Summary class 15 February 2011

The class started with a discussion of the novel ‘When Eight Bells Toll’ by Alistair MacLean.  Ajay said that he saw inadvertent value judgments being provided by the narrative.

Ajay also pointed out that there is some seemingly inaccurate detailing in the way one of men was murdered. It is impossible to imagine that a man had been murdered with a wood chisel being used to sever his spinal cord. More importantly, how did the murderer locate the gap in between the lumbar vertebrae and push the chisel in? And if the lumbar portion of the spinal cord had been injured how did the heart stop?

The narrative is gripping and holds your attention. This is a quality of this genre of writing.

The narrative seems unreal because of the detailed descriptions of the observable. The narrative possesses seemingly technological accuracy despite the fact that death is staring the protagonist in the face. The protagonist is quite the anti-hero and there is very little emotion or drama in the narrative. The author has a dispassionate documentary style of writing.

Knowing all this, why then do we then accept the narrative?

In some sense what we do is regard the detailed descriptions that the author provides us with as proof of implicit knowledge that he may possess. We thus acknowledge his authority and buy into the gimmick of the narrative.

We assume that since he has knowledge of the gun and its functioning that he also possesses knowledge of human anatomy.

It is also possible that since the reader empathizes with the anti-hero that the details are absorbed without the slightest hesitation.

We then asked a question pertaining to technology - “What do you look for in a car?”

Answers included mileage, aesthetics, cost effectiveness etc. But who evaluates these parameters?

Coming to communication strategies, we discussed advertisements. Does the model dressed in a dentist’s white apron for a toothpaste advertisement assess the toothpaste quality? Does the engine in your car work the same way it does in the formula one sports car because they are manufactured by the same company? The answer is obviously NO! However, the consumer is led to believe that a brand ensures quality. We assume some precision went into making our car engine on the lines of the precision required to make a so called “technologically advanced” (note that the notions of advanced are under review and hence the inverted double quotations) engine. WHY?

Again reiterating the question of communication and information sources - What is on the internet is never complete information. There is quite a disbalance between kinds of information available, how deep you must dig to get various parts of the information, what kinds of research is promoted, and so on.

We went on to discuss the history of Ultrasonography as an example of technology.

It was obviously inspired by SONAR. But the idea of using waves to monitor distances is as old as the late 18^th century when Spallanzani noted that bats maneuvered through the air using their hearing. It was later used in the Second World War for submarine navigation. In the area of medical imaging it was first used to visualize internal organs and only later for obstetrics. However today we associate it solely with obstetrics. Why? Knowledge of how to use the ultrasound machine to generate a correct image representative of the internal environment of the womb is a science and one requires training to do so.

In our understandings of technological discoveries and inventions we must approach the subject of analysis of the said technology considering the following aspects

a)     Is the invention a product of Individual thinking? And the answer is… not always.

b)     Do technological advances follow an incremental linear history?

c)     Is necessity the motivation for invention?

d)     Is eccentricity the motivation for invention?

Another point worth mentioning is the fact that ultrasounds are so common nowadays and primary care physicians advise it at least three times during the gestation period. Has there been any elucidation of the ill effects of repeated exposure to ultrasonic waves on the health of the foetus?

Why is the language used to describe the ill effects of repeated ultrasonography on foetal health so guarded?

If very little is known about the ill effects of repeated ultrasonography, why is it being made compulsory?

Part of the fee paid for the sonography goes into the pocket of the doctor who prescribed it. Hmmmm… Chew on that! The idea being that there are links between various players in the field of technology; it might be easy to look for and find a scapegoat – the unethical doctor, the unscrupulous pharmaceutical company, the slick advertiser … and so on. But the point is to see the subtle connections that go into the control over technology, and that are not always visible.

Thanks Ajay for this summary. Others do add your perspectives.

Summary of S&T class – 13 Feb 2011

The discussion was designed to elaborate the dream technology as stated by the students in the previous class. The dream technology of Abitha’s called “Abitha Fuelizer” and Krupa’s called “Green fuel for two wheelers” was discussed.

Dream Technology

“Abitha Fuelizer” is a technology which is diagrammatically represented as follows -

Output or the Product The fuel supplied to the retailer like the petrol bunks

Automated refining system wherein all the downstream work of purification, extraction and concentration

Algal growth in glass tubes with reflectors to concentrate the sunlight just enough for the optimal growth

           



     →                                          →

The technology is designed such that the first two stages are one place and the product stage is distributed. She also dreams that she wants to own the technology and also implement the technology herself in the market by running her business as she doesn’t prefer the Government to interfere in this process.

Coming to the next dream technology of Krupa’s “Green fuel for two wheelers” is to replace petrol or diesel with an analogous biofuel coming from algae. This technology is again diagrammatically represented as below -

	Algal growth in glass tubes with reflectors to concentrate the sunlight just enough for the optimal growth	_	Automated refining system wherein all the downstream work of purification, extraction and concentration	_	Output or the Product The fuel supplied to the retailer like the petrol bunks

 

The technology is designed such that the first two stages are one place and the product stage is distributed. She also dreams that she wants to own the technology and also implement the technology herself in the market by running her business as she doesn’t prefer the Government to interfere in this process.

Coming to the next dream technology of Krupa’s “Green fuel for two wheelers” is to replace petrol or diesel with an analogous biofuel coming from algae. This technology is again diagrammatically represented as below

 

	Algal cultivation of biomass in different pockets of the country clubbed with agricultural farming		Collected to different refining stations involving not much of automation but more of labour		Output or The product Supplied to the retailer or the petrol bunks

 

                                          

 

Here in this process, the technology dreamt is for creating biofuel which is analogous to the petrol or diesel coming from the non-renewable source. The vision is to have a biofuel which could be used by the already existing engine technology, as such one major hurdle of acceptance is overcome.  She wants to own the technology as well the process of production. She dreams of putting more manual labour than automation in it. The three stages of the technology are spatially separated. The profit of the technology is equity based i.e. the profit is shared based on the time and effort put in at each stage.

Validation of the dream technology

The dream technology was validated and re-defined with various other dimensions than what the actual dreamer had dreamt of. This involved the process of fractionating the dream into different domains primarily into four domains as listed below –

1. Technology – This consisted of the science, engineering and technology involved in producing the product
2. Resource Management – This was to define as to how are the resources going to be used for the process and how to channel them which involved factors like money, raw materials and others.
3. Society - This dimension was to discuss how does it affect the society we live in.
4. Culture – The technology we bring about how it could cause a change in the traditions and culture of a person and the community that he/she lives in.

The above technologies described were made better by bringing in these factors into consideration. Primarily it was only technology which was being dreamt and these other factors were kept at the periphery or neglected for unknown reasons. Nothing wrong in dreaming but iterative introspection was needed which was missing. That is a primary factor to be included in our process of dreaming.

To be more specific as to what was discussed with respect to above stated dream technology in these four domains is stated below in the two boxes.    

	Abitha Fuelizer ·       What happens to land which would be cleared of for algal cultivation – effect of the industry on the agricultural land ·       How is the profit going to distributed ·       Would you want the fuel to be given as ration why can’t that be done ·       Wouldn’t it create an attitude of taking fuel for granted eventually! Like the way a villager who lives in Rajasthan considers water usage very judiciously to the people living in cities because city people take it for granted sometimes like - open the tap and the water flows. Tap is a technology! ·       How much of fuel would you produce? How much conversion and efficiency do you expect the algae to be working with		Green fuel for two-wheeler ·       Growing algae by farmer means do you take the knowledge of agriculture and use it for your product ·       Who are the ones who are going to taking the responsibility of cultivation - men, women or the children ·       Does the technology create a gender biasness ·       What happens to the countries which don’t have sufficient sunlight incident to make this technology feasible? Would it not cause biasness and hence socio-political issues ·       The fuels is just same as the petrol so what about the emissions released into the atmosphere ·       Would this technology not create trade monopoly

 

 

These questions or statements arise because the dreams neglected these aspects as to how the technology we bring about makes a difference in all of us. Though it was specifically projected on the two different dreams but the thought process is the same in both the cases. On the holistic approach the technology and society are inseparable. Technology, society, culture, tradition, geography, government, community and an individual as such can not be distinguished into separate entities. They all form an integrated network. They all have different points of intersection at different time. The change in one dimension causes turbulence in the others as well.  

Objectives for forthcoming class

1. Pesticides and Herbicides – The history of pesticides and herbicides as to how was it brought up? The purpose or the need that led to this invention? What was the aftermath of it?
2. Ultrasonogram – The birth and growth of this technology in the field of medicine
3. Read the initial five to ten pages of the novel “When eight bells toll" by Alistair McLean and look into it technological aspect, changes caused in reader by the author and the critics

    Thanks Krupa for this summary

class notes 1/2/11

The class began with a discussion of a you-tube video on the shift from scalpel laser in eyelid surgery that had been shown as an example of ‘evolution’ of technology. The video
describes the laser technique as “advanced” and better than the scalpel procedure. It is
faster, more precise and prettier!

We used the example to tackle once again the question of what is meant by “advanced”, and therefore what are rationales for newer technologies to come in.

In contrast to the argument of precision, one might take the example of the art of writing on a grain of rice. This certainly requires precision; it is an age old technique; and it does not use the same kind of precision-instruments we are talking about.

The association between advanced and precise thus becomes less clear.

If we are talking about the laser replacing human skills, it might be noted that any use of lasers for surgery etc. need to be acquired, practiced and developed over time. Speed too can only come in when this exercise is in place. So we might then ask the question: Why is it that we do not question the fact that the so called “advanced” technologies need not be more precise or faster.
Eye camps employ surgeons who perform eighty cataract operations in a day which is
much faster than the laser!

What emerges from the above question are two other significant questions­
a) Who communicates the notion of advanced?
b) Who is the listener?

In order to answer these questions we felt it necessary to define and distinguish science, engineering and technology yet another time.

The OED defines science as the reasoned investigation or study of phenomena aimed at discovering enduring principles among elements of the phenomenal world by employing formal techniques such as the scientific method. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypothesis.

Technology is the usage of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem. Technologies have to satisfy requirements like utility and usability.

Engineering is the goal­-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often but not always using results and techniques from science.

Science may precede technology as in the case of biotechnology but this is not a necessary pre­requisite. Ajay pointed out that science does not exist in the phenomena itself but the observer describing the phenomena may be defined as science.

A film ‘The Gods must be Crazy’ was watched on Monday the 31^st of January 2011 at

3:30 pm in the CCS lecture hall. The movie was discussed in class.

The first task was to identify the societies or ways of life represented in the movie. We identified the following

­The Bushmen

­The Researcher

­The tour operator/ teacher ­

The field assistant

­The people of the village

­The guerrillas

Thus there is no monolithic society and multiple societies co­exist.

We sought to ask various questions.

1)   How did the bushmen view the bottle? They thought god has sent it. They did not know what it was nor did they have any idea about its utility and hence they used it for a variety of tasks. It appeared de novo.

2)   Does the bottle satisfy our definition of technology? Yes, it does. The bottle was used as a tool. However, the bottle was not available in multiple copies (unlike technologies that we are aware of) and thus became evil (note that the concept of evil never existed in bushman society prior to the introduction of the bottle). If the bushmen were to write a treatise titled “the multi­faceted god-sent hard oblong object and its uses” (they would have probably given it a name) would this amount to science?

3)   Is this use of the bottle for various means saying something about how different societies (ways of life) view the products of technology? Yes, different societies have different notions of utility and even within a society different individuals may have different needs and thus differing world views!

Some interesting observations about the movie:

a) The bushman asked the animal that he was to kill for forgiveness. This ides is also reflected in South East Asian Buddhist practices.

b) The white woman was described as ugly, pale and old by the bushman but nevertheless a god!

Conflicts to Technology apparent in the movie

The use of a stone placed under the tyre of the jeep used to stop it. The researcher could
have put the stone on the break or parked parallel to the gate.
Further, how did the bottle not break when dropped from the aircraft? Further how did it
not break when being used to pound the tuber?
How do the bushmen live without water?

We sought to ask two further questions

1) What is the inspiration for new technology? 2) Is technology always rational?
thanks Ajay for this summary