¨ãºaÂÓ Koo Young-Mo

Abstract

Currently there are no laws prohibiting cloning in Korea, though the Korean Medical Association (KMA) does have a guideline restricting the implantation of genetically modified embryos. This restriction does nothing to prevent therapeutic cloning or stem cell research, but it does provide some sort of barrier to reproductive cloning.

In November 2000, the Korean government launched the Korean Bioethics Advisory Commission (KBAC) to provide policy recommendations on human cloning and stem cell research. In July 2001, after holding its hearings on the issue, the KBAC submitted the following recommendations to the Ministry of Science and Technology: 1) to prohibit both reproductive and therapeutic cloning, and 2) to allow (at least temporarily) stem cell research on embryos created through IVF. The Ministry of Science and Technology was expected to present its own recommendations to the National Assembly in 2002 for legislative debate, but it failed to do so. The Ministry of Science and Technology did not seem to agree with KBAC on cloning issues and thus reluctant to accept its policy recommendations.

¤¤®q¨q¤H NAKAJIMA Hideto

¶ï­ìªF§^ TSUKAHARA Togo

Abstract

Togo Tsukahara (Kobe University), Hideto Nakajima (Tokyo Institute of Technology),and Hideyuki Hirakawa (Kyoto Women's University)

In this presentation, we would like to present the preliminary results and a state of progress of the Japanese STS Research Project on GMOs, organized in Kobe, Japan.
And at the same time, I would like to discuss and contribute whatever helpful, through our experience, to our academic and intellectual struggle, prolonged and entangled political negotiation in Japan, and to the establishment of our "East Asian STS Network", our New Future, our "New relationship of science, technology and society".

This presentation has three parts:
The Introductory part is about Public Image on GMO. I would like to trace the transformation of public images on GMO in recent years, particularly symbolized between "Do not buy this!" movement (1999) and political-detective novel "GMO Conspiracy" (2003)
The first part is about the outline of our project, which includes a brief explanation of its Japanese STS context, and preliminary research results.
The second part is one exemplification of our analysis, and mainly Hirakawa's methodology of "framing", on GMO consensus conference in 2000 held in Japan.

Through these three parts, I have three arguments:
Argument 1 GMO issue in Japan has became treated in the context of more socio-political, than techno-scientific, topic in public culture.
Argument 2 From the "self-reflecsive" viewpoint of R. on R. in STS, GMO was a "issue generative" area for STS community. Otherwise, we can conclude that it was a "heuristic" area for the Japanese STS community.
Argument 3 "Framing" analysis (H. Hirakawa's theoretization) is effective on the issue of GMO in Japan.

Abstract

In this paper, by examining the idea of "A Hippocratic Oath for scientists" promoted by Sir Joseph Rotblat, oaths for medical professionals and scientists, and the definitions and relationships of different moral norms such as oaths, codes, and guidelines, we propose an oath for bioscientists with justifications based on professional and organizational ethics.

ª÷°ò¼í Kim Kiyoon

Abstract

Confrontation between the environmentalists and developmentalists became hot issue in Korea. So far, scientists, philosophers, and historians have not been communicating each other effectively. STS network could be not only the meeting place for the people with different perspectives, but also the most promising field to produce new perspectives.

Abstract

Consensus conference is nowadays a fashionable initiative for both policy makers and many concerned people about science and technology. In analyzing consensus conference, we need to keep in mind that this has so many facets
and should be scrutinized by several points of view. For example, we can analyze it as a type of Technology Assessment and discuss its relation to policy making. We can analyze it in relation to the nature of dialogue in this conference. And we can also analyze it in relation to a type of participatory consensus formation in general. All these points of view are of course not isolated ones but inter-related.

In this paper, I would like to consider briefly Japanese experience of consensus conference from these points of view. Then I raise a question. ¡§Why recently, especially after 1990¡¦s, do we need such public participation initiatives as public comment, public dialogue, consensus conference etc. and evaluate them positively?¡¨

My tentative answer is roughly as follows. The great transformation of social consciousness which enabled these initiatives, had occurred in about 1970 in advanced nations including Japan, but the cold war regime has masked it. Disenchantment of the spell of cold war in 1989 opened the door for constructing the public sphere in which these initiatives are possible.

§d¹Å­d Chia-Ling WU

Abstract

In this preliminary report, I intend to present this new facet of patients' rights movements in Taiwan since 2000. How do these groups collect and present different forms of credibility? If scientific knowledge lies in its esoteric forms as well as the control of the evaluation of their work (Friedson 1970), to what extent can these lay people challenge it? In what circumstances can such challenge lead to effective responses? Why have such challenges started increasing since 2000? I use three cases for discussion. In the end, I will make comparison and contrast to figure out the key factors for the pathways toward building credibility among lay activists.

Abstract

Abstract

I would like to present a brief survey on the contemporary discursive topography on the malady that I take up today, what is called eating disorders .
Roughly speaking, the publication of Hilde Bruch's Eating Disorders (1973) was an epoch making advent for the history of understanding of this malady. Bruch published another book entitled The Golden Cage (1978) containing evocative images and easy expressions for a wider audience. But even after the publication of this second book, anorexia nervosa was not a disease well known in grand public. Except for specialists, this remained a secret and particular disease. Anyway, during the first half of 1980's, some books written by authors who had experienced personally this malady were published succeedingly; for instance, Sheila MacLeod's The Art of Starvation (1981), Cherry Boone O'Neill's Starving for Attention (1983), and Kim Chernin's The Hungry Self (1985). Particularly, The Hungry Self could present clearly the view that eating disorders emerged from the struggle of young girls to quest for self-identity, with an ambivalent sentiment toward her mother (I don't want to become such an old tired woman; Thank you for bring me up etc.). This category of "the first person's confession or confession-like analysis" is still intermittently published until now .

The Emergence of Public Sphere: Public Lectures on Industrial Sciences in Restoration France

Abstract

S&T in the public sphere is one of the most prominent topics in recent STS studies. As Kobayashi suggested in his presentation, in the last few decades, S&T related problems have left the despotism of scientists and bureaucrats, and began to be dealt with in the public sphere. This may be true, at least in the case of Japan, but it does not mean that S&T had no relevance at all to the public sphere before this shift of arena has occurred. As Habermas has shown in his monumental book, the public sphere
had emerged in European societies during the 18th and 19th centuries. In this presentation, I will argue that S&T has always been intimately related to the public sphere, from the very beginning of this emerging process. Further, it will be asserted that S&T has in fact played an important role in the formation of public sphere.

In this speech, I will focus on the public lectures on industrial sciences which were given at Conservatoire des arts et metiers in Restoration France. By gathering a number of people from diverse origins, with different intentions, to one big lecture room, these lectures have made a significant contribution to the industrialization of the French society. At the same time, they had played an important role in the emergence of public sphere in reactionism France. By looking at scrutinizing this process, I would like to
provide the foundation for the discussion surrounding S&T in the public sphere, from a historical perspective.

ªL±Rº³ Chung-his LIN

Abstract Picture 1

History researches usually pay lots of attentions on literal writings. Compared with texts, pictures are almost neglected. However, pictures provide marvelous resources of imagination, realities, and imagined realities for STS research. I will use "cannibalized vehicles in Taiwan," "the hepatitis B control in Taiwan," and "knowledge in the areca quit controversy in Taiwan" as case studies to show the power of pictures in STS studies. From the point of view of empiricism, pictures show realities and truths. Although realities exist there, their meanings wait for investigation. The process of investigation is the process of meanings construction. Based on different political, philosophical, economic, cultural, or ideological positions, various actors may have different interpretations for pictures in different power networks. That is, the process of interpretations not only creates a domain for imaginations, but also creates imagined realities as soon as the pictures are applied to certain context. Therefore, we can see imagination, realities, and imagined realities all are entangled together and create each other.

§õ©|­§ Yi Sang Wook

Abstract

Understanding is one of the crucial intellectual virtues we pursue when we are doing our research. Sociologists try to understand the nature of various kinds of social institutions, and historians want to get a clear picture of what was going on, say four hundreds years ago in rural, largely agricultural Korea, while philosophers aspire to understand if a bit more abstract, but equally substantial topics such as the nature of scientific objectivity, reality and truth.

When the target of understanding is a very complicated, multi-layered thing such as science and technology in modern world, understanding of it, if possible at all, comes in an accordingly complicated manner, and we usually negotiate our way to the comprehensive understanding of the subject relying on the familiar analytic method. For instance, we may choose to study sociological aspects of science and technology (or its philosophical aspects), without paying much attention to the other aspects. When all these 'partial' understandings are obtained, and we are lucky, then we may combine them to get the big and full picture.

One may easily notice that the task is actually hard to tackle. Due to institutional divide between different STS approaches and lack of frequent and strong interactions over their shared research topics, the STS tends to look like a collection of disparate subjects, rather than a subject suggesting general pictures. In fact the task is more difficult because even with a discipline say, sociology of science, there are no consensus regarding what is the best way to understand sociologically the nature of science and technology in modern world. The great divide in methodology and the basic premise about the nature of scientific practice between the Mertonian and social constructivists is all too familiar to other STS disciplines.

Here lie the intrinsic difficulties in doing STS. Understanding a simple subject often turns out to be a difficult job, but understanding a complicated subject, which generally requires multilateral perspectives at the same time looks like a hopeless task to achieve. And South Korea is not an exemption to this problem, and we have our own specific problems as well, which are, I believe, explained in this conference by Dr Lee Eun Kyung..

Despite all these complications, I personally take the future of STS in South Korea to be bright. It is because we have a number of countervailing factors, which I expect more than compensate (or at least is likely to more than compensate in the future).the difficulties of doing STS research in South Korea. They are strong social interests about ethical and social implications of science and technology, lots of promising topics for illuminating case studies, growing community of Korean STS scholars and their efforts to build networks to learn from each other, and a sign (hopefully not just a sign in future) of social recognition of the importance of the STS research in a range of social sectors.

While nursing my hope for the bright future of Korean STS, I would like to suggest a few (obviously not exhaustive) promising topics for the STS research in South Korea. Naturally this list might provide good topics for our fellow Asian STS scholars, and if it does that will give me a great pleasure. In fact, it would be great if we could do some comparative analysis among different countries on these shared research issues.

Abstract

What is East Asian STS Network, and what should it be? Our collaboration has just started and our future is still in the air. But the speaker will argue that we need to establish an organization comparable to 4S & EASST. For that, we have to know the current stage of each nation’s activity, and have to specify our target of cooperation. After briefly introducing the Japanese experience, the speaker will show a list of topics to be discussed, and will welcome active contributions from the floor to boost mutual communication.

³Å¤j¬° Dai-Wie FU

§õ®¦¨Ê Lee Eun-Kyoung

Abstract

During the last two decades, STS in Korea has grown rapidly both in quantity and in quality. Now STS is institutionalized, though not perfect, as an independent and professional research field. More than 20 Ph.D.s on STS have full professorship at universities and more than 10 Ph.D.s on STS are working for policy research institutes and the press; thousands of undergraduate students take courses on STS every year. In addition, STS plays an important role of leading public opinion on the recent social issues of science and technology by means of public lectures, organized activities of NGOs, and articles of newspapers and periodicals. Some researchers in STS participate in policymaking.
The status and social role of STS in these days form a striking contrast with those in the late 1970s. It was the period when there were few scholars of STS and no independent training course for students except for several introductory ones. Scientism was prevailed and nobody had doubt the direction where science and technology were headed for.
How did STS in Korea grow so rapidly and how did it have influence on matters of science and technology? What were the achievements of STS up to the present and what were the limitations of STS to overcome in future?
Answering these questions, I argue that the STS in Korea has had similar traits to the economic and social development: the mixture of various stages of modernization and industrialization resulting from the, so called, "compressive industrialization(À£ÁY¦¨ªø)." First, I demonstrate the changes of Korean society to explain the meaning and implication of the compressive industrialization. Second, I try to show the development of STS, the academic achievements and social impacts of STS and then to analyze the leading factors of the development.

¤pªL«H¤@ KOBAYASHI Shin'ichi

Abstract

In modern society, where Science and Technology (S&T) are heavily permeating, almost all of public issues should be solved with assistance of, and in connection with, S&T. Therefore, we are facing a critical issue, 'S&T and Governance', including many agendas such as 'expertising democracy' as well as 'democratising expertise'. Of course, these issues belong to STS,
but also become important issues in public policy. Many attempts have been experimented among various countries.
Japan did not have so much experience in these issues. There was little promotion policy of STS activities with some exceptions. However, Japanese government launched research programs concerning STS recently. This presentation aims to describe a brief history and status quo of Japan's governmental initiative in STS, and to make comparison with other countries
especially from the viewpoint of social shaping of technology - relationship between STS and public policy.