Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (Vintage) [Paperback]

Edward Tenner (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 2, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0679747567 | ISBN-13: 978-0679747567 | Edition: Reprint

In this perceptive and provocative look at everything from computer software that requires faster processors and more support staff to antibiotics that breed resistant strains of bacteria, Edward Tenner offers a virtual encyclopedia of what he calls "revenge effects"--the unintended consequences of the mechanical, chemical, biological, and medical forms of ingenuity that have been hallmarks of the progressive, improvement-obsessed modern age. Tenner shows why our confidence in technological solutions may be misplaced, and explores ways in which we can better survive in a world where despite technology's advances--and often because of them--"reality is always gaining on us."  For anyone hoping to understand the ways in which society and technology interact, Why Things Bite Back is indispensable reading.  "A bracing critique of technological determinism in both its utopian and dystopian forms...No one who wants to think clearly about our high-tech future can afford to ignore this book."--Jackson Lears, Wilson Quarterly

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If it can go wrong, it will--thus Murphy's Law. Science journalist Edward Tenner looks more closely at this eternal verity, named after a U.S. Air Force captain who, during a test of rocket-sled deceleration, noticed that critical gauges had been improperly set and concluded, "If there's more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, then somebody will do it that way." Tenner concurs, and he gives us myriad case studies of how technological fixes often create bigger problems than the ones they were meant to solve in the first place. The indiscriminate use of antibiotics, by way of example, has yielded hardier strains of bacteria and viruses that do not respond to pharmaceutical treatment; the wide-scale use of air conditioning in cities has raised the outdoor temperature in some places by as much as 10 degrees, adding stress to already-taxed cooling systems; the modern reliance on medical intervention to deal with simple illnesses, to say nothing of the rapidly growing number of elective surgeries, means that even a low percentage of error (one patient in twenty-five, by a recent estimate) can affect increasingly large numbers of people. Tenner examines what he deems the "unintended consequences" of technological innovation, drawing examples from everyday objects and situations. Although he recounts disaster after painful disaster, his book makes for curiously entertaining, if sometimes scary, reading. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Even when used to better the world, technology fosters unforeseen, often unpleasant consequences that Tenner calls "revenge effects." For example, air-conditioned subways raise platform temperatures by as much as 10 degrees F; some computer users get painful, wrist-numbing carpal tunnel syndrome; flood control systems encourage settlement of flood-prone areas, inviting disaster; 6% of all hospital patients become infected with microbes they encounter during their stay. In a thought-provoking study, Tenner, a historian of science and visiting researcher at Princeton, looks at revenge effects that pop up in medicine, sports, the computerized office and the environment. Oil spills, erosion of beaches, back injuries, athletes' illegal use of steroids and mass extermination of bird species on the world's islands by ship-hopping rats mark this saga of bewildering, often frustrating change. Tenner's cautionary conclusion: revenge effects demand ingenuity and brainpower as technology continues to replace life-threatening problems with slower-acting, more persistent ones.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (September 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679747567
• ISBN-13: 978-0679747567
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #462,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Action and Reaction Again and Again October 10, 2002

By Gary Schroeder

Format:Paperback

This book is slightly mistitled; it probably should have been called "HOW Things Bite Back", since there's not a lot of "why" until the last few pages of the book. Tenner provides many discrete examples of how various technological solutions to problems of the past have resulted in unforseen consequences, but never really gets at the heart of the philosophical question of why there must always be such unintended consequences. Despite this, it's a fairly interesting little look at various disasters, big and small. Surprisingly, for someone who's not a sports fanatic, the foray into how technology has changed sports in unexpected ways turned out to be the most interesting section.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read for our times December 28, 2001

By The Don Wood Files

Format:Paperback

Boy, we humans make a mess of things, don't we? Our solutions to problems end up causing other problems. We can never get ahead of the curve. So, what's the point? Why do we bother inventing things? If we stopped right now, and lived like its 2002 forever, we will be in better shape, and live quieter, more stress-free, and even safer, lives. That is NOT what Tenner advocates in his book. But it is a conclusion one could reach when you read the litany of unintended consequences he provides.

Drawing on a rich variety of sources, Tenner shows quite clearly how and why we have unintended consequences. Once you read this book, you will find yourself thinking about many of the technological fixes in your life and wondering what unintended consequences they begat.

The next step - and maybe this can be Tenner's next book - is ask, what can we do about this situation? We cannot and should not stop innovation or problem-solving. But maybe we can do two things. One, explore how feedback loops can be enhanced, especially now that we are living in a digital world. It sounds silly when you read that someday, your refrigerator will order milk from a grocery store when it "senses" you are low on milk, but the faster and more efficient the feedback loops, the better we can be at forecasting danger ahead. Secondly, when a new solution or invention comes to fruition, look back for a moment, not ahead. Something is always lost when a new tool comes into human hands. Maybe the old tool had positive attributes we should try to keep. For a great example of this, read the little essay on railroads in George Kennan's Around the Cragged Hill.... As he describes it, at the very point in history that the railroads had created a magnificent system, uniting the country while allowing it to spread, maximizing speed and safety, the car was invented. And the railroads withered. A sad story, the way he tells it. And while Kennan may be a little too romantic when it comes to 19th century rails, I am sure that there are many things about the rails that we have lost, now that we drive or fly.

I always appreciate a book that makes me think. This one does and is recommended. Read more ›

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book; looking forward to the revised edition September 18, 2000

By Ron STEENBLIK

Format:Paperback

Publishers prefer catchy titles for their books, and this one is certainly catchy, but its subtitle is what buyers should pay attention to. Unlike some other reviewers, I was pleasantly surprised by the author's scrupulously neutral (some would even say optimistic) tone, which gives authority to his analysis. I was prepared for an anti-technology rant. Instead I found a carefully researched -- and fascinating -- set of cautionary tales. I WOULD take this book along to the beach, but I'm also somebody who reads the reverse side of cereal boxes.

What I got out of reading this book is more than just that new technologies can have unintended consequences -- that is to say, that people frequently FAIL to predict their consequences -- but also that it is essentially IMPOSSIBLE to predict all such consequences. The policy implications may be subtle, but they are important: while we might be able to improve our predictive abilities somewhat, we should be much more humble in our assumptions about the likely environmental, economic and social effects of technologies. There is much more to his argument, of course, but the evidence Tenner marshals in order to underscore this central point makes the book a must-read for anybody working in areas where technological development plays a central role.

If Edward Tenner has any plans to write a 2nd edition, I hope that he also includes some examples of the unintended consequences of new energy technologies and consumer electronics (besides computers). If he does, I'll buy that one too.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing look at humans and technology August 14, 2003

By Atheen M. Wilson TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Since I had been reading on the topic of technology, complexity, decision making and the like, I decided to follow up on some of the sources I had come across in my other reading. I chose Inviting Disaster, by James R. Chiles, (another Minnesotan), Why Things Bite Back by Edward Tenner, and Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow. I also decided to review them together, although I have also reviewed the latter separately.

The Chiles book Inviting Disaster is thoroughly entertaining. The author is a professional writer with a readable style who often tries out equipment, goes on site, or goes along with technicians in order to do his research. He is by no means given to just armchair research and that makes for a very exciting narration.

I did have some difficulty getting used to his method of pairing recent and 19th Century tales of disaster, especially his habit of jumping back and forth between the two narrations. It does focus ones attention on the similarities between the two events and the degree to which we have learned little from experience! It would appear that leaning from mistakes has been given more lip service than practice over the years. This may well be due to the fact that it's only been more recently that failure itself has been made a subject in its own right with a proper examination of how systems "go off the rails" and what can be done about it.

The author includes an interesting variety of situations, and the list makes it clear that complexity itself gives rise to surprising new outcomes. Just as the authors of Figments of Reality note, complex systems can give rise to emergent characteristics which are entirely unexpected and therefore not planned. (In their book intelligence/mind arising from brain/nerve....

In Inviting Disaster, Chiles focuses on the effects of top down management, the over riding desire to accomplish records and goals, and the disenfranchisement of front line workers who have important information about front line conditions as the primary cause of disaster. He also notes that with very complex systems, the Devil can be in the details, and it tends to be these that get overlooked or ignored. In the final chapters, he suggests that successful companies have tended to focus on customer satisfaction and safety, and not only value but reward bottom up communication.

The book has a very extensive bibliography that the interested reader might enjoy following up for further information on the technology/human interface. The appendix also includes a list of disasters and near disasters and brief descriptions of each; an eye opener.

Why Things Bite Back is by a historian turned science editor, Edward Tenner. This volume focuses on what the author calls "revenge effects" of technology, the reverse or worse outcomes arising from applications of technology that were intended to eliminate or mitigate problems. Tenner's book takes a more holistic look at the unexpected outcomes of science and technology rather than at specific disasters. Medicine, Environmental Disasters, Computerized Offices, and Sports are among the facets of modern life that are examined.science and technology. In general Tenner sees there has been an exchange from the overwhelming, localized disaster affecting a few to a few thousand individuals to the chronic, more socially distributed effects of negative outcomes that require more sustained vigilance and therefore more expense distributed over an entire society or over the world's population as a whole.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the point made that there has been a major change for the worse in the level of satisfaction with life that has arisen as an unexpected outcome of reduced risk. Apparently as life becomes easier and we are less threatened by major problems, we begin to magnify minor problems. He also notes the odd relationship between computers and productivity; their promise doesn't seem to have lived up to the expectations of the industry, and he suggests that our dependence upon them has created complications. He admits, however that some of this may be due to the lag between the introduction of new equipment and the full embracement of the technology, noting that there was also a problem created by the lag between introduction of electrical motors and the abandonment of steam power in industry during the earlier part of the 20th century.

The book has a small annotated bib for "further reading", but the more extensive notes to the chapters with their resources, include titles that might interest the reader too.

Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow, a professor of sociology at Yale, is the most detailed of the three. I found it more difficult to get into this book, however, because of its more technical discussions of industry failures, particularly those in the nuclear power industry. The book was reverently referred to by both of the above authors, however, so when I had finished reading them, I returned to this book and got much more out of it than I had on my first reading. (See my individual review on this book under the title.)

Because of his overall approach as a sociologist to the subject of the human/technology/organization interfaces, Professor Perrow tended to look more closely at how human goals, preconceived notions of reality, and social structures set up some types of failure. He also notes that in some instances, had the various individuals actually tried to cause the accidents of which they became a part, they probably would have had difficulty doing so.

The final chapter of the book is very interesting for the author's social commentary and his suggestions for resolution of dangerous situations. Although I'm not entirely sure I believe that his position is a strong as it seems on first reading, I think it's definitely something that should be considered; certainly to do so would cause us less harm than not doing so might.

The bibliography contains a wide range of references and demonstrates the thoroughness of the academic research. I would make an excellent starting point for anyone who wanted to do their own similar study. Read more ›