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| The STS person can weave an integrative web of understanding by examining the dynamics of science, technology, and society |
| The mark of a person educated in STS studies is the capacity to interpret experience in terms that illuminate the unavoidable, existential themes of human existence. |
There are two general objectives of STS courses. The first is to promote critical awareness through the interdisciplinary approach; and the second is to provide knowledge which includes interconnections, linkages, etc., for integrating education. These two objectives enable the student to weave an integrative web of understanding by examining the dynamics of science, technology and society. Within our colleges and public schools, STS is becoming the "new general education." STS is gaining recognition worldwide as a way to enable citizens to participate responsibly in modern democracies.
The general objectives of STS Education are characterized in the following way:
The mark of a person educated in STS studies is the capacity to interpret experience in terms that illuminate the unavoidable, existential themes of human existence. To paraphrase St. Exupery, we do not live by things alone, but by the meaning of things. It is Impossible to be fully human and live without confronting and interpreting these themes, and integrating our thinking into our patterns of action. One such unavoidable theme is sexuality, with its poles of male and female. Others include good/bad, scarcity/abundance. knowledge/ignorance. rational/mythic-poetic, etc.
Themes and Human Life
Humans are biologically wired to be capable of emerging from the world, objectifying it, and in so doing understanding it and transforming it by their labor. Other animals do not consider the world; they are immersed in it. These animals adapt to their world -- they do not relate to it. Mere adaptation to the world is dehumanizing, an attempt to avoid the autonomy and responsibility which are built into the human potential. STS education aims to assist people in bearing this responsibility and forming an authentic, personally shaped and personally meaningful relationship with and in their world.
Relating to the world requires analyzing the events of daily experience and sharing our understandings with others - establishing our relationships with others in this way is a most important dimension of living in society. As our society is increasingly dominated by the impacts of science and technology, our daily experience is shaped by these forces and we cannot understand it without investigating them. Investigating science and technology without relating these inquiries to the unavoidable themes of our existence reduces our findings to empty words which cannot challenge our taken-for-granted reality and therefore cannot inspire our commitment to action on concrete reality.
STS Themes
In STS study we use several themes, including the four discussed below, to focus the field of study and motivate our concrete inquires.
The first theme adopts the perspective of WHOLISM (sometimes written as holism) VS. REDUCTIONISM. This is a theme which leads us to seek large frameworks of understanding, and multiple interconnections among events. It implies that all events are in some way interrelated. and that THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS, that we cannot build our reality out of the parts or elements of a reductionist analysis in a building block fashion. Such concepts as system analysis, feedback, self-regulation contribute to achieving a holistic view.Wholism does not reject the findings of a reductionist analysis. such as the analysis or chemical compound into its constituent elements. Indeed, it takes them to be so many more parts to be related within a comprehensive or holistic framework But STS does regard inquiries which fail to relate isolated parts to the larger whole as incomplete at best. The holistic perspective urges us to work back and forth between comprehensive frameworks and detailed analyses, from unity to diversity and back again to unity.
A second theme is BENEFITS (those things which are good for the well-being of some person or group) VS. COSTS or harms (those things which are bad for the well-being of a person or group. The theme of good vs. bad for people is of such importance that in the Garden of Eden the tree of knowledge of good vs. bad is placed near the center, close to the tree of life itself In approaching this theme STS uses the concept of TRADEOFFS and the heuristic that THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH. This principle guides us to look for both benefits and costs of technological innovations. Anna Harrison, former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), has emphasized that every innovation, regardless of its positive contributions, also has costs. She notes that (a) the benefits and costs may be experienced by different sub-sets of the society, (b) the benefits and costs may be experienced at different times (e.g. benefits now for costs later), and (c) that the direction and rate of development of science and technology are to a large degree determined by social, political, and economic factors -- that is, by the decisions and actions of powerful people.
A third theme is COMPREHENSION VS. IGNORANCE. Comprehension occurs when knowledge is wholistic and is synthesized with a wide range of values through the intellectual and moral abilities of the human being. This theme rests on the concept of SYNTHESIS and on the heuristic that THERE IS NEITHER VALUE-FREE KNOWLEDGE, NOR KNOWLEDGE-FREE VALUE. The mind always synthesizes knowledge and value, regardless of how "reduced" the knowledge or how limited the value-range. Ignorance results from a lack of knowledge and from a narrow value-range which in synthesis provide a defective understanding. Scientific (experimental) knowledge is reduced and has a narrow range of values because of the method used to secure it. Nonscientific (experiential) knowledge -i.e. cultural, historical, relational, religious, and traditional knowledge - is more wholistic and includes a wider value-range. The reducing of knowledge by science and the accompanied narrowing of the value-range results in a defective understanding because it does not incorporate the full human potential. It is not comprehensive and therefore when this is the dominant paradigrn of a society the people are decreased in being fully human, i.e., dehumanized.
The fourth theme is CITIZENSHIP VS. "IDIOTSHIP." The term "idiot" derives from the Greek idiots which referred to a citizen who did not hold public office or take part in public life and was therefore ignorant of current affairs. If a person refuses to become critically conscious, if he or she refuses to investigate daily events in order to determine the role of science and technology and to relate these inquiries to life's large themes with others, then he or she will tend to condone the current limits in life situations. Without critical inquiry this "idiot" takes the current situation for granted, and cannot discern what in it is a law of nature and what is a limit imposed by powerful people or groups wishing to gain benefits while shifting the related harms to others. An"idiotic" stance obscures the potential benefits and costs of alternative courses of action, and hence makes responsible social action impossible. STS education opposes this sort of "idiocy," and aims to promote those inquiries which free the citizens of a democracy to do the public's business and exercise responsible action. DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY DEMANDS RESPONSIBLE SOCIAL ACTION.