ABSTRACT
One can readily imagine that research and development have greatly influenced human society. The opposite view that society has influenced research, is perhaps less common, but is nonetheless equally imaginable. For example, one can entertain the notion that the advent of methods of food preservation and storage had an important influence on the stability and geographical expansion of human civilization. Today, it should seem evident that society’s instinct for survival has given rise to research aimed, directly or indirectly, at eliminating negative anthropogenic impacts on the environment and human contact with chemicals that ultimately damage the body. Society’s concerns have thus created the reactionary movement on the rise in research and development that we are presently witnessing. To what extent this movement will reach its goal of a “clean” planet will depend on the development of technologies that cater to both “sound business” and environmental protection in its broadest sense.
