The childhood of science has passed irrevocably

The article aims at a critical analysis of a thesis that science satisfies solely human biological needs through its technical applications beginning with its rise in the 17th-century Europe, while the cultural and spiritual development remains primarily the function of religion and morality. In contrast to this, the author demonstrates the limits of the utilitarian interpretation of science and technology which disregards their role in shaping the modern worldview. The article justifies an opposite understanding of science and technology as a valuable source of the general worldview and even the common sense features (the sphere of unquestioned foundations) of the contemporary generation. In this context, the sharp division between the biological (animal) and cultural (specifically human) needs appears obsolete for the modern society currently determines and even construes both of them. Science and technology receive here a particular and paradigmatic function. They serve as advanced cultural practices: selected and elaborated designs for the development of the individual and society based on the values of rationality, tolerance, reflexivity.

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