SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY Notes

General Education SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

• Authored by Daniel Joseph McNamara, SJ, Vida Mia Valverde, and Ramon Beleno III.
• Published by C&E Publishing, Inc.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: ix
• Unit 1: General Concepts in Science, Technology, and Society: 1
  • Chapter 1: Historical Antecedents in the Course of Science and Technology: 2
    • Ancient Times: 3
    • Medieval/Middle Ages: 26
    • Modern Times: 29
    • Philippine Inventions: 32
  • Chapter 2: Intellectual Revolutions: 39
    • Copernican Revolution: 40
    • Darwinian Revolution: 42
    • Freudian Revolution: 43
  • Chapter 3: Science, Technology, and Nation-building: 46
    • Pre-colonial Period: 47
    • Colonial Period: 47
    • Post-Colonial Period: 48
• Unit 2: Science, Technology, Society, and the Human Condition: 51
  • Chapter 4: Human Flourishing in Science and Technology: 52
    • Technology as a Mode of Revealing: 53
    • Technology as Poeisis: Applicable to Modern Technology?: 55
    • Questioning as the Piety of Thought: 56
    • Enframing: Way of Revealing in Modern Technology: 56
    • Human Person Swallowed by Technology: 57
    • Art as a Way Out of Enframing: 58
  • Chapter 5: Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development: 62
    • Forget 'developing' poor countries, it's time to 'de-develop' rich countries: 63
  • Chapter 6: The Good Life: 70
    • Nicomachean Ethics and Modern Concepts: 71
  • Chapter 7: When Technology and Humanity Cross: 76
    • Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 77
    • Humans vs. Robots: 79
    • Why the Future Does Not Need Us: 82
• Unit 3: Special Topics in Science, Technology, and Society: 85
  • Chapter 8: Information Society: 86
    • Information: 87
    • The Role of Language: 87
    • Mathematics as the Language of Nature: 88
    • Technological World: 89
    • The Printing Press and Beyond: 90
    • The World Wide Web: 91
  • Chapter 9: Biodiversity: 96
    • The 2010 International Year of Diversity: 97
    • Biotechnology: 98
    • Genetically Modified Organisms: 99
    • Genetic Modification: 100
    • Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety: 102
    • Genetically modified golden rice falls short on lifesaving promises: 103
  • Chapter 10: The Nano World: 105
    • Why Nano?: 106
  • Chapter 11: Gene Therapy: 109
    • What we should know about stem cell treatment in the PH: 111
  • Chapter 12: Climate Change: 115
    • Earth's Movement around the Sun: 116
    • Milankovitch Parameters: 119
    • Global Warming: 122
    • Greenhouse Gases: 124
    • Future Actions: 126
• Bibliography: 129
• Index: 135

Historical Antecedents in the Course of Science and Technology

• Science and technology play major roles in everyday life, making tasks easier and allowing people to do more with less effort and time.
• Developments are products of gradual improvements from different time periods, driven by the desire to raise the quality of life.
• Ancient times:
  • Focused on transportation, navigation, communication, record-keeping, mass production, security, health, aesthetics, and architecture.
  • Transportation and Navigation:
    • Enabled exploration for food, settlements, and trade.
    • Navigation assisted in journeys to unfamiliar areas, allowing returns home.
  • Communication and Record-keeping:
    • Essential for communicating with natives, facilitating trade, and preventing conflicts.
    • Important for remembering places, documenting trades, and preserving history and culture.
  • Mass Production:
    • Increased demand for food led to the need for technology to increase food supplies without harder labor.
  • Weapons and Armors:
    • Important for security, protection, and establishing alliances, especially when controlling vital resources.
  • Conservation of life:
    • Addressed through science and technology by discovering cures and preventing illnesses.
  • Engineering and Architecture:
    • Addressed needs for transportation, protection structures, and infrastructures.
    • Elaborate designs symbolized technological advancement and national identity.
  • Aesthetics:
    • Humans developed technology to improve their appearance.
• Developments in science and technology are results of prior antecedents, driven by necessity.

Sumerian Civilization

• Located on the southernmost tip of ancient Mesopotamia.
• Known for cooperation and desire for great things.
• Cuneiform:
  • First writing system using word pictures and triangular symbols carved on clay.
  • Allowed record-keeping of historical events and everyday life.
• Uruk City:
  • Considered the first true city in the world.
  • Built using mud and clay from the river mixed with reeds to produce sun-baked bricks.
  • Used bricks to build houses and walls for protection.
• Great Ziggurat of Ur:
  • Also called the "mountain of god," served as a sacred place.
  • Constructed using sun-baked bricks.
  • Showcased elaborate Sumerian architecture and technology.
• Irrigation and Dikes:
  • Created to bring water to farmlands and control river flooding.
  • Enabled year-long farming and increased food production.
• Sailboats:
  • Invented to address transportation demands.
  • Essential for transportation, trading, and fostering culture, information, and technology.
• Wheel:
  • First wheels were for farm work and food processes, not transportation.
    • $Mass production was easier through the wheel and axle.$
  • Farmers were able to mill grains with less effort in less time.
• Plow:
  • Invented to dig the ground faster for planting seeds, enabling mass production of food.
• Roads:
  • Developed for faster and easier travel, made with sun-baked bricks and bitumen.

Babylonian Civilization

• Emerged near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
• Known as great builders, engineers, and architects.
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon:
  • A structure made up of layers upon layers of gardens.
  • Built by King Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife, Queen Amytis (according to legends).
  • Its existence lacks physical evidence, but the mythical place inspires awe.

Egyptian Civilization

• Located in North Africa.
• Famous for engineering feats and other practical contributions.
• Paper or Papyrus:
  • Made writing easier, replacing heavy and fragile clay tablets.
  • Processed from papyrus plants along the Nile River.
  • Lighter, thinner, and easier to carry and store.
• Ink:
  • Invented by combining soot with chemicals, used for recording history and laws.
• Hieroglyphics:
  • A writing system using symbols, believed to be provided by their gods.
  • Carved on pyramid walls and other structures, preserving history and culture.
• Cosmetics:
  • Used for health and aesthetic reasons.
  • Kohl was worn around the eyes to prevent diseases and protect from evil.
• Wig:
  • Worn for health and wellness rather than aesthetics, protecting shaved heads from the sun.
• Water Clock/Clepsydra:
  • Utilized gravity to measure time, widely used as a timekeeping device.

Greek Civilization

• Located in the southeastern part of Europe.
• Known as the birthplace of western philosophy.
• Alarm Clock:
  • Used mechanisms to time the alarm, utilizing water or stones dropping into drums.
  • Plato used it to signal the start of his lectures.
• Water Mill:
  • Used in agricultural processes like milling grains, enabling mass production of food.
  • Required less effort and time to operate compared to animal-powered mills.

Roman Civilization

• Perceived to be the strongest political and social entity in the west.
• Considered the cradle of politics and governance.
• Newspaper:
  • Called gazettes, contained announcements engraved in metal or stone tablets.
  • Minutes of the Roman senate were done in shorthand and published.
• Bound Books or Codex:
  • Made from papyrus pages stacked and covered by animal skin.
  • Julius Caesar started the tradition of stacking up papyrus to form pages of a book.
• Roman Architecture:
  • Visual contributions adapting new building and engineering technology.
  • Funded by the Roman government for churches, aqueducts, coliseums, etc.
• Roman Numerals:
  • Devised to address the need for a standard counting method for communication and trade.
  • Still used today due to its aesthetic and historical value.

Chinese Civilization

• Considered the oldest civilization in Asia.
• Known as the middle kingdom, famous for its silk trade.
• Silk:
  • Chinese developed the technology to harvest and process silk for paper and clothing.
  • Opened China to the outside world for cultural, economic, and scientific exchanges.
• Tea Production:
  • Developed when an unknown Chinese inventor created a machine to shred tea leaves into strips.
• Great Wall of China:
  • Constructed to keep out foreign invaders, showcasing Chinese engineering technology.
• Gunpowder:
  • Accidentally invented by Chinese alchemists aiming to achieve immortality.
  • Used in bullets, cannons, and fireworks.

Medieval/Middle Ages

• Marked by invasions and migrations, requiring technology in weaponry, navigation, food production, and health.
• Printing Press:
  • Invented by Johann Gutenberg for faster publishing using a cast type and wooden machines.
• Microscope:
  • Developed by Zacharias Janssen to observe organisms unseen by the naked eye.
• Telescope:
  • Optical instrument developed to help navigators see far and wide at sea.
  • Together with the compass, oars, and rudders made sea traveling easier and safer.
• War Weapons:
  • Crossbows and long bows for attacking enemies at long ranges.
  • Iron body armors and chainmail for close-range combat protection.

Modern Times

• Demanded more goods produced faster, efficient transportation, and communication.
• Pasteurization:
  • Invented by Louis Pasteur to heat dairy products and kill harmful bacteria, preventing spoilage.
• Petroleum Refinery:
  • Invented by Samuel M. Kier to refine petroleum into kerosene for lighting and heating homes.
• Telephone:
  • Developed by Alexander Graham Bell to maintain connections and communicate in real time.
• Calculator:
  • Developed for faster computation of equations, leading to more complex processing machines like computers.

Philippine Inventions

• Built from indigenous materials to adapt to the tropical environment, addressing natural disasters.
• Salamander Amphibious Tricycle:
  • Invented by Victor Llave and his team at H2O Technologies to cross flooded streets and rivers.
• SALt Lamp:
  • Invented by Aisa Mijeno utilizing saltwater as an environment-friendly light source.
• Medical Incubator:
  • Devised by Dr. Fe del Mundo using indigenous materials without electricity to maintain conditions for newborns.
• Mosquito Ovicidal/Larvicidal Trap System:
  • Introduced by DOST-ITDI using natural ingredients lethal to mosquitos but safe for humans.
• eJeepney:
  • Developed as an environment-friendly transportation utilizing electricity instead of diesel.

Intellectual Revolutions

• Instances when advancements in science and technology changed people's perceptions and beliefs.

Copernican Revolution

• Claudius Ptolemy proposed geocentrism, stating the Earth was at the center of the Solar System.

• Nicolaus Copernicus introduced heliocentrism, stating the sun was at the center.

  • Rejected initially but eventually accepted, transforming society's thoughts and beliefs.

  The copernican Model simplified the orbits for planets using heliocentrism.$$

Darwinian Revolution

• Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution in his book "On the Origin of Species."
• Proposed natural selection, where only the fittest would survive.
  • Contradicted church teachings, sparking debates between science and religion.

Freudian Revolution

• Sigmund Freud introduced psychoanalysis, explaining human behavior through conscious and unconscious factors.
  • Argued that personality results from id, ego, and superego.
  • Classified psychology as a science despite criticisms.

Science, Technology, and Nation-building

• Development of science and technology affects the development of the Philippines as a nation.

Pre-Colonial Period

• Early Filipinos used plants and herbs as medicines, implemented farming systems, and developed modes of transportation.
• Cordilleras built rice terraces, incorporating an irrigation system.

Colonial Period

• Spaniards provided modern construction means, and the Spanish government developed health and education systems.
• Americans established the Bureau of Science.

Post-Colonial Period

• Each leadership pursued programs in science and technology.
• Ferdinand Marcos established agencies like PAGASA and NAST.

Human Flourishing in Science and Technology

• Progress of human civilizations mirrors the development of science and technology.
• Human person, as both bearer and beneficiary of science and technology, flourishes and finds meaning in the world.

Technology as a Mode of Revealing

• Martin Heidegger urges questioning technology to see beyond common understanding.
• Technology is a means to an end, a human activity.
• Technology is a way of bringing forth, a making something.
• Aletheia means unhiddenness or disclosure.
• Poeisis is defined as bringing forth.
• Techne means skill, art, or craft.
• Technology is a poeisis that discloses or reveals the truth.

Technology as Poeisis: Applicable to Modern Technology?

• Modern technology challenges nature and demands resources, brings a "setting upon" of the land.
• Revealing never comes to an end, all on demand.
• We order nature, extract, process, and stockpile.
• Heidegger described modern technology as the age of switches, standing reserve, and stockpiling.
• Modern technology is an enframing, challenging forth and setting upon nature is a way of looking at reality.
• People want control and are afraid of unpredictability.
• Questioning is piety of thought, obedience and submission.
• Technology is a mode of revealing, but we must remain human.

Enframing: Way of Revealing in Modern Technology

• Enframing is a way of looking at reality, putting nature in a box.
• Distinguishes between calculative thinking and meditative thinking.
• Enframing is done because people want security.

Human Person Swallowed by Technology

• Humans do not call the shots on this Earth.
• The essence of technology is not technological, but in its significance.
• Technology will not be resolved by refusing technology altogether.

Art as a Way Out of Enframing

• Enframing tends to block poeisis.

• Art leads us away from calculative thinking and towards meditative thinking.

• It is meditative thinking that provides a way for us to remain rooted in the essence of who we are.

  Aristotle's conception of the four causes was mechanical: The causa materialis, the causa formalis, the causa finalis and the causa efficiens,

  The ancient Greek experience of cause is aition or indebtedness, not cause and effect.

Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development

Forget 'developing' poor countries, it's time to 'de-develop' rich countries by Jason Hickel

• Development is often equated with growth and greater consumption.
• Hickel challenges us to rethink and reflect on a different paradigm of "de-development".

The Good Life

• Everyone is in pursuit of the good life.
• People's definition of the good life may vary and differ in the particulars.

Nicomachean Ethics and Modern Concepts

• Aristotle explained what the good is in Nicomachean Ethics.
• All human activities aim at some good.
• The good life is characterized by happiness that springs from living and doing well.
• The ancient Greeks called this concept of "living well and doing well" as eudaimonia.
• According to Aristotle, happiness is the ultimate end of human action.
• The good life is marked by happiness brought about by virtuous human actions and decisions that affect the individual self and the greater community.
• The good life does not happen in a bubble where only one person is flourishing; others have to be in it too.

When Technology and Humanity Cross

• The good life entails living in a just and progressive society whose citizens have the freedom to flourish.
• Human dignity is an ultimate core value of our existence.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Everyone is entitled to and guaranteed freedoms by virtue of being human.

  Freedoms that all humans should inherently possess are: living free and equal in dignity and rights.

Humans vs. Robots

• The rise of the machines accompanying the progress in science and technology may render humans useless.

Information Society

• More voices are trying to get our attention but are they sharing knowledge and the truth?

Information

• Words are informed with meaning given by the speaker and intended for the listener. It then communicates some meaning.

The Role of Language

• Science is one kind of knowledge.
• The ability to think and conceptually comprehend principles eventually leads to science.

Technological World

• The power of the eidos:

  • Or idea, has been witnessed in the succeeding centuries of scientific development.

The Printing Press And Beyond

• From manual action would arise scientific technology, printing press.

Mathematics as the language of nature

• Technology in the modern world is the fruit of science.

The World Wide Web

• A more modern example of technology feeding upon itself is the 20th-century tour de force: the World Wide Web through the internet.
• With the ease of sharing information at present, its reliability becomes compromised.

Biodiversity

• The term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms.
• UN declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity.

Biotechnology:

• Uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives for specific uses.

Genetic engineering:

• A way to transfer genes and DNA from one source to another.

Genetically modified organisms:

• Plant, animal, microorganism, or other organism whose genetic makeup has been altered.

• It is a laboratory process where genes are extracted from the DNA of one species into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal through genetic engineering (GE) or genetic modification (GM).

• Genetic Modification aims to address in:

  *   food Security.
  *   Agriculture.
  *   Drug Production.
  *   AND nutrition
  

The Nano World

• Nano world are the molecules, DNA or structures that the naked human cannot see,

_ Why Nano?_

• nano refers to a unit meaning one-billionth
• Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of matter on an atomic or subatomic scale.

Gene Therapy

• This chapter focuses the developments in the nano world as applied to the animate or living.
• . If new discoveries on the areas of molecular and atomic physics are applied to the biological basic building blocks- the genes- even greater technologies for human health may be found

Climate Change

• It has been put under international spotlight since the start of the 21st century.
• The average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere has been increasing over recent portions of the 20th century.

CLIMATE VS WEATHER

• Climate is not similar to weather which is constantly changing. climate refers to the long-term weather patterns prevailing over a given area of the planet
• Kinein the greek word for Climate which translates into to slope as it turns into Klima connoting the climate and conditions