A Cape Town conference last week pondered the impact of science and technology on culture, writes Lesley Cowling
THERE’S a story of a Western explorer in Africa whose bearers sat down at the side of the path after carrying his goods for some hours and refused to continue the journey, despite his urging. They were resting, they said, so that their souls could catch up with their bodies.
Professor Meschach Ogunniyi, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) chair at the School of Science and Mathematics at the University of the Western Cape, used this example last weekend to pinpoint one barrier to public acceptance of science and technology.
We have all had the feeling, after periods of rapid change, of needing to digest our experience and make sense of it all. But in the highly technological societies of the 1990s, people may feel they can never catch up.
This feeling, Ogunniyi argued, is a particularly strong element when societies try to develop a sci-tech ethos in Africa. “The body has prospered, but the soul and spirit have continually sought for repose outside the realm of science and technology.”
Ogunniyi was giving a paper on the effects of science and technology on traditional cultures at a conference in Bellville, Cape Town, on the public understanding of science and technology. Participants included sci- tech educators, scientists, engineers and other interested people from all over Southern Africa.
They gathered to ponder the problem of social attitudes towards a sector little understood and often viewed with suspicion, and to debate possible solutions.
The discussions in-cluded a good deal of self-analysis, too, with scientists admitting to failings of their own in effectively communicating with others.
But the problems lie deeper than communication, as several papers noted: there is a clash of cultures.
Ogunniyi pointed out that, in traditional communities, knowledge that comes from authority takes precedence over knowledge that is empirically observed. But science is defined by its strict adherence to the observable, measurable world, and scientific cultures accord this kind of knowledge the kind of respect traditionally given to the elder.
Also, said Ogunniyi: “In traditional cultures, there is no sharp demarcation between the physical and the spiritual.” Unlike Western societies, African communities don’t separate the visible and invisible worlds.
So could a shift to a sci-tech ethos threaten traditional belief systems and damage social structures? And does the issue boil down to a simple choice between cultures?
The participants didn’t think so. Some described culture as dynamic, adapting all the time to integrate foreign elements.
Others cited Japan, where a strong traditional culture coexists with technological advancement.
However, Margaret Keogh of the University of Durban-Westville argued that no discussion should define science and technology simply as “Western science” and ignore what she termed “indigenous science”.
She defined it as commonsense knowledge gained informally, but still science because it relies on observable data. Understanding local weather patterns or using plant remedies would fall into this category.
Keogh argued that indigenous science can be used as a way into teaching science, and that the separation made between informal and formal knowledge is not helpful.
Any public awareness programme for science and technology, she said, needs to take indigenous science into account and thoroughly root itself in the local social context. This means consulting learners, rather than imposing a world view on them.
ENDS