The metaphor of the “double-edged sword” seems entirely apt to summarize the relationship between science and the human. On the one hand, science provides clear examples of technological progress, greatly facilitating human life, while also opening new possibilities for its development. On the other hand, science also creates a new set of problems for the human being: how should we understand our relation to existence in the wake of the history of scientific discovery? Should science play the central role in our lives, as it does in contemporary society, even though this dominant discourse at the same time appears limited in terms of addressing other key philosophical problems that we are confronted with, such as ethics and what kind of society we should strive for? This tension emerges on various levels of our existence: on the individual level in terms of the possibilities science affords to humans, while the questions it opens about what it means to be a human; on the social level, where social advancements are made possible by scientific discovery, although science at the same time creates a very particular and singular type of society dominated by technology and scientific solutions; and on the level of the relation to the environment as a whole, where science alleviates our struggle with nature, although at the same time by harming nature.
In the case of the individual, science essentially empowers the individual. In non-scientific societies, the social order was primarily hierarchical. Individuals were consigned to various classes based on systems such as monarchy and religious elites. Scientific knowledge challenges the norms that underline such societies, exposing their prejudicial foundations: for example, the divine right of kings can no longer be cited when science questions the very concept of God. The progress of science means that individuals are afforded access to technologies, to new possibilities that therefore makes the social order more democratic. In contrast, however, science also tends to materialize our very existence of human beings: from the scientific perspective some intrinsic meaning to individual life disappears, as the individual becomes merely one material phenomenon among others to be described and studied. The individual, in other words, threatens to lose his or her status as a person because of the scientific reductionism to the material.
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"Science is a Double-Edged Sword".
On the level of the social, science once again appears to have a liberating effect. The progressions of science in fields such as technology create new opportunities for social organization: hence, the widespread availability of social media such as Twitter and Facebook become political tools, for example, in the Arab Spring and in the Occupy movement. In these cases, scientific advancement allows more power to the society. However, the dominance of society means simultaneously that society becomes more and more defined by its relation to the technological: our possibilities while becoming open are now limited to a technological form of life. This is evident in the amount of time spent with electronic devices of all sorts, radically changing the forms of our social relations.
This double edged-sword aspect of science also appears on the level of environment. The struggle of the human against the elements is won with the advances of science: it allows the possibility to not be so determined by habitat and the natural world, giving the possibility to radically change the world around us. Yet this change can also clearly lead to ecological destruction: the freedom granted by the automobile and therefore in social mobility now can also damage the very ecosystem which is necessary to our survival.
The way in which science impacts our lives across diverse levels such as the individual, the social and the environmental demonstrates the ubiquitous presence of science. It also demonstrates the importance of the question of thinking about our relationship to science, simply because the relationship is not straightforward: the positives science creates also creates at the same time a new set of problems and challenges.
