Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: JCOGGSHALL@HAMPVMS.BITNET (Jeff Coggshall)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Computers, Science, and Civil Society
Message-ID: <1825@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 4 Apr 88 06:44:20 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Lines: 32
Approved: taylor@hplabs

In response to Ralph J. Marshall:

First of all: There already exists a huge disenfranchisement in
society between scientists and non-scientists.

The scientific community has been, and continues to be, a sectarian 
culture, which views itself as autonomous from the concerns of the 
larger civil society within which it operates. The development and 
production of technological innovations is, to a large extent,
ideologically (and artifically) divorced from societal and ethical
concerns.

I see this as the primary area which is in need of change: scientists 
and technicians must integrate societal and ethical responsibility as 
part of their work - and then everything else will follow idyllically. 
Maybe. In any case, that sort of consciousness-raising, and view of 
the cultural role of the scientist must change.

> What will happen to our society as a larger and larger section
> of the populace is disenfranchised?

Some guesses:

Between the scientific & nonscientific communitiy you will find
increasing Rumour, Mutual Suspicion, Fear, & Hatred.

I have heard (and I wish someone would come forth with real information 
on this) that in the Netherlands somewhere, there are "technology 
centers," or "science centers," which provide extremely easy, reaching-
out type of access to the kind of information which is becoming 
increasingly necessary to "make it" in these technological times.

Jeff