"Whoever controls technology controls the future."
--Dr. Edward Wenk, Jr.

With his appointment in 1959 as the first science and technology advisor to Congress, Dr. Wenk took leadership in defining the boundaries, content and methods of analysis in a new field of technology-intensive public policy. That understanding is critical because every life support system is today woven around technology. Technology influences modern life as much as ethnic traditions, family values, philosophy and religion, combined. His studies explain how technology works as a social process, how well it works, and how to make it work better, especially to deal with harmful side effects that require foresight.

Dr. Wenk considers that technology is about power, physical, economic and political, and that the intertwining of technology with democracy lies behind this nation's stature as the world's only superpower. Technology functions as amplifier, of muscle and of mind, but also of social behavior benign and dark.

As a mental model, the structure and processes of technology are considered as technological delivery systems, synchronized networks of public and private institutions that draw on specialized knowledge to produce goods and services to meet public needs and wants. Animating these systems are three "operating instructions": economic force of the market place, public policy and moral vision--represented by the Abrahamic religions and the US. Constitution. Thus, in his last book, The Double Helix, he argues that even religious institutions are critical components of these delivery systems

Dr. Wenk epitomizes the critical importance of these studies with the epigram that "Whoever controls technology controls the future."