Coping with technology's surprises
Chemical & Engineering News · 1978
Technology long has had a knack for catching society off guard—often to society's chagrin or acute discomfort. And society frequently has lashed back, out of fear or dismay about the consequences of technological change, in an effort to gain better control over that process. As the pace of technological innovation has escalated since World War II, moreover, incidents in which technology has inflicted unexpected consequences on the world at large have multiplied, reaching in the past decade what may seem to be avalanche proportions. Discovery of trace amounts of amitrole, a herbicide thought to be carcinogenic, on a small part of the annual cranberry crop brings warnings from government officials just prior to Thanksgiving that largely sweep cranberry sauce off holiday tables and threaten economic disaster to growers. An apparently safe and effective sleep inducer and tranquilizer, thalidomide, is found to be teratogenic four years after it was launched on the market and is withdrawn, ...