Broers asks ‘What makes technology significant?’, somewhat offended by a popular poll that placed the bicycle at the peak of Britain’s technological achievements. The perception of the significance of any particular technological advance inevitably confounds what it is generally perceived to be with the actual facts about what it truly does – many may consider the bicycle as more significant than the transistor because they can see bicycles, whereas they can’t so easily see transistors. We should also ask what makes people attribute value to any particular technology.

For most of the last thirty five years the Technology Faculty of the Open University has encouraged its students to make critical evaluations of the technology that surrounds us, in terms that distinguish clearly between facts, values and beliefs. The popular view is perhaps formed mostly from beliefs and values – Broers recognizes the challenge to society when these are not counterbalanced by an appreciation of the facts, though not necessarily by a deep understanding.

Britain has a long and distinguished record in innovation: steam, electricity, transportation and telecommunications are obvious areas where our nation has played a crucial part, not just in the science, but also in the first phase of technology transfer. It is in the subsequent phases that we find ourselves impeded, seemingly inadequate – apparently there is greater natural appeal (to our genes) in planting the first crops in a newly cleared landscape than in subsequent harvests. Or, perhaps it is nurture not nature that is to blame: our culture stifles our development teams. There has been a systematic national inadequacy in terms of sustainable need – we simply haven’t had enough need to stay in the game after the first phase. As the pace quickens, this may not remain the case. Further enquiry calls for an appreciation of how the British economy interacts with social and economic politics.

Technology has always been woven into the development of humankind. Where it is spurned there is no development. In fact much technology arises in response to the need to fix a problem we ourselves created: our inventions often then lead to consequences unforeseeable in the framework in which they were conceived. So technology is an inevitable cause and a consequence of development. Broers makes a valid point: as a nation we must begin to re-engage with technology. We ignore it at our peril.

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