Books
H.W. Lewis, Technological Risk (New York: Norton, 1990). A lucid and often funny explanation of how technology risks are analyzed. Lewis undercuts himself by insisting that the long term storage of nuclear waste is perfectly safe.
Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun (Boston, Mass.: David. R. Godine 1979). An interesting account of one of the rare occasions in which a society renounced a technology--Japan turned away from firearms in the 1500's.
Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents (New York: Basic Books, 1984). An excellent if very frightening explanation of why accidents are almost inevitable in complex, closely coupled systems.
Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1993) Sagan validates Charles Perrow's "normal accidents" theory with reference to accidents involving nuclear weapons.
Richard E. Sclove, Democracy and Technology (New York: The Guilford Press, 1995). Sclove (whose prose can be a bit turgid) describes a set of criteria for determining if new technologies advance democratic goals.
The Union of Concerned Scientists' Warning to Humanity calls on us to rethink our use of technology, in light of how it is affecting the earth.
A history of technology site is hosted at Cornell.
The Ethics in Science page is maintained at Virginia Tech.
The Ethics Center for Engineering and Science is at MIT.
Here is a Genetics and Ethics page.
This page specializes in environmental ethics.
Here is an outline of a book and course on Computerization and Controversy.
