The Centre for Technology and Social Development is a research centre situated in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto.
the mission of the centre for technology and social development
The Centre is dedicated to improving our understanding of the interactions between society, technology, science and the biosphere (STSB) and of their implications for human life. These interactions include ways in which we guide science and technology through specific scientific undertakings and technical endeavors, as well how science and technology guide our contemporary civilization through their influence on human life, society and the biosphere. Our present scientific and technical division of labour and the knowledge infrastructure built on it ensure that the undesired consequences of decisions made by specialists mostly fall beyond their domains of expertise where they cannot “see” them, thereby institutionalizing an end-of-pipe approach to these consequences and preventing contemporary ways of life from becoming economically sound, socially viable and environmentally sustainable.
There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the present system now produces undesired results at a greater rate than desired results. The costs incurred in the production of wealth are growing more rapidly than the increases in gross wealth production; and a number of economists have calculated that, as a result, net wealth has been declining for decades. Similarly, we are now producing pollutants (products that we produce but cannot sell) at a far greater rate than desired goods and services. A study by the American Academy of Engineering estimates that of what we extract from the biosphere, 93% is turned into undesired products (pollutants) and only 7% into goods and services. Our materials and productions systems may well turn out to be among the most uneconomic and environmentally destructive ones ever created by humanity. Some time ago, Blue Cross was the largest supplier to the largest corporation in the world. Apparently, physically and mentally ill workers were the company’s most valuable undesired output. To deal with these and other health problems, we have expanded our “disease care” system. Rapidly growing health care budgets would suggest that the rate at which contemporary ways of life produce illnesses outstrips their ability to deal with them. Although we have numerous time-saving gadgets, many people have little time to themselves; and we have become one of the hardest-working civilizations in history. It is easy to multiply these kinds of examples, but the deep structural crisis is obvious. We have created a “system” whose “signal-to-noise” ratio of desired to undesired effects is steadily declining as a result of our increasingly global knowledge infrastructure.
Present ways of life are evolving on the basis of countless decisions made by specialists. In their desire to make things “better”, they are unable to assess the implications of their decisions for human life, society and the biosphere, because this would involve knowledge held by countless other specialists. Hence, they can only make things “better” on their own terms, that is, by improving the effectiveness by which desired outputs are derived from requisite inputs as measured by output/input ratios such as efficiency, productivity, profitability, cost-benefit ratios, risk-benefit ratios and GDP. Such performance values provide them with no indication of the extent to which gains are partly or wholly realized at the expense of the integrality of what is made better and its context-compatibility with human life, society and the biosphere. Within the current intellectual and professional division of labour, the social sciences describe many aspects of human life in a mass society with little or no reference to science and technology, as if their influence were marginal; and the technology-related professions use methods and approaches that make minimal reference to human life, society and the biosphere, as if science and technology has a negligible impact on them.
In response to this situation, the Centre for Technology and Social Development has created the concept of preventive approaches. These differ from their conventional counterparts by using the knowledge we have about how technology influences human life, society and the biosphere to adjust design and decision making to obtain the desired results, but simultaneously prevent or greatly minimize the undesired results. The former Premier’s Council of Ontario adopted this approach to examine how professional education could be restructured to make use of the potential of preventive approaches. In 2002, the Canada Foundation for Innovation recognized preventive approaches as one of 25 leading recent Canadian innovations. The Centre offers a Certificate in Preventive Approaches and Social Development to undergraduate students, as well as a number of graduate courses in this area. Key publications include: Willem H. Vanderburg The Growth of Minds and Cultures (University of Toronto Press, 1985), The Labyrinth of Technology (University of Toronto Press, 2000, 2002), and Living in the Labyrinth of Technology (University of Toronto Press, 2005).