Science, Technology and Society, CTS, corresponds to the name that has been given to a line of academic and research work, which aims to ask about the social nature of scientific-technological knowledge and its impact on different economic, social areas , environmental and cultural of Western societies (mainly). CTS studies are also known as social studies of science and technology.
Its origins go back to the decade of the 60s, with social mobilization due to the problems associated with technological development. The concern for science and technology had been manifesting since the Second World War, which left more than forty million dead, with the position of several physicists who questioned and even abandoned their experiments in the field of nuclear energy, disappointed by the way his research work had been used in the production of the atomic bomb. These scientists looked for other sciences, such as Biology, to work from there for a knowledge that contributes to life and not to the destruction of it (2). Science, synonymous with reason and truth, for the progress of humanity, seemed to point out the limit of its use through the creation of the atomic bomb.
The concern for techno-scientific development grew and multiplied in the decade of the 1960s, under the scenario of international tension due to the arms race and the growing deterioration of the environment (Waks and Rostum, 1990). A sense of generalized fear and frustration became increasingly evident, whose source of origin seemed to be linked to anxiety about scientific-technological development. In this context, different proposals on the values of industrial civilization were initiated. On the one hand, it was advocated by a certain rejection of technological development, whose radical expressions were in the student demonstrations of the sixties and early seventies, both in Europe and in North America, directed mainly against the Vietnam War; the use of napalm became the symbol of the excesses of the scientific-technological civilization of that time (3). Added to this were reports of disasters related to technology, such as the first nuclear accidents and pharmaceutical poisonings. The concern for the environmental issue has been intimately related to the scientific-technological development and in particular to the conception of this development.
This social protest, from which came the environmental movement and hippism, was channeled into the academic spaces of the universities, both North American and European, even Latin American - as is clear, for example, from the works of Jorge Sabato and Amilcar Herrera , to the south of the continent, in the optics to look for a space of technological development more adapted for the Latin American countries (Vacarezza, 1.998) -. CTS went from social mobilization to academic concern, without losing its critical capacity.
In conclusion, from an anti-technological and anti-establishment position present in the sixties, it was derived towards a more positive attitude that sought to elucidate which cultural values underlie technological achievement (Cutcliffe, 1990).
If the twentieth century is that of science, it is also true for the democracy that has waged one of the most important battles during the 1960s, in the extension of civil rights in the face of threats related to scientific-technological development ( Sánchez Ron, 2,000). It is in this context that studies in Science, Technology and Society arise.
It is considered that since the seventies two major trends in the CTS studies were generated. One, concerned about the epistemological and social origins of knowledge (the latter as a reaction to the traditional philosophy of science focused only on the epistemic aspects of the theories without greater articulation with the social field); this line, in its origins, was cultivated mainly in Europe and had as its initial headquarters the University of Edinburgh; the second trend, of North American origin, has been focused on the consequences of this knowledge in the different spaces of society, and this is what allows us to understand the creation of technology evaluation offices and the implementation of public policies in science and technology early on in the USA (González, et al, 1996).
The CTS studies have concentrated mainly in three fields (González, et al, 1996, Waks, 1,990):
In the field of research, promoting a socially contextualized vision of science and technology.
In the field of public policies on science and technology, defending public participation in decision-making on policy issues and scientific-technological management.
In the educational level, both secondary and university education, contributing with a new and broader perception of science and technology with the purpose of forming a scientifically and technologically literate citizenship.
Since its inception, CTS studies have sought to promote and develop forms of analysis and interpretation of science and technology of interdisciplinary nature, which highlights the humanities and social discipline, the history, philosophy and sociology of science and technology ; as well as the economy of technical change, and the theories of education and political thought, mainly.