Technoscience and Convergence: a Transmutation of Values? Summerschool on Ethics of Converging Technologies

Technoscience is often perceived as an expression of the primacy of utilitarian values that would take over the field of pure and disinterested science. A number of scientists deplore that the age of science for its own sake is coming to an end (Lévy-Leblond, 2000). This common view expressed by active scientists is shared and developed by historians. In a paper describing technoscience as a cultural phenomenon, Paul Forman comes to a similar conclusion (Forman, 2007). He defines technoscience as a reversal of the values attached to science. Whereas modernity was characterized by the high cultural rank of science and scientists – “ the primacy of science to and for technology” –, post-modernity is characterized by the primacy of technology over science along with a loss of confidence and trustworthiness of scientists. The modern assumption that scientific research would bring about not only knowledge but technological applications in addition, has been undermined in the 1980s, according to Forman. And he argues that science studies were integral part in the trend toward technoscience as they more and more identified science with technology. I would like to discuss this interpretation on the basis of converging technologies. The label “converging technologies” applies to current research programs launched in various countries. More precisely I refer to the US program entitled Converging technologies for improving human performances (Roco, Bainbridge, 2002) and the European program Converging Technologies for the European Knowledge Society (EU HLEG, 2004.) They are especially relevant for testing the alleged take-over of science by technology, because science is not even mentioned in the titles of the program which focus exclusively on technologies. Should we consider these programmes as the confirmation of Forman’s claim about the age of technoscience? In a preliminary conceptual analysis I try to disentangle the notion of technoscience from the vague connotation of utilitarianism. Then in order to examine to what extent the views and values attached to converging technologies express a primacy of technology over science, it is useful to distinguish between converging technologies as national research programs and the daily practices of research in which technologies converge because the views and values that active scientists attach to their research may deeply not reflect the claims and values of policy makers. However I will argue that in neither of these cases is technoscience adequately described as a primacy of technology over science.