What this means is that the influence of these forces on the future will not rest exclusively on the main generators of science and technology (S&T), such as transitional corporations and the knowledge infrastructures of the industrialised nations.  Because once created, technologies have no boundaries and science no sphere of monopoly, save for comprehension and access.  This will portend good or bad, depending on how man will direct his primordial instincts.  If the human race accepts its oneness, and sees its major task as survival by protecting the only life support systems it has, as well as creating a culture of common human cause, by including all men in these quests, there is hope.  But if it capitulates to selfish technological determination and the fallacy of quarrelsome divisions based on wealth and privilege, the future is bleak.

How we treat each other, and the extent to which we adhere to an informed respect for the environment, are crucial ethical and sustainability issues, which we cannot any longer ignore.

Factors

The harnessing and use of knowledge are the factors which have made humans the dominant earthly species.  Man's rise above other animals in the beginning was relatively even and slow, until his discovery and use of the scientific method.  This invention of a verifiable way to uncover the laws of nature, and exploit these discoveries by linking science with the creation and extension of technologies, was man's greatest innovation.  As a consequence of which, technology, and not nature, has become the boundary against which possibilities are now measured.  Technology therefore has emerged as the most important force in the modern world.

So pervasive and so pivotal have scientific artifacts, ideas, culture and technologies become, that they have been taken for granted.  Electricity, radio, telephone, television, automobiles and the computer are all products of S&T and have become commonplace, as is air and water.  Actually the duo of S&T has created a highly penetrative global knowledge mechanism, with many fronts, ranging from understanding the chemistry of life and the universe with man's place in it, to the confidence to solve problems of all sorts, including artificial intelligence.

S&T are not ...

What is significant to note, is that S&T are not pertinent, partial, nor preclusionary to any one population, so although S&T may possess important site specific and peculiar cultural characteristics, their ultimate impacts will be felt in all jurisdictions, whether they subscribe to the tenets of science, or not.

In this audience there is no need to belabour the importance of S&T to economic, forensic, environmental, or policing developments.  If however there is need to be reassured, just recall that the advent of the industrialised, or developed countries, was directly due to innovations made possible by S&T.  Additionally, although there is no direct evidence of the relationship between economic growth and science, all the countries that have neglected this method, and have made few investments in research and development (R&D) are the ones that have not progressed sufficiently to be counted among the developed economies, Sub-Saharan Africa is the epitome of this fact.

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