Why STV?

No single set of issues will engage us in the next century equivalent to those raised by the combined development of science, technology, biomedicine, and computerization. Every day we are greeted with news in the media about new genes, new ways of accessing information, new developments in engineering, space technology, environmental degradation, mammalian cloning, stem-cell research, and complex problems surrounding the use of nuclear energy and the nagging problem of what to do with its by-products.

Consequently, there is an unprecedented set of questions with which lawyers, physicians, engineers, scientists, theologians, philosophers, and ordinary citizens from all walks of life must deal in the coming era. On one hand, the massive increase of information and the interconnections of science, technology, market economy, and population increase force learning into narrower and narrower degrees of specialization. On the other hand, there is a pressing need for a more integrated vision, a larger sense of the relations of these questions to basic human concerns and to the purposes of human life. These issues have created a substantial literature that has served to bring together philosophers, historians, theologians, sociologists, and anthropologists. Finding some way of relating these issues more deeply has also become a concern of Catholic intellectuals in recent decades. As Pope John Paul II has said in a recent address on the relations of science, religion, and technology:

"The matter is urgent. Contemporary developments in science challenge theology far more deeply than did the introduction of Aristotle into Western Europe in the 13th century. . . .

For the truth of the matter is that the church and the scientific commujnity will inevitably interact; their options do not include isolation. Christians will inevitably assimilate the prevailing ideas about the world, and today these are deeply shaped by science. "

(" A Dynamic Relation of Theology and Science," Origins 18 . No. 23, (17 Nov. 1988), pp. 377-378)

The difficult issue is to find a way to attain some broader perspective and some categories with which to deal with these challenging problems. University education inevitably involves the acquisition of specialized knowledge and skills that are necessary for functioning in the advanced techological society in which we live. This produces a challenge to meet the requirements of this specialized training and also find ways to integrate learning into a more holistic vision.

The Science, Techology, and Values Minor is a program expressly intended to give students the opportunity as undergraduates to explore these issues in the course of their major work in other subjects. It is a cross-college program that allows students in any college to engage these questions. Through a series of courses, most of these cross-listed with other departments, Notre Dame students can concentrate on the examination of science and technology from historical, philosophical, ethical, theological, and sociological perspectives. Within the broad offerings of courses made available each semester, students can also emphasize one of the tracks within the STV minor to develop more deeply their preparation in an area of focus. A core course (STV 256) and a one-hour topic seminar (STV 400) allows students to seek to bring issues into closer connection.