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INTRODUCTION
Science and technologies are important tools in man’s attempts to exist, establish and get demand of his setting. At any time considering the fact that the discovery of science and its application person has regularly made initiatives to establish numerous technologies in purchase to conquer character, recreate the earth for his simplicity and advantages. Right from the primitive times, person invented bow and arrow, hearth, hoes, knives, cutlass and so on, in purchase to offer with the existential issues character possesses. Even in the existing earth, the initiatives of person are in totality geared in the direction of the provision of food items, garments and shelter and other primary facilities for his survival.
In essence, person is capable to maneuver his way all-around the cosmos and arrive up with scientific discoveries since of his natural endowments. Guy is normally endowed with intelligence. He has the psychological and natural means to forge ideas and the capability to invent. The capability to invent tends to make him a creator or an inventor. As a result, the application of science to every day lifetime manifests in the numerous innovations of person vis-à-vis the technological developments in human society. Science and technologies, as a result, are synthetic innovations of person basically place to use for his advantages.
Guy, Historical past OF SCIENCE AND Technological innovation.
It is pertinent to point out that science does not exist exterior the social cultural setting of person. Guy is the creator of science and the inventor of technologies. In point, person could be regarded as the greatest expression of his setting. The growth of science and technologies is typically aimed at discovering methods to specific existential issues or problems of character within just a individual socio–cultural setting. Whilst the character of science suggests an objective application to common issues and situations, which is a deductionist approach to science we can not, nevertheless, deny the point that it is at initially qualified at dealing with particularistic circumstances within just a given setting.
Traditionally, person has played a vital position in the growth of science and technologies. The human society, no question, has gone as a result of a sequence of evolutions, transformations and as effectively as revolutions at each and every phase of its growth. In the early Greek interval, for instance, philosophy, art and science attracted most huge unfold consideration. Science and art were being part of philosophy. What existed nevertheless was speculative science. This was the interval wherever Thales lived. He regarded as the initially noteworthy thinker and scientist in the western earth. He was the initially man or woman to predict an eclipse of the sun, which finally took position in 585 B.C. His pupil, Anaximander, was the initially evolutionist scientist in the western earth. He held that all residing things originated from the sea and began to establish in the study course of time into numerous sorts by suggests of adaptation to their setting. He held that person advanced from the animals. Anaximander also held that the earth was not flat but like a cylinder in form and is acknowledged to have made the initially map in record. Pythagoras the mathematician, Democritus the atomists and Aristotle the biggest scientist in Historic Greece, all lived at this interval.(Omoregbe 2002, 177)
Religion and theology took the centre phase and became the emphasis of interest in the middle ages. Ethics, literature and art characterised the renaissance age. Having said that, at the emergence of Francis Bacon who laid the basis for inductive product of science, the contemporary interval witnessed the growth of empirical and experimental science. This was the interval wherever two noteworthy doctrines emerged namely, the Rene Descartes led Rationalism and the John Locke led Empiricism. But in the modern day interval the centre of interest has progressively shifted to science and technologies. (Fadaunsi 1997, fifty eight).
It is elementary to point out that the inside components and as effectively as man’s non complacency and his quest for understanding in just about every of the periods in the record of society educated the shifts in the emphasis for growth.
Technological innovation is what we know as utilized science. It is the “systematic research of tactics for making and undertaking things” (Gordon 1942, 20). In a like brain manner, D.P Lauda and R.D Ryan (1971: fifty three) see technologies as:
Man’s energy to cope with his actual physical setting the two that supplied by character and t9hat established by man’s personal technological deeds, these types of as cities and his attempts to subdue or management that setting by suggests of his creativity and ingenuity in the use of obtainable assets.
Technological innovation is the application of the discoveries of science to make improvements to the situations of human lifetime. It is this application that benefits in innovations to make improvements to human welfare in numerous sectors of human lifetime. Disciplines like Engineering, Medication, Facts Technological innovation, Electronics, Architecture, and so forth. are utilized sciences.(Omoregbe 2002, 179).
The record of technologies extends as much as the ancestors of person. Technological innovation grows and develops hand in hand with science. Both of them compliment just about every other. The growth of numerous tools when person was at the primitive phase in the record of society is recorded to be the initially technological revolution. By the time of the Neanderthal Guy, a diploma of specialization in software making experienced been attained. The Cro–Magnon homosapiens mastered some mechanical ideas in pottery making and by the interval of the Neolithic Guy, person experienced rather superior in software making crafts.(Ndubuisi 2002, 132).
By the 16th century, Francis Bacon advocated experimental science and prompt that experts ought to research the solutions of craftsmen. Technological innovation ongoing to expand with growth of iron bridges, steam engines and textile equipment. This interval witnessed the complimentary roles of science with technologies. For instance, Edison, the inventor of the initially sensible lighting employed the scientific ideas of Faraday and Henry, who experienced earlier experimented on electricity. Bell, the inventor of the telephone also made it on the scientific ideas of Helmholtz.(Ndubuisi 2002, 133).
Increased Productivity
There is no gainsaying the point that the revolution that normally takes position in science and technologies in human society is by no imply feat. With the support of technologies, person has been capable to place to use his ideas of pretty much a ideal, seamless society with the support of numerous gizmos he develops for his advantages. The earth these days, notably in this 21st century, activities financial and political growths as a consequence of scientific and technological advancements. There are advancements and breakthroughs in the parts of electrical power and electrical power, transportation, interaction, drugs, architecture, agriculture, market, navy technologies, computer, house shuttles, biotechnology and so forth.
That development in science and technologies has contributed to the improvement of productivity and greater financial expansion in human society is an understatement. The point is apparent that science and technologies has a significant conversation to productions in all sphere of human society. The industrial revolution which happened in Europe in the 18th century marked the commencing of an financial expansion and revolution. This industrial revolution showed a huge social, financial, and technological transform, which commenced with the introduction of steam electrical power, fuelled primarily by coal. The technological and financial progresses recorded of the industrial revolution obtained momentum with the introduction of steam driven ships, boats and railways. Having said that, at the turn of the nineteenth century, the revolution unfold all over Western Europe and North The united states, and finally impacting the relaxation of the earth. (Wikipedia)
The functions following the improved productivity of labour characterised by the industrial revolution which experienced unfold across the earth led to the ‘second industrial revolution’ commencing all-around 1870. This second industrial revolution slowly grew to include things like “the chemical industries, petroleum refining and distribution, electrical industries and the automotive industries“.(Ndubuisi 2002, 151). In point, the raising availability of financial petroleum goods also diminished the utilization of coal to the potential for industrialization.
It is as a result important to point out that these industrial revolutions, which led to the formation of numerous big industrial corporations with usually almost, globalize global functions and interests, paved the way for the successive scientific technological revolution that emerged in the 1940s and nineteen fifties. This scientific and technological revolution is consequently apparent in some countries, like the disintegrated Soviet Union and the United States of The united states, take a look at to the moon all through this interval. Currently, other countries are following suite. In September 2008, China released her house shuttle and despatched a three person just one week house delegation to the moon.
It can be witnessed from the foregoing that the indelible mark made by the revolutions in science and technologies has motivated the way person, of the contemporary age, perceives the earth. The scientific and technological revolution that has taken the earth by storm these days stemmed from the industrial revolution of the 18th century. Kolawole Ogundowole (2003: 134) notes that:
In the initially half of the twentieth century primarily all through the 194s and 195s there were being elementary shifts in the construction of most sciences and in the scientific action as a consequence of key scientific and specialized discoveries. This in turn led to an raise conversation of science with technologies and manufacturing. Precisely, it was all through that decade that mankind entered the interval of scientific and technological revolution.
Currently, the scientific and technological revolution is boosting productivity of labour. It is switching the entire experience of social substance manufacturing. It evidently has a good transform in excess of the character, situations and contents of labour as effectively as the composition of productive forces, the social division of labour, and the sectional and occupational construction of society.
In his notion, Dryakhlov (1984: fifty five) defines scientific and technological revolution as:
The radical qualitative transformation and manufacturing forces done as a consequence of the merger between the scientific and technological revolutions and the conversion of science into a direct productive drive.
This indicates that as just one of the primary ideas and legal guidelines of dialectics, there exists in human developmental procedures, quantitative and qualitative variations. This affirms the materialist assertion that everything develops from the transformation of quantity into good quality. As a result, scientific and technological revolution is a specific phenomenon linked with the conversion of science into direct productive drive of the society, “the radical qualitative transformation of the construction of productive forces and the variations in the character and content material of human labour”. (Ogundowole 2003, 138).
With the evolution and growth of science and technologies, it has become apparent that this revolution has greater manufacturing and intake, notably in the made countries of the earth, past all anticipations of the previous. It is consequently feasible that poverty, hunger, and even unemployment on a significant scale would be a stage of record. This is why V.G Afanasiev (2003: 139) notes that:
Science is the generator of ideas: technologies is their substance, substantive embodiment though manufacturing is the spot wherever the functioning of technologies takes place, wherever folks use scientific and technological achievements to acquire their important substance prosperity.
At this juncture, it is pertinent to point out that the charge of growth of science and technologies and its startling achievements in pretty much each and every sphere of human lifetime, notably as it boosts productivity in human society, is not with out its side results. Karl Marx was just one of people who pointed it the evil inherent in the industrialization procedure. Marx was not, nevertheless, in opposition to the growth of technologies. But Marx considered that the industrialization procedure was the evil in the dialectical progression of feudal financial modes, which led to the entire growth of capitalism. Marx admitted that the industrialization of the society happened, but it only led to the polarization of society into two primary classes. Marx did not deny this industrialization, but was irritated at the exploitation that existed between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. According to Marx (1972: 183):
Industrialization engenders the polarization of societies into two classes, the bourgeois people who personal the suggests of manufacturing, i.e. the factories and the land, and the much larger sized proletarian working class who basically accomplish the labour important to extract anything precious from the suggests of manufacturing.
As a direct result of the scientific technological revolution, Marx opined that fast advancements in technologies still left quite a few qualified workers unemployed, as just one agricultural and production task following an additional was mechanized. Once more, Marx pointed out that there were being flights of hundreds of thousands of unemployed folks from rural parts or little cities to the significant cities as a consequence of the lookup for white collars work opportunities. As a result, there was the growth of significant urban population centers, which basically led to unprecedented situations of poverty in the slums that housed workers for the new factories. At the identical time, the bourgeoisie class, at only a little portion compared to the proletariat’s sizing became exceedingly wealthy.
As a answer to this condition of unequal distribution of prosperity and sheer exploitation of the capitalist program, Marx asserted that the dialectical progression, alone, is a important precursor to the growth of socialism and finally communism. Marx (1972: 209) considered that:
The industrial proletariat will finally establish class consciousness and revolt in opposition to the bourgeoisie, foremost to a more egalitarian socialist and finally communist condition wherever the workers them selves personal the suggests of industrial manufacturing.
Marx might not be proper with his belief that capitalism, which made as a consequence of the industrialized technological advancements, would collapse and give way to socialism and eventual communism. The fact in our earth these days shows that capitalism, as in opposition to socialism, strives and technologies is advancing. But functions in the latest time clearly show that development in technologies has not solved most of the existential issues in our earth. Progress in food items/agricultural technologies, for instance, have not halted the shortage of food items. Taken that famine is widespread in most building countries, citizens of the technological superior countries are also crying fowl with the substantial value of food items things in their society. In point the United Nations Corporations, early in the 12 months 2008, declared that the entire earth was heading as a result of a huge food items crisis.
In the identical vein, advancements and revolution in science and technologies did not stop the financial recession that happened in the United States of The united states in 2008. Irrespective of its enhancements of productivity, scientific and technological revolution did not stop this financial recession in the U.S which led to the decline of in excess of 800 thousand work opportunities between January and September, 2008. The seven hundred billion pounds financial bail out strategy despatched by the erstwhile U.S president Bush and accepted by the legislature in Oct 2008 stays to be witnessed in encouraging the financial turn all-around of the place. Even the stimulus strategy by the recent US president Obama has not made major contribution to the US economic climate.
Likewise, the revolution in science and technologies has not stopped the demise of a selection of very little youngsters in China in excess of the melamine contamination of the newborn milk and other diary goods. That’s why, despite its potentials in boosting productivity, its results on labour, human lifetime, occupation decline, could sometime be devastating.
Summary
We can not deny the fantastic that the advancements in science and technologies have accomplished to person in pretty much each and every part of his lifetime. We can not also rule out the point that person is the instrument of transform in the scientific technological revolution. In purchase words and phrases, science and technological developments can not be made feasible with out person remaining at the centre of its generation and innovations. This tends to make B.M Kedrov and S. Shukhardin (2003: 139) consider that “scientific and technological revolution is an integral phenomenon encompassing the total ‘man–science–production’ program”.
We have to nevertheless emphasize that science and technologies is like a double–edge sword. It has the two good and unfavorable sides. While its achievements has immensely improved the good quality of human lifetime, its unfavorable side is hugely devastating to human lifetime.
Guy faces critical danger of the destructive side of technologies in the parts of air air pollution, air pollution of seas and rivers, the depletion of the ozone layer, toxic waste, and so forth. The destructive results of technologies on mankind could also be witnessed in the parts of the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, in individual the manufacture of chemical weapons, atomic bombs, organic and nuclear weapons.(Omoregbe 2002, 181).
The record of contemporary earth has demonstrated that potent countries that have made these weapons of mass destruction are typically tempted to use it on weaker countries. The atomic weapon of mass destruction employed by the United States of The united states, all through the Second World War, in excess of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan is however new in our memory. This is why presumably most other countries, like Iran, Korean, India and so forth., are building nuclear weapons for them selves in purchase to defend them selves and wade off the threat of assault.
There are numerous other threats that the advancements and revolution in science and technologies pose to mankind, but these destructive aspects of science and technologies are not plenty of excuses to deny the noticeable that pretty much everyone anywhere in the earth has benefited positively from it. It has improved man’s issue of lifetime by making the requirements of lifetime, like food items shelter garments transportation interaction wellbeing and so forth., more conveniently obtainable.
It is as a result our position that the good aspects that can be derived from the science and technologies are of fantastic great importance to person. Guy have to as a result be certain that science and technologies have to be to his assistance and oriented in the direction of human affairs. Guy have to steer clear of the incorrect utilization of technologies as this might lead to his self destruction. The incorrect utilization of science and technologies poses more critical threats to earth peace which person has been striving to achieve considering the fact that the commencing of the earth.
REFERENCES
Afanasiev V,G, quoted from Kolawole Ogundowole (2003), Mother nature of Guy:
History and Philosophy of Science in ten Modules, Lagos,
Appropriate Counsels Restricted.
Dryakhlov N.,(1984), The Scientific and Technological Revolution: Its Role in
Present-day World, Moscow, Development Publishers.
Fadaunsi Ayo, (1997), Science and Technological innovation as Promises and Threats to
Societies” in The Nigerian Journal of Philosophy,
Division of Philosophy, University of Lagos.
Gordon G., (1942), What Transpired in Historical past, London, Oxford University Press.
Kedrov B.M and Shukhardin S. quoted from Kolawole Ogundowole (2003),
Mother nature of Guy: Historical past and Philosophy of Science in ten
Modules, Lagos, Appropriate Counsels Restricted.
Lauda, D.P and Ryan, R.D, (1971), Advancing Technological innovation, Iowa, W.M.C. Brown
Company Pub,ishers.
Marx Karl, (1972), Economic, Course and Social Revolution, London, Nelson
Publishers.
Ndubuisi Friday,(2002), “The Rise and Progress of the Many Locations of
Technological innovation” in Kolawole Ogundowole (ed), Guy, Historical past
and Philosophy of Science: A Compendium of Readings,
Lagos, Obaroh and Ogbinaka Publihers Restricted.
Omoregbe Joseph, (2002), “Science and Technological innovation in the Service of Guy” in
Kolawole Ogundowole (ed), Guy, Historyn and
Philosophy of Science: A Compendium of Readings,
Lagos, Obaroh and Ogbinaka Publihers Restricted.
Wikipedia, “Industrial Revolution”, http.www.thefreeencyclopedia.htp
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Source by Oseni Taiwo Afisi
