Sports
Ethical issues related to science and technology in sports only began to attract critical attention during the second half of the twentieth century. This paralleled the increasing scientific study of sports and the creation of sports science, as well as the discovery and development of performance enhancing drugs and technological transformations in sports equipment. The latter two influences have been especially problematic, and have played a central role in the emergence of critical studies in the field.
Modern Sports Development
This scientizaton reflects a shift in values concerned with sports. Allen Guttmann describes, in From Ritual to Record (1978), how the development of timing technology introduced the possibility of records, now a dominant feature of modern sports. The late-nineteenth century British public school games, which championed muscular Christianity, repositioned physical exertion as central to the development of a productive and civil society. It also led to the politicization of sports and, along with the revived modern Olympic movement, which began in 1896, steadily became a focus of international political propaganda. With a philosophy that champions humanistic virtues of peace, culture, and education, the modern Olympic movement is less about sports contests than about ideology. It occupies an ambiguous social position as an organization that has devalued amateurism and embraced commercialization, while maintaining that there is something philosophically and socially meaningful about the games.
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