Republic of the Philippines

Surigao del Sur State University

Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

I. Introduction

Science and Technology indeed play major

roles in the everyday life. They make difficult and
complicated tasks easier and allow people to do more
with so little effort and time. The developments in this
field are not just products of people’s imagination
or a one-time thought
process; they are also brought by gradual
improvements to earlier works from
different time periods.

This module discusses the meaning of

Science, Technology and Society; the Historical Antecedents, Transformation of Society by Science and
Technology such as Copernican ,Darwinian Revolution, Freudian Revolution and
Information Revolution.

Lesson 1: Introduction to Science, Technology, and Society

Intended Learning Outcomes

At the end of this module, the students should be able to:

1. discuss the general concepts of Science, Technology and Society and its interactions throughout
the history;
2. identify inventions and discoveries that changed the world over the course of history and how it
transform over the period of time
3. discuss the scientific and technological developments in the Philippines.

Pre-test

Instructions: On the space provided, write True if the statement is correct or False if it is not.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

False 1. Science and Technology are not crucial factors in nation building.

False 2. Science required invention to devise techniques, abstractions, apparatuses, and organizations to
describe these natural regularities and their law-like descriptions.

True 3. Science and technology can be dangerous.

True 4. STS is an interdisciplinary field of academic teaching and research having as its primary focus the
explication and analysis of science and technology as complec social constructs.

False 5. STS deals with the historical development of science and technology but does not cover their
philosophical underpinnings.

Guide Questions:

1. How does science operate and sets the limitation?

Science gives us the knowledge on how things work and it has a powerful tool
called scientific method however it does have limitation that are based on facts
scientific method however it does have limitation that are based on facts of
hypothesis that must be tested and or might be not true and that experiments and
observations can be repeatable.

2. What are Science, Technology and society, and why should people want to study and learn it?
______________________________________________________________________________
Science, technology and society is a study of how society, politics, and culture
affect scientific research and technological innovation , and how will this be an
affect in culture, society and politics. People must study this so that they will have
knowledge about this particular study and they will have a good base when they
will conduct a research about society.

3. On the box provided draw your understanding how science and technology related to each other that
give impact to the society.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

1.1 The Meaning of Science, Technology and Society

What is science?

Science comes from the Latin word scientia, meaning “knowledge”. But in the perspective of
Albert Einstein science is the attempts to make the chaotic diversity of our sense experience correspond to
a logically uniform system of thought. It is also considered a subject matter of nature. Every physical entity
in the extra-terrestrial and terrestrial environment is a component of nature. According to the famous
American science historian, John Heilbron ( 2003,p.vii), “ Modern science as a discovery of regularity in
nature, enough for natural phenomena to be described by principles and laws. He also explained that
science required invention to devise techniques, abstractions, apparatuses, and organizations to describe
these natural regularities and their law-like descriptions.

Moreover, Science can be classified as a process and product.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

1. Science as a process
a. It seeks for truth about the nature
b. concerned with discovering relationship between observable phenomena in terms of theories
c. systematized theoretical inquiries
d. it is determined by observation, hypothesis, measurement, analysis and experimentation
e. it is the description and explanation of the development of knowledge
f. it is the study of the beginning and end of everything that exist
g. conceptualization of new ideas from the abstract to the particular
h. kind of human cultural activity.

2. Science as a product
a. Systematized, organized body of knowledge based on facts or truths observations
b. a set of logical and empirical methods which provide for the systematic observation of
empirical phenomena
c. source of cognitive authority
d. concerned with verifiable concepts
e. a product of the mind
f. it is the variety of knowledge, people, skills organizations, facilities, techniques, physical
resources, methods and technologies that taken together and in relation with one another.

What is technology?

Basically it is the application of scientific knowledge, laws, and principles to produce services, materials,
tools, and machines aimed at solving real-world problems. It comes from the Greek root word techne,
meaning “art, skill, or cunning of hand”.

On the same view, technology is defined as both a process and a product.

1. Technology as a process
a. It is the application of science
b. the practice, description and terminology of applied sciences
c. the intelligent organization and manipulation of materials for useful purposes
d. the means employed to provide for human needs and wants
e. focused on the inventing new or better tools and materials or new and better ways of doing
things.
f. a way of using findings of science to produce new things for a better way of living
g. search foe concrete solutions that work and give wanted results
h. it is characteristically calculative and imitative, tends to be dangerously manipulative

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

i. form of human cultural activity.

2. Technology as a product
a. A system of know-how, skills, techniques and processes
b. it is like a language, rituals, values, commerce and arts, it is intrinsic part of a cultural system
and it both shapes and reflects to the system values.
c. it is the product of the scientific concept
d. the complex combination of knowledge, materials and methods
e. material products of human making or fabrication
f. total societal enterprise.

Introduction to Science, Technology and Society

Let us take some very simplistic definitions on the basic concepts of STS in the class.

Science: Hi, I am science. I can investigate of the physical world and its nature including the
people and the stuff we make.

Technology: Hello, I am technology. I can make stuff. Including stuff used in the society, and in
the production and dissemination of science.

Society: Welcome to my world! Actually, I am the sum total of our interactions as humans,
including the interactions that we engage in to figure things out and to make things.

Based on the conversation of STS it is very clear that all of these are deeply interconnected. As this class
proceeds, you will begin to develop a better picture of the fundamental nature of this interaction.

In this module you will explore the interaction of science, technology and society, especially in the recent
past 20th and 21st centuries.

Science, Technology and Society (STS) is a relatively recent discipline, originating in the 60s and 70s,
following Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). STS was the result of a sociological turn
in science studies. STS simply stands for science, technology and society. It is an interdisciplinary field of
academic teaching and research, with elements of a social movement, having as its primary focus the

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

explication and analysis of science and technology as complex social constructs with attendant societal
influences entailing myriad epistemological, political, and ethical questions. STS makes the assumption
that science and technology are essentially intertwined and that they are each profoundly social and
profoundly political. Basically, science and technology are both social and political.

Being critical:

In this section, you will try to develop a critical stance towards science and

technology. This does not mean that you are going to cast them in a negative light,

or that you need to develop a dislike for them. Many of us have regarded for science and technology.
What is critical stance?

A critical stance is the deliberate creation of distance between us and the object you study. In order to be
critical one must step back and ask broad questions.

1. Science claims to produce knowledge about the world. What is the nature of this knowledge? Is it
absolutely certain? Are there other kinds of knowledge?
2. Technology claims to improve our lives. Who are us? What does it mean to have a better life?
What is to be gained and what is to be lost?

Internal and External Perspectives of STS

An internal perspective starts with the principle and assumptions that scientists and engineers
themselves work with and then uses these to try to explain their activities. The development of an
internal perspective requires mastering the details of the science in question, takes years of hard work
to acquire and involves nonverbal assumptions and practices picked up in this process.

In the external perspective uses a different set of assumptions and attempts to analyse the context in
which experts live and work, as well as what they say. In this perspective you are interested in the
behaviours, goals, rhetoric etc. Also, you analyse the activities of technical experts without any appeal
to the special status of their expertise.

A “classical” view of science and technology

A typical, naïve view of science might be as follows:

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

▪ Science is a formal activity that creates knowledge by direct interaction with nature.
▪ Science has some kind of special method that allows different scientists to produce the same
kind of knowledge whatever their social and political context might be.
▪ Scientists perform the same experiments in the same way, and agree upon and reject the same
hypotheses.
▪ Scientists come to consensus on the truths of the natural world.

Nature Science Truth

The classical view began to fall apart in the process of 20 th century investigations of scientific
activity.

▪ Philosophers were unable to formalize the “black box”. There appears to be no single
“scientific method”.
▪ When historians began to explore past scientific activities more closely, they found there was
no such thing as “pure science” removed from social and political interactions and
assumptions.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

▪ When sociologists began to open the black box of contemporary scientific activity, they found
that the inside was thoroughly social and political.

Then, why do most people still hold the naïve view?

Because most people still believe when it is proved by their eyes and it is also being pass to
generation. Mostly people has trust issues they always find a way to make it true when want
something to be discovered or to be known.

Scientism

▪ Scientism goes back at least as far as the Scientific Revolution (c.15501700) and
originates in the claim that there is a sharp divide between “ facts” and “ values”.
▪ According to this view, when we do science, we set aside values and study only facts.
▪ The authority of science rests on its claim to be “value free” and hence “objective”.
▪ Scientism promotes the idea that all of society’s problem can be solved by experts who
are specially trained to unearth the facts of the matter.
▪ Scientism, and the scientistic movement, make the claim that science is for the benefit
of all humanity

Technologically progressivism

▪ Technological progressivism has its roots in the European Enlightenment (c. 1700-
1800), when progress became a synonym for good and technology came to be seen as
a fundamental tool in progressive projects.

Good = Progress
Progress = Technology

▪ Technological progressivism assumes that technological change is inherently good and

sees it as self-propagating, moving by the internal constraints of technology itself. For
example, we view new technologies as progressive and older ones as old fashioned
and use this as a reason for changing technologies. We advocate the adoption of new
technologies with little reflection on their social impact or the broader question of
whether or not we want those impacts.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

Technoscience

▪ In the classical view of the relationship between science and technology, science leads
the way by creating knowledge from nature and technology follows by following this
knowledge to creation of new things.
▪ In this case, you will investigate the complex interaction between science and
technology and the social environments in which they are produced, and which they,
in turn, produce.
▪ The sum total of scientific and technological activities
as technoscience.

Technoscience is the combined total of scientific and technological ideas and activities in
their social, political and economic relaities. Nobody has any doubt that modern society is
technoscientific. Modern nation-states and the global economy,itself, could not function if they
were not based on technoscience. Thus, it is impossible to understand modern society without
studying the effects of technoscience.
What makes something social?

Society is the result of people, and institutions interacting with one another. It is a sort of epiphenomena of
these individuals. Society in turn shapes the people and institutions that form it. Most people experience
society as though it were external force acting upon them. The effects of society operate through the vague
mechanism of social norms. Norms tell us what we should and should not do, what we should and should
not think. But they are not rational- or rather, their rationality is not universal. Norms produce the values
that we use in interacting with others. They produce many of our core ideas- such as ideas of the place of
class, the role gender, meaning of the race, the function of justice, the importance of objectivity, the
criterion of truth, the significance of evidence, etc.

Technoscience is social

In the simplest sense, technoscience is the product of people, and people are social.

But it is possible to claim something much stronger than this:

▪ The social norms of technoscientists affects where they will look, what they will see and
what they will say about it. (Their worldview).
▪ Technoscientists’ norms are shaped by their discipline (Basic scientific concepts mean
different things in different fields).
▪ Professional norms affect the value that technoscienctists place on judgements.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

▪ We find disagreement about what counts as science across time and from place to place.
▪ The development of technology is highly social, and depends on the manipulation of social
norms.

What makes something political?

▪ Politics is about control. It is the result of the distribution and utilization of power in our
societies.
▪ Political activity functions by employing various structures, resources and discourses in
order to consolidate and wield power. Political structures are formal and informal rules to
play. Formal rules are things like laws and procedures, informal rules are things like social
norms. There are many kinds of political resources: natural resources, money, military
force, knowledge, access, charm, etc. Politics uses discourses to control what is sayable
and what is not, to control the way in which something is said and the framework of what
is discussed. Dominant discourses lend a kind of cultural authority.

And so, what do you think is the clear boundary between the social and the political aspects?

The clear boundary of social and political aspect is the people who has different roles in
the community social aspect are the commonalities of people that has an specific culture
while in political aspects includes the power of economics ,,military and
others._______________________________________________________________________________

Technoscience is political

▪ There are formal and informal rules that dictate who can make decisions about how to
proceed with technoscientific work.
▪ Different political structures create different opportunities, at the national level, the level
of institutions, and the level of individuals.
▪ Individual knowledge workers (technoscientists), various institutions, and different
professional groups all use economic and cultural resources to advance their aims.
▪ Discourses can be developed by appeal to both social and scientific norms. These
discourses can then be used as resources to advance technoscientific work. This is often
referred to as the production of social capital.

Exercise 1. Reflection Task 1 (Individual Task)

Name:Al Josef G. Alvizo Date Submitted;__________

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

Course/Section: 1CEB Score: _________________

Instructions: Answer the following questions comprehensively.

1. Trevor Pinch has said that STS shows that “politics, culture, economics, and society can be found
in the hardest of artifacts” (Science and Technology Studies: The Next Twenty” panel session,
Harvard University, April 7-9, 2011). Use the writings of two different STS authors to support
and/or refute this claim.
Requires for a coordinates social constructivist approach towards the consider of
science and innovation is sketched out. Inside such a program both logical
actualities and mechanical antiquities are to be caught on as social builds. Writing
on the humanism of science, the science-technology relationship, and innovation
ponders is surveyed. The experimental program of relativism inside the human
science of logical information and a later think about of the social development of
innovative antiquities are combined to create the modern approach. The concepts
of 'interpretative flexibility' and 'closure mechanism', and the idea of 'social group'
are created and outlined by reference to ponder of sun based material science
and a think about of the advancement of the bike. The paper concludes by setting
out a few of the territory to be investigated in future studies. ______
2. Using the concepts from Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, discuss the progression of
STS theories.
The Structure of scientific revolutions Kuhn show’s the improvement of science very not at all like
any that had gone some time recently. In fact, some time recently Kuhn, there was small by way of
a carefully considered, hypothetically clarified account of logical alter.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

3. Discuss the role of quantification in science and technology from your own
perspective. nb
nn

In science, quantification is used to determine the exact number of units being

Examined during and experiment while in technology quntaification isused as
A code or a counting number sometimes in technology it is used in calculating
Numbers knowing the exact area or place of an specific technology.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

Exercise 2. Reflection Task 2 (Individual Task)

Name: Al Josef G. Alvizo Date Submitted;__________

Course/Section: 1CEB________ Score: _________________

Instructions: On the space below you create a slogan that reflects your view of science
and technology. It should be specifically state whether you view science and technology
as good or bad, both, or neutral. You can use different art materials to make it visually
appealing and impactful.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

Exercise 3. Reflection Task 2 (Individual Task)

Name: Al Josef G. Alvizo Date Submitted;__________

Course/Section: 1CEB________________ Score: _________________

Instructions:On the space below, paste a magazine or newspaper cut out of any
photograph that depicts an issue or problem in science and technology. Then, answer
the questions that follow.

1. What is the issue or problem depicted in the photograph?

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Tandag City , Surigao del Sur
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
www.sdssu.edu.ph

2. How does this particular issue or problem impact the well-being of humans today?

Having technology as a part of our daily lives it makes our family not connected
sometimes we forget the sense of being a family we just sit back and hold and use
our gadgets to be entertain and sometimes we use I as a partner for our work and
projects it makes our daily lives easy but it is unhealthy because being lazy can
lead to a unwanted future

3. Why is it important for people to study and learn about STS as an academic field, especially in
addressing the issue or problem depicted in the photograph?
Because when you learn about the study of science technology and society will
give you the guide on how will you manage your usage and grants knowledge
about society and science that will give a bright future in life that will surely be a
good practice in daily living.
4. What was the key crisis that helped drive the development of the field Science and Technology in
Society? How did those crises change our understanding of science and technology? What impact has
this had on how science is practiced by scientists and perceived by non-scientists?
Truth and cooperation with these people is now having a good bond in science
they trust their work because it is being tested and being examined if it is good or
harmful to humans.

GE-Science Technology & Society

Lsg1980