Excerpt:
The twentieth century has seen an unprecedented development and global expansion in Western science and its accompanying technological advances, stimulated in part by two world wars. This wedding of science and technology-or "technoscience" as it is sometimes called-has spelled great prosperity for some and a radical change in lifestyle for most. The enormous range of products and services it has produced has profoundly affected ways of thinking and social structures across the world. But it has also left its scars in the form of environmental pollution, harmful medications, technological accidents, and weaponry of unprecedented destructiveness.