Revision summary
Science and technology remake production, health, and communication. Marx embedded tools in class relations; Ogburn named cultural lag. Weber treated science as a cultural order, not a neutral engine. Green Revolution, unpaid care, and platforms show unequal effects. Beck’s risk society names manufactured uncertainties.
Model answer
Introduction
Science and technology change how people produce, communicate, and die. They do not change society by themselves. Social relations decide who invents, who owns, and who is displaced. A critical analysis treats tools as socially embedded.
Body
How they change society
- Karl Marx treated new productive forces as unsettling old relations, from the hand-mill to the steam-mill in a famous formula, always inside class.
- William Ogburn’s cultural lag: material culture moves first, norms trail, producing strain.
- Medical and contraceptive technologies reshaped fertility, which NFHS still tracks. Digital networks reshape publics.
Critical limits
- Technological determinism forgets Max Weber’s point that rational science itself is a cultural order of disenchantment.
- Labour-saving tools can cheapen labour or throw it out, as Braverman argued about machines and management.
- Green Revolution raised yields and also differentiated rural classes and groundwater stress.
- Digital platforms create gig informality as well as access to information.
Gender and caste
- Ann Oakley’s unpaid care is not automatically cut by gadgets; standards of housework may rise.
- Caste can follow into labs, IITs, and algorithmically sorted jobs.
State and science
- Big science is a state and corporate project. The Indian nuclear, space, and Aadhaar stacks are political technologies.
- Risk society, after Ulrich Beck, names manufactured uncertainties that science both causes and is asked to fix.
Verdict
- Science and technology are powerful levers of change in production, health, and communication.
- Direction of change follows property, state, and honour, not the gadget alone.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD ST[Science technology] --> PF[Productive forces] ST --> COM[Communication health] REL[Class state gender] --> DIR[Direction of change] PF --> DIR COM --> DIR
Conclusion
Science and technology bring change by remaking production, bodies, and publics. Marx, Ogburn, Weber, and Beck prevent a hymn to gadgets. Indian agriculture, care, and digital stacks show both gain and new inequality.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Elaborate on various types of religious practices prevalent in India society
Next question in the 2017 paper (Q8). View answer →
-
Does every invention cause progress?
It causes change. Progress is a value judgment about who gains.
-
Can society reject a technology?
Movements delay or reshape adoption, as with some large dams and GM debates.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2019 · Q5(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
What is civil society ? Present a note on civil society engagement with science and technology policy in India -
2017 · Q5(e) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Assess the role of mass media as an agent of social change -
2017 · Q8(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Examine any two theories of social change in detail society -
2016 · Q5(e) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
"Social conflict is both a cause and a consequence of social change." Explain. -
2016 · Q6(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
"Social change can be brought about through development." Illustrate. from the contemporary situation of India. -
2016 · Q7(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
Discuss the contemporary trends in family as a response to social change in modern society. -
2016 · Q8(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
"Education is a major source of social mobility in contemporary society." Explain. -
2015 · Q5(e) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Explain the relevance of the idea of 'cultural lag' in understanding social change.
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2017 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Explain how sociology has emerged as a distinct discipline based on rationality and scientific tamper
Sociology
Sociology arose as a science of society after industry and revolution. Comte named it; Durkheim, Marx, and Weber gave it method and objects. Rationality is both a method and, in Weber, a historical process. Scientific temper uses comparison, rates, and social facts. The Census later became a public file for that temper.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2017 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Examine ethnomethodological and phenomenological perspective as critique of positivism
Sociology as Science
Positivism measures external facts; these perspectives study meaning and members’ methods. Schutz described the everyday life-world of typifications. Garfinkel showed order as accomplished, indexical work. Berger and Luckmann treated institutions as objectivated meanings. The critique qualifies rates; it does not delete official files.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2017 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Illustrate with example the significance of variable in sociology research
Sociology as Science
A variable is a concept with more than one comparable value. It states relations and forces operational definition. Durkheim’s suicide rates illustrate theoretically named variables. Census and NFHS work variables can hide unpaid care if poorly coded. Blumer’s warning is part of the significance, not a footnote.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.