Technology has raised standards of living for people around the world, but technological developments also have unintended and negative impacts on people, places, and the environment. Science, as humanity’s best way of understanding and sharing knowledge of the world, is an essential driver of both technology’s advances and management of its impacts. Yet some long-standing threats, such as climate change, continue to persist and grow despite well-established evidence of harm; emerging advances in fields such as genetic engineering offer grave risks along with great benefits. Meanwhile, public trust in and funding of science are down, and dis- and misinformation are dramatically up, making it harder to agree on the science needed to manage technology’s impacts. On October 23, 2025, ELI convened an expert panel to discuss these issues. Here we present a transcript of the discussion, which has been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.