Technology

(Gr. techne, art, craft, skill also Gr. teckne: a set of rules, system or method of making or doing). Science (*) should not be confused with the body of practical applications that derive from it and are designated by the term t. Science and t., however, mutually affect each other in a process of vigorous feedback. Today, the term t. is used to refer to all the methods that tend to improve systems for obtaining or developing products. Depending on the velocity and quality of the change experienced, people refer to technological evolution or revolution. In turn, t. is understood as the study of the means, techniques and processes employed in the various branches of production in general and of industry in particular. For N.H., the development of t. depends not only on the prior accumulation of knowledge and social practice, but also on the direction of the process in any given society that, considering the current moment, finds itself in relation with a world society (*planetarization). Independently of material conditions, the ideas involved in forecasting and making plans for the future have a decisive influence on technological developments in the present. Thus, for one same material surroundings, different lines of technological development can be chosen, yielding different results. Today we are reaching limits of material advances that have failed to take into account whether certain resources are renewable, and it is difficult to sustain the direction of these advances without irreparable harm to the environment, which forms a limiting factor for all technological progress. As a result, we see alternative technologies being applied more vigorously every day.