0191-9067/83 $3.00 + .00 Copyright 0 1984 SUNSAT Energy Council TOUGH TECHNOLOGY ARTHUR KANTROW1TZ Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 INTRODUCTION Hard technology characterizes technology selected for survival in the marketplace and in a hostile international environment. Soft technology expresses deeply felt human drives for independence from central control of the necessities of life. This talk will emphasize that hard and soft technology are not diametrically opposed. The component common to both is their basis in scientific fact. Yet, so much of the hard/soft debate consists of assertions of scientific fact designed to create in the public mind and in lay media the impression that the scientific facts leave no room for the public to express their own value judgements. So many of these assertions lack frankness in confessing uncertainty and ignorance which has always been recognized and enforced as essential to meaningful scientific debate. The science court is intended to enforce this frankness so that the public can assess the scope which the state of scientific knowledge leaves for the expression of value preferences. Technology policy based on scientific facts determined by a process credible to substantial portions of the “hard” and “soft” factions I would call tough technology. Communication today is based on the myth of the unprejudiced expert. Real expertise requires years of commitment to a field and frequently involves an unshakable conviction that the field is beneficial to humanity. The commitment and the conviction insulate the expert and discredit claims to lack of prejudice. THE FRANKNESS RULE The existence of two opposed factions seeking to impose their values on the nation could be constructive or destructive. To make the dialog constructive, the public must be able to judge the validity or the attractiveness of the proposals offered. If proposition A is offered by group a and B by b, people can decide between A and B when descriptions by a and b differ only in areas where lay persons can adequately judge. If, however, a and b use different statements of scientific fact in their descriptions, it will not, in general, be possible for people to decide for themselves between these descriptions. We thus come to the familiar dilemma—which scientist do you believe? The scientific community prides itself on a traditional harshness in dealing with those who are not frank in confessing uncertainty and ignorance. Within the scientific community the frankness rule is enforced by encouraging vigorous discussion at scientific meetings and by sending papers submitted for publication to referees
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