Inventing The Electric Can-Of-Worms Opener

Technology. In the pest control world, it's bedrock. Pesticides, baits, sprayers, computers, faxes, the Internet. "How would we function without these tools?" we wonder, shuddering at the thought. But then the other chorus — the "anti-science tide," as some of the barons of science have dubbed it — rises: Technology is suffocating us, running amuck, destroying the environment, creating more problems than it solves.

A pair of provocative, similar-yet-dissimilar articles coincidentally crossed my desk the other day. One, "Americans Are In Love With Science" by Daniel S. Greenberg, appeared in Science & Government Report, a Washington newsletter. The other, "Solve A Problem, Create A New One With Technology" by David L. Chandler, was originally published in the Boston Globe. Both articles deal with technology and science and how Americans view these institutions as contributors to our culture and economy. Both struck me as balanced and well-researched, and I think we can learn a few important points from them.

In the first-named article, the writer's gist is that the anti-science tide — so declared by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman and several other scientists — is a myth. The supposedly epidemic "back-to-nature" mood among Americans doesn't exist, Greenberg asserts, and he backs that assertion with a slew of statistics from 25 years of public opinion surveys commissioned by the National Science Foundation. The reason Lederman and company are grumbling, Greenberg writes, is "that they grew up on federal blank checks during the go-go days of the Cold War" and now that government spending is being scrutinized more tightly and skeptically, "the zip has departed from the economics of research." For many researchers these are indeed hard times, Greenberg notes, since money isn't as readily available for the pursuit of scientific opportunities. But he adds, "there is a big difference between austerity and catastrophe, between public frugality and hostility."

The second article contends that although technology has improved the quality of our lives overall, we should monitor innovations more closely than we do because they often have unforeseen side effects that are less than desirable. Citing two recent books, Why Things Bite Back by Edward Tenner and Future Imperfect by Howard Segal, Chandler recites a laundry list of examples of technology's unintended consequences:

• Expectations that computers would lead to the "paperless office" have faded under the realization that laser printers now spew out more paper than ever.

• Predictions that antibiotics would eradicate infectious disease have given way to the grim reality that overuse of those antibiotics has bred resistant strains of "superbugs" that could leave us even more vulnerable to disease.

• Pesticides that were supposed to eliminate destructive insects sometimes have eliminated their natural enemies instead, leaving the pests more virulent than before. (Fire ants in the South are a pertinent example.)

• Flood control measures have led to more development along vulnerable coastlines, resulting in more severe devastation when floods do break through.

"I was fascinated by the way in which people's behavior offsets technology," notes Tenner, the author of Why Things Bite Back. Any PCO could cite dozens of examples of this phenomenon.

Segal, the author of Future Imperfect, notes that although the conventional wisdom holds that technology shapes society, often the reverse is true. He points to the paradox that some innovations designed to enhance communications — telephone, the Internet — have led to increased isolation. "Sometimes the dark side strangles the good side," he says.

What, ultimately, can we learn from these technological backlashes? Tenner probably said it best — and his words ring especially true for PCOs: "The biggest thing we've learned is that it rarely pays to try to clobber anything."