Science and the STP

Natural science and technological progress are the main characteristic features distinguishing the present civilization from the past. Science and STP have influenced the course of human civilization, have played a most dominant role. It is not of much of an exageration to say that we live in a world, materially and intellectually created by science. This idea is easy to illustrate on a material level. The 20th century has brought a number of technical innovations which are still very young, which are taken so much for granted as if they have always existed, for example: TV, computers, Internet and telephone. And it's all thanks to the progress of science and technology. There is hardly an article used in the homes, in the places of work or in the places of enjoynment that hasn't been modified by technology based on science. Another side of the STP is also very important: the impact of science on the mind of a man. Science is an intellectual enterprize, an attempt to understand the world in a particular way. But STP is a double-faced Janus, it has a potential for both good and eval or as the say:"it's a queer thing, it gives you gifts with one hand and stabs you in the back with the other". I'd like to illustrate this idea with the "Sonnet to Science":

Science! True daughter of old time thou art
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? Or how deem the wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not torn Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Наука! Ты дитя седых времен,
Меняя все вниманьем глаз прозрачных,
Зачем тревожишь ты поэта сон?
О Коршун, крылья чьи - взмах истин мрачных!
Тебя любить иль мудрой счесть тебя?
Зачем же ты мертвишь его усилия?
Когда алмазов небо возлюбя,
Он мчится, раскинув смело крылья.
Дианы коней кто остановил?
Кто из леса изгнал Гамадриаду?
Услав искать приюта меж светил?
Кто выхватил из лона вод Наяду, из веток эльфа?
Кто бред летних грез
Меж тамарисов от меня унес?

And now I'd like to dwell on advantages of the STP. Man has always been possessed with the desire for a better and a more comfortable life. And it is achieved with the help of technology. But every medal has 2 sides: STP makes people lazier. People watch TV for hours and stay glued to the TV screen and it leads to poor health, lack of exercise, eyes-train. Cars, that have become the mains of transformation for billions of people around the world, help us to move rapidly form one place to another without so much afford, but at the same time the number of car accidents is constantly increasing. Car exhausts are polutting the air. Noise and traffic jams affect people's health harmfully. I can give you another example. It is scientific know-how that has produced the means of communication that bind the continents into a single community. Very easily we can get intouch with anyone even at a great distance, but sad as it is little by little the computer world cuts us off from the real world and from real people; it prevents us from communication with each other and kills the art of communication.