Yet the reasons why these dissenters oppose certain innovations have to do with their
potential applications and uses, not with the renovations themselves. Edward Teller, the father
of the atom bomb, foresaw the benefits of atomic energy, yet understood the grave
consequences of applying the technology instead for destruction. Innovations involving
alternative energy sources meet with resistance from many businesses because of their
potential application in ways that will threaten the financial interests of these businesses. And
those who would impede advances in Internet technology fear that consumers and businesses
will use the technology for crass commercialism, exploitation, and white-collar crime, rather
than for the sorts of educational and communication purposes for which it was originally
designed. Finally, opponents of genetic engineering fear that, rather than using it to cure birth
defects and prevent disease, the technology will be used instead by the wealthy elite to breed
superior offspring, thereby causing society’s socioeconomic gap to widen even further, even
resulting in the creation of a master race.
In sum, when it comes to new social and political ideas, the power and security afforded by
the status quo impedes initial acceptance, yet by the same token ensures that the ideas will be
applied in ways that will be welcome by our society. On the other hand, it seems that scientific
innovation is readily embraced yet meets stronger resistance when it comes to applying the
innovation.
Issue 96
"Success, whether academic or professional, involves an ability to survive in a new
environment and--, eventually, --to change it."
Do academic and professional success both involve surviving in a new environment and
eventually changing it, as the speaker claims? Regarding academic success, in my view the
speaker overstates the significance of environment. Regarding professional success the
speaker’s threshold claim that adaptation is necessary has considerable merit; however, the
extent to which professional success also entails shaping the environment in which the
professional operates depends on the type of profession under consideration.Turning fzrst to academic success, I concede that as students advance from grade school to
high school, then to college, they must accustom themselves not just to new curricula but also
to new environments--mompfised of campuses, classmates, teachers, and teaching methods.
The last item among this list is proving particularly significant in separating successful students
from less successful ones. As computers and the Internet are becoming increasing important
tools for learning academic skills and for research, they are in effect transforming our learning
environment--at every educational level. Students who fail to adapt to this change will fred
themselves falling behind the pace of their peers.
Otherwise, the speaker’s prescription for academic success makes little sense. Aside from
the environmental variables listed above, academia is a relatively staid environment over time.
The key ingredients of academic success have always been, and will always be, a student’s
innate abilities and the effort the student exerts in applying those abilities to increasingly
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advanced course work. Besides, to assert that academic success involves changing one’s
environment is tantamount to requiring that students alter their school’s teaching methods or
physical surroundings in order to be successful students--an assertion that nonsensically
equates academic study with educational reform.
Turning next to professional success, consider the two traditional professions of law and
medicine. A practicing lawyer must stay abreast of new developments and changes in the law,
and a physician must adapt to new and improved medical devices, and keep pace with new
and better ways to treat and prevent diseases. Otherwise, those professionals risk losing their
competency, and even their professional licenses. However, this is not to say that success in
either profession also requires that the practitioner help shape the legal, medical, technological,
or ethical environment within which these professions operate. To the contrary, undue time and
energy devoted to advancing the profession can diminish a practitioner’s effectiveness as such.In other words, legal and medical reform is best left to former practitioners, and to legislators,
jurists, scientists, and academicians. Thus the speaker’s claim unfairly overrates the ability to
change one’s professional environment as a key ingredient of professional success.
In contrast, when it comes to certain other professions, such as business and scientific
research, the speaker’s claim is far more compelling. Our most successful business leaders
are not those who merely maximize shareholder profits, but rather those who envision a lasting
contribution to the business environment and to society, and realize that vision. The industrial
barons and information-age visionaries of the late 19th and 20th Centuries, respectively, did
not merely adapt to the winds of business and technological change imposed upon them. They
altered the direction of those winds, and to some extent were the fans that blew those winds.
Similarly, ultimate success in scientific research lies not in reacting to new environments but in
shaping future ones--by preventing disease, inventing products that transform the ways in
which we live and work, and so forth. Perhaps the most apt example is the field of space
exploration, which has nothing to do with adapting to new environments, and everything to do
with discovering them and making them available to us in the first place.
To sum up, the speaker’s daim has merit insofar as any individual must adapt to new
environments to progress in life and to survive in a dynamic, ever-changing world. However,
the speaker’s sweeping definition of success overlooks certain crucial distinctions between
academics and the professions, and between some professions and others.
Issue 97
"The function of art is not to keep pace with science and technology but rather to provide an
escape from these forces."
I strongly disagree with this statement, on two counts. First, in my observation art embraces
the current state of science and technology more often than it rejects or opposes it. More
significantly, however, I find the speaker’s suggestion that the function of art relates to science
and technology to be misguided.