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The term information revolution (sometimes called also the "information''al'' revolution") describes current economic, social and technological trends beyond the Industrial Revolution. Many competing terms have been proposed that focus on different aspects of this societal development. The British polymath crystallographer J. D. Bernal introduced the term "''scientific and technical revolution''" in his 1939 book ''The Social Function of Science'' to describe the new role that science and technology are coming to play within society. He asserted that science is becoming a "productive force", using the Marxist Theory of Productive Forces.〔 After some controversy, the term was taken up by authors and institutions of the then-Soviet Bloc. Their aim was to show that socialism was a safe home for the scientific and technical ("technological" for some authors) revolution, referred to by the acronym STR. The book ''Civilization at the Crossroads'', edited by the Czech philosopher Radovan Richta (1969), became a standard reference for this topic.〔 Daniel Bell (1980) challenged this theory and advocated post-industrial society, which would lead to a service economy rather than socialism.〔 Many other authors presented their views, including Zbigniew Brzezinski (1976) with his "Technetronic Society".〔 ==Information in social and economic activities== The main feature of the information revolution is the growing economic, social and technological role of information. Information-related activities did not come up with the Information Revolution. They existed, in one form or the other, in all human societies, and eventually developed into institutions, such as the Platonic Academy, Aristotle's Peripatetic school in the Lyceum, the Musaeum and the Library of Alexandria, or the schools of Babylonian astronomy. The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution came up when new informational inputs were produced by individual innovators, or by scientific and technical institutions. During the Information Revolution all these activities are experiencing continuous growth, while other information-oriented activities are emerging. Information is the central theme of several new sciences, which emerged in the 1940s, including Shannon's (1949) ''Information Theory''〔 and Wiener's (1948) ''Cybernetics''. Wiener stated also: "information is information not matter or energy". This aphorism suggests that information should be considered along with matter and energy as the third constituent part of the Universe; information is carried by matter or by energy.〔 We can outline a hierarchy to distinguish between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Data are sensations, facts, figures etc., that are independent and atomic in nature. Information can be described alternately as organized data, the patterns that exist in data, or the underlying meaning of interrelated pieces of data. Knowledge is the ability to comprehend and use information. Wisdom is the ability to make the best use of knowledge.〔"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge", Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892)〕 Data and information are easily transferable in the modern world, whether through oral, written or electronic methods. Knowledge, however, is built by one person and transferred (more slowly) through education and human interaction. Wisdom is the least transferrable by virtue of being built upon the other three with the addition of personal experience and reflection on one's experience. Information is then further considered as an economic activity, since firms and institutions are involved in its production, collection, exchange, distribution, circulation, processing, transmission, and control. Labor is also divided into physical labor (use of muscle power) and informational labor (use of intellectual power). A new economic sector is thereby identified, the Information Sector, which amalgamates information-related labor activities 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Information revolution」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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