Technology & Society:
Technology, Culture, & Destiny

What Makes Humans Unique?

• Ability to laugh & smile
• Ability to lie effectively
• Cook food
• Use and manipulate symbols

Culture—A Definition

Acquired knowledge by a social group

Symbols

• Humans are dependent upon symbols
• Primates use symbols but do not depend upon them
• Humans use symbols to adapt to various environments

Evolution—Two Types

• Somatic—Physical Evolution

Physical changes in body structure

• Extrasomatic—Cultural Evolution

Methods and Techniques

i.e., “Technologies”

Through culture, we do not have to wait for somatic change

Australopithecine

• Family of 7 types
• 5 to 1.2 million years
• Lower Paleolithic period
• “Ape-man” — Man Apes
• 3-4 feet (1-1.3 meters) tall
• Tool Making capabilities:
      Chopping & pounding tools
      Ostodontic-caradic (Bone/tooth/horn)

Homo Erectus

• 1.5 million years
• Africa/Europe/S.E. Asia
• Sophisticated tool maker/user
• Acheulean (identified by flaked tools)
• First conclusive evidence of:
      Housing structures
      Use of fire
      Cooperative hunting

Homo Neanderthalensis

• Europe/Middle East regions
• Slightly more advanced tool making and usage
• Different tool types:
      bone
      tooth
      horned
      wooden
• Evidence of:
      clothing
      religion
      belief in an afterlife (they buried their dead)

Homo Sapien

• Major advancements
• Great diversity of tools
• Agriculture and domestication of animals
• Neolithic (new stone age)
• High energy usage
      Heat (wood, coal, oil, nuclear)
      Power (animal, water, steam, electric)
      Transportation (ships, trains, autos, airplanes)

Law of Cultural Evolution

"Culture at large evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year increases or as the methods of harnessing energy are made more efficient or as both factors work together."
        Leslie White (Univ. of Michigan)

Cultural Materialism

• Leslie White was a “technological determinist” (i.e., believed in a technology-led theory of social change)
• No one “great man” theory
      Individuals are insignificant to cultural change

Technologies

• help to shape and define culture
• fundamental condition underlying the pattern of social organization.
• technical developments, are the sole or prime antecedent causes of changes in society
          from Chandler, D. Technological or Media Determinism

Cultural Evolution is:

• Logical
• Inextricable (i.e., Complex or interwoven)
• Stupid

Culture: 3 Components

1. Ideological (Belief systems)
2. Social
3. Technological

Role of Ideology

• Ideology always subordinates technology
• Example:  The Ancient Greeks:
• Hero of Alexandria (200 B.C.) or was it Cestesibus?
  Author of Spiritalia seu Pneumatica
• Steam Engine & Temple Door Opener

Ideological systems prevent technological systems from fulfilling their true efficiencies

Evolution of Cultural Systems

• Bands (90% of all the people who ever lived were hunter/gatherers)
• Tribes
• Chiefdoms
• States (up to nations)

Two Important Points...

1. Culture is manifested symbolic knowledge
2. Artifacts are not culture

Western Cultures

• Outstripping biology
• Ecological problems & disasters
• People are surrounded by their own creations
• The natural environment is alien
• Technologically and cultural “incestuous”
• Positive feedback system
• Unstable, prone to extremism

Information content based in part upon lectures given in June, 1993, by:

• Dr. Anthony Cavender, ETSU Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology
• Dr. John Ephriam, ETSU Department of Technology

Web Links of Interest (as of Oct. 1, 2009):

“Technological or Media Determinism” by Daniel Chandler

The Growth of the Steam-Engine, Chapter I by R. H. Thurston, AM,CE;

Paleoanthropology-related Links

Anthropology on the Web

Australopithecus africanus (a part of the Smithsonian Institution's Early Human Phylogeny Family Tree web site)

Homo Erectus (“Turkana Boy”)

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/links.html

Hominid Species:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html

http://www.he.net/~archaeol/9603/newsbriefs/hominid.html

Alternative view: “Creation Science” homepages:

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/index.htm

Evolution page of the The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

Alternative-Alternative view: Non-Christian alternative to "Creation Science/Intellegent Design" homepages:

Church of the FSM (AKA: Pastafarianism)