In the first two years of the new millen-nium, humans have continued in the spirit of the last century, boldly creating new technologies and transforming them into industries and business opportunities. High-tech stars like electronics, telecommunications, materials, energy sources, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology are being pursued just as eagerly in the new century. The production value of high-tech industries has left traditional industries far behind, and developing countries have to scramble to keep up, for fear of falling irredeemably on the wrong side of the rich-poor divide.

No matter where they live, people today cannot help interfacing with technology. Mobile phones, e-mail, and online chat rooms make communication quick and cheap. While our government is still pondering whether to allow eight-inch silicon wafer fabs to be moved to mainland China, 12-inch fabs are already under construction. The gene technology that has sprung from DNA's double helix is busily proclaiming the genetic basis of disease. Academia Sinica researchers have identified obesity genes; before long we may be able to lose pounds wherever we want. Biotech foods and pharmaceuticals are displacing older products, and with the revolution in materials heralded by nanotechnology, we will soon be able to step out in clothes that can withstand temperatures of 2000∞C. And like it or not, after Dolly the sheep in Britain, cloned pigs and cows have made their appearance in Taiwan, and in the US and Italy the race is on to clone humans.

The history of human civilization is closely bound up with that of technology. But in the prescientific age, technologies were wielded by human hands, guided by the senses, and combined rich experience, and skills honed by practice, with a rich aesthetic sense. Technology, art and personality were not separate. Since the Industrial Revolution humans have created ever more "miracles"-from the steam engine and the electric generator, to information technology and biotechnology. But backed up by powerful scientific concepts, technology has moved ever further from humanistic concerns. The atomic age, the nuclear age, the information age, the fiber optic age, the micron age, the nanometer age. . . . When humans define their epochs by the leading technology of the day, then humanistic pursuits such as art, aesthetics, literature and religion are increasingly marginalized.

The impact of high technology goes deeper than that of the old crafts, or even of traditional industries such as textiles, papermaking, or iron and steel. Like them, high-tech industries create pollution, and treat nature no differently from lifeless raw materials. But the unpredictable stream of innovations thrown up by modern science has also created many new ethical issues. Should we play God, by cloning life? Does a cloned human have a soul? Should we eat genetically modified foods? How can we stem the all-pervasive tide of Internet porn? In the new century, humans are sure to face more and more such dilemmas.

Should we affirm science and technology's great contribution to humanity? Or are they a negative force that subjugates the human soul? Or are they completely neutral? Early in the 20th century, Western intellectuals were already keenly debating the harm wrought by science and technology. The idea that they are neutral has thus far held sway, allowing them to be seen as separate from their social consequences. But as their rapid advance continues, the proposition that science and technology are divorced from ethics and politics becomes increasingly untenable.

In The Archaeology of Knowledge, French scholar Michel Foucault observes that as medicine has developed from diagnosis by visual inspection, auscultation and palpation to the use of the microscope and biological tests, its information system has been modified; and how beside the physician there have appeared masses of data, instruments and analytical techniques which of course he uses, but which modify his position as an observing subject in relation to the patient.

High-tech knowledge is no longer a simple means to an end, for it has itself become part of the structure of nature, reality and the world. Humankind is hurtling forward on the crest of a scientific and technological wave whose power shapes both humanity and the world.

The German philosopher Heidegger wrote that if we regard technology as something neutral, we are at its mercy and blinded to its true nature. His questioning of technology was not based on mere pessimism, nor was it a simple denial or demonization, but an appeal to reflect on technology's true nature. Such reflection will not defeat technology, but may alleviate its harshness and absolutism. Perhaps by thinking about the nature of science and technology we can prevent human civilization being monopolized by a single ideology, and this will be good for society and even for science and technology themselves.

En route to the industrial application of advanced and innovative technologies, let us not forget to ask: in an age when science encompasses everything from the vast universe to the tiniest of subatomic particles, what should human perspectives be? Where is the home of the human soul?