Have We lost Science to Technology?

I’ve become obsessed with the use of the word tech both hi and low. We hear the word tech all over the place and we see it applied to all sorts of companies and products (as anyone who was at CES this year can attest). But in my opinion, and as I have written in the past, we continue to misuse the word tech, or at the very least, misapply it. And as I searched for historical examples of what might have been considered tech in the past—radio, telephone, etc.—I realized something that has been critically lost in our era, and that is science. Using the word “science,” in fact, changes it all.

While people frequently use the words “science” and “technology” interchangeably there’s a difference. A huge difference. According to one dictionary definition, “the goal of science is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake while the goal of technology is to create products that solve problems and improve human life. Simply put, technology is the practical application of science.” Unfortunately, we live in an era that is obsessed with the use of the word technology—mostly to create high valuation—and we neglect science, meaning that we are more interested in the application than we are in discovery. And to me that’s a real problem, leading us to the constant search for a better way to deliver pizza while real world problems languish.

When the invention of telephone was announced in The New York Times in 1876, the headline read, “New Inventions in the Science of Electrical Transmission,” with the article noting, “this discovery may be called the solution of all difficulties of telegraphic science.” Although the word “technology” was in use by 1829, the invention of the telephone and radio were both extolled as feats of science. “Within the last few months, the scientific world has been gradually waking up to the immense possibilities of a recent discovery by a young Italian named Marconi,” announced The New York Tribune in 1897. Eventually, Marconi went on to win the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for “contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.” A Nobel Prize in Physics! This was science, discovery. Today we would call this tech and value their companies at ridiculous multiples.

Let’s go back to science, to discovery—to imagining how we might really change the world. I think we need to pause the conversation and general obsession with tech, and start paying attention to science. We need to start thinking about the consequences of everything we do. We need to think about how society is affected by the applications we create, and we need to think about how do we take these great innovations, built on real science, and temper the negative consequences while encouraging progress and application in areas that can make the world a better place. Listen:

“Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another” —Thomas Hobbes

The moment for reckoning is now. I am a lover of technology, and I don’t mean to discourage the development of new inventions. But I believe self-reflection and careful study—the art of science—must occur in tandem.

Science is about imagining what might be. Tech is applying it to solve our problems. Imagine if we return to thinking about science and about developing technologies to make the world a better place—not just make the errands in our daily lives a little more convenient. What do you think?