Answer in complete sentences, and be sure to use correct English spelling and grammar. Sources must be cited in APA format. Your response should be four (4) pages in length. Carefully study and review the section titled “Approaches to Measuring Technological Progress.” Use your own words to write a short compare-and-contrast essay that defines and explains three distinct perspectives on the evolution of technology. As you write, imagine you are talking to a friend who has no knowledge of this topic. In short, write the way you speak, using a conversational tone. Also, try to alternate short sentences and longer sentences to make your writing more readable.
Be sure to create a title and cite yourself as the author. For example:
A Comparison of Three Perspectives on the Evolution of Technology
Mei Quoran
Your essay should include five paragraphs, as follows:
- Paragraph 1 is your lead paragraph. It will contain an overview of what you have to say in comparing and contrasting the perspectives of Gerhard Lenski, Leslie White, and Alvin Toffler with respect to the evolution of technology.
- Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, are your body paragraphs.
- In your essay, use paragraph 2 to describe the perspective of Gerhard Lenski.
- In paragraph 3, you’ll write about the perspective of Leslie White.
- In paragraph 4, you’ll describe and discuss the perspective of Alvin Toffler.
- Paragraph 5 is your summary and conclusion. Here, you’ll compare the three perspectives to show how they are, or may be, similar. You’ll contrast the three perspectives to describe how they’re different. You’ll end this process–and your essay–by expressing your view as to which of these theorists (one or more) offer the most useful insights into the evolution of technology, in your opinion.
It’s permissible to use direct quotes from your reading, but don’t use too many. One to three such quotes should be your limit. Be sure to put a direct quote in quotation marks. For example: According to Smith, “Carbon dioxide is both our friend and our enemy.”
Measuring Technological Progress
Sociologists, anthropologists, and other researchers have developed different ways to measure and understand technological progress. In this section, we’ll review the thoughts of four important theorists. They offer four perspectives on the relationship between technological development and our social world.
Gerhard Lenski
Sociologist Gerhard Lenski (1924–2015) believed that technological progress has been the driving force in the evolution of civilization. According to Lenski, technological progress and civilization are closely related. In fact, the key to human progress is information. The more we know about harnessing and using natural resources, the more we can advance human society.
Lenski recognized four stages of communication, as follows:
- Stage 1 is the passing of genes from one generation to the next. We might call this biological communication.
- Stage 2 is sentience, or the ability to feel, perceive, or experience objectively. As we begin to develop awareness and understanding of the world around us, we adapt better to the environment of Earth. We’re able to share our experience.
- In Stage 3, we become capable of logic. We apply observation and fact-based analysis to the world. For example, if we see dark clouds in the sky, we recognize that rain is probably on the way.
- In Stage 4, we master language, writing, and the ability to create symbols. This stage is the foundation of civilization.
Lenski also proposed four levels of technological development, as follows:
- At the hunter-gatherer level, we physically work to reduce food insecurity.
- At the next level, we obtain part of the food supply from horticulture (growing plants).
- At the next level, we engage in organized agriculture. Food surplus allows complex social orders to rise. We experience social class inequality and a complex division of labor. We pursue technological advances in arts, crafts, architecture, and civil engineering.
- Finally comes the Industrial Revolution. At this level, food-based economies are replaced. We experience a new kind of social class inequality along with revolutionary advances in the means of production.
Leslie White
Anthropologist Leslie Alvin White (1900–1975) focused on harnessing and controlling energy. White believed that controlling energy is the primary purpose and function of any culture.
White identified five stages of human development, as follows:
- Stage 1: Energy comes from human muscle power.
- Stage 2: Humans harness the energy of domesticated animals. We raise and herd livestock for food energy. We use other animals, especially the horse, as transport as well as mounts for warriors and hunters.
- Stage 3: We engage in the agricultural revolution, which provides surplus food energy to extend the value of Stage 2.
- Stage 4: Especially as expressed in the Industrial Revolution, we harness the power of natural resources, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.
- Stage 5: We harness and rely on nuclear energy. (White was perhaps too optimistic about our ability to harness nuclear energy, given its dangerous drawbacks.)
White developed a formula that remains useful:
P = E*T
In this formula, “E” is a measure of energy consumed. “T” is a measure of the efficiency of technical factors that utilize this energy. “P” is what we get when calculate these two measures.
For example, when we compare early steam engines to steam-powered turbines, the efficiency of turbines increases the value “P.” In White’s words, “culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased . . . or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased.”
Alvin Toffler
Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) was a journalist, social critic, and futurist. Toffler stands out among the thinkers associated with the postindustrial era. That’s because he was able to reach a large audience.
The following quote gives an idea of Toffler’s view of our current era:
“To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before. We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots—religion, nation, community, family, or profession—are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust. It is no longer resources that limit decisions; it is the decision that makes the resources.”
Toffler is best known for the concept of future shock. He defined this as the personal perception of “too much change in too short a period of time.” Toffler argued that human societies are undergoing enormous social and technological structural change. We live in an unprecedented era in which industrial society is changing to a “super-industrial” society. In Toffler’s view, many find the speed of change overwhelming. Millions of people feel disconnected. We live lives characterized by “shattering stress and disorientation.” In other words, we’re “future shocked.”
According to Toffler, we’re drowning in information overload. (Toffler invented this term.) In Toffler’s view, future shock is responsible for most modern-day social problems.
Toffler identified three stages in the development of society, as follows:
- Stage 1 is the agrarian stage. This stage began with the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic period (New Stone Age). Toffler associated the agricultural revolution with the move from “barbarity” to “civilization.”
- Stage 2 is the industrial stage. This stage began in England with the Industrial Revolution. According to Toffler, important advances during this period included machine tools and the steam engine.
- Stage 3 is the postindustrial stage. This started in the second half of the twentieth century. Stage 3 is marked by the inventions of automated manufacturing, robotics, and the computer. This stage is also associated with the growth of the service sector. During this stage, the need for “brainwork” has increased, while the need for manual labor (such as factory work) has decreased.
William F. Ogburn
Finally, William F. Ogburn (1886–1959) was a prominent sociologist who developed the concept of cultural lag. This is the idea that it takes time for a culture to catch up to innovations in technology. Even though Ogburn died long ago, his ideas are still taken quite seriously by academics.
According to Ogburn, material culture—technology–progresses much faster than nonmaterial culture. Technology changes more quickly than social institutions like family, government, religious institutions, and even the arts.
To quote Ogburn,
“The invention of the automobile . . . freed young people from direct parental observation [and] made it possible for them to work at distances from home . . . Half a century earlier, families were structured … as family farms. Young people were under continuous observation as they worked right on the homestead.”
According to Ogburn, economic systems adapt more quickly to new technologies than other institutions. That’s because such advances offer a return on investment to business. For example, adding robotics to an assembly line can speed up the manufacturing process. Likewise, relying on advances in electronic communications can help companies to share information more easily. In fact, corporate culture and the profit-driven application of technology tend to drive technological innovation (material culture).
It’s interesting to note that religious institutions tend to be particularly impacted by “future shock.” Scientific and technological advances have historically been opposed by organized religion. For example, the Roman Catholic Church continues to oppose birth control. Similarly, evangelical and fundamentalist groups continue to reject long-accepted ideas about evolution and natural selection.
“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”
–Carl Sagan, astronomer and theorist
Unintended Consequences
Toffler’s insights began an ongoing debate into information overload. Just how overwhelmed are people by rapid advances in technology? This debate continues, and we’ll revisit it later in this lesson.
Lenski, White, and Ogburn offered useful insight into the relationship between technology and the evolution of society. However, they failed to address the unintended consequences of postindustrial development. This is especially the case respecting social, cultural, and technological progress in an era of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change and global warming.
What unintended consequences do we mean? Let’s look at the basic assumptions of a capitalist economic system. In capitalist societies, continual growth is desired: sell more, build more, develop more markets, and cultivate more consumerism. If we designed a bumper sticker to define consumerism, it might say, “More, more, more!” or “You are what you can buy!” or “Whoever dies with the most toys wins!”
Of course, historically, the world has been minimally concerned with ecological issues. When Lenski, White, and Ogburn were developing their ideas, public awareness of climate change had yet to emerge. Instead, classic assumptions about economic progress still applied; that is, economic progress was measured mainly by its constant growth. Naturally, we now realize this assumption is unrealistic. The world faces too many ecological threats from a focus on unrestrained growth. In fact, from an ecologist’s perspective, unrestrained growth is suicidal. To draw a parallel, in the natural world, unrestricted cellular growth is called cancer.
Capitalism is about return on investment. It’s about the bottom line. It’s focused on reducing costs to increase profits. The simplest ways to reduce costs is to lower wages or replace human workers with technology. Consider the difference between human and robotic workers. Robot can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and might cost a business 30 cents per hour. Obviously that’s much lower than even minimum wage.
Across developed nations, digital technology has shrunken the market for industrial jobs, particularly in manufacturing. Jobs that paid a living wage are vanishing. For example, in the United States, giant corporations—like Walmart, Apple, and Dell—have exported manufacturing jobs to foreign labor markets in China and elsewhere. As a result, the American middle class continues to shrink. Jobs that once paid well have been replaced by less-lucrative jobs in the service sector.
Of course, the situation is complicated. Global productivity has increased enormously due to advances in electronic and digital technologies. However, at the same time, in developed countries like the United States, the ratio of manufacturing jobs to service sector jobs has changed radically. To quote economist Hank Robison, “In 1950, 30 percent of all U.S. jobs were in manufacturing, while 63 percent were in services. In 2011, 9 percent of total employment remained in manufacturing, with 86 percent in services.”
Robison continues: “Does this signify a shift in consumers’ tastes from manufactured goods to services? The short answer is no; if anything, we consume more ‘things.’ The difference is that things are manufactured with far less labor, and they are increasingly made somewhere else.”
Wages have either declined or remained stagnant since the 1970s. Thus, cheaper goods (plus high levels of personal debt) keep the consumerist philosophy alive.
Economically, the world is dealing with two kinds of unintended consequences. Both have been produced by capitalist ideology. First, increases in productivity have led to lower wages and more or less permanent unemployment for unskilled laborers. Second, continual growth requires ever more energy. That means greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. This, in turn, has led to a global energy crisis.
Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
According to NASA, multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that about 97 percent of climate scientists are in agreement that changes to the climate over the past century can be attributed to human activities. While scientists continue to interpret data and debate causal connections, they agree to the basic premise that humans are negatively affecting the global environment. Scientific debate is about weighing actual evidence. Scientists pose hypotheses and test them. They check results and repeat the process to get ever closer to fact-based truth.
Review the quotes below to get an idea of the scientific consensus on climate change and global warming. These three sample statements can be found in the eighteen covered in NASA’s report (“Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate Is Warming,” NASA. Retrieved May 31, 2018, from http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus.)
In preview, here are three sample statements out of eighteen provided in the report.
“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now and it is a growing threat to Society.” American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2006.
“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” American Physical Society, 2007.
“The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.” The Geological Society of America, 2006; revised 2010.
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