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Pardee Center lectures focus on twin forces of technology
By Tim Stoddard
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Paul Streeten |
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The Manhattan Project scientists who first
split the atom over the New Mexico desert witnessed the awesome
destructive power of human ingenuity. Technological innovations
have often been corrupted in ways that have haunted their creators.
Paul Streeten, a visiting professor of future studies at the
Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range
Future, will address technology’s double-edged sword in
two lectures, entitled Technological Nightmares, on Tuesday,
October 7, and Tuesday, October 14, each at 6 p.m., in the SMG
Auditorium.
In the first lecture, Streeten, a CAS professor emeritus
of economics, will examine the ways that technological progress
can lead to
unintended consequences. “Science may suggest that we have
a solution to every problem,” he says. “But history
has shown us that there is at least one new problem to every
solution. Should Prometheus be restrained? Should one contain
technological progress, or can it be contained at all?”
Streeten
has seen firsthand how technology can benefit and hurt humanity.
He is the founding chairman of the editorial board
of World Development, a monthly journal exploring ways
of improving standards of living and problems such as poverty,
disease, lack
of shelter, environmental degradation, and inadequate scientific
and technological resources. As a consultant to the United Nations
Development Program, he has been integral in guiding U.N. efforts
to eliminate poverty in developing countries. “He was also
one of the first people to define the term human development,
which was something he did while he was here at BU,” says
Cutler Cleveland, a CAS geography professor and director of the
Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. Human development,
he explains, is the broad discipline that encompasses the economic,
environmental, and social elements of the human condition.
Throughout
his career, Streeten has worked with several U.N. bodies, including
the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO). Historian David Fromkin, a CAS professor of international
relations and the director of the Pardee Center, notes that Streeten’s
experience has given him a broad perspective on human development. “Throughout
his long and productive life, Professor Streeten has been among
the leading figures — perhaps the leading figure — in
the field of economic development. He is recognized as such by
the United
Nations and the World Bank, so it’s clear that international
institutions see him as a giant in this field.”
In his October
14 lecture, Streeten will examine six technological nightmares
in detail. The promise and pitfalls of genetic engineering
will be at the top of the list, along with issues of electronic
privacy. Too, information technology, with all it’s done
for business and science and academia, may set in motion a kind
of cultural dislocation, Streeten says, “leaving one piece
of society — the unskilled and computer-illiterate — evicted.” More
likely, however, are the nightmare scenarios Streeten calls “cyberterror
and cybererror.” Both involve Y2K-like doom, the first
resulting from terrorists crippling electronic communication,
the latter from an unintentional system-wide failure such as
the recent East Coast blackout.
Nuclear technology will be another
issue on point, as Streeten discusses various “atom-bomb-in-the-suitcase” scenarios.
And going down to even smaller Pandora’s boxes, he will
present what he calls the Final Experiment: the pioneering work
in nanotechnology that could possibly lead to the end of the
world.
For its annual Distinguished Lecture Series, Fromkin says,
the Pardee Center seeks individuals of world stature who have
the
ability to transcend narrow academic boundaries. “We’re
looking for speakers with genuine vision who use a multidisciplinary,
big-picture approach to the future,” he says.
Paul Streeten
will be on campus from October 6 to 17. For information on
his office hours during that time, contact pardee@bu.edu.
3
October 2003
Boston University
Office of University Relations