More than 100 students have turned up to a presentation made by Dr. Benjamin Sovacool from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy on Aug 28, 2009. He has brought up the adoption or non-adoption of technological innovations from a sociological approach, which reveals the underlying reasons from different perspectives.
This methodology, as knows as the social science systems approach, challenges the conventional way people analyses technology. In his presentation, Dr Sovacool had supported his views with examples of the Challenger accident and the picture phone, where the reasons of the failure or non-adoption were much sophisticated. Technology alone was not able to determine the success or failure of the innovation. By looking into the political and social aspects, the exact reason of failure becomes more perspicuous.
An invention might be successful in the laboratory, but might not be well-accepted by the general public. Or it might be adopted for a period of time like the picture phone, but eventually being eliminated due to certain reasons. Another strong example which Dr Sovacool has presented was the non-adoption of electric vehicles. Despite its benefits and advantages, the market of electric vehicles saw a shrink in 30 years time and was eventually overtaken by gasoline vehicles. From the social science systems approach, Dr Sovacool has listed the challenges posed to electric vehicles, including the declining cost of petrol, mass production of gasoline vehicle, advertising, availability of insurance, war, road tax and so on. Due to these economical, political and social challenges, gasoline vehicles became dominant in the market and continued up-to-date.
In conclusion, the social science systems approach suggests the acceptance of technological innovations from a broad sphere, not limited to technical factors. The key focus should be looking into the matter as a whole but not just a single factor. 'Technologies are holistic in the way they interact with the society.' said Dr Sovacool.
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Actually I still do not agree with what Dr. Sovacool said on the last lecture. He said that the engineers sometimes did not look for people's need and the surrounding when inventing something. They just invent and invent without thinking. After they create something new, they will realize that their inventions actually will not bring any good for people in the world. After that their invention will go to waste. So he conclude that we scientists or engineers have to think about what we should create before we move further.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I 100% do not agree with that conclusion. I think scientist did not have to waste their time to think first what they should or should not invent befor they move further, because an invention is not an option that we can choose. It is an opportunity that should be taken when they discover something. An invention is not like solving a formula which has already been tested before that it is correct and we just simply test or proof the correctness. Hence, whether the inovation is useful or not, it does not matter. The one that we should concern about is that we as an engineer, should inovate something new for human being every time we can. We have to improve the existing technology into a better one. That way, I'm sure that some day, that inovation will be useful although it is not for the first time when it was created.