In the twentieth century, it was believed that the only reliable means to improve the human condition came from the new machines, chemicals and many different techniques. Including recurrent social ills and the environment that accompanies technological advances rarely have affected this faith. Today, there is a clear perception that science and technology have provided progress for humanity, but, along with it, have the ability to also destroy it.

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN QUESTION
Fernando Alcoforado *
The society lives, more than ever, under the auspices and domains of science and
technology. The propaganda that is made of science and technology is so intense that a
significant proportion of people believe that they bring only benefits to society. For
man, the technology makes life easier, cleaner and longer. The man cultivates a growing
dependency ratio in relation to science and technology in the contemporary era.
It is a normal behavior of much of society considers science and technology as
liberating humanity from labor burdens and the threat posed by the forces of nature.
Adding to all this, there is a general view that scientific and technological progress
brings not only the advancement of knowledge, but also as a real improvement,
relentless and effective in all aspects of human life.
In the twentieth century, it was believed that the only reliable means to improve the
human condition came from the new machines, chemicals and many different
techniques. Including recurrent social ills and the environment that accompanies
technological advances rarely have affected this faith. Today, there is a clear perception
that science and technology have provided progress for humanity, but, along with it,
have the ability to also destroy it.
Science is not only seen as liberating, but in certain situations, such as dehumanizing
and enslaving of human life. The uncontrolled growth of technology has contributed to
destroy the vital sources of our humanity to create a culture without a moral basis. The
technology has shaped our lives because we are at the mercy of interconnected systems,
which is serious, because we are submissive to his authority, molding us to operate. The
ubiquity of technology in today's world, coupled with its increased complexity gives
rise to a very problematic situation.
In fact, science and technology are not only shaping our lives for the better, but also, in
many situations, making them more dangerous. We perceive reality itself through
machines and artifacts, and also both the external world as the respect of our bodies and
minds. We conceive ourselves as complex physicochemical machines with a brain that,
according to investigations carried out in recent decades, has similar results to a
powerful and complicated computer.
It seems from the Industrial Revolution to own collective construction of social life is
being shaped as if it were a machine. For many years, science and technology are
dictating the direction of social behavior, both in the business plan as the people
individually. The human being has always invested their intelligence to acquire,
manufacture and use tools designed to prolong and multiply your material comfort. The
idea that human development is a linear function of technical progress has been held
long ago.
The thesis that science and technology are the primary factors responsible for human
progress has been kept in check by the explosions of atomic bombs in World War II in
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Passed to be a discussion not only about the positive side
provided by science and technology. A climate of crisis and doubt about them came up.
Along with the benefits of science and technology came the napalm, the defoliants,

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radioactivity, and the atomic bomb. Science and technology began to be seen as anti-life
and, in certain situations, outside of human control.
According to Walter Antonio Bazzo, mechanical engineer, master in engineering and a
PhD in Education, professor of Mechanical Engineering Department of the Federal
University of Santa Catarina, there are differences between science, art and technology
[See Article Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade- o contexto da educação tecnológica
(Science, Technology-Society and the context of technological education) published on
the website <http://www.oei.es/salactsi/bazzo03.htm>]. Science is defined as an
accumulation of systematic knowledge in order to understand the world in which man
lives, that is, the knowledge of reality. Science uses an objective method, logical and
systematic analysis of the phenomena to allow the accumulation of reliable knowledge.
Their operating method is the scientific method.
The technique, in turn, relates to the consecutive transformations of different devices
used by man in the strict sense of the tool. The technique is seen as an entity subject to
its own internal dynamics of development oblivious to any kind of social intervention.
The technique of orbit is lower and is positioned in a lower level of complexity in
relation to technology. Technology is human knowledge that deals with the creation and
use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society and its environment,
using resources such as industrial arts, engineering, applied science and pure science.
The technology symbolizes, according to Walter Antonio Bazzo, great complexity and
any attempt by defining it should consider that:
• the technology is related to science, with the technical and society;
• the technology integrates material elements - tools, machines, equipment - and not
material - know-how, knowledge, information, organization, communication and
interpersonal relations;
• the technology has relations with economic, political and cultural factors;
• the evolution of technology is inseparable from the social and economic structures of a
given society.
It is clear that this definition cannot take a picture of a neutral and objective technology
as the foundation and legitimation of technological development. Since the Industrial
Revolution in the eighteenth century, not only technology but also science has been
used by capitalism for good and for evil as one of the forces in the service of its
expansion. Neither science nor technology are much less autonomous enterprises with
their lives, nor are neither neutral instruments at the service of humanity.
In his work A Dialética do Esclarecimento (The Dialectic of Enlightenment), published
by Zahar Editora (Rio, 1985), Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, philosophers
linked to the Frankfurt School, say the supremacy of science and technology paved the
way for political raving for the benefit of market capitalism. The scientific and
technological advance, in that it created the technical possibility of eliminating poverty,
brought also their growth. Being global and ubiquitous, market capitalism has the
necessary technical, provided by science and technology, to make men gear of your
engine, nullifying them through the economic principle of full competition. Affiliates,
distant of individuals, capitalist economy, science and technology, now merged as if
they were a single instance, consolidate their supremacy on contemporary society,

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determining its course with the same impudence and impersonality of an invisible hand,
according Adorno and Horkheimer.
*Fernando Alcoforado , member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011)
and Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012),
among others.