Science, Technology,
and Society
Prepared for FSC STS classes, December 8, 2011
Tom Easton
Professor of Science
Thomas College
Getting Started…
 Dr. Paula Thompson asked me to start by talking about
how I got involved in doing Taking Sides books.
 Well, it all began once upon a time. I was just a kid
with interests in science (Dad was a biologist, Mom a
nurse) and science fiction. I turned thirteen in 1957,
the year of Sputnik. The newspapers and magazines
of the time were full of rockets, satellites, and space
travel.
Social Impact
 Sputnik stimulated the US space program
and a huge boost in STEM education
funding
 In part this was responsible for the huge
flowering of technology that has happened
during my lifetime
 It has happened fast, and it has prompted
debate over many associated issues
The College Years…
 By the time I was in college, I was already
interested in how science and technology
interacted with society, as well as with the
ways issues in science, technology, and
society prompt debates over the facts, their
meanings, and what to do about them.
Graduate School and After…
 In graduate school, I started writing science
fiction, and not long after that, science
textbooks.
Want to Be a Writer Too?
 Then write!
Have something to say.
 Apply seat to chair and fingers to keyboard.
 Keep a regular schedule.
 And submit the results to editors.
 If someone buys your work, be professional.
 Accept editing. Meet deadlines.
 Learn from experience.
 But don’t give up the day job.
 Writing is a chancy occupation.
 Writing classes? Creative or other?
 Some people like them. I never took one.

The Thomas College Years
 Shortly after I started teaching at Thomas College, I
was asked to develop a course in “Methods and
Issues in Science." That course covered a number of
issues in science, technology, and society, as well as
a fair amount of philosophy. Since there was at the
time no single textbook for the course, I set out to
write one.
 When I showed the proposal to an editor at Dushkin
Publishing in Guilford, CT, the response was positive,
but not quite what I wanted. "Not quite our cup of
tea," he said. "But we do these Taking Sides
books. Think you could do it in that form?"
The Rest Is History
 Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Science,
Technology, and Society is now in its tenth
edition. Later, McGraw-Hill bought Dushkin and
moved the operation to Iowa. When Ted Goldfarb,
editor of Taking Sides: Clashing Views on
Environmental Issues, was ill, I was asked to help out
on his 9th edition. After he died, they gave me the
book (now in its 15th edition), as well as Ted's
Sources anthology (now in its 4th edition).
And I was able to convince them to let me do Taking
Sides: Clashing Views in Energy and Society.
Why So Many Editions?
 Taking Sides books benefit from being up-to-
date.
 But publishers do love to kill the used-book
market.



Only 10% of the pages have to be reset to
justify changing the edition number.
Admittedly many publishers do achieve that
with trivial changes.
With Taking Sides, each new edition has
about 50% new content.
Choosing Content
 I read Science, Science News, Scientific
American, Technology Review, and more to
keep an eye on current issues. When I see
one that is prompting debate, I look for
articles on both sides of the debate.
 The library’s computerized magazine and
journal databases are a huge help!
 If I find articles of appropriate length, then I
have a possibility.
 Current possibilities include…
Is Global Warming Now Inevitable?
 The International Energy Agency says we
have 5 years before climate warming
exceeding 2 degrees Celsius is inevitable,
and there is no real sign that anything is
being done to forestall it. See
http://www.iea.org/weo/ .
 The US government outlook seems more
optimistic (http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/)
(“Assuming no changes in policy related to greenhouse gas emissions,
carbon dioxide emissions grow slowly and do not return to 2005 levels
until 2027”).
Is the Growth Economy Dead?
 Richard Heinberg (of the Post Carbon Institute), The
End of Growth (New Society Publishers, 2011), says
"Economic growth as we have known it is over and
done with. ... The economic crisis that began in 20072008 was both foreseeable and inevitable, and it
marks a permanent, fundamental break from past
decades... From now on, only relative growth is
possible: the global economy is playing a zero-sum
game, with an ever-shrinking pot to be divided among
the winners."
 In part, Heinberg blames looming resource shortages
and environmental degradation.
Can We Still Afford “Big
Science”?
 Given the US’s and the world’s recent
economic problems, this question is of
interest to physicists, astronomers, and more.
 There are huge arguments over whether we
can afford to fund the James Webb
telescope, planetary exploration, atomsmashers, and other large science projects.
There is also concern for more numerous
publically-funded small projects.
Sorry…
 Often, an issue seems to be debated only in
short pieces, along the lines of newspaper
op-ed columns.
 Those I cannot use.
 Nor can I use issues that are being discussed
without debate, though I do keep an eye on
them, for debate may well develop.
 One such issue is 3D printing.
What Is 3D Printing?
 It is also known as:


Rapid prototyping
Additive manufacturing
The Basic Idea
Slices, Not Dices
 If you can slice an object
 You can glue the slices back together
 3D printing builds 3D objects layer by layer
 100-200 layers per inch
 And it is slow--a Lego block can take an hour
to make
 But it’s getting better—rapidly!
Basic Technique #1
Lower the platform,
add new layer
of powder,
and repeat
Platform with
layer of powder
Fuse powder
with laser or
by adding binder
(with ink-jet
printer)
Z-Corporation Machines Use
Powder with Binder
Basic Technique #2
 Fused Deposition
Modeling (FDM): Squirt
semiliquid material
(heated plastic for
RepRap, below, or
plaster, wax, chocolate)
Stratasys FDM
Basic Technique #3
 Stereolithography
 Tank of liquid polymer
 Polymerize (harden) with
laser beam
 Latest wrinkle: Araldite
Digitalis uses MEMS to
expose 42,000 pixels at
once. Faster!
Art
There is a collection of printable files at
http://www.3dprintables.org
Limitations
 Pixelly (voxelly)
 Slow
 Expensive

Until recently, there were only industrial
machines priced from $20,000 up. High end
at half a mil!
But…
 Print shops are cropping up
 E.g., Shapeways
 Specialized products
 Christmas ornaments with your face
 Masks
 Artwork
 Fetuses
 “The London Ultrasound Centre in the UK offers the
ability to take a 3D scan of your offspring - before birth
- and produce a 3D print of the child. Actually, the 3D
Print is simply used to create a mold for subsequent
bronze casting. There's no official pricing on the
Centre's website for this service, but according to the
Daily Mail, it costs 1,200 pounds sterling (or around
USD$1,800) and takes several weeks to deliver!”
For the DIY Crowd
 Fab@Home

Under $3,000 for parts
 RepRap
Under $1,000 for parts
(and it can print parts
for new machines!)

Where’s It Going to Go?
 The low-end prices are (in constant dollars)
where the PC was in mid-70s
 Many observers think the tech is too
 That is: Prices will drop – lowest are already
c. $500!
 Capabilities will improve: Multiple colors,
multiple materials, less pixelly
 3D printers will be in every home in 20 years
Better Capabilities? One Dream: Print a Robot that Walks out of Printer
Second Dream—Print Houses!
 It will take a big printer, but–really– this
technology is very scalable. And several
teams are working on this.
Impacts
 The design economy
 Businesses will have to adapt
 States will too, for they will suffer lost sales
taxes (1/3 of typical state budget)
 New sorts of misbehavior
The Design Economy
 As soon as people can turn a
computer file into a useful solid
object, those computer files will be
product
 People with CAD skills—or 3D
scanners!-- will make them
 People with printers will buy them
 Another opportunity for the
developing world?
New Business Models
 Sell—and customize--3D printer files, not widgets
 Sell raw materials
 Sell equipment to recycle materials
 Sell a printer linked to file source (Think Kindle!)
 And don’t forget that porn led the way to e-
commerce. (Sorry! No pics!)
State Taxes
 It’s a real problem.
 States are losing billions in sales taxes
because of e-commerce


The transactions exist
They just have to figure out how tax them
 3D printing will mean no sale of product,
hence no transactions and nothing to tax
 Count on it: The states will make it up
somewhere!
New Misbehaviors
 I can hardly wait for the Creationists to get
their hands on this tech
 Of course, they aren’t the only ones who
might like to manufacture evidence to order.
Unethical scientists, crooked cops…
 IP infringement
 Crooks are printing ATM card skimmers
 Etc.
Where’s It Going to Go?
 We can try to predict
 But the only safe prediction is that we are
going to be surprised
 Both at what 3D printing proves able to do
 And at what it does to us (or society)
The MIT Food Printer
 MIT's Fluid Interfaces Group is working on the
design of a concept device that if made popular,
would revolutionize how we cook, eat and even
socialize.The device shown on the next slide (just
a conceptual image) would store a variety of raw
food elements in cartridges. The cartridges would
be swapped into the print head, which can hold
several simultaneously. A 3D model, or "recipe"
would drive the head to the right spots to deposit
juicy material in a delicious pattern.
Commercial Bioprinting
Available Now
 Invetech has announced the availability of a
commercial 3D Bioprinter. It's being
distributed by Organovo to research
institutions around the world.
 What's a Bioprinter? It's essentially a 3D
printer that deposits living cells according to a
3D model to form actual living tissue that can
potentially be used inside living organisms.
Possessions are Over!
 Writer Bruce Sterling fantasizes a new flat near Old Street Station in
London. Apparently he's a bit short on facilities right now:
“As yet, I possess no stove, no toilet, no bathtub and and no bed. In fact,
there are no physical objects in my flat whatsoever, except for my two rollaboard suitcases, this Taiwanese netbook, and one metric tonne of natural
ABS plastic on a giant wooden cable reel. The cable reel doubles as the
coffee table on which I write this informative blogpost.”
 This apparent lack of household items does not seem to concern
Sterling even slightly. He's undergone a transformation of understanding
of objects:
 But the key insight is – they’re not possessions. Possessions are over.
They are data! Data which sometimes manifests itself as his
possessions.
“This is the essence of the 3D printing paradigm: the data is of value.
Objects are mere transitory instances that can be used, or not.”
Full Color 3D Printing
 3D printing service Shapeways
now offers full color 3D printing.
They use a ZCorp 650 3D printer,
which provides the color capability.
The "Full Color Sandstone"
material is able to handle color
texture maps.
 It's obviously more work to
prepare color models...
Welcome to The Product Bay
 The Pirate Bay may be fading away, eaten
slowly by corporate legal teams, but their
inspiration carries on - and not only for
bigtime entertainment media. Now there’s
"The Product Bay,” whose intention seems
similar to the Pirates. They "want to take all
of this to the next level … for real life
objects."
3D Printing Debates
 Not much so far
 It just isn’t on the horizon for most folks
 But there have been suggestions that the
technology will have to be banned, or at least
heavily regulated
 The debates are coming!
Future Taking Sides
 And when they do…
 They’ll be in Taking Sides: Clashing Views in
Science, Technology, and Society