The Biological Revolution and Its Cultural Context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2009
Extract
In a recent article in Commentary, American medical sociologist Florence Ruderman observes that the evolution of medical practice and medical attitudes in the United States has been guided largely by the autonomous development of biomedical science and technology. “Science”, she asserts:
… is a profoundly unsettling force … it causes endless dislocations and conflicts. Most basically, science is a source of independent values, motives, norms of conduct, and criteria of judgment. It sets its own course, defines its own goals. As for technology, its impact on medicine is even more obvious and direct; again, not just in producing tools or power but in transmitting values and in shaping the field from within. One need only think of the artificial-heart cases now in the news to realize that the physicians involved … are impelled by a technological drive that has its own logic and values, its own momentum—and its own dangers (24,45).
- Type
- The Cultural Shaping of Biomedical Science and Technology
- Information
- International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , February 1986 , pp. 275 - 283
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986
References
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