Science and Technology 239Princeton, talked in 1944 about changes that “occurred in the science and
technology of physics with advances in communications and transport,
based upon electronics and aerodynamics, reaching a tremendous pace of
growth only within the last few years.”^56
Many physical scientists and engineers joined the prevalent discourse
of the turbulent 1930s and the early 1940s—punctuated by concerns
about technological unemployment, a proposed moratorium on science,
and the role of science in World War II—to expand the meaning of “sci-
ence and technology” from that of a system of knowledge and practices to
include that of a powerful agent (or agents) of social change, the meanings
of “technology” developed by Veblen earlier in the century.^57 Engineering
professor Andrey Potter remarked in 1933, at the depth of the depres-
sion, that “whether civilized man likes it or not, he is destined to live and
work in an environment affected to an increasing extent by science and
technology.”^58 In a 1937 paper aptly entitled “Science and Society,” F. R.
Moulton, secretary of the AAAS, remarked that the “impact of new scien-
tifi c discoveries on processes of wealth production has at times created
serious economic and social maladjustments; and the fear has frequently
been expressed that science and technology may even come to be the
master rather than the servant of mankind—if, indeed, they may not lead
to the destruction of society.”^59
In the fall of 1940, a year into World War II, Frank Jewett and Robert
King, a vice president of AT&T, addressed concerns about the social impli-
cations of engineering in a speech at the bicentennial celebrations of the
University of Pennsylvania:
At a time like the present, we all realize that something is on trial... It would
be very interesting to discover just what it is that stands before the bar. It
may be fundamental science, it may be applied science, it may be science and
technology in general, it may be religion, it may be domestic politics or world
politics, or it may be that old and primeval scapegoat, human nature... Here
in brief is the setting for any contemporary discussion of science and technol-
ogy and their repercussions on the social order.Jewett and King acknowledged that “the major problems and troubles
of the day have, in considerable measure, a technological and scientifi c
heritage. Both our civilization and our civilization- destroying engines are
mechanistic.” They dismissed a planned economy and other forms of
government oversight as corrective measures, favoring instead a public-
private partnership on the order of the National Defense Research Com-
mittee, to address social issues.^60 Jewett and King regarded science and