome the latest gadget or idea with open arms, but others where we will be extremely suspicious. Our public fickleness may well be a factor to take account of!

The Impact of Underlying Assumptions on Technological Exploitation

In all the foregoing situation, as we have attempted to describe it, there is an undercurrent which we as Christians cannot but draw attention to. There are a considerable series of underlying assumptions that have too often accompanied our application of science and technology (the God-given potential of human creativity in the sciences), and which lie at the heart of some of the problems that are now belatedly being recognised. Unless in some considerable measure these attitudes are changed, including in the formulation of public policy, the bitter fruits of technology will continue to be reaped with little to check them and, in the long run, the future and the perceived value of science will be the more undermined.

Such attitudes, often unspoken and unaware, lie close to the root of the situation we have found ourselves in, and are part of the Christian conception of "sin". We are aware that Christians have sometimes been as much to blame as anyone else in failing to apply a more God-centred perspective on humanity's technological endeavours. Nonetheless the critique still stands. Many of the assumptions we have been used to making have clearly failed us.

Against these motivations, we would set principles which derive from Christian teaching, either in the historic concepts of the biblical records, or of the the reflections of Christians down the ages over what constitute fit principles for the relation of men and women, and of human creativity, to God and to the whole created order. If a visual image or symbol is required for these relationships, that of a triangle with God, humanity and the rest of creation at the apices, God uppermost, is perhaps a particularly appropriate one.

We have summarised below the contrasting principles arising from prevailing and Christian assumptions.

Some Prevailing Assumptions	Some Christian Assumptions
1. In matters scientific and technological, reason is king and all other impulses are relativised to it.	1. A balanced view of the harmony of the spiritual, intuitive, emotional and inspirational, in addition to (and by no means minimising) the rational.
2. The earth is ours to do what we like with.	2. The earth is God's to take care of, as stewards who are answerable to God for the exercise of the stewardship.
3. Things in nature have value only in so far as they are useful to human beings.	3. Everything in the created order, especially animal and plant kingdoms, has intrinsic value because God created it and invested it with worth thereby.
4. Each part of nature can be exploited for its own immediate products, without consideration to the wider implications of the specific process.	4. All processes have their knock-on effects elsewhere in the earth's chemical environment (both terrestial and atmospheric), in the geosphere, in the biosphere and so on, which must be taken due account of as far as can reasonably be assessed.
5. Waste management is a nuisance.	5. Waste management is as much part of any process as the main product.
6. Resources are limitless in practice.	6. Resources may be limited, if not in our time then in someone else's, and are in any case to be stewarded with foresight, not just for short-term gains.
7. Safety is an expensive luxury.	7. Safety is an intrinsic precondition to the viability of any process while recognising that no human activity is without risk.
8. Other criteria must not be allowed to dictate to the economic "necessities" of the case.	8. Due accounting must be made for other than economic criteria in technological planning, including assessing the safety, environmental and human factors in their own right (as opposed to attempting to reduce them merely to monetary terms).
9. Humanity is the measure of all it sets its mind to do.	9. Humankind is fallible and likely to make mistakes; we may not be able to control adequately all the inventions of our own mind and hands.
10. If we have made mistakes we can always correct them with better technology.	10. Even with the best intentions, human understanding is limited and may not always see the full implications of a process or course of action, or devise an a complete corrective action.
11. Humanity is basically good and to restrain our activities is an afront to human liberty and potential (whether of the individual or the society), and perhaps even to the progress of evolution.	11. We human beings are naturally inclined to exploitation of our power for selfish ends, and need checks and balances tochannel our gifts to good ends rather than bad.

We recognise that to change such fundamental attitudes towards the planning and implementation of science and technology is a societal matter reaching far beyond the scope of government. It is, however, in the assumptions and attitudes adopted in government policy-making that a significant part can be played in adopting a less exploitative, more measured, human, ecological and co-operative approach to the subject of the White Paper. We would not say these Christian principles will bring utopia if followed. Both human history and our awareness of human fallibility tell us otherwise, no matter how laudable human intentions have been. They represent, we believe, a far better starting point for our scientific, and especially technological, endeavour than those which have held primary sway in our culture in recent times. Thus we would commend them as sound principles for anyone to embrace, whether professing Christian belief or not. The future of science and technology is a more uncertain one that it has been, perhaps at any time since the industrial revolution. We believe they are part of the God's gift of common grace to mankind, but to be used wisely under the principles God has established for human activity. It has never been more vitally important that we take that lesson to heart.

This page was last revised on 4 January 2002.