Sts Module

STS 121: Science, Technology and
Society
Table of Contents
Preface iii
Module 1: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN HISTORY THAT CHANGED SOCIETY 3

Lesson 1: Introduction to the Course 4
Lesson 2: Stone Age 9
Lesson 3: Bronze Age 24
Lesson 4: Iron Age 42
Lesson 5: Middle Ages 66
Lesson 6: Pre-colonial societies in selected 81
Asian countries especially in the Philippines
Module 2: SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS 111

THAT DEFINED SOCIETY
Lesson 1: Renaissance 112
Lesson 2: Scientific Revolution 117
Lesson 3: Industrial Revolution 123
Lesson 4: Western Imperialism 128
Moule 3: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY 134

Lesson 1: Technology from 1900 to 1945 135
Lesson 2: Space Age Technology 151
Module 4: IMPACTS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN 161

SOCIETY AND ITS CULTURE
Lesson 1: Perception of Technology 162
Lesson 2: STS and Ethics 173
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PREFACE
The development of Science was based on the development of technology and various
society. Through time, Science and Technology advances as the willingness of the society to learn
also increases. Each day is a continuous period of learning for all of us, regardless of the situation we
are in.
This module course pack is based on the competencies mentioned on the syllabus of the
course Science, Technology, and Society (STS 121). It is designed to help the student gain a
comprehensive knowledge, about the interactions between science and technology and social,
cultural, political, and economic contexts that are shaped through time, despite the absence of
classroom discussion.
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COURSE OVERVIEW
Course Title: Science, Technology and Society
Time Frame: 54 hours
Course Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:
1. Articulate the impacts of science and technology on society, specifically Philippine
society
2. Explain how science and technology affect society and the environment and its role in
nation-building
3. Analyze the human condition in order to deeply reflect and express philosophical
ramifications that are meaningful to the student as a part of society
4. Define and demonstrate the impact of social media on the students’ life and Philippine
society in general
5. Imbibe the importance of science and technology in the preservation of the
environment and the development of the Filipino nation
6. Critique human flourishing vis-à-vis the progress of science and technology such that
the student may be able to define for himself/herself the meaning of the good life
7. Foster the value of a healthy lifestyle toward the holistic and sustainable development of
society and the environment
8. Creatively present the importance and contributions of science and technology to
society
9. Examine shared concerns that make up the good life in order to come up with
innovative and creative solutions to contemporary issues guided by ethical standards
10. Illustrate how the social media and information age impact their lives and their
understanding of climate change
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Course Description:
The course deals with interactions between science and technology and social, cultural,
political, and economic contexts that shape and are shaped by them (CMO No. 20, series of
2013).
This interdisciplinary course engages students to confront the realities brought about by
science and technology in society. Such realities pervade the personal, the public, and the
global aspects of our living and are integral to human development. Scientific knowledge
and technological development happen in the context of society with all its socio-political,
cultural, economic, and philosophical underpinnings at play. This course seeks to instill
reflective knowledge in the students that they are able to live the good life and display ethical
decision making in the face of scientific and technological advancement.
This course includes mandatory topics on climate change and environmental awareness.
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This module provides the context of the relationship between science, technology and
society with the objective of:
• Identify the importance of science and technology to society.
• Determining the relationship between science, technology and society.
• Present the timeline and paradigm shifts of science and technology in history.
• Discuss the interactions between science and technology in society throughout history.
• Explain how these scientific and technological developments affect society and the
environment.
This module is futher divided into five lessons to achieve the objectives above and gain a
better understanding of the course and its importance to our lives.
Module 1
Lesson 1: Introduction to the

Course
Lesson 2: Stone Age
Lesson 3: Bronze Age
Lesson 4: Iron Age
Lesson 5: Middle Ages
Lesson 6: Pre Colonial Philippines
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Lesson 1
Introduction to STS
Objective • Defining science, technology and society

s:
• Determining the relationship between science, technology and society.
To set off in learning this course, let first reflect on the the three terms that encompass the
course: Science, Technology and Society. How do we understand these terms?
Activit Give a short definition of the terms below. Write your response in the space
y:
provided in each sphere.
Scienc
e:
_
_
_
_
_
Technolog Societ
y: y:
_ _
_ _
_ _
_ _
_ _
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Analysi From the activity, are these three spheres connected to each other?
s:
Do they relate to each other in just one direction? Both directions?
Abstraction: Science is a systematized body of knowledge. Key to the definition is the word
“systematized”. That is to say that it follows a process. The scientific method allows
new knowledge to be gathered in a systematic manner. This process or system that
science follows is embodied in the scientific method:
1. Ask a Question
2. Gather information
3. Make a hypothesis (a possible answer/guess)
4. Test the hypothesis
5. Analyze the results
6. Make a conclusion
Technology is the application of this knowledge or applied science. You might think that
technology is about the smartphone that you have or simply anything that needs to have electricity
running through it. Technology is an action taken to meet a human need. The question now is
how society reacts to science and technology.
Activit Complete the table below. Identify 3 human needs and the technology made to
y:
meet that need.
Human need Technology that solves the need

1 1
2 2
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3 3
Media Get to know more about technology by watching the video below.
:
Title: This video is titled: How technology becomes nature | Koert Van Mensvoort
| TEDxGhent
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXJB4Ync82c
Where does society fit? Well, at its core is a three letter word: you. Yes, you. You are the
society in all of this. The dictionary defines society as a community, nation, or broad grouping of
people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests. This
community starts with you. To clarify, society is not made by one person but by many as long as
there is a commonality of activity and interest between a group of persons, then they can be called
a society.
The students of this class. The students in a course. The students in a school. The purok,
barangay and city that you live in. The users of a technology. Common activity and interest is what
it means to be a society.
From the definitions, science is a systematized body of knowledge. Technology is the
application of this knowledge or applied science. Knowledge from technology can be used to
further refine technology and further refine the body of knowledge. The question now is how
society reacts to science and technology. Consider the image below:
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Here we see a committee is constituted to supervise genetic recombination technology

generated from the science of Genetics. Knowledge gained in the use of the technology can be
further used to inform society if indeed the technology is useful or not, needed or not, good or
not.
Check the example below.
Fish
Biolog
y
Philippine Aquaculture
Fisheries
Code of
1998
The Fisheries Code was made to regulate the growing field of aquaculture which in turn
was born from the studies on fish. However, aquaculture is not only focused on fish but also other
aquatic animals such as mollusks and shrimp. Studying how to produce more of these edible
aquatic animals will lead to increasing the aquaculture technology.
Is the relationship between these three spheres made clear to you? Consider the
assessment in the next page.
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Make your own example of the interrelatedness of the three spheres in the figure
below. Provide a clear explanation of your answer on the space provided.
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Lesson 2
Stone Age
Objective • Discuss the events during the Stone Age

s:
• Relate the important events of the Stone Age to current events.
How do you imagine the events of the Stone Age? Draw it in the box below.
Activity:
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TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY IN THE STONE AGE
Abstractio
n: by R.J. Forbes
R.J. Forbes, "The Beginnings of Technology and Man" in Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell, Jr.(eds.),
Technology in Western Civilization, Vol I (Oxford University Press: New York, 1967) Chapter 2, pp. 11-26.
Technology is as old as man himself. Man was evidently a "tool-making primate"

from the day when the first human-like creatures roamed on earth, some 25 million years ago.
Such very early human remains as that of the "Peking Man" (so called because the fossil bones
were found near Peking), dating back about half a million years, are accompanied by stones selected
and often shaped to be used as tools. Even when we do find remains of fossil men not
accompanied by tools, it is probably because they were trapped by death beyond their usual
dwelling site, and therefore without their usual tools.
The Biological Basis of Tool-Making

Although lower animals now and then use a stone or other natural object to break a shell
or to help them in some other part of their feeding or breeding habits, only the primates use "tools"
in the real sense of the word to cope with unusual situations. But even among these there are
differences. While chimpanzees and other apes will sometimes use sticks or stone to perform
certain tasks and will sometimes put two sticks together to bring food within reach, this has always
remained a " mental isolation of a single feature." The regular shaping of such tools or aids never
became a habit with apes; but it did become a habit with man.
Man's earliest natural tools were his hands and his teeth. Biologists tell us that the origin
of tool-making is probably related to the advanced functional anatomy of the human hand and its
development. Further, though the muscles of the hands of monkeys differ little from those of early
man, the nervous mechanism, by which men are able to direct the movements of such muscles is
of a finer structure, thus making human hands more flexible than those of other primates. The
earliest tool-makers were largely carnivorous, however, and they needed sharper instruments for
hunting, killing, and cutting meat---sharp-edged stones such as could be chipped from pebbles by
hammering them with other stones. The larger and more efficiently organized cerebrum of early
man allowed him slowly to grope toward supplementing his natural tools. Not only the
development of manual activity but also the development of speech guided man's earliest tool-
making activities. The evolution of speech, which "gave everything a name," perhaps helped to
differentiate man's world. Different tools of special types came to be used for hunting, fishing, and
the making of clothes and shelters.
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Early Stone Tools

Archaeologists identify and classify early human settlements by the shape and type of the
tools found there. The first tools were of stone, and the earliest stone tools (called "eoliths,"
because they date from the Eolithic or earliest Stone age period over a million years ago) were
pebbles already preshaped by nature and simply picked up from a river bed. Very slowly man
learned to shape such stones by striking them with other stones, and a limited number of more or
less standardized shapes for chopping and cutting were developed. About a hundred thousand
years ago primitive man was no longer content with his chopper tool and pointed flakes; he began
to make more specialized tools: pear-shaped "hand axes," scrapers, knives, pointed stones, and so
forth
The growing range and complexity of man's tools ran parallel to the development of his
activities and achievements in other respects. Archaeological data show that he had now fully
become Homo sapiens, Man the Thinker. By then speech and language as important adjuncts of
thought as well as communication must have been fully developed. His interest, not only in
terrestial objects and phenomena but also in those of the heavens, became more and more evident
in the drawings he made on his tools, belongings, and later on the walls of caves. These show not
only the rudiments of science but also demonstrate his technology, particularly his hunting
techniques. The shrewd characterization in these drawings and the clear ordering of his
observations which they demonstrate show the development of man's mind, though we are not
allowed any intimate contact with his thoughts until the earliest writing appears in the Near East
about 3500 B.C.
Invention and Discovery

Two elements governed man's technical progress. Discovery, the recognition and careful
observation of new natural objects and phenomena, is a very subjective event until it leads to some
practical application shared by others either directly or indirectly. Invention, however, is a mental
process in which various discoveries and observation are combined and guided by experience into
some new tool or operation. Much experience was needed to lead to truly important inventions,
and hence, the material progress of ancient man was very slow.
The Use of Fire

Man's earliest conquest was fire. Ancient myths agree that man was originally threatened
and alarmed by forest fires, but he eventually turned this phenomenon into a boon for mankind.
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The earliest users of fire had to keep going those fires which they might have found in nature, for
they had no means of producing it at will. Not until Paleolithic times (Old Stone Age, which lasted
about a million years, to 8000 B.C.) in Europe and Asia did man discover the percussion method:
lumps of flint and pyrites struck together would give off sparks with which tinder, straw, or other
inflammable fuel could be set alight. Other methods, based on the heat of friction produced by
rubbing pieces of wood together, as in the fire-saw and fire-drill, seem to have originated in
Southern Asia at a somewhat later date.
Fire was the most important discovery of Paleolithic man, who not only warmed his body
but also applied fire to the preparation of food. The birth of the art of cooking meant that he could
now prepare and "predigest" foodstuffs and augment the diet of fruit, roots, and raw meat on
which he had lived for millennia. He not only increased his range of foodstuffs enormously, and
was able to vary his diet, but more importantly, by drying meat and other foods with the help of
fire, he could now lay in a supply to help him subsist during the lean seasons.
Gradually, various ways of preparing food were developed from the original method of
simply holding the item to be cooked over the fire or placing it in the fire. Food could be cooked
on top of heated stones and even in glowing embers. As soon as suitable containers could be found
or fashioned, boiling, stewing, and frying became regular ways of preparing food; and from
primitive means of cooking food in preheated vessels, the art of baking evolved.
Cooking actually led to the invention of suitable containers and other kitchen utensils, of
braziers (portable fires) for domestic heating, of grates, and finally of bellows, which were an
improvement on the original fan or blowpipe with which the fire was encouraged. It is clear from
later documents and from archaeological finds that many later industrial processes involving heat,
such as metallurgy, pottery, and brewing, used the accumulated experience of prehistoric cooking.
In all early languages industrial operations such as heating, drying, steaming, baking, and washing
are indicated by terms derived from the kitchen, and even in such a late growth as alchemical
practice (which is hardly older than the eight century B.C.), it is clear that not only the terms but
also apparatus such as filters and water-baths were originally kitchen equipment which was later
adopted to chemical use.
Tending the fire required a suitable place in the middle of the hut or cave usually a mud-
plastered, walled spot, the hearth. This was the birthplace of pottery, for prehistoric man soon
discovered how hard the mud plaster became after being thoroughly heated. Also from the
domestic hearth were developed our kilns, ovens, and industrial furnaces of a later period.
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Present evidence points to a fairly late emergence of the art of pottery. The oldest farming villages
of the Near East did not contain pots, but by the time of such early urban settlements as Jericho
(6000 B.C.), pottery was known. The earliest pottery took the shape of the gourds it was designed
to displace, an early example of the tendency of inventors to adopt a natural form in attempting
to replace a natural function.
The fuel used by prehistoric man was the most primitive kind. Dead branches, dry wood,
and shrubs were commonly used, but so was such low-grade material as dried bones. In the East,
thorny shrubs, withered sticks, twigs, and dried dung were cheap fuels, supplemented by straw and
other farming refuse as soon as agriculture was introduced. Only the mountain regions had
sufficient firewood. In later times this wood was made into charcoal for industrial purposes. For
all ancient industrial processes depended on charcoal, and this charcoal-burning (together with the
herds of goats which grazed in the barren mountain region) was responsible for the deforestation
of the Mediterranean area in antiquity. Much later, the Greek philosopher Plato (427-347 B.C.)
deplored the disappearance of the many forests of Athens due to charcoal-burning and ship-
building.
Strangely enough, prehistoric man seldom used convenient outcroppings of coal and
lignite. In certain regions of Czechoslovakia, mammoth-hunters seem to have utilized local coal-
outcrops for their camp-fires, but this was an exception. By the time (500 B.C.-400 A.D.) of
Classical antiquity, however, peat and lignite were well known, although the burning of peat by the
early inhabitants of the Low Countries was considered a proof of barbarism and poverty by the
Roman author Tacitus (55-117 A.D). Coal came into more regular use in Roman Britain, but its
use in earlier times is hypothetical. This limited supply of second-grade fuel was a major deterrent
to the development of industrial processes during the whole of antiquity as well as for many
centuries thereafter.
The use of fire also led to the introduction of illuminating devices. In certain cases
threading a wick through such oil-rich creatures as the stormy petrel or the candlefish provided a
reasonable flame. In most cases, however, the oil was first extracted from the animal or fish, and
then the fish-oil, tallow, or other type of fat was used in hollowed-out stone lamps, with a wick
hanging over the rim or floating in the middle of the oil. Such stone lamps were in use in Paleolithic
times; a specimen was found in the Lascaux caves of France, where it had served the prehistoric
painters who decorated the walls there some 12,000 years ago. Sometimes resinous splinters or
torches were used. Later, pottery or metal bowls were manufactured, multi-wick lamps being made
by forming several spouts along the rim of the bowl to hold more wicks. These gave more stable
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lighting than the splinter-lights or rush-lights (peeled rushes often dipped in fat or grease to form
a primitive candle), which were apt to give off sparks and thus constituted a grave danger-spot in
the house. Torches and tapers often consisted of bundles of splinters or rush-lights, sometimes
dipped in bitumen or resin. Along the coasts, shells were often used as lamps, for the rim was
naturally shaped to hold wicks. For centuries such open lamps were the only form of lighting that
mankind knew. Even after the advent of the candle, the vast majority of people usually rose and
went to bed with the sun, for oil for illuminating purposes was too expensive for people who were
merely eking out a living.
Advances in Stone Tools

As foraging, hunting, and fishing began to provide a wide range of food supply, tool-
making outgrew its elementary stage. By 15,000 B.C. more differentiated and better tools were
being made in Europe and the Near East. The earlier technique had been to shape a stone tool by
beating it against a hammerstone or between a hammer and a stone anvil, but as more suitable
stones for tool-making were found, flaking techniques were more widely used. Flint, obsidian, or
fine-grained lava could be used to produce flakes by applying a stroke with a stone hammer or
mallet at certain points of the surface at exactly the right angle. Experience soon taught man to
strike his nodule of flint in such a way that the form of the flake detached had an accurately
predetermined shape.
It was also possible to produce long narrow flakes or blades for other purposes. This could
be achieved by detaching the flakes by means of a wooden or bone punch struck by the mallet or
hammerstone. Thus a blade could be shaped into a tool with the two edges sliced down obliquely
at one end, forming a narrow chisel edge. This tool is called a burin, of which over twenty types
were used by the early nomadic food-gatherers. All these tools, whether hand axes, chopping tools,
blades, or burins, could be retouched by secondary flaking and by pressure-flaking (splitting off
small flakes along the cutting edge to make it more even) to produce a wide range of special tools
for each technical operation such as chopping, cutting, adzing, sawing, scraping, etc.
We must remember, however, that man did not use stone tools only. Unfortunately,
remains of the less durable materials such as wood, bone, and ivory have disappeared. Only under
exceptional circumstances, such as arise in the salt mines of Carinthia (Austria) or in swamps, do
we find such perishable objects as wooden shovels and composite tools consisting of flint pieces
with handles, suchas sickles. Nevertheless, the few objects found in prehistoric camps and
settlements prove that bone tools were in fact used. Splinters could be separated from bones to
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serve as needles and awls. Wood could be worked by using flint scrapers for chisels, so as to
produce dug-out canoes (6500 B.C.) and even, by the end of the Stone Age, to produce primitive
tenon (projection cut at the end of piece of material) and mortise (hole cut in second piece to
receive projection on first) joints for wooden objects. Antlers were used as picks in the mining of
flint by that time. Bone or wooden handles held small flint blades; spears and arrows had hafted
heads made of various materials. Hence at the beginning of the New Stone Age (also known as
the Neolithic Age, and lasting from about 8000 B.C. to 2500 B.C.) men already utilized a
considerable arsenal of specialized tools and weapons. Though our knowledge of these is based
on the relatively few examples which have survived, we often have remains of the finished products
made with their aid.
The Beginnings of Mining

Good flaking stones that could be used for tools and weapons were not too common.
Sometimes they were found along the shore where chalk outcroppings had been worn away by the
waves and previously embedded nodules of flint had been washed onto the beaches. Flint nodules
could also be found inland at several surface locations in Europe and the Near East. The best
materials, however, could only be obtained by digging vertical shafts into the limestone to reach
the stratum some 30 to 400 feet below the ground which contained flint nodules with better flaking
qualities. Prehistoric men probably knew where to dig for flint, presumably by following surface
outcroppings.
Many of these Stone Age flint mines have been discovered, and some have even yielded
skeletons of miners---with their tools---surprised by the crumbling of their" pipes" or shafts. From
these remains we get the impression that originally the tribesmen must have made seasonal
excursions to such sites to obtain the flint they needed. Only gradually, by the dawn of the Bronze
Age (about 2500 B.C.), did flint mining become a separate profession, with miners living on the
spot year round and probably fashioning flint tools to be traded by itinerant hawkers. The same
must have happened in the case of the harder, non-flaking stones like diorite and lava which, from
Neolithic times onwards, were shaped by grinding and polishing into completely new forms.
Another early product to be mined, apart from the ochres and other colored earths used
as pigments for decoration purposes, was salt. This ingredient became very important as man's
changing diet---extended by the art of cooking---provided him with more carbohydrates and as
the percentage of raw food and meat went down. The diminishing percentage of foodstuffs with
a natural salt content had to be supplemented by the addition of other salt. This was sometimes
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found as deposits of evaporated salt-spray along the coasts, but it was usually obtained by the
evaporation of saline waters from such springs as those of the Halle region (Central Europe), or
the mining of rock-salt strata, to be found fairly frequently in the deserts of the Near East and the
eastern Alps and Carpathians.
Technology and Aspects of Early Society

All these products---flint, hard stone for tools, and salt (usually traded in the form of
"bricks"), together with the semi-precious stones which the prehistoric tribesmen admired, as well
as sea-shells from the East---constituted the objects of trade over relatively long distances. We can
still trace these trade routes through the river valleys and over mountain passes from the mines to
other settlements and even to the coast by the discovery of the treasure and merchandise of
peddlers who, when threatened by danger, buried their possessions and often never recovered
them.
This developing trade is just one of the signs that society was changing, and with it,
technology. For technology is a social product in this sense, that it is one of the interacting factors
in a society, which in those early days was still very much limited by its food supply pattern. Its
tools and technology were first of all aimed at the support and extension of this food supply,
though other factors were also important. Environment and available materials can limit the forms
and extension of this technology, but they cannot rob man of his ingenuity. Early food-gatherers
and hunters devised a full range of tools directed toward their foraging, hunting, and fishing; these
tools have been classified as "crushers," "piercers," and "entanglers." Included among these were
the spear and spear-thrower, the simple and composite bow (typical of the hunter of herds), the
arrowhead and harpoon, the blow-gun, lasso and bolas, and fish hooks and traps, such as are still
used by primitive tribes in Africa and South America.
Nor did the insecurity of daily subsistence prevent early man from creating and cultivating
graphic and plastic arts. This was partly because primitive superstition (itself a form of technology)
believed that one would be more successful in hunting and fishing if one could draw pictures of
the objects for which one hunted and fished. Perhaps also the aesthetic element---the instinct to
adorn or beautify---lies deep within man. Using natural pigments crushed in a mortar with pestle
(and mixed with animal fats or water in most cases), primitive man painted with his finger tips,
brushes, or dry-point crayons. He engraved tools and weapons on the walls of his caves with
incised lines or pecking. He also sculpted. Rock or mud were modeled in the round or in relief,
and he used ivory, antler, and stone as well. Still, in these early societies there was no specialization
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or division of labor, and full-time craftsmen were unknown. This holds true even for the larger
part of the Neolithic Age, when the gradual development of stock-breeding and agriculture made
life safer and more dependable.
The Domestication of Animals

Man gradually tamed such animals as roamed about his settlements or camps and which sometimes
may have been scavenging. By Magdalenian times (the late period, 17,000-8000 B.C., of the Old
Stone Age) the dog was already domesticated, and probably man had already tamed the first
reindeer, goats, and sheep. During the Neolithic Age (Late Stone Age) pigs and cattle joined the
range of domestic animals, the horse and the onager (wild ass) being tamed toward the end of that
period. From the remains of such tamed animals we may conclude that most domestic animals of
Neolithic date had already lost some of the physical characteristics of their wild ancestors and
showed distinct traces of domestication. Neolithic and Bronze Age man tamed such animals
intentionally. The oldest Egyptian wall-paintings show that even antelopes and gazelles were
domesticated, possibly for economic purposes, as their skins and the leather prepared from them
were much prized.
The last phase of domestication was characterized by the dominance of such economic
purpose. Animals were bred because of their meat, hides, or milk, and man gradually acquired
sufficient biological experience to be able to produce more "specialized" animals, the products of
which were refined by various techniques. During the Neolithic Age (c.700 B.C.) we find more
and more types of sheep, goats, and cattle bred to suit man's needs. At the same time, the
deforestation and cultivation of larger areas of virgin soil began to cause extermination of wild
species and to make the domesticated ones more dependent on man's care.
The Beginnings of Agriculture

Similar needs led to man's attempts to free himself from the limitations of vegetable food
supplied by nature in the wild state. He did not want to be dependent on roots and fruit only, but
wanted regular supplies of green vegetables, nuts and oil seeds, cereals, and condiments. In most
cases it is impossible to determine where or when such cultivated foodstuffs were first discovered
and used. In the case of cereals, however, it is fairly certain that they originated from the cultivation
and cross-breeding or wild grasses growing in Syria and the highlands to the North, that is, in the
Fertile Crescent running from the Egyptian border along the Arabian desert to the delta of the
Euphrates and the Tigris.
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From 8000 B.C. onwards, the Fertile Crescent played its role as the center of agriculture,
whence the knowledge of growing such improved foodstuffs spread to the Mediterranean region
and Western Europe. Although most of the cereal grains developed first in the Near East, Europe
gave the world two new cereals, oats and rye, which became important crops in Roman times. Rice
did not come west from the Orient until about 1000 B.C.
Men also began to cultivate intentionally such plants as flax and hemp and to use their
fibers for textiles and rope making; they also grew plants from which they could extract oils and
dyestuffs. The advent of agriculture brought more or less permanent settlements and tended to
displace the earlier nomadic way of life. Yet, in these early agricultural settlements there were still
few traces of technological specialization; every man had to be a jack-of-all-trades, and every
homestead was virtually self-sufficient. Only in a few mining centers do we find signs of craftsmen
at work trading their products through peddlers.
Agriculture stimulated technology in various ways. New tools were needed: the hoe, plow,
harrow to prepare and till the soil. Yet, during the thousands of years of prehistory, from the first
stone tools to the first stone tools to the first cities, technical progress, whether by discovery or by
deliberate invention, was very slow. The pace of this development is clearly demonstrated by the
late invention of such a simple agricultural tool as the flail, a device for threshing grain.
After the birth of agriculture, prehistoric man was faced with the problem of detaching the
grains from the dried heads of the wild grasses he cultivated and improved. He solved this problem
by beating sheaves of grain against the compacted mud floor or by spreading it out on the floor
and beating it with sticks. Sometimes he had the animals which he had domesticated tread on the
grain; sometimes he used the crushing effect of a threshing sledge, studded with flint or iron nails,
on the grain spread out over the threshing floor. Much later, even the Romans, with their large
farms aiming at mass production of wheat and other cereals, did not possess the flail. It was not
until the fourth century in Gaul that the ingenious combination of two hinged sticks produced the
flail; yet the technical elements and the need for an effective threshing device had already existed
for millennia.
Building
The coming of permanent settlements led to early forms of building. Earlier men had been
satisfied with simple windbreaks, seeking more permanent shelters such as caves only for longer
stays. The earliest European houses were tent-like constructions, often little more than roofed-
over pits and hollows. Gradually pole or frame constructions were developed, which led to more
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solid constructions made of planks, turf, mud, and adobe. The advent of metal tools in the Bronze
Age made possible the building of log houses in the forest regions; while in the south the types of
houses with a roofed front porch and a room with a central fireplace prevailed. Long houses and
religious buildings of various forms were also erected, involving a more developed wood-work
technology.
In the Near East the earliest farming villages consisted of sapling-supported mud huts,
later with wattle (woven branches or twigs) wall smeared with daub (mud). Building construction
depended on the local materials available. Reed huts were constructed in the lower river valleys,
wooden houses where timber was available. In Jarmo by 6500 B.C. compacted mud-walls were
used and at Jericho we find mud-bricks.
The Urban Revolution

Technological developments during the Neolithic Age gradually led to a regular production
of surplus foodstuffs, which supported what has been called the "Urban Revolution." In the Near
East after 600 B.C. some farming villages slowly developed into urban centers dominating an
agricultural area. Trade was no longer in luxuries alone; the farmers brought their surplus grain
and food to the city, where skilled, full-time craftsmen traded the articles which they had produced
for the food they needed. This was particularly true after the urban centers began to move toward
the river valleys, which were being drained and cultivated but which could not provide the timber,
metals, and minerals needed by the craftsmen.
Transport
Despite an increase in trade, transport was still very primitive. On the water, apart from
rafts and inflated skins carrying a timber deck (the keleks of Mesopotamia), there were baskets
with a high rim and the coracle (Arabic, quffa), a sort of raft made water-tight by a hide covering
(in Assyria, by a coat of bituminous mastic). Ships made of bundles of reeds were typical for the
Nile Valley civilization. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia, like those of prehistoric Europe, also
used the dug-out canoe, the prototype of later plank-built ships. Somehow they learned to avail
themselves of the propulsive power of the wind, and their little wooden ships circled Arabia and
penetrated the Red Sea, where rock pictures show them to have had square sails. Such ships later
inspired the Phoenician ship-builders and became the prototype of the Aegean galley. Despite
these early adventurers, most early shipping was merely river transport and seldom risked the
dangers even of sailing along the coasts of the open seas.
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The technological improvements of land transport was even slower. Early overland trade
never involved large volumes of goods, but for a very long time was limited to what men or pack
animals could carry on their backs. From 7000 B.C. onward, sledges were in use for heavy loads
such as the stones used for later prehistoric (Neolithic, the Late Stone Age, period monuments.
The great megalithic monument at Stonehenge, in England, shows the great feats of land and water
transport possible even with the most primitive means; its four-ton stones were carried over land
and sea from quarries 150 miles away, its thirty-ton stones were carried some 25 miles by sledge.
For a long time archaeologists have reasoned that such heavy stones must have been moved on
sledges placed on rollers and that the idea of the wheel probably derived from these rollers. It is
doubtful, however, if wheels evolved from rollers, and we still do not know where, when, and how
the wheel was invented.
On early tablets found at Uruk in Mesopotamia (3500 B.C.) we see pictures of sledges on
four wheels; a set of solid wheels with their axle were carved from a tree trunk, and the sledge was
attached to two such units. True wheeled vehicles, with the wheel rotating about the axle instead
of being solidly affixed to it, are not found until the days of the Sumerian royal tombs (after 3000
B.C.)
Man at the Dawn of History

Starting as one of the members of the pirmate group, man possessed certain biological
prerequisites for technical progress: the capacity to manipulate with his hands and fingers, the
ability to develop speech for communication, and, somehow, a capacity for abstract thought. These
had enabled him to develop tools, which in turn enabled him to evolve further.
Although early man undoubtedly first utilized wooden and bone implements, only his
stone tools have survived the ravages of time, so human prehistory is divided among the Stone
Ages (Eolithic, Paleolithic, and Neolithic), with these tools improving in quality and usability over
a long period of time. Suddenly---as such things went in prehistoric times---in the fourth
millennium B.C. (4000-3000 B.C.) revolutionary changes took place in man's technology and hence
his society.
Man had already discovered fire and had crude weapons. But in the thousand years
preceding 3000 B.C. there was a spate of inventions and discoveries. The beginnings of agriculture
allowed for settled communities, and man changed from a nomadic hunter and parasite upon
nature to become an active partner with nature. He domesticated animals and developed
agricultural tools. He made textiles and produced pottery. He invented the wheel and the sail to
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improve his transportation. And, at the turn of the millennium, he learned how to use and produce
copper. Then came the most astonishing invention of pre-history, an invention that divided the
very epochs of ancient man.
The development of writing took place about 3500 B.C. The earliest documents were
cuneiform clay tablets, forming the archives of the administration of early Mesopotamian
(Sumerian) temples. These cuneiform tablets are typical of the way in which language and its
earliest written expression, pictographs (that is, ideas expressed in the form of visual pictures),
developed. The "naming" of all natural things and phenomena now finds its expression in the
word lists (onomastica) in which words for all kinds of animals, plants, minerals, and so forth, are
arranged in groups which are supposed to be related in some way. The Sumerian language of the
ancient Mesopotamians being agglutinative (that is, forming words by adding prefixes or suffixes
to the root forms), it lent itself admirably to such groupings, achieving something like the nature
of modern organic chemistry (in which, for example, the addition of descriptive prefixes to a root
form such as "benzene" leads to words like "paradichlorbenzene"). Such lists, often designating
the objects by their external characteristics which had been observed, led to the "discovery" of the
"natural order of things"; they also aided budding scientists and craftsmen, for the lists were used
in teaching pupils how to read and write. The craftsmen used them to set down their experience
and to formulate the recipes and instructions they were gradually producing for technology, new
terms being formed and read with ease as necessity decidated.
Cuneiform writing consisted of wedge-shaped marks incised on wet clay, a material in
which the Tigris-Euphrates Valley abounded. When dried in the sun or baked in a fire, the clay
tablets hardened, and a permanent record was left. Almost at the same time the Nile Valley also
witnessed the beginnings of writing by brush dipped in ink or dye on papyrus formed by pressing
and drying pithy reeds growing near the Nile delta.
With the beginning of the written record---itself a triumph of technology---we pass from
pre-historical to historical times. But in prehistory technology had already provided mankind with
the bases of civilization: settled communities made possible through agricultural advance, a wide
variety of tools, domesticated animals, means of transportation such as the wheel and sail, and the
beginnings of some division of labor. Contemporaneous with the invention of writing was to be
the beginning of metallurgy and the accompanying change from the Stone Ages of man to the
Copper Age and the Bronze Age in the third millennium B.C.
With the beginnings of metallurgy, the Stone Age of man comes to an end; with the
beginnings of writing, prehistory comes to an end; with the beginnings of agriculture, man's
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parasitism on nature gives way to co-operation with nature. Technology thus made possible the
beginnings of civilization in the great river valleys of the Near East, in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Get to know more about the Stone Age by watching the video at the URL below.
Title:
URL:
Imagine living during the Stone Age. Create a 10-point guide in surviving the
Stone Age.
How to survive the Stone Age
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
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Lesson 3
Bronze Age
Objective • Discuss the events during the Bronze Age

s:
• Relate the important events of the Bronze Age to current events.
How do you imagine the events of the Bronze Age?

Activity:
Draw it in the box below.
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TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY IN THE BRONZE AGES
Abstractio
n: by R.J. Forbes
R.J. Forbes, "Mesopotamian and Egyptian Technology" in Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. (eds.),
Technology in Western Civilization, Vol. I (Oxford Univ. Press: New York, 1967), Chapter 3, pp. 26-47.
When the higher lands of the Near East began drying up with the great
climatic changes caused by the end of the last Ice Age (from about 60,000-10,000 B.C.), the
population of this area was driven from the once fertile land which is now the Sahara Desert and
from the barren highlands of Iran and Arabia into the river valleys. By 3000 B.C. urban
civilizations, dependent on agriculture and coincident with the development of metallurgy, had
begun to arise in the river valleys. The earliest of these were in Egypt and Mesopotamia (modern
Iraq) in the valleys of the Nile and the Twin Rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, respectively, although
somewhat later similar cities sprang up farther east in the Indus River Valley (India) and in that
of the Yellow River River (China).
Once established in the valleys the peoples of both Egypt and Mesopotamia found it
necessary too wage an annual war against the floods of the great rivers. In meeting this
overwhelming need, each civilization developed social and political systems tailored to the
technological necessity of survival. Because of differences in the geographic environment and
because the flooding habits of the Nile differed from those of the Tigris-Euphrates, these two
societies developed differing technologies, and it is not surprising that their political and social
systems also differed considerably. So too did the underlying social attitudes of these regions
differ. The people inhabiting the Mesopotamia area were pessimistic in philosophy, and in great
fear of demons and evil spirits; the Egyptians, instead of being morbidly concerned with death
and the after-life (as some Greek authors of Classical antiquity would mislead us into believing),
actually loved the good things in life, which they wanted to enjoy beyond the grave, but without
such unpleasant things as taxes and manual labor. These cultural differences were undoubtedly
related to the material differences between these two peoples.
The Rise of Mesopotamia

The earliest settlements in the land of the Twin Rivers were founded by the Sumerians
(about 3000 B.C.), who dominated the southern part of Iraq up to the Persian Gulf. During this
Sumerian period, the country knew no central authority and consisted only of city-states (of
some 8000 to 12,000 inhabitants), each striving to dominate the others and thereby to capture
more of the fertile land. Each city and the land around it were believed to belong to the god or
goddess of that city, who had appointed his chief priest to be his representative and
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shepherd of his people. Thus arose a temple economy, in which the harvest of the land and all
the products of the city were delivered to the temple storehouses, whence the priests distributed
them to feed and clothe the citizens. Imports of foreign raw materials were handed out to
craftsmen, who processed them and were paid for their labor by piece rates.
By 2000 B.C., however, the Sumerian cities to the south had been conquered by Semitic
tribes froom central Mesopotamia, who united the country, founding the Assyrian and
Babylonian empires, known to us through the Bible and archaeological records. Despite the
military conquest of the Sumerian cities by these Semitic peoples, the latter assimilated most of
the elements of the Sumerian civilization--an early example of the cultural conquest of the
conquerors by a conquered people.
Nevertheless, certain elements of Sumerian society were changed. The temple
workshops amid the temple precincts, which produced textiles and other goods, slowly gave way
to guilds of free craftsmen. These craftsmen produced the articles which necessitated the
commercial contact of Mesopotamia with Syria, with Asia Minor and the northern mountains,
with Iran, and (by sea) even with Bahrein and the Arabic coast beyond these islands. At the same
time, where trade moved, so could armies, and the cities were in constant danger of being invaded
from these same regions. Only the rise of powerful military autocracies could secure
Mesopotamia from invasion by rapacious neighboring tribes, lacking, as she did, any natural
barriers.
The Rise of Egypt

Egypt too was originally inhabited by independent tribes, each of which had established
its own "water-province," a union of irrigation and drainage units. Shortly before the end of
prehistoric times (c. 2000 B.C.) these groups in both upper and lower Egypt had been united
under powerful kings (Pharaohs), who ruled the provinces of the land through governors.
Protected by deserts on its western and eastern frontiers, Egypt was safe from invasions
for many centuries and suffered only rarely from serious internal strife. The major exception
was the Hyksos invasion between 1650 and 1575 B.C.; Egypt reacted by establishing military
outposts in Palestine and Syria to avoid repetition of such national disaster, but it never really
colonized these foreign parts. Nevertheless, trading contacts existed at an early date with Byblos
on the Syrian coast, Cyprus, and Crete; and Egyptian shipping went up the Nile or sailed south
along the Red Sea coast to obtain African and South Arabian products. Egyptian towns never
competed economically as did the Mesopotamian towns, nor did the temples dominate the
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economy until later centuries, when they had grown very rich by royal donations. Both free
craftsmen and temple workshops existed and flourished side by side.
Learning
In both Egypt and Mesopotamia the only form of education was the temple school, where
those who were to become clerks, officials, and priests learned to read and write. Later they were
initiated into the various fields of knowledge and became the class of "scribes," looked upon
with awe by the common people. In both countries pupils were taught the "order of things as
established by the gods in the beginning," in the form of the word lists previously described.
These schools taught their pupils the religious mysteries and other such knowledge restricted to
this elite group. Mathematics consisted mainly of simple computations involving the conversion
of standard measures or weights and the calculation of areas and volumes of various geometrical
figures and bodies, such as the volume of earth needed to build a dike or the area of a piece of
land. These were subjects of value to technicians, and we know that the officials who surveyed
engineering works often had been pupils in such schools. On occasion technical projects were
submitted to the scrutiny and advice of learned bodies of priests who formed advisory boards
in the towns of Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was only on these infrequent occasions that
craftsmen had contact with the learning accumulated and transmitted in the temple schools. Thus
at the very beginning of history, science and technology developed along separate lines with but
little contact between the scholarly, clerical caste and the workaday world of the craftsmen.
Role of the Craftsmen

Sometimes craftsmen were engaged to work the raw materials and products received as
tribute or payments in kind by the government, temples, or tradesmen, but most often they plied
their several trades on a small scale and in their own shops. Crafts like pottery-making and the
manufacture of textiles were often household duties, even in the homes of the rich, whereas the
specialized craftsmen worked such things as glass, metals, stone, wood, leather, oils and fats, or
luxury foods.
On the large engineering projects of the government and temple authorities, craftsmen
were employed as specialists. The common laborers were peasants who paid their taxes by
working on such projects during the months their farmlands were under flood water anyway. In
Egypt there were very few slaves, only foreign captives or criminals. In Mesopotamia there was
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a legal class of "bondsmen," who contracted to work for a definite number of years. Slavery
played only a very small part in early antiquity; it became a force only in Classical times, that is,
during the period of Greece and Rome.
Water Works for Irrigation

Water supply, irrigation, and drainage dominated this world of early civilization in which
the surplus of the farm was used to feed the town. Without the fertile silt deposited on the
farmlands by the annual river floods, the soil would soon have been depleted and agriculture
made impossible. The prehistoric farming population, which had slowly migrated into the river
valleys, had through cooperative efforts drained the originally swampy banks along the rivers in
both Egypt and Mesopotamia. Only by co-operation could the dikes be built and maintained,
the muddy waters directed over the fields during the inundation, and finally drained off
downstream. Flooding problems, and hence their technological solutions, differed appreciably
in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
In Egypt the very regular annual rise of the Nile lent itself admirably to basin irrigation.
The silt deposited on the land was salt-free, and there was comparatively little silting-up of the
canals and ditches which had been dug to spread the waters over the comparatively narrow Nile
Valley. The early Pharaohs took over the original local organizations and established "water-
houses" in each province (irrigation unit) in order to plan and organize the "cutting of the dikes"
(to direct the annual inundation of the fields by the rising Nile) and the constant repair work
on both the canals and dikes. They also built Nilometers (graduated wells connected with the
river) to measure the rise of the Nile, registered the fields, and set up new boundary- stones
when the inundation destroyed earlier landmarks. Many of the inspectors who administered
this work were skilled technicians, but in certain cases competent farmers were appointed to
survey the work done for the "water-house". Originally, the farmlands reached only as far as
the Nile's waters naturally flooded; later, when water-lifting machinery of large capacity had
been invented, the area of cultivation was extended to the very rim of the desert.
Mesopotamia was a flat land, and conditions there were very different. The rivers rose
early in spring, and water had to be stored then to irrigate the land after the midsummer harvest.
Moreover, the Tigris-Euphrates carried about five times more silt that the Nile, and this silt
contained salt and gypsum dissolved from the soil in the highlands and carried downstream in
fairly large amounts. The large quantity of silt meant that the irrigation canals and ditches had
to be cleaned frequently to prevent them from clogging; the high proportion of salt meant
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that in the course of the centuries several tracts became infertile through the cumulative deposit
of salt, a condition which still presents problems for the reclamation of land in modern Iraq.
When Mesopotamia was divided among a number of city-states, these competed for
sufficient water to flood their lands, and each city had its own irrigation board. Here too,
properly trained officials and experienced farmer-supervisors surveyed the work on the irrigation
system, which allowed the farmlands to yield sometimes two crops a year.
It is clear that the care of irrigation canals and ditches was a major pre-occupation in both
Egypt and Mesopotamia, and it is small wonder that Pharaohs and emperors were proud of the
new works built during their reigns and mentioned them frequently on their monuments. By
the same token, when the Mesopotamian warriors invaded enemy country, they regularly singled
out their irrigation works for particular destruction.
Outside the great river valleys, in hilly countries like Palestine and Syria, terrace irrigation
was practised on a modest scale, the water usually being derived from dammed brooks or
rivulets. In more mountainous regions, the inhabitants tapped the water in the foothills of the
mountain ranges by driving horizontal tunnels into the hillsides, using vertical shafts for
ventilation and inspection purposes. Such tunnel channels, the ancestors of aqueducts, are still
constructed and used in Iran and Armenia.
Water Supply for Cities

The water supplies and sewage systems of the cities were just as carefully regulated as
the irrigation system of the farmlands. Most of the cities drew their water from the rivers on
which they were located, boiling it when used for domestic purposes. On the other hand, towns
in hilly country were supplied by springs and wells, each of which had its own set of problems.
Because such towns were mostly built of mud-brick, they tended to rise on the debris of older
houses and form a "tell," which meant that the well became deeper and deeper in terms of the
ground surface. Springs usually tended to be outside the town's walls, and to ensure a water
supply from these springs in case of war, a shaft was dug in the middle of the town to a horizontal
sloping tunnel (sinner) which led the spring waters under the walls to the bottom of the shaft.
Such water tunnels were typical in Palestinian towns.
The Assyrian king Sennacherib was the first to build a long-distance water supply (691
B.C.) in order to water the fields and palace gardens north of Nineveh. He constructed a dam
in the Khosr River near Bavian and conducted its waters through a gently sloping masonry channel
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to Nineveh, some thirty-five miles to the southeast. This channel, which sometimes bridged
valleys on arches, was the earliest aqueduct, and it served as an example to Eupalinos, who built
the first Greek aqueduct on the island of Samos (530 B.C.).
Water-lifting devices remained very primitive for centuries. In early days the wooden bailer
and the shadoof (a long, pivoted pole with a bucket on one end and a counterpoising weight at
the other end) were the only means by which the farmer could raise the water by hand to higher
ground. Such devices as the Archimedean (or endless) screw, the wheel of pots, or the
compartment wheel moved by oxen or by the flowing river did not come into use until about 400
B.C. or later.
Processing of Raw Materials

The processing of foodstuffs produced in the irrigated gardens and farms involved
crushing, pressing, and grinding operations for which several devices were invented. Olives and
grapes were originally pressed by treading on them with the feet, but around 3000 B.C. we find
pictures of the bag press on the walls of Egyptian tombs. For the bag press a cloth was filled
with grapes or other juicy substances and folded in such a way that the two ends on each side
enfolded a stick; the two sticks were then turned in opposite directions by four men, and by
torsion (or "wringing the cloth" as the texts have it) the grape juice was extracted. A saving of
labor was later introduced when one of the sticks was replaced by a noose attached to the upright
of the frame in which the bag was hung. The beam press, later to become the major device for
extracting juice from grapes and oil from olives, was invented in the Aegean world about 1500
B.C., but it never travelled east.
Grinding grain to make flour was part of the housewife's task; professional millers are
not mentioned in Egypt before 1500 B.C., although women sometimes acted as professional
millers at an earlier date. The most common milling device was the saddle quern (a saddle-
shaped lower stone on which the grain was placed while the woman knelt and rubbed a smaller
stone, or pestle, to and fro over the grain). Sometimes the quern was a saucer-shaped basin with
a rim to guide the squat and bun-shaped pestle.
Saddle querns were developed later which had an upper stone with a hopper and a silt to
feed the grinding surface continuously. Toward the end of the second millennium B.C. came
the rotary quern; in this the upper stone was rotated by hand by means of a stick fitted into the
rim of the upper stone, one of the earliest applications of rotary motion in machinery. The
application of small rotary querns went far beyond grinding cereals, and some have been found
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which were used in grinding colored stones to obtain colors for decorative purposes. During
this early period the only implement used for pounding was the mortar and pestle. It was
sometimes used for dehusking grain (Egypt), but mainly for such operations as crushing ores and
minerals.
Alcoholic beverages were made by fermentation in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. Beer
prepared from barley was already a popular drink, although it probably did not taste very much
like modern beer, for aromatic herbs were added in some cases. Wine was drunk only by the
rich. In Egypt, noblemen cultivated vineyards on the irrigated desert fringe and produced vintage
wines named after the vineyard and dated on the seal of the pottery jars in which the wine was
bottled and stored in cellars. Mesopotamia had no vineyards of its own and imported its wine
from the hillside vineyards of Syria and Palestine. The wines had to be consumed within a year
or so, for the containers were not air-tight; cork stoppers were unknown, and the jars were closed
with a straw plug sealed with clay. Stronger drinks, such as date wine and palm wine, were
concocted by adding sugar in the form of honey (the only form of sugar then known) to the
fermenting juice.
Transportation
Transportation of farm products and other materials was mainly by water, for moving
bulky goods by land still constituted a major problem. Although wheeled vehicles were known
to have been used by 3000 B.C., their wheels were solid and rimmed with nails or strips of
leather. Not until a thousand years later did spoked wheels and lighter wagons begin to appear.
War chariots drawn by oxen had for some time conveyed warriors to the battlefield where they
then fought on foot, but the light war chariot which now came into use was differently used.
Drawn by the horse, it became a new arm of the military, and the charge of these earliest "tanks"
created a new strategy. The Egyptian armies adopted the horse-drawn war chariot about 1500
B.C.
War chariots did not affect land transport, largely because there were no properly
constructed roads of any length. Few city streets were paved, the major exceptions being those
connecting the city-temple with the summer-temple of the god outside the city walls. These
processional roads sometimes had ruts hewn into the pavement stones to guide the carts bearing
the statues of the gods. Such special tracks or roads were known in prehistoric Europe, too.
Most traffic, whether of goods in wagons or on the backs of pack animals, tended to lead to the
nearest water, which carried the long-distance transport, a situation which existed in
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most parts of the West until the 18th or 19th century. The taming of the camel (c. 1000 B.C.)
made the crossing of deserts possible, thus opening a shorter route from Mesopotamia to
Palestine and Egypt. Not until the later Persian Empire, with its centralizing tendencies, was
there a proper concern for roads. At that later date also, elaborate bridges were built along with
road stations (with garrisons of soldiers and reserve horses for the postal express) and a chain
of fire-signal towers. These transportation improvements were short lived, however,
disappearing with the decline of the ancient Persian Empire.
River transport of the Nile was relatively simple. Because of the scarcity of timber, which
had to be imported from Lebanon or beyond, ship-building started with canoes and rafts made
of bundles of reeds, which evolved into larger boats. Ships were constructed with small wooden
planks, on the model of the reed boat, and moved up the Nile with square sails stepped forward
on a two-legged mast required by the rather unstable construction of the frameless hull. In
Mesopotamia, the skin-float (a raft made of hides stretched over a wood frame) and the quffa(tm)
(or coracle, a broad and short boat made of waterproof material stretched over a wicker or light
wood frame) dominated the river traffic, as both forms of boats were light and portable and
could be carried back upstream by pack animals. Such ships were not fit to sail the seas, however,
and sea transport was mainly in the hands of Cretans and Phoenicians who built plank ships,
evolved from the dug-out canoe. Such ships could sail the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea
with little difficulty.
The Building Arts

Timber was scarce in both Mesopotamia and Egypt, so brick and stone were the primary
building materials. However, building in brick and stone took very different courses in the two
countries. In the early Mesopotamian farming villages walls were first made of rammed or kneaded
clay, but this was replaced by sun-dried bricks made in oblong or rectangular open wooden
moulds. Sometimes these rude brick walls were decorated with ornamental stone set in various
patterns.
Kiln-baked bricks were expensive and therefore they were used for monumental
buildings only and were set in bituminous mortar. These bricks were strong enough so that they
could be projected over one another, with each layer of brick overhanging the one below; this
procedure is known as corbelling, and any piece projecting from a wall and supporting another
building member is known as a corbel. When two opposite walls are corbelled out until they
meet, a corbelled arch or vault results. Along the great processional roads glazed bricks were
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used for decorative purposes. In Assyrian times, concrete, consisting of lime, sand, and broken
limestone, was used. Natural stone played only a small part in Mesopotamian architecture, for
this expensive building material could be obtained from the northern highlands only at great cost
and trouble.
Yet the Mesopotamians could build monumental structures. The Tower of Babel,
described in the Bible, indicates their ability to erect structures of impressive height. This
structure was probably like one of the ancient temple-towers (called "ziggurat") common in
Mesopotamia, and consisting of a series of truncated pyramids placed on top of each other, with
a shrine on the top platform as well as at its foot. There were several such shrines in Babylon;
they were built of mud-bricks, with baked bricks sometimes used as an outer covering, the
outside bricks frequently being set in bituminous mastic. Better known as one of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World was the so-called Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Some scholars
believe that these may have been a roof garden planted with trees and shrubs atop a large palace;
others, basing their conclusions on the writings of the ancient Greek Herodotus, believe they were
simply terraced gardens. Since Herodotus did not provide technical details, but merely spoke of
the difficulty of raising water to the gardens, we are still very much in the dark regarding their
actual construction.
In Egypt, natural stone abounded in the eastern and western desert regions; hence Egypt
developed the use of natural stone in architecture. It was used for major buildings only, however,
and ordinary houses were first built of reed bundles or mud-bricks, and later of sun-dried bricks.
Kiln-baked bricks were rarely used in Egypt until a much later date. The earliest graves and
public buildings were also made of mud-bricks.
Building in natural stone started with the wall and ceremonial buildings encircling the
pyramid of King Zoser at Saqqarah (2600 B.C.). His vizier Imhotep is the first engineer and
architect known to us by name, and he was later worshipped as the god of wisdom and
medicine. Imhotep started using small brick-size blocks of limestone, stacking walls and pillars
in small-block masonry and then shaping them on the spot to imitate reed pillars and walls. As
the work proceeded, he precut larger blocks of stone to be stacked and thus discovered the
elementary rules of building in natural stone, experimenting to explore the possibilities of this new
building material.
In the stone quarries, the exploitation of which was generally a state monopoly, blocks
of limestone and granite were detached by drilling holes into which metal wedges were forced.
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When the blocks split away from the rock, they were dressed with balls and hammers of diorite, a
very hard stone, and transported to the building site on rafts and sledges.
The earliest tombs for the Pharaohs were mastabas, rectangular structures with inward-
sloping walls set over underground chambers containing the burial pit, the chapels, and rooms
for funeral gifts and offerings. The mastabas had originally been made of mud-brick, but they
now became monuments of natural stone. The mastaba structure evolved first into thestep-
pyramid form, and then into the true smooth-sided pyramid.
The greatest of the royal tombs was the Great Pyramid of King Khufu (Cheops) which
contains some 2,300,000 four-ton limestone blocks, the joints of which were chiselled on the
spot to fit tightly without mortar, and in the core of which corridors and chambers were
constructed. This pyramid, which still stands today, measured 756 feet square at its base and rose
to a height of 480 feet, making it another of the wonders of the ancient world and indeed of all
time. The huge limestone blocks were quarried on the east bank of the Nile and, after crossing
the r skilled craftsmen, who were paid for their work; the transport was carried out by statute
labor, that is, peasants fulfilling their obligations to the state. Marks on the quarried stones show
that plans of the work existed, each stone being earmarked for its proper place in the pyramid.
The pyramid was finished off with slabs of polished granite quarried and brought down
from Assuan. The building of an entire city of temporary huts to house the workmen, the removal
of debris, the supplying of materials and tools, and the feeding of the host of workmen (as many
as 100,000 at a time) were organizational problems of enormous proportions. The construction
of the pyramids shows what can be done by sheer organization without much in the way of
devices; these great constructions represent a triumph of human organization, rather than of
machines and tools.
Metallurgy
Many of the techniques used in quarrying and dressing stone were made possible only
through the development of metallurgy. At an early stage man discovered and collected such
native metals as copper, gold, silver, and meteoric iron. At first he treated them simply as colored
stones for ornamentation; then he realized that they could not only be cut, hammered, and
ground to shape like other stones, but could also be melted and cast in predetermined shapes
as well. By experimenting with the blue and green colored stones (ores) often associated with
native copper, man found that these could be smelted with charcoal to yield molten metal. Still
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other ores when smelted yielded lead, silver, antimony, and tin. Further, several of these could
be smelted with unrefined copper or, later, alloyed with molten copper, to produce an
"improved" copper: bronze, which was stronger and possessed other special properties which
made tools and weapons superior to the older devices fashioned of stone and wood. The Bronze
Age, which lasted from about 3000 B.C. until about 1000 B.C. in Egypt and Mesopotamia, used
a metallurgy depending mainly on casting and alloying.
The later coming of iron meant the mastering of a completely new set of techniques, for
the smelting of iron ores did not yield a molten metal but rather a spongy mass of slag and
droplets of iron later called a bloom. This, in turn, had to be reheated and hammered for some
length of time to expel impurities and produce a compact mass of wrought iron. This substance
had the properties of a metal, though its melting point was too high for the metallurgical furnaces
in use in those days. Even though wrought iron was inferior to good bronze for most purposes,
by heating it in a charcoal fire and hammering, the surface could be made to absorb carbon
particles and take on the properties of steel. The hardness of this "steeled" surface could be
adjusted by quenching in water and tempering (that is, bringing it to the required hardness by
heating and then suddenly cooling it), but these were techniques not yet properly mastered in
Egypt or Mesopotamia. Instead, discovery of steel-making was made in the Armenian highlands
by the tribe of the Chalybes, and the Greeks were to derive their word for steel from the name of
this tribe.
Metallurgy is a complex of techniques involving the choice of proper ores, fuel, method
of producing air blast, tools, furnaces, and crucibles. Its earliest home in the Near East lay in
the Armenian highlands in Asia Minor. There native gold and copper were certainly in use by
5000 B.C., whence they came to Mesopotamia where by 2500 B.C. the Royal Tombs of Ur
yielded a profusion of objects fashioned from gold, electrum (a native alloy of gold and silver),
silver, copper, and various types of bronzes. Mesopotamia had no ores in its plains and hence
it depended of trade or conquest for supplies of ores or raw metals from the highlands.
In Egypt the smelting of copper began about 4000 B.C., and copper ores were mined in
the Sinai Desert peninsula early in Egyptian history. The government sent expeditions there to
obtain copper and copper ores, which were sometimes valued as semiprecious stones. These
expeditionary forces were composed of "organizing" officials, skilled miners and smelters,
criminals and captives to be used as mining gangs, and bands of soldiers to protect the expedition
from marauding desert tribes. The copper obtained from Sinai and other copper mines was used
to fashion adzes, axes, arrowheads, chisels, saw blades, drainpipes (made from strips of copper
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bent round), and many other items. The hardness of such copper tools was adjusted by cold-
working and by annealing (heating and slow cooling).
Although copper ores were abundant in Sinai, Cyprus, Caucasia, and Transcaucasia, the
bottleneck of bronze-making was the short supply of tin, the metal which best alloyed with copper
to produce bronze. Originally, tinstone, collected along with native gold in the river beds, had
been smelted with black copper to produce bronze (usually containing 8 per cent to 12 per cent
of tin). As men learned more about the properties of alloys during the second and first millennia
B.C., the tin content of bronze was adjusted to the application, bronze for mirrors and such
containing a higher tin percentage than the bronze for tools, where the usual 10 per cent was
more proper.
As the meager supplied from Caucasia and Anatolia in Asiá Minor began to fail, tin ores
and blocks of tin were imported. Phoenician (and later Greek) traders went as far as Brittany in
France, Cornwall in England, and even Bohemia in Central Europe to bring tin to the Near East.
Egypt did not manufacture bronze on a large scale before 1500 B.C., when tin supplies began
to arrive from the West. The shortage of tin, to alloy with copper to produce bronze, was thus
one of the major stimuli to long-distance trade and commerce in the ancient world. Here was a
forerunner of that cultural intercourse which was significantly to affect the enlargement of
man's vision and thought.
Useful as it was, bronze could not always compete with stone. The Egyptian army
continued to use flint arrowheads until the fourth century B.C., partly because they had a better
penetration power than those of copper or bronze, and partly because bronze was scarcer and
more expensive than flint. However, they discarded the stone arrowheads (together with stone
mace-heads and sling-stones) when iron became available at low cost. The scarcity and high
cost of copper and bronze in the ancient world have caused them to be called the "metals of
aristocracy," whereas iron is said to be "the democratic metal." Practically every country in the
Near East and early Europe possessed good and workable iron ores, so iron tools were cheaper
and more widely used, once the techniques of manufacturing iron has been mastered.
There is no doubt that the ancient smiths had mastered the various techniques of working
gold, silver, copper and its alloy bronze, lead, and antimony. Working sheet-metal, raising,
hammering, repousse-working (hammering on thin metal from the underside to produce a
pattern), stamping and engraving, soldering and welding, filigree and granulation, inlay-work
and cloisonne held no mystery for these metallurgical craftsmen. Specialization had taken shape
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during the thirty centuries since the beginnings of metallurgy. Originally the smiths had
prospected, mined, and smelted the ores, and then worked and alloyed the metals. Gradually
prospecting and mining were left to the miner; the metallurgist smelted the metal from the ore,
and the bars and pigs of metal were then refined and alloyed. The metal was now ready for the
blacksmith, who specialized in producing such common objects as pots, pans, and ordinary tools,
or for the coppersmith (gold-, silver-, tin-, white-smith), who produced smaller objects, art
objects, or repaired certain classes of metal products. Metal tools and weapons were still
expensive, however, even in the Early Iron Age, so that stone as well as wooden implements
continued in use in such areas of production as the textile industry.
Textiles
Mesopotamia was the typical wool-producing country of antiquity. The spinning and
weaving of wool was originally a female occupation, even in the large temple workshops, but by
2000 B.C. male weavers are mentioned, together with fullers, bleachers, and dyers. At first wool
was plucked from the sheep with a knife, but by about 1000 B.C. shears came into use, being
made by joining two iron knives with a spring. By completely detaching a fleece, the shears
doubled the wool production per animal.
It Egypt, sheep •- like some other animals •- were considered unclean; hence wool was
reserved for outer garments which did not touch the skin. Egypt was the typical linen-producing
country, and there the processing of flax was fully known by 3000 B.C. Cotton, though spun and
woven in ancient India by 2500 B.C., was unknown in Mesopotamia before 700° B.C., when King
Sennacherib had some "trees bearing wool" in his botanical gardens. In Egypt it was not
introduced as a material for textiles until the Greco-Roman period, when it was brought from the
Sudan.
The fourth textile fiber of antiquity •- in addition to wool, linen, and cotton •- was silk. A
kind of native silk was produced on the island of C0s by the 4th century B.C., but some two
centuries later real Chinese silk was imported to Alexandria.
The spinning of fibers was well understood, as was weaving, although no major
technological innovations had been made in these processes since prehistoric times. Dyeing and
bleaching were practised in both countries, and indeed we often find the production of dyes,
such as the famous "sea-purple," concentrated in certain cities which kept herds of sheep in the
surrounding hills to produce the wool to be dyed with the special local product.
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Other Crafts
It would be easy to multiply the examples of crafts which contributed to the development
of technology in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pottery and ceramics were produced by
craftsmen working in accordance with regional customs, but all contributing to the development
and diffusion of better kilns and glazes, and stimulating such other technologies as metallurgy
and glass-making.
One of the most important developments in the potter's craft was the evolution of the
potter's wheel. The simple clay-disc potter's wheel, such as found at Uruk (3250 B.C.) gradually
developed into the foot-wheel (2000° B.C.) and, some two centuries later, the pivoted-disc wheel.
Glass owes its origin to the production of glazes for pottery. Ancient glass-making consisted
in fusing the necessary ingredients and casting the molten mass in small moulds, or making
small rods of glass, which when still hot were modelled around a sand core and then annealed
to form a small pot or flask to contain cosmetics and essential oils or perfumes.
However, glass-blowing was unknown to antiquity.
It general, the craftsmen of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia must have been extremely
skilled, for they produced excellent work without the aid of sophisticated tools and machines.
Fine woodwork and ivory work show that the ancient craftsman would have little to learn from
modern specialists in this field.
Ancient texts mention guilds of craftsmen, but these are not to be confused with modern
labor unions. They were first of all religious organizations devoted to the worship of the patron-
god. Hence technical operations were still accompanied by religious rites and ceremonies. In
many cases, such as the smelting of ores or making glass, the craftsmen believed that they were
merely hastening processes which would be accomplished by nature led by the gods anyway.
Propitiatory offerings, ritual purity, and prayers accompanied most operations of the craftsman,
and sometimes he or his tools, such as the smith's hammer and his anvil, were held to have
magic power. Even after many centuries we still find traces of the awe with which the craftsmen
looked upon their own achievements.
The Conditions of Technology

Among the preconditions of technology are such geographic considerations as the
availability of natural resources. The importance of the geographic factor is nowhere more
obvious than in the histories of both Egypt and Mesopotamia, with their reliance upon the river
valleys which made agriculture possible. It was not just the fact that these were river
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valley civilizations; the agricultural life of both regions depended upon the fact that these rivers
besides providing water for irrigation, periodically overflowed their banks and provided the rich
silt which fertilized the land and helped to produce abundant crops. These floodings were so
important that both areas had to develop hydraulic-engineering techniques in order to control
the waters, since either too much or too little water could be disastrous; irrigation techniques
had to be highly developed.
The technological character of irrigation works •- the dikes, reservoirs, irrigation canals,
and ditches •- in turn affected the social and political development of both lands. In order to
erect and maintain such large-scale irrigation projects, co-operation among peoples must be
assured. Such co-operation could be obtained by democratic co-operation among many
different individuals, but it was more likely to be assured, at this stage of political development,
through the development of autocratic control by a powerful state which would enforce and
supervise the co-operation necessary to build and maintain the dikes, canals, and reservoirs upon
which the agricultural subsistence depended. In Egypt the Pharaohs eventually came to control
virtually the entire economic life of the nation; in Mesopotamia autocratic rulers allowed for
the exercise of strong state control over the economy, although not to the same extend as in
Egypt.
This does not mean that technological requirements made necessary the development
of autocratic and all-powerful rulers in these areas; it simply means that technology was one of
a number of factors which combined to produce certain political conditions. When political
conditions deteriorated in both these regions to the point where there was no longer any effective
supervisory or enforcing agent to maintain the irrigation works, both the Tigris-Euphrates and
Nile valleys declined in productivity and have never since fully recovered economically. The
deterioration of public works followed closely the breakdown of public order.
The presence of absence of certain raw materials also had a profound effect upon the
development of technologies in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. Although Mesopotamia had
little natural stone and few timber resources, it did have ample supplies of clay. Hence the
common building material became brick, and clay tablets became their chief writing
instruments. In Egypt, natural stone was available in large quantities, so the Egyptians developed
the use of stone for building monumental structures. A multitude of associated technologies
and techniques were dependent upon the use of these basic raw materials.
As men learned to make and use items of metal, the absence, in certain areas, of tin ores
for making alloys of bronze required the development of trading techniques, just as the
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development of metallurgy itself required the evolution of mining, smelting, and working
techniques. Trade and commerce were dependent in great measure upon the evolving technology.
Another important factor affecting the development of technology •- and one which we
can see at various times throughout history •- was religion. It was the religious beliefs of the
Egyptians regarding the after-life which caused them to erect the monumental pyramids. The fact
that the common people had to sacrifice their energies and labors for this kind of work tells us
much about the role and position of the Pharaohs as god-king and also indicates the great social
gulf which existed between the rulers and the ruled. Throughout much of history man's
religious beliefs have provided an important stimulus to his technology. The building of the
pyramids also demonstrates another element within technology itself, namely, the importance of
the organization of work as well as the techniques and tools employed. For these great edifices,
like the irrigation works upon which the Pharaohs' wealth was based, represent a triumph of
human and social organization more than they do the application
of developed tools and machines.
The high development of the various crafts in both Egypt and Mesopotamia also manifests
another characteristic of technology during most of human history, namely, its separation from
science. Both technology and science were related to religion, but in quite different ways.
Science and religion were the property of a highly educated caste which had little to do with
the work of the craftsman. The crafts followed an empirical tradition, based on experience
passed down by oral rather than written means. Few craftsmen could read or write, while the
priestly caste alone possessed the esoteric scientific and religious knowledge. Not until much
later in human history, as we shall see, did science and technology work together to reinforce
one another and increase man's control over his environment.
Nevertheless, both the Egyptians and Mesopotamians could point to significant
accomplishments in technological development. They erected monumental structures, some of
which were the wonders of the ancient world, and their hydraulic-engineering techniques
enabled them to maintain the fertility of large areas for a period extending over a thousand
years. Furthermore, their craftsmen produced work of the highest quality. The fruits of their
technological advance, however, were largely dedicated to the support of a small group of nobles
and priests, with an all-powerful ruler at the head. Technology had not yet developed to the point
where man had sufficient control over his environment to provide more than the bare essentials
of life for the majority of the population.
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Yet, in these early river-civilizations man had already learned to use some elements of
nature for his own purposes. Wild animals had been domesticated to serve as carriers for man,
to help take some of the burden off men's backs; similarly, the force of the wind had been
harnessed by sails, thereby releasing human muscle power. In addition, the great advances in
agriculture through the use of irrigation techniques meant that men could work with nature instead
of struggling against her in order to provide himself with subsistence. Life was still harsh and work
was still overburdening for the vast majority of human beings, yet the beginnings of civilized life
in urban communities were to be found, along with the development of writing to extend human
powers of memory and speech. Thus, in the very beginning of civilization, technology played an
important role and was advanced by the very civilization which it had helped to create.
Get to know more about the Bronze Age by watching the video at the URL
below.
Title:
URL:
Are there similarities between the Bronze Age and today?

Provide some similarities and dissimilarities by completing the table below.
Similarities Dissimilarities
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Lesson 4
Iron Age
Objective • Discuss the events during the Iron Age

s:
• Relate the important events of the Iron Age to current events.
Look around you? Do you have an item made of iron? Do you use it everyday?
Activity:
Draw it in the box below.
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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE IRON AGE
Abstractio
n: by J. D. Bernal
J.D. Bernal, Science in History, Chapter 4, Vol. 1 (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1971) pp. 145-237.
The period covered by this chapter is one of crucial importance in the history
of mankind and especially in the history of science. From the middle of the second millennium
B.C. a number of causes--technical, economic, and political--brought about the transformation of
the limited civilization of a few river-basins into one which embraced the major cultivable areas of
Asia, northern Africa, and Europe. The civilization of the Iron Age, wherever it was developed,
was less orderly and peaceful than that it replaced, but it was also more flexible and rational. The
Iron Age did not provide such enormous technical advances as marked the outset of the Bronze
Age, but such advances as it did achieve, based on a cheap and abundant metal, were more wide
spread not only geographically but also among the social classes.
In this chapter we shall deal primarily with the Iron Age in, the Mediterranean area--the
classical civilization of the Greeks and Romans. This is partly because it is so much better known
than that of contemporary cultures of India or China. A more cogent reason, and one that relates
particularly to the purpose of this book, is that it was that Mediterranean region which gave birth
to the first abstract and rational science from which the universal science of our own time is directly
derived. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the civilizations of India and China had great
contributions to make to the common culture, particularly in mathematics, physics, and chemistry,
and their applications, like the compass, gun powder, and printing. However, the contributions
entered into the main tradition of science and technology only after its outlines had been fixed in
its Hellenistic form.
The Origins of Iron Age Cultures

The barbarians who overran the bronze age cultures of the ancient east had been unable to form
stable states in their own homelands, for the most part covered with forest or dry steppe, as long
as they lacked the means of establishing some settled form of agriculture. In the latter half of the
second millennium B.C. these conditions were achieved, thanks to a combination of material and
social factors that we are only now beginning to understand. Of these one was the penetration and
transformation of barbarian clan societies through the influence of the class economies of the
cities with their emphasis on private property, chieftainship, and weapon production.
The Impact of the Discovery of Iron
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These tendencies were powerfully, perhaps decisively, aided by the discovery and use of a
new metal, iron. Where and how iron was first made in quantity is still a mystery. The first iron
used was the native iron from meteorites treated by heating and hammering like copper, but this
was too rare to be anything but a precious metal. The first iron to be smelted from its ores was
probably a by-product in gold making and must have been even rarer. Iron in usable quantities
seems to have first been smelted from the ore somewhere south of the Caucasus by the legendary
tribe of the Chalybes, in the fifteenth century B.C., but it did not appear elsewhere in sufficient
quantities for its use to be economically and technically decisive until about the twelfth century
B.C. The wide distribution of iron and the ease of iron working ended the monopoly of civilization
of the old river empires of Egypt and Babylonia. Two other developments hastened the process--
the appearance of mounted horsemen from the steppe lands where the wild horse, far more
powerful than the ass, had been tamed, and rapid improvements in the performance and building
of ships, itself a by-product of iron technology.
The Metallurgy of Iron

The iron used in antiquity, indeed up to the fourteenth century A.D. in Europe, was made
by a process of low-temperature reduction by charcoal in a small, hand-blown clay furnace. The
resulting bloom of spongy, unmelted pure iron was beaten out into bars of relatively soft wrought
iron from which more complicated forms could be made by forging and welding. The first
elaboration of the techniques of iron-making and working must have been the fruit of long and
difficult experience. This technique was totally different from that for copper and this probably
explains why iron metallurgy came so late. Once established, however, it required nothing but the
simplest equipment and could be quickly taught or picked up. Wherever there is wood and
ironstone--that is, almost everywhere--iron can be made: once you know how.
Iron had one serious disadvantage as a metal in early times: it could not be melted for lack
of sufficient blast to the furnace, and casting was therefore reserved for bronze, except in China,
where cast iron was made as early as the second century B.C. Iron did not displace bronze; it
merely supplemented it for common purposes. More bronze was made and worked in the Iron
Age than ever in the Bronze Age itself. The iron made by the bloomery and forging process was a
wrought iron or every mild steel: it was tough but relatively soft. Much harder true steels were
known--chalybs from the Chalybes, ferrum acerrum, sharp iron, acier--but their method of
manufacture was kept a deep secret among the tribes of smiths. The world of science was not to
know it until the work of Reaumur in 1720. The secret was essentially one of getting more carbon
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to combine with the iron and then hardening by tempering and quenching. The best steels were
those made by the Chinese--seric iron--and by the Indians, whose wootz steel was exported to
made the famous damascened blades. Good steel was so rare and highly prized that the swords
made out of it were deemed to be magic, like Arthur's Excalibur or Siegfried's Balmung of later
times. Tempered steel was far rarer than bronze and except for use in weapons was to play no
important part in technique until the eighteenth century.
The introduction of iron coincided with a period of folk wandering. More or less
barbarized tribes came down from eastern Europe or the Caspian into the eastern Mediterranean
area from the seventeenth century B.C. onwards. Similar movements of Hittites, Scythians,
Persians, and Aryan Indians were occurring in Asia. The great mobility of the horsemen and the
sea peoples and their abundance of new weapons made it difficult for the old empires to put up
an effective military resistance. We may suspect that military failure was an index of lack of support
from the people of the older civilizations, who were more likely to sympathize with the invaders
than with their own inefficient and rapacious rulers. Further, the iron age peoples, once they settled
down, showed themselves capable of building prosperous agricultural or trading communities on
hitherto fruitless land. The result was to reduce the political and economic pre-eminence of the
early river-valley civilizations to such an extent that they no longer figured as the main centres of
human cultural developments, although many of their cultural, material, and spiritual achievements
were transmitted and even some of their records were preserved.
Instead, the effective foci of advance moved to the periphery of the ancient civilizations,
the settlements of the nearer barbarians, who had managed to overrun the older centres of
civilization but who developed their culture largely outside them. The Aryan Indians, the Persians,
the Greeks, and later the Macedonians and Romans fell heirs to the old civilizations of Egypt and
Babylonia. The position of China was exceptional; surrounded largely by steppe, desert, and
mountainous areas, there was little possibility of the building up of agricultural barbarian States
beyond its boundaries. The nomadic barbarians that repeatedly moved in were all absorbed by
ancient Chinese culture. That basically bronze age culture, though profoundly changed by iron age
techniques, has retained its continuity right down to our own time.
Axe and Plough

The destruction and wars of the early Iron age were, however, not without their
compensations. The substitution of new cultures for old meant certain losses of continuity, but it
also meant the sweeping away of much accumulated cultural rubbish and the possibility of building
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much more effective structures on the old foundations. If the mounted warriors and the shiploads
of pirates stand as symbols for the destructiveness of that period,the woodmen with their axes and
the peasants with their iron-shod ploughs amply made up for the destruction. The earlier use of
metal was essentially for the luxury products of city life and for arming a small elite of high-born
warriors. Bronze was always too expensive for common folk, who still had to rely for the most
part on stone implements, the form of which had scarcely altered from neolithic times. Iron,
however, though originally, and for many centuries, inferior to bronze, was widely distributed and
could easily be produced and worked locally by village smiths. The effect of the abundance of iron
was to open whole new continents to agriculture: forest could be cut down, swamps could be
drained, and the resulting fields could be ploughed. Europe, from being literally a backwoods,
became a new 'golden west'--in the sense of its wheatlands rather than of its gold, which was
largerly exhausted at the end of the Bronze Age. The resultant increase in population rapidly altered
the balance of power between the dry farming of the west countries and the old river-irrigated
cultivation of the East.
Ships and Trade

Another feature of the disturbed times of the Iron Age that was to be of incalculable
importance to human thought, and particularly to science, was the use of the sea-ways in spreading
culture much more rapidly than the old overland routes could possibly do. What was more
important was that transport by sea was many times cheaper than by land. With the greater facilities
for ship-building provided by iron tools there were better and larger ships and more of them. In
the Mediterranean and initiative in shipbuilding had been taken by the Cretans in the Bronze Age.
The breaking up of their sea empire, first by the land based half-Greek Mycenaeans and later by
the more barbarous Achaeans from the Balkans and by kindred tribes in Asia Minor, was the signal
for a great period of piracy and sacking of cities. The immortal story of Troy records one of these
expeditions. Naturally piracy made trade difficult but it also made it profitable, and former pirates,
attracted by this or deterred by more effective local defences, gradually turned to trade, exploration,
and colonization.
In the Iron Age trade ceased to be a matter concerned only with a round dozen great cities,
like Thebes or Babylon, and became more and more divided among the hundreds of new cities
that the early iron age peoples, such as the Phoenicians and the Greeks, were founding all over the
shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. Only places near the sea could get the full
advantage of iron age culture. In countries far removed from it the Iron Age certainly brought
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greater possibilities for agriculture and warfare, but, where there was no way of moving bulk
products over long distances, such countries could not progress economically even as far as the
bronze age civilizations with their river transport. They were consequently unlikely to produce
anything radically new. The Assyrians, a typical landbased early iron age people, were distinguished
mainly for their military ruthlessness. They preserved for some centuries the old Babylonian
culture, including the continuation of astronomical observations invaluable for the science of the
future, but added little to it themselves. This advantage of the sea-way could not be fully offset by
roads such as those made first by the Persians and later by the Romans. These were of
administrative and military rather than economic value. Land transport in bulk could not begin to
be economical until the development of efficient horse harness in the Middle Ages. Even then it
was not practicable over large distances till the making of good roads in the eighteenth century. It
was the ease of water transport that gave first the Mediterranean area and later all Europe, with its
indented coastline, an advantage over Africa and Asia.
China, with its network of rivers, canals, and lakes, had some of the same advantages but,
as it retained, even through periods of warring States, bureaucratic governments of a modified
bronze age type, it missed many of the economic and political developments of the Iron Age.
Iron Age Cities
Politics
In its early stages the Iron Age meant a return to a smaller scale of economic unit. Early
iron age cities rarely had populations of more than a few thousands, as against the hundreds of
thousands of bronze age cities. By the fifth century B.C., with the spread of slavery, much larger
cities were possible. Athens had a maximum population of 320,000, of whom only 172,000 were
citizens, while Rome at the height of its power had about a million. The first cities were formed
by the agglomeration of a dozen or so villages. This, however, did not mean a return to neolithic
conditions, but, for the population at large, to one with standards as high, or higher, than that of
the Bronze Age. The iron age city had inherited all it could use of the arts of the bronze age cities,
that is, all but the organization of large-scale works. Early iron age cities, with their restricted areas,
rarely went farther than fortifications, harbours, and occasional aqueducts. Also it had, in addition,
the use of a metal that enormously improved agriculture and manufacture and it did not need to
be self-sufficing: it could rely on trade for necessities as well as luxuries. This was possible only
because improvements in the methods of production enabled goods to be made for a market. The
Iron Age is the first in which commodity production becomes a normal and indeed an essential
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part of economic activity. Another social economic feature of the Iron Age was the use of slaves
not merely, as of old, for service but also as a means of producing for the market. This was mainly
in agriculture and mines, but it spread also into manufacture. Slavery, as we shall see, grew steadily
in importance till it became the predominant form of labour. This was itself a substantial factor in
causing the breakdown of the whole culture, with the consequent turning of slaves and poor
freeman alike into a common people of serfs.
The iron age city became, almost from its inception, a well placed centre for manufacture
and trade, able to get from abroad its raw materials and even its labour force, as slaves, in return
for the sale of its products.
Against these advantages was set the much-increased danger of war. The new culture had
been born in war--the sacking of cities in a state of permanent rivalry. It was difficult to outgrow
these habits; defence became a priority; cities were built most inconveniently on hill-tops, like the
old high city--Acropolis--of Athens; or on islands, like Tyre; and automatically all citizens had to
be soldiers. Nevertheless the small iron age city was both simpler and freer than the old river valley
city. It also gave much greater scope to its citizens, who were forced to organize themselves to
look after common interests rather than take their place in a preordained hierarchy. In this way the
iron age city gave rise to politics and created out of political struggles between the classes in the
cities the successive forms of oligarchy, tyranny, and democracy.
Money and Debt

One great social invention that provided both for the expansion and the internal instability
of iron age civilization was that of mettalic money--first as stamped bullion in Lydia, and then,
after the seventh century B.C., as coin. Metal by weight had been used as currency in the old
empires, but its use was exceptional, and barter and payment in kind remained the rule. Money,
which soon became the measure of every other value, turned all established social relations into
those of buying and selling. Precisely because of its general and anonymous character, money, by
bringing rights without obligations, enabled power to be concentrated in the hands of the rich. At
the same time, by superseding the old tribal distribution of real wealth, it took all protection away
from the poor. For them the existence of money was negative; they lived in a state of chronic debt.
True, the oppression of the poor is as old as civilization itself. Nevertheless there were real
differences between the forms it took in the old civilizations and those in the Iron Age. In the
earlier case it was gradual and partial. The economy had arisen directly from a tribal society and
tradition was a bar to arbitrary action. The cultivator had many duties, but he also had rights. If he
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belonged to the land, the land also belonged to him. His payments were in kind and commercial
transactions and debts were largely limited to the city population. In the Iron Age there was an
abrupt transition from a clan to a money economy. Immemorial customs were destroyed in a few
generations and the rule of money could disregard all rights.
On the other hand, the cultivator was potentially far more independent. If he found the
situation intolerable he could join a band to form a new colony. If enough people found it
intolerable they could and did revolt. With the common use of iron and the training of all citizens
in arms these revolts were often successful, and the fear of them kept oligarchs and tyrants in
check.
Nevertheless from the beginning of the Iron Age the oppression of money power and the
repeated, but inevitably temporary, successes in breaking away from it by reform or revolution
becomes the general background theme of city history. towards the end of the classical age, under
the hellenistic and Roman Empires, money power seemed to triumph absolutely; but its very
triumph led to a state of such widespread misery and hopelessness that the whole system broke
down and returned to a simpler feudal economy in which money at first played only a small part.
The Alphabet and Literature

An iron age development of importance for the origin of science was the vulgarization of
the elaborate system of writing--hieroglyphics and cuneiform--of the ancient empires into the
common Phoenician alphabet, which made literacy as cheap and democratic as iron. The alphabet
arose in relation to trade between people who had different languages but had to deal with the
same things. As its symbolism was based on sound it could be applied to all tongues and at same
time it opened the world of intelligent communication to a far wider circle than that of the priests
and officials of the old days. Writing ceased to be confined to official or business documents and
a literature of poetry, history, and philosophy began to appear. Naturally poetry and prose
narratives themselves in the form of epics and sagas, must have long preceded alphabetic or even
hieroglyphic writing, being handed down by bards or professional story tellers. It cannot be
claimed that an alphabet is an essential to the production of literature, as the example of the China
shows. Nevertheless, the Chinese achievement was only made possible by the creation of a
bureaucratic feudal class who monopolized learning and also largely sterilized it.
Phoenicians and Hebrews
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The first peoples to profit by the new conditions of iron age civilization were the Phoenicians of
the Syrian coast. They were helped by their central position between the old great powers of Egypt
and Assyria and by the ample supplies of good ship-building timber from the Lebanon. They led
the way in trade, in exploiting sea transport, and in the alphabet, which they invented and
popularized wherever they went. But they remained, even in their most distant colonies, such as
Carthage or Cadiz, too tied to the continuity of their culture with the old Babylonian civilization
to do more than adapt it to the new conditions without generating much that was new, though we
may suspect that what advances they did make were either destroyed or misappropriated by the
Romans.
The Jews, closely related to them and sharing with them a mixed Egyptian and Babylonian
culture, were reserved for a very different role in cultural history. Place as they were at the very
centre of warring peoples, Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, and Assyrians, followed later by Persians
and Greeks, and without the resources of overseas trade, their independence always remained
precarious and was only, saved in the end as a national entity by the evolution of a cultural tradition
or law written in a book --the Bible. They were also, as a small people living in a relatively poor
country, able to escape, though only by continuous efforts, from domination by native kings or
oligarchs. For both these reasons independence, liberty, and democracy became indissolubly
associated in their religion. In this the Jews were unique in the ancient world, and the influence of
their religion and their sacred books was to prove of enormous importance to the subsequent
development of civilization.
The Bible: Law and Righteousness

The Hebrew Bible, or what we call the Old Testament, is far more than a collection of
ancient history and legend, invaluable as that is for our understanding of the past. It was first
written down about the fifth century B.C. and has been preserved ever since as a religious and
national rallying point. It is a book with a moral, full of propaganda expressed as a poetry.
Propaganda is as old as writing, but hitherto it had been the propaganda of the great and mighty,
of the king and the priests. The propaganda of the Bible is different; it is essentially popular,
stressing the ideas of the law and of righteousness. Its unique character lay not in each of those
ideas separately, because the Jews shared them with other cultures, but in their combination.
Righteousness, as we find it in the Bible, is largely a protest against the abuses of the rich and
powerful who, then as now, were addicted to falling into foreign ways of oppression. They could
be restrained in the name of the law and the covenant with a timely backing of popular violence.
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The Jews were the first people we know of to fight for an idea and the wars of the Maccabees
testified to their fanaticism and militancy. Jewish history is one of continual assertion of the
people's right in the name of God. The Bible has, directly in Christianity and indirectly through
the Koran in Islam, often serve as the inspiration and justification of popular revolutionary
movements.
Genesis
It is, however, still another aspect of the Bible, one which is least characteristically Jewish,
that has most affected science. The early books of the Bible are versions of old Babylonian and
ever earlier Sumerian creation stories. They represent an attempt to account for the origin of the
world and man, which was an eminently creditable achievement in 3000 B.C., at the very dawn of
civilization. These myths, once accepted by the early Hebrew tribes, soon became the essential
justification of the covenant between God and His people and therefore beyond examination and
criticism. Later still, because they were part of the sacred books of the Jews, these myths have
come down to us as a literal divine revelation to be accepted on faith.
Now the faith of the Jews, both in its original form and in that of a Christianity largely
derived from it, survived the break-up of classical civilization because it was solidly based on
popular feeling. It was thus far better able to resist the stresses of bad times than the more logical
but scarcely more scientific constructions of the Greek philosophers, which were felt to be by the
common people, as indeed they were elaborate justifications of upper-class rule. In the new
civilizations, which grew out of the ruins of the old, religion was the central organizing principle,
and accordingly the Bible and the Koran gained an absolute authority in matters of science as well
as in those of faith and morals. The later chapters of this history will show with what difficulty and
how imperfectly human thought has managed to emancipate itself from these fossilized relics of
the myths of early man.
The Greeks
The most successful in the exploitation of the new conditions of the Iron Age were the
Greeks. They had the double advantage of being more removed from the conservative influence
of the older civilizations while being able to make extensive use of their traditions. At the same
time they were protected in the early formative period of their culture by their poverty, their
remoteness, and their sea-power from the far less cultured but more militaristic successors of the
old empires--the land forces of the Medes and the Persians.
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The fact that the conscious and unbroken thread of history and science comes to us almost
entirely from the Greeks is an accident: but only partly an accident. The Greeks were the only
people to take over, for the most part almost unconsciously and without acknowledgement, the
bulk of the learning that was still available after several centuries of destructive warfare and
comparative neglect in the ancient empires of Egypt and Babylonia. But they did far more than
this. They took that knowledge and with their own acute interest and intelligence they transformed
it into something at the same time simpler, more abstract, and more rational. From the time of the
Greeks to the present day that thread of knowledge has never been broken. It may have been lost
at times, but it has always been possible to find it again in time for it to be of use. The learning of
the earlier civilizations has affected that of our own only through the Greeks. What we know now
of the intellectual achievements of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians from their own writings
was learned too late to affect our civilization directly.
Classical Culture
In Greek lands there was built up between the twelfth and sixth centuries B.C. a unified culture
which had made an ample digest of existing knowledge and added to it far more of its own. The
resulting classical culture , as we now call it, enlarged but not seriously modified by that of
Alexandria and Rome, has remained the essential corner-stone of our modern world culture.
Classical culture was synthetic; it made use of every element of culture which it could find in the
countries it occupied and with which it came into contact. It was not, however, a mere continuation
of these cultures. It was something definitely new. The characteristics of classical culture that
distinguish it are not, however, any of those which are sometimes called cultural. There have been
other civilizations, both before and after, that have had as distinctive an art and literature. The
great contributions of classical culture were in political institutions, particularly democracy, and in
natural science, especially mathematics and astronomy.
The Birth of Abstract Science

The unique character of Greek thought and action resides in just that aspect of their life
which we have called the scientific mode. By this I do not mean simply the knowledge or practice
of science but the capacity to separate factual and verifiable from emotional and traditional
statements. In this characteristic mode we can distinguish two aspects: that of rationality and that
of realism; that is, the ability to sustain by argument and the appeal to common experience.
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That the Greeks could achieve this, even partially, is due to the historical circumstances in
which their culture took shape. The Greeks did not make civilization or even inherit it--they
discovered it. The enormous advantage they gained by this was that for them civilization was
something new and exciting and could not be taken for granted. The original culture of the
mainland Greeks was of the simple European peasant type. It was unable to stand up against the
much more elaborate cultures of the countries the Greeks moved into--that extremely rich and
mysterious secondary culture of Crete and Anatolia from which so much of classical culture is
derived. Words ending in 'issos'and 'inthos' seem to be of Cretan origin; some have passed on to
us, as in the names of Narcissus and Hyacinth. The influence on the Greeks of the original centres
of civilization, Mesopotamia and Egypt, was not to arise till much later.
In losing their original culture, however, the Greeks did not and could not take over the
cultures of the other countries in their entirety. What they did was to select from foreign cultures
what seemed to them to matter. This included in practice every useful technique and in the field
of ideas mainly the explanations of the workings of the universe, rejecting the enormously
complicated elaboration of theology and superstition that had been built on them in the decadent
period before and during the iron age invasions. Homer, the first and greatest of the Greek poets,
fixed for all time the picture of the world the Greeks came into. In the Iliad and Odyssey we find
an enormous contrast between the simple peasant life of the newly arrived Hellenic clans and the
complex rich and ancient civilizations that they discovered only to destroy. Homer's poems
remained as the bible of the Greeks, providing the common basis of belief about gods and men
and the arts of peace and war. They contained as much science as the average man ever needed to
know.
The Economic Basis of the Greek City

Greek culture, common with most of the Western iron age cultures, had such a different
economic base from that of the older river-irrigation cultures that much of their way of life was
intrinsically unassimilable. It depended on a rather poor kind of dry farming with small peasant
holdings helped out by vineyards, olive groves, and fishing. Hesiod, a poet of the early Greek
period, describes this life in rather grim terms. His father's land at Ascra in Boeotia he describes
as `cold in winter, hot in summer, good at no time. Nevertheless, though liable to periodic debt
crises, iron age economy was, until slavery was introduced on a large scale, basically stable. It was
supplemented and balanced by extensive foreign trade, no longer as in the older civilizations mainly
in luxuries for temples and palaces, but in bulk commodities for the common citizen.
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The most characteristic Greek city state of Attica was so short of good corn-growing land
that it depended on its export of pottery, olive oil, and silver to buy the food for the relatively
enormous population of over 300,000 of the city of Athens. The early Greeks were able to exploit
their local resources to the full with all the intensity and simplicity that are possible only in a
compact city. In these circumstances there were rapid and even violent economic and political
changes, while tradition, though never lost, was at a discount. The more enterprising citizens had
both the incentive and the ability to think out what they wanted to do and to do it. In the measure
that they succeeded they could improve their status in society, held back neither by clan nor by
state barriers. Institutions and divinities became less important and more attention was
concentrated on men.
The Separation of Science from Technique

Greek science has an altogether different character from that of the early civilizations; it is
far more rational and abstract, but it remained as far or farther removed from technical
considerations. Its traditional presentation is in the form of an argument based on general
principles, rather than as examples drawn from the particular problems of technique or
administration such as we find in Egyptian or Mesopotamian texts. Mathematics, especially
geometry, was the field which the Greeks esteemed most highly and where their methods of
deduction and proof are those we still use. Because of the immense prestige of these methods we
are apt to overlook the fact that they are applicable to only a very limited part of Nature, and even
there only where the spade-work of observation and experiment has been done. A belief that the
universe is rational, and that its details can be deduced from first principles by pure logic, certainly
served in the early days of Greek science to liberate men from superstitions. Later, particularly
after Aristotle had become an authority instead of, as he wanted to be, an instigator of research,
this abstract and a priori approach was to prove disastrous to science. It led generations of
intelligent people into the belief that they had solved problems which they had not even begun to
examine.
The technical developments made in the early Iron Age, and especially by the Greeks
before Alexandrian period, though important in their effects, were not innovations as fundamental
as those of the Bronze Age. The use of iron led directly to the improvement of all hafted tools
such as axes and hammers, and also made possible implements like the spade which would have
been too expensive in bronze to be of any use. It probably also made possible the use of the hinge,
leading to two new tools of some importance--the tongs and the drawing compass. These all arise
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from the ease with which iron bars may be bent over in a loop and then welded to form a hole for
a haft or peg. It was not so much the improvement of the tools as their ready availability that
constituted the revolutionary technical advance of the Iron Age. Later, through the marriage of
Greek mathematics and Egyptian or Syrian techniques, came the most important developments,
including, as we shall see, a whole host of applications of rotary motion, mills and presses, pulleys
and windlasses, as well as hydraulic and pneumatic devices, water-lifts and pumps.
Of chemical inventions the most important is that of blown glass first made in Egypt,
though this remained for long a luxury product. As a result of a few innovations and many
improvements, the efficiency of classical techniques, particularly metal-using techniques, was by
the sixth century B.C. well above that of the bronze age cultures in their heyday. This was one of
the reasons why the Greek armoured soldiers were a few centuries able to overcome far larger
numbers of Asiatic troops.
The technical advances of the Iron Age did not, however affect the learned in the same
way as had those of the early Bronze Age. It was partly because they were essentially improvements
and not radical innovations that they did not strike the imagination. Further, they created little
demand for new auxiliary scientific techniques. There was enough arithmetic and geometry to cope
with them already. The most powerful reason, however, was that the craftsman was still despised.
The hand worker, oheir ourgos in Greek (our surgeons are still called Mr, not Dr), was considered
a definitely inferior being to the brain worker or contemplative thinker. This was no new idea; it
was inherited from the old civilization, but it was strongly reinforced, especially in later Greek
society, by its association with slavery. Although much craft work was done by free men they were
degraded by competition with slaves, so that their work was called base or servile!
In the same way a slave society debased the economic and social position of women. Indeed, the
position of the wives and daughters of Greek citizens was far worse than it was in the older
civilizations. They were precluded from taking part in public life and were little better than
domestic slaves. As a result all domestic work, which included far more arts than it does now, such
as weaving and the preparation of simple remedies was beneath the concern of the philosopher.
For although the philosophers drew on the work of the craftsmen for the derivation of their ideas
as to how Nature worked, they had little first-hand acquaintance with it, were not called on to
improve it, and consequently they were unable to draw from it that wealth of problems and
suggestions that was to create modern science in Renaissance times.
Architecture
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There is one important exception to be made to the general contempt for mechanical
operation. Architecture in Greek times advanced to the level of a citizen's profession, not of a
mere manual art. We all know the triumphs of beauty, proportion, and symmetry of Greek
architecture and the impressiveness of the Roman architecture that followed it. Now architecture
is preeminently an art depending on geometry and involves accurate drawing. It could therefore
hardly fail to affect the queen of Greek science, mathematics. Two instruments helped in the same
direction, the draughtsman's compass and the lathe. The compass was such a convenient, accurate
tool that it is not surprising that Greek geometry tied itself almost exclusively to ruler-and-compass
constructions. The pole lathe, with its backward and forward motion, derived from the bow drill,
was a bronze age fourteenth century A.D., though pole lathes are still in use years ago. On the
lathe it was possible to turn cylinders, cones, and spheres, and they provided admirable playthings
for the mathematician. The degree to which the techniques influenced science in Greece was not
negligible, but it was relatively far less than in the older civilizations. Greek science accordingly
developed in a more general and independent way but, lacking the check of experience, it was apt
to get lost in guesses and abstractions.
Content and Method in Greek Science

Nevertheless, modern science is directly derived from Greek science, which provided it
with an outline, a method, and a language. All the general problems from which modern science
grew--the nature of the heavens, or man's body, or the workings of the universe--were formulated
by the Greeks. Unfortunately, they also thought that they had solved them in their own particular
logical, beautiful, and final way. The first task of modern science after the Renaissance was to show
that for the most part these solutions were meaningless or wrong. As this process took the best
part of 1,400 years it might be argued that Greek science was a hindrance rather than a help.
However, we cannot tell whether, in the absence of Greek science, the problems would have been
set at all.
Stages in the Development of Greek Science

The history of Greek science, though it formed one continuous movement, may
conveniently be split into four major phases, which may be called: the Ionian, the Athenian, the
Alexandrian or Hellenistic, and the Roman phases. The Ionian phase covers the sixth century B.C.
and is that of the birth of Greek science in the region where the influence of the older civilization
was most felt. It is associated with the legendary figures of Thales and Pythagoras and other Nature
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philosophers who speculated, in a most materialistic way, on what the world was made of and how
it had come to be. This philosophy, as becomes an age of social development, was essentially
positive and hopeful.
The second phase covers the years from 480 to 330 B.C., between the successful end of
the Persian wars and the effective suppression of the independence of Greek cities by Alexander
the Great. It was during this period that Greek culture reached its peak of achievement in the
Athenian democracy of the age of Pericles, only to destroy itself in civil strife and war. In this
period the interests of philosophy shifted from the explanation of the material world to that of the
nature of man and his social duties. This was the great period of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle,
usually considered as the high point of Greek wisdom.
The third phase of Greek culture, that called Hellenistic, began with the decadence of the
independent city states and their supersession by land empires of a new type. The empire of
Alexander brought Greek science once again into direct contact with the older sources of culture
in the East as far as India. Alexandria became a new home for science where, for the first time in
history, it was subsidized through the founding of the Museum. The result was the great
development of mathematics, mechanics, and astronomy that we associate with Euclid,
Archimedes, and Hipparchus. In the history of science, as distinct from philosophy, this third
phase was to be the most important of all, for it was then that the body of exact science was first
formed as a coherent whole, and enough of it survived despite the losses of the dark ages that
followed to set science going again nearly 2,000 years later. From the second century onwards,
with the coming of the Romans, this effort slackened and came to a stop long before the actual
fall of the Empire. This last phase cannot be distinguished by any originality, but as it was to be
the bridge between classical and all later science it deserves separate consideration.
Rome and the Decadence of Classical Science

By the middle of the second century B.C. the Hellenistic empires were collapsing in
anarchy and under the weight of the more vigorous power of Rome. There was nothing mysterious
about its success in achieving power over the Mediterranean world. Whichever native city managed
to establish itself as dominant in Italy would have an enormous advantage both over the Greek or
Phoenician city states and over the Asiatic Hellenistic empires, all of which had suffered from
centuries of wasteful exploitation which had left them politically and economically weakened. Italy
was still, in the third century B.C., a farming country with a good climate and plenty of timber, just
in the first flush of expansion, with a growing, healthy population. Its slow early growth had left
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Rome far nearer the clan organization of society than the cities of the older civilizations. The
Roman republic could count in its wars on popular support, which the others could never do.
Arming themselves repeatedly with the techniques of their more advanced enemies, the Romans
could be beaten in battle but they could not be conquered. Rome's only serious rival was the
commercial republic of Carthage, which could match it in wealth but not in manpower.
Internally Rome had experienced essentially the same class struggle that had racked the
Greek cities, but in an even more naked form, expressed in the rivalry of patricians and plebeians
for control of the State. In the first century B.C., this culminated in bitter civil wars which paved
the way to military dictatorship and later to empire. Indeed, the acquisition of the Empire was one
means by which the rich could buy off the poor with a small portion of the loot of provinces.
Another was the policy of extending Roman citizenship first to Italian and then to other
provincials, thus turning what was originally a city state into a territorial State, dominated by slave-
owners and wealthy merchants. Piece by piece the States of the eastern and Western Mediterranean
fell into Roman hands and at the same time they opened up the barbarous hinterlands of Gaul,
Britain, Western Germany, and Austria. The result was the formation of a great new empire,
occupying the whole Mediterranean area, but sharing the Hellenistic kingdoms with a newly
liberated Persia.
The cement of the Empire was the army by which it had been won, and by which, with
decreasing success after the time of Augustus, it was defended against barbarians. The emperor,
as commander-in-chief, usually managed to impose and collect enough taxes to keep the soldiers
from mutinying and choosing another emperor. The Empire was effectively a loose federation of
cities managing themselves and profiting for their mutual trade from the internal Pax Romana.
The best land of the countryside was farmed by slave gangs from the villas of the wealthy. The
poorer areas - the pagi or rustic communes - were left to the natives - the pagans - largely following
their own tribal customs later to become the peasants of the Middle Ages and to give their name
to the country or pays) or to newly settled coloni and freed slaves from the villas who gradually
became serfs - villani, villeins, or villains.
The spread of the Roman Empire had a very different effect on culture from that of
Alexander's conquests. By the time the Romans came on the scene the impetus of Greek
civilization had already passed. In science and art it was already decadent. In another sense the
Romans came on Greek civilization too late; their own economic system, based on wealthy
patricians and their clients, was far too set to make effective use of science. Besides, the Roman
upper class, and while the Empire was being built they were the only Romans that counted, though
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they adopted the trappings of Greek civilization, despised it. Neither they nor the new provincials
of the West added anything significant to it. The best that they could do was to pick up some of
the general ideas of Greek philosophy and use them to support their own form of class rule. The
elder Cato, a country diehard of the second century B.C., hated Greek science and made no bones
of it. According to him Greek doctors came over to poison the Romans, and philosophers to
debauch them. Cicero, a rising lawyer a century later, took a much more enlightened view. He
found much to praise in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, which justified the rule of the best
people, but suspected that the Epicureanism which his countryman, Lucretius, hence in established
order. However, the philosophy most in vogue, especially in the days of the Empire, was Stoicism.
Though it had started as a philosophy of resistance, rather like early Existentialism, Stoicism's
emphasis on virtue for its own sake gave the Roman administrators, and even an occasional
emperor like Marcus Aurelius, a sense of sacrificing themselves, without thought of reward, for
the public good. Seneca, the most distinguished of the Roman Stoics and the tutor of the artistic
emperor, Nero, saw nothing odd in accumulating a large fortune - no doubt as a sacred trust.
It is customary to blame the practical spirit of the Romans for the sharp decay of science
that set in about the time of the first Roman emperors. It is much more probable that the causes
were deeper; they lay in the general crisis of classical society, which flowed from the accumulation
of power in the hands of a few rich men (whether they were at Alexandria or Rome did not much
matter), and also in the general brutalization of a population of slaves and of what we may call,
from more recent analogies, 'poor whites'. Their impoverishment lowered the demand for
commodities, which depressed still further the condition of merchants and craftsmen. This was an
atmosphere in which there was no incentive for science, and in which the science that still existed
carried on from inertia and very soon lost its essential quality of inquiring into Nature and doing
new things.
Public Works and Trade

The application of existing knowledge could, however, for several centuries be made more
extensively and on a larger scale than ever before. Not only could gigantic public works such as
roads, harbours, aqueducts, baths, and theatres be constructed but unrestricted trade could flourish
and products from all parts of the Empire could be freely interchanged. This led, for commodities
like pottery, to what was practically factory production of standardized articles. However, with
abundant slave labour and a market still restricted to the well-to-do classes, the master
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manufacturers had no incentive to take the next step of introducing machinery, and the conditions
for developing an industrial revolution never arose.
Architecture
The two characteristic contributions of Roman technology were to architecture and
agriculture. The building of aqueducts, amphitheatres, and large basilicas called for the
development of the arch and the arched vault - made possible by the lavish use of burnt brick and
of a concrete made from lime and volcanic ash. In spite of its massive impressiveness, Roman
architecture shows far less sense of the exploitation of the possibilities of arch and vault than does
the medieval Gothic. It was only in the very last stages, and that in Constantinople, that the really
ingenious construction of the light pendentive supported dome was evolved from Persian models.
Agriculture
Agriculture could hardly become a science until far more was known of biology than could
possibly be known to the Ancients. Indeed, it is hardly a science yet. The agricultural writings of
the Romans, of which the best known are the Georgics of the poet Virgil, are necessarily limited
to recordings of peasant practice together with some grim reminders of estate management based
on slave labour. They are none the less interesting in showing how, particularly in fruit and
vegetable gardening, most of the techniques of today were well known and practised. On the other
hand, lack of suitable horse harness and ploughs set a limit to the kind of land that could be
cultivated.
Administration and Law

The great positive contribution of the Romans to civilization that is found in every history
book is their creation of a system of law. Now Roman law is anything but a scientific attempt at
securing fair dealing between man and man: it is frankly concerned with preserving the property
of those fortunate enough to have acquired it. It contains, as Vico first saw, the relics of three
superimposed layers of cultural history. First, there is the old tribal custom, evolving from its
matriarchal to a most severe patriarchal stage under the influence of the monopolization of
movable property in cattle (pecunia). This is the celebrated Roman family system in which the
paterfamilias despotically rules his wife, children, and famuli or slaves. Next comes the imprint of
city and merchant law, the result of the long economic and political struggles of the Republic, with
its emphasis on cash and recovery of debt. Last is the effect of the Imperial administration with
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the recognition of the prerogative of the prince. In its final codified form, at the very end of the
Empire under Justinian in the sixth century, it shows the influence of the severe Stoic philosophy
which, like Confucianism in China, had become the second nature of the Roman officials. There
is much social history to be learned from Roman law, but it contributed to science only the concept
of a universal law of nature. Inapplicable essentially to the totally different economy of the feudal
period, it was revived, with all the aura of the greatness of the Empire, in the Renaissance as the
basic code of capitalism.
Decline and Fall

In the latter days of the Empire, from the time of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138), the whole
economy began to break down. The army, which had been a great source of wealth in slaves and
loot, became an increasing but necessary burden, for now new lands were no longer being
conquered and the Empire was finding its own defence increasingly difficult. Attempts at reform
only made things worse in the long run. Money economy was undermined by inflation and gave
way to barter, based on exchange of goods largely locally produced and contained. The villas, in
which the rich took refuge to escape taxation, became centres of local production and gradually
replaced the old cities as economic centres, and trade became more and more limited to luxuries.
These were only the last symptoms of a disease that was inherent in the class society of the ancient
world. There was no way of getting rid of exploitation short of a complete breakdown.
Economic and Intellectual Breakdown

Classical civilization was already intrinsically doomed by the third century B.C., if not
earlier. The tragedy for science was that it took so long to die, because in that period most of what
had been gained was lost. Knowledge that is not being used for the winning of further knowledge
does not even remain - it decays and disappears. At first the volumes moulder on the shelves
because very few need or want to read them; soon no one can understand them, they decay unread,
and in the end, as was the legendary fate of the Great Library of Alexandria, the remainder are
burnt to heat the public-bath water or disappear in a hundred obscure ways.
Mysticism and Organized Religion

Thought did not stop with the fading away of natural science: it merely turned once more
towards mysticism and religion. Though the emotional drive to mysticism is the desire to escape
from this wicked world, it had an elaborate philosophic intellectual foundation, deriving from Plato
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at the time of the decay of the democratic city state. The subsequent schools, particularly the Stoics
and the Neoplatonists, developed the mystical side of Plato's idealism and left out the
mathematical, except in the form of a caballistic numerology abounding in magic squares and
mystic numbers. From the first century onwards, philosophic mysticisim fused with that of the
salvation religions, of which Christianity was the most successful. Their common intellectual
feature was a reliance on inspiration and revelation as a higher source of truth than the senses or
even than reason: as Tertullian expressed it, 'I believe because it is absurd.'
The rise of these religions was itself a symptom of the hopelessness of the slave, and even
of the citizen, in the face of a system that ground him down and from which it seemed impossible
to escape. He could take his choice of indulging in almost revolutionary denunciations of the
system, such as are found in the Apocalypse, and stirring up resistance to official worship; or of
retiring to the desert to avoid contamination with the evil of the world. To the religious it was not
only idolatry but all that went with the hated, upper-class State that was abominable; the luxury,
the art, the philosophy, the science were all signposts on the way to hell. Augustine and Ambrose,
turning from wicked learning to holy nonsense, were just as much part of the movement as the
monk-led mob who stoned Hypatia, one of the last of the Greek mathematicians. Only when the
old classical world was utterly destroyed, as in the West, or tamed, as in the East, could the Church
allow, and then very gradually and reluctantly, a limited secular science. How this happened will
be told in the next chapter, which will trace the rise of the new civilizations which stemmed from
the decay of the classical world. Here also will be found an account of Christianity, which though
it arose out of classical civilization was a product of popular opposition to all that it stood for and
properly belongs to the next stage of society. Despite its opposition to classical culture it would be
absurd to blame Christianity for its decline and fall. It was a symptom rather than a cause. The
mysticism, the absurdity, the confusion and decay of late classical times were the products of the
social and economic collapse of the plutocratic slave State. In Aristotle's sense it was far gone in
corruption; in the Chinese phrase, it had exhausted the mandate of Heaven. Although the rule of
nominally Roman emperors in Constantinople was to last another thousand years, that empire
belonged to a new age.
The Barbarians
The final phases of the break-up of classical civilization took a different form in the older civilized
and Hellenized eastern parts of the Empire than in the relatively recently conquered West, where
city life was a foreign importation and the country-side was still largely pagan. The East absorbed
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its barbarians. City life never ceased and passed with hardly a break into the rule of Islamic Caliphs,
and that of the (far more Greek than Roman) Byzantine emperors. The new structure of the States
was not the same as the old, but trade, culture, and learning were preserved and for a while
brilliantly revived.
In the West there was something like a general economic collapse of which the barbarian
invaders took advantage. The barbarians were not themselves responsible for that economic
breakdown. Far from invading the Empire, in the first place they were introduced into it as
mercenaries, slaves, or serfs, largely to make up for the shortage of labour which the killing
exploitation of the Roman landlords and tax-gatherers had already produced. Further, the Roman
technique had not developed far in the practical field of food production in the heavily forested
lands of the North and West. There seems to be no doubt that the barbarians themselves had
better agricultural techniques than the Romans they displaced. At least they were able to cultivate
the fertile and heavy soils of western Europe which the Romans neglected. In Britain, for example,
the Roman estates covered only a fraction of the land occupied and effectively tilled by the heathen
Saxons.
Loss of Organization and Technique

What was lost in the barbarian invasion of western Europe was everything of culture that
depended on large-scale material organization. Bridges, roads, aqueducts, irrigation canals, all fell
into decay and largely disappeared. So did the distribution of standardized goods, such as pottery,
from a few central factories. The only fine techniques to survive and flourish were those producing
portable objects of fine metalworks for ornaments and weapons. With the disappearance of a
literate class of wealthy people and their dependants in the cities there was little left of the tradition
of philosophy, and hardly anything of science. Late classical scholars took refuge in the Church,
like Gregory of Tours or Paulinus of Nola, or like Boethius became officials of barbarian kings, or
retired to their estates like Ausonius (c. A.D. 310-c. 395). Nevertheless enough was left in Europe
of the classical culture to enable it to be reborn, purged of most of its limitations of the days of
the Empire. In Venice, Salerno, and far-away Ireland were sources from which the fresh and
original medieval culture was to flow, and to meet again in the twelfth century the mainstream that
had flowed through the Islamic East.
The Legacy of the Classical World
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We are apt to be dazzled by the intellectual and artistic brilliance of the Greeks that it is
difficult to realize that their knowledge and skill affected far more the appearances than the
practical and material realities of life. The beauties of Greek cities, temples, statues, and vases, the
refinement of their logic, mathematics, and philosophy, blind us to the fact that the way of life for
most people in civilized countries was, at the fall of the Roman Empire, much what it had been
2,000 years before when the old bronze age civilization collapsed. Agriculture, food, clothes,
houses, were not notably improved. Except for a slight improvement in irrigation and road-
making, and for new styles in monumental architecture and town planning, the science of the
Greeks found little application. This is not surprising; for in the first place science was not
developed by well-off citizens for that purpose, which they despised, and in the second, even with
the best will in the world, the science they had acquired was far too limited and qualitative to be
of much practical use. Greek mathematics, elegant and complete as it was, could be applied to few
practical purposes for the lack of either experimental physics or accurate mechanics. The chief
fruit of the magnificent Greek astronomy was, apart from astrological predictions, a good calendar
and some indifferent maps. The great nursery of applied astronomy, the art of the navigator, hardly
existed for lack of ships or incentives to sail the trackless ocean.
The other natural sciences were hardly more than discursive catalogues--such as Pliny's
great Natural History-- of the common observations of smiths, cooks, farmers, fishermen, and
doctors. Where science intervened it was to impose naive or mystical theories, based on elements
or humours, which confused and distorted the understanding of Nature. The consequences of the
social sciences of the Greeks were more direct, though just because they were relative to the
conditions of a city state they became inapplicable when these changed. The techniques, in contrast
to the sciences, lasted far better and lost less. Indeed, except where they depended on scale, like
the making of roads and aqueducts, they were transmitted unchanged in essentials, though, at least
in the West, they were debased and simplified in expression.
The full possibilities of classical culture could not be realized in the framework of the
civilization which gave it birth. They were blocked at every turn by the social and economic
limitations inherent, as we have seen, in a slave-owning plutocracy. The real contribution of Greek
science was to be in the future, though it could be made only in so far as the germinal elements of
the classical culture could be preserved and transmitted. Fortunately, though classical civilization
had not the power of save itself, it had enough prestige to ensure that at least some of its
achievements could never be forgotten and could later become the basis for new growth.
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What had happened in the period of Hellenic and Roman power was a great spread of
civilization all the way from the Atlantic to the Hindu Kush. The prestige which the extent of the
power and the culture of these great empires generated far outlasted their political sway. It served,
even after its original impulse was spent, to spread over a far wider area the ideas, the methods,
the styles, and the techniques of Hellenism. In the East, Central Asia, China, and India all felt its
influence blending with those of old native cultures; in the West the prestige of the lost learning
served to tame the barbarians of Europe.
Indeed, perhaps the most important salvage of the Classical Age was the very idea of
Natural Science. The belief persisted, as legends attest, that the Ancients through deep study had
acquired a knowledge of Nature that enabled them to control it. Alexander, instructed by Aristotle,
had a submarine and could fly through the air in an eagle-powered chariot. Of the actual elements
of classical culture, science, particularly astronomy and mathematics, proved in fact the most
lasting. Because they were needed to chart the planets, if only for astrological predictions, they had
to be handed on and practised. Much of the other sciences was preserved in books, to be
rediscovered at intervals by the Arabs and the Renaissance humanists. We shall never know how
much was irretrievably lost, but certainly enough came through to guide and stir the thought and
practice of later ages. So much, indeed, was rediscovered and imitated in the last 500 years that we
have effectively incorporated the classical world in our own civilization, and nowhere more
consciously or fruitfully than in technology and science.
Discuss the importance of iron today? Write your answer on the space provided.
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Lesson 5
Middle Ages
Objective • Discuss the events during the Middle Ages

s:
• Relate the important events of the Middle Ages to current events.
A knights shield during the Middle Ages tells people his or her characteristics. Draw
Activity:
your shield and what does it say about you?
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TECHNOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

by Lynn White, Jr.
White Jr. L. TECHNOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE AGES In Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. (eds.)
Technology in Western Civilization, Vol. I (Oxford Univ. Press: New York, 1967), Chapter 5, pp.66-79
The traditional historical picture of the Middle Ages (roughly from the 5th
century A.D. to the mid-15th century) has been one of cultural decline, particularly in the early
Middle Ages. These centuries, from the 5th to the 9th, have therefore sometimes been called the
Dark Ages. Yet such a view of the Middle Ages, and even of its early period, is false when viewed
from the standpoint of the history of technology.
Medieval technology continued that of the Roman world. In the eastern half of the Roman
Empire, Byzantium, the New Rome established in 330 by Constantine, enjoyed an amazing
prosperity and vigor for a thousand years and more. Even when, in the 7th century A.D., the Arabs
wrested Syria and Egypt from Byzantium, there was no "decline and fall": on the contrary, the very
creative new Islamic civilization incorporated and perpetuated the technical achievements of
Greece and Rome.
The idea of the so-called Dark Ages is therefore applicable only to the western portion of
the Roman Empire, but again, it is not in terms of technology. In the West and the turmoil of the
Germanic invasions led to a technological slump only in a few areas. The Romanized Celts of
Britain, for example, were pushed into Wales and Cornwall by the fairly primitive Angles and
Sacons (who were, however, superb goldsmiths), where they lived in such difficult circumstances
that technical rejuvenation could not be spontaneous. Eventually it came from the Continent,
where culture never sank so low, despite instability, depopulation, and economic depression. A
symbol of the general maintenance of skills in the barbarian kingdoms is the tomb of Theodoric
the Ostrogoth (d. 526) at Ravenna: it is capped by a monolithic dome weighing 276 tons which
was barged some one hundred miles from Istria and lowered with razor-edge precision onto a
masonry drum.
When Roman inventions did pass out of use there was always a good reason. Roman roads
were so costly to maintain that even the wealthy Byzantine and Islamic empires decided that they
were not worth the expense. The hypocaust, the Roman system of radiant heating by means of
channels through floors and walls, used much fuel in proportion to results and did not respond
quickly to the rapid temperature changes typical of Northern Europe; so the Middle Ages invented
chimneyed fireplaces and hot -air stoves which were cheaper and more flexible than hypocausts.
In Gaul the Roman sometimes used a harvester, pushed by an animal, which chopped off the ears
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of grain and let them fall into a container; this wasted the straw. When medieval peasants
developed a more intensive agriculture which habitually combined stock-raising with cereal
production, the straw became valuable and what looked like a sophisticated machine was made
obsolete.
Thus, any decline in technology in the early Middle Ages was more apparent than real. As
we have seen, a technology is responsive to social needs; the needs of the psychologically urbanized
and politically centralized Roman Empire differed from those of the agrarian and politically
decentralized states which arose out of the ruins of the Empire in the West. But technical skills
seem to have diminished in no significant way. Instead, the changing conditions in the West
stimulated technological advance there.
Medieval East and West Compared in Technical Innovations

The most curious fact about medieval technology is that while for many centuries both
Byzantium and Islam greatly surpassed the West in commerce, political stability, and level of
education, nevertheless, it was the West which produced most of the major technological
innovations.
There was, to be sure, a technological spurt in Byzantium during the 6th and 7th centuries:
the amazing single-shell dome of St. Sophia was designed by the architect Anthemios of Trales in
532, while about 673 a Greek-speaking Syrian refugee from Muslim conquest, Kallinikos, invented
Greek fire, a petroleum-based incendiary so efficient in burning enemy ships and siege machinery
that its formula was placed under strict security by the imperial arsenal. Considering that Greek
fire was in great part responsible for Byzantium's military survival, it is strange that thereafter the
medieval Greeks--so vivid and sensitive in many areas of life--showed little interest in technological
improvements. Similarly, the Muslims, while they borrowed useful skills from other cultures--
paper-making from China in 751, for example--did not make notable contributions, so far as we
now know, to mankind's technical repertory.
This is the more puzzling to our 20th century minds because Byzantium preserved ancient
Greek science, and from about 800 to 1200 Islam produced the world's greatest scientists. We
today think of technology as applied science, but until the 19th century the connection between
science and technology was slight. Science was for intellectuals trying to understand the nature of
things; technology was for workers trying to do things; the notion that knowledge of nature gives
us power over nature is old as an aphorism but recent in practice. Medieval Byzantium and Islam
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produced complex and subtle cultures which focused their energies on art, literature, religion,
philosophy, and science, but were little concerned with technical advances.
The contrast with the medieval West is striking and demands explanation. Certainly
scientific interests cannot account for it. The early medieval Occident continued the shocking
indifference of pagan Rome toward Greek science. Not until the 11th century did Greek and
Arabic science become available in Latin, and another 200 years passed before Western
Christendom assumed the leadership in science which Islam had held. The West's preeminence in
technology thus precedes its primacy in science by several centuries.
The victory of Christianity over paganism in the 4th-century Roman Empire had provided
an improved psychological basis for technical innovation. The religion of the common man in
antiquity was animism: every tree, stream, or mountain had its genius or particular spirit which had
to be placated before one cut down the tree, dammed the stream, or dug into the mountain for
mining. In such circumstances, the Christian smashing of animism liberated artisans and peasants
for matter-of-fact exploitation of their natural environment. This change, however, had occurred
throughout the late Roman world, and while it helps to account for the eventual speed-up of
technological development, it does not explain why the West took the lead.
In Greco-Roman times educated men considered it beneath their dignity to work with
their hands. The Jews, however, were an exception: God on Sinai had commanded "Six days shalt
thou labor, and on the seventh rest"; the injunction to labor was as biding as that to relax on the
Sabbath. Even the most learned rabbis acquired skills at a trade: St. Paul, who studied for the
rabbinate, was also a tent-maker. In the 4th century, when Christianity became the official cult of
the Roman Empire, it was so corrupted by the influx of opportunists and conformists that
monasticism arose as an effort to restore its primitive (largely Jewish) principle. The monks insisted
that manual labor is an essential part of the spiritual life, and that "work is worship": laborare est
orare. Their idealism, intelligence and energy made monasteries the chief points of cultural
radiation during the next seven centuries. The monks were the first intellectual systematically to
dirty their hands with physical work, and we cannot doubt that this combination of brain power
and sweat aided technological advance. But since the Greek monks worked as hard as the Latin,
this again does not explain the distinctive vigor of technology in the West.
What elements can we identify as peculiar to the Occident? Four things may be suggested.
1. Among the Celts of Roman Gaul there seems to have been somewhat more inventiveness than
is detectable in any other part of the Empire. Perhaps this mood of innovation carried over
into the Western Middle Ages and expanded.
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2. The Occident was much more deeply shaken by repeated invasions and chaos than were the
Byzantine and Islamic regions. There is reason to think that any change aids subsequent change.
The greater agony of the West during the early Middle Ages, as the folk-wanderings of the
Teutonic tribes gave way to the barbarian kingdoms, may well have corroded traditional ways
so deeply that people were generally more open to change, including technological change, than
they were in the more "fortunate" Near East, to the eventual great profit of the West.
3. In Greek Christendom an educated laity continued, whereas in the West culture declined to a
point where literacy was long a monopoly of the clergy. As a result, the Latin monks came to
feel far more responsibility for preserving not only Christian but also pagan or secular culture
than was felt by the Greek monks, who could depend on Byzantine laymen to care for the
latter. This meant that in Latin Christendom the working monks were closer to worldly
concerns than was the case in Eastern Orthodoxy. The Oriental monks have left us nothing
comparable to On Divers Arts written in 1122-23 by Theophilus, a German Benedictine: this
is the earliest European treatise giving specific technological directions for a wide range of
complicated processes. Theophilus was not only an expert in metallurgy and glass; he was
learned in theology and wrote quite decent Latin. His mentality helps explain the West's advance
in technology.
4. Finally, in an effort to understand the technology of an age so permeated with religious attitudes,
we must note a basic difference between the theologies and pieties of the Greek Church and
the Latin Church. The Greeks have always made right thought, or "illumination," central to
salvation, whereas the Latins atleast since the days of St. Augustine have put greater emphasis
on right will, or action. The Eastern Church has praised contemplation; the Western, activity.
Technology involves doing things, and the mood of the Roman Church fostered it by
encouraging activism and practicality in Occidental society.
Military Technology and Social Change

If we consider the chronic physical insecurity of life in the early medieval West, it is not
surprising that military technology made notable advances there. So long as a horseman had to
cling to his steed by pressure of his knees, cavalry was used chiefly for bowmen and the movement
of soldiers; the lance could be wielded only at the end of the arm (or with two hands, making use
of a shield impossible), because too violent a blow would unseat the rider delivering it. In the early
8th century the stirrup reached the Frankish kingdom, established by the Germanic tribes known
as the Franks in what had been the Roman province of Gaul. When combined with a saddle having
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a high pommel and cantle, stirrups make a single organism of rider and horse. The Franks saw that
the lance could now be laid "at rest" under the rider's armpit; the hand merely guiding the blow,
which was delivered by the combined impetus of a charging stallion and warrior. The new method
of mounted shock-combat involved a great increase in the violence of warfare and indicated a shift
from infantry to cavalry as the chief fighting force.
While the Franks of the 8th century were very nearly the last horse-riding people to acquire
the stirrup--it had come from India by way of China--they were the first to realize its full
implication for battle. There is no absolute determinism in technology: invention is not the mother
of necessity. In 732 the Frankish leader Charles Martel saw a military potential in the stirrup which
others had overlooked, and he acted upon his insight. Cavalry is much more costly than infantry,
and circulation of coinage in the Frankish realm was insufficient to support an enlarged cavalry
out of taxes; so Charles confiscated vast reaches of Church lands and distributed them to retainers
on condition that they hold themselves ready at his command to fight on horseback in the new
and difficult way. These mounted warriors became the basis on which Charles Martel's grandson,
Charlemagne (Charles the Great), enlarged the Frankish domain into the Carolingian Empire at
the beginning of the 9th century. When, a century later, the Carolingian Empire disintegrated, this
caste of endowed warriors picked up the fragments of political authority and established local rule.
Thus the revolution in military technology brought about by the stirrup was the seed of feudalism
and of the chivalric culture which the secular aristocracy of the later Middle Ages developed.
The violence of mounted shock-combat led to development of heavier armor, heavier
horses, new types of shields, and (in the 11th century) the crossbow designed to penetrate the new
armor. (The history of the crossbow is puzzling: the Chinese had it very early; the Romans used it
chiefly for hunting birds; but at the time of the First Crusade, 1096, the Byzantines considered it
a Frankish novelty). The new Western military technology was superior to that of the Near East,
and elements of it began spreading to Byzantium and Islam even before the Crusades. One of the
chief reasons for the eventual failure of the Crusades was that the Muslims learned to fight in the
European way.
From the later 11th into the early 13th centuries, military architecture was revolutionized
in the West. Often this is credited to Near Eastern influence, but the most careful scholars consider
the question still open. One stimulus to better fortification was the development by Europeans,
probably on the basis of a Chinese hand-operated rock thrower, of a new and powerful type of
counterweight artillery, the trebuchet, which quickly superseded the torsion artillery inherited from
the Romans. In the 12th century French engineers produced Gothic architecture, an immensely
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ingenious system of thrusts and balances using a minimum of masonry to enclose a maximum of
space. It was so economical that the most ascetic monastic order to the time, the Cistercians,
adopted it and spread it quickly throughout Europe. The rapid and superb expansion of the art of
fortification in the West in exactly this period would seem to reflect the same mentality applied to
different problems.
The Expansion of Agriculture

Until very recently agriculture has been the basic form of technology. In antiquity its
production of surplus was very low; it is a safe guess that well over nine-tenths of the population
had to work the soil to support a tiny fraction of humanity engaged in other occupations. Clearly,
anything which increased productivity was of major importance.
In late Roman times there were efforts, particularly in the northern provinces, to improve
agriculture, but no coherent new system of cultivation emerged. By the middle of the 6th century
however, some of the Slavic peasants were using a novel kind of plow very efficient for heavy
fertile alluvial soils which were hard to handle with the older, two-ox scratch-plow designed for
light soils. The older plow had merely dug the surface of the soil; in order to turn over the soil for
planting, it was necessary to cross-plow, that is, to plow the soil twice, the second plowing being
at right angles to the first. The new heavier plow had wheels, a vertical blade (colter) to cut the line
of the furrow, a horizontal plowshare, and a mouldboard to turn over the sod. Its friction with the
dirt was so great that it had to be pulled, at least on newly cleared land or in sticky soil, by eight
oxen. It attacked the earth so violently that the cross-plowing required by the scratch-plow was
unnecessary, and sqarish fields gave way to long strip-fields. Since the mouldboard normally turned
the sod to the right and the fields were plowed clockwise, the strips tended to become low ridges
favorable to field drainage in the wet climate of Northern Europe. Since few peasants owned eight
oxen, co-operative plowing became usual. Likewise, since the fencing of long strip-fields was
impractical, villages using the heavy plow divided the arable land into fenced "open fields"
embracing many strips which, even though individually owned, had to be cultivated, planted, and
harvested on a unified plan. The adoption of the new plow therefore helps to explain the
communal pattern of manorial life in Northern Europe.
Starting, it would seem, with the Slavs, the new plow and its related agrarian system spread
among the Germans by the early 8th century, and were presumably taken to Britain in the late 9th
century by invading Norsemen. Wherever these methods went, their ability to use the heavier and
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more productive river-bottom soils led to a vast cutting of forests and reclaiming of marshes for
agricultural purposes: the face of Northern Europe was changed.
Paralleling and interlocking with the new pattern of cereal-growing was an improved type
of cattle-raising. The Romans had not integrated stock-farming closely with agriculture,but had
simply pastured their cattle. Proof of this is the scarcity of Roman scythes. Scythes had been used
chiefly for cutting grass for hay, which implies an intensive rearing of cattle and sheep, largely in
barns, and a concentration of their manure for later systematic fertilization of fields. In the
Frankish age, scythes became common, and at the end of the 8th century Charlemagne tried to
rename July "Haying Month." In addition to the having, after the harvest the village herd was
turned into the open fields to browse on the stubble, incidentally leaving their droppings to fatten
the next crop. Thus the northern medieval peasants worked out a new system of food production
more balanced and efficient than anything earlier.
By the later 8th century they had taken another stride, at least in the region, between the
Loire and the Rhine rivers which was the heart of the Carolingian Empire. Land had normally
been left fallow half the time to renew its fertility: the cultivated half of the arable was planted in
the autumn with wheat, barley, or rye and harvested in the early summer. But now this "two field"
rotation began to give way to a "three-field" system in which only a third of the land was left fallow.
In the autumn another third was planted as before; but in the early spring the remaining third was
planted in oats, barley, and legumes to be harvested the later summer. The peas and beans were
particularly important, both because their nitrogen-fixing ability strengthened the soil under the
burden of this more intensive rotation, and also because they furnished an increased quantity of
vegetable proteins for human consumption.
Since the new spring planting required summer rains, it was generally feasible only north
of the Alps and the Loire River. Where it could be adopted, however, it was so advantageous that
it does much to account for the great vitality of the North in the age of Charlemagne. By providing
two sets of crops and two harvests, the three-field rotation much reduced the risk of crop failure
and famine. By distributing the work of plowing better over the year, it enabled the plow team to
accomplish more. Depending on whether the fallow were plowed once or twice, (to turn under
the green manure), a community of peasants, with any wasteland to reclaim, by shifting from the
two-field to the three-field rotation could increase their production by either one-third or one-half.
The surplus of oats which could be grown in the spring planting of the three-field system
is related to another major change in northern agriculture. In antiquity, oxen were adequately
harnessed by means of yokes, but the yoke applied to horses is extra-ordinarily inefficient, both
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because it strangles the animal as soon as he tries to pull and because the point of traction at the
withers is so high that the horse cannot throw his weight into the task of pulling. About 800 A.D.
the modern horse harness appeared in the Carolingian realm, consisting of a rigid, padded collar
resting on the horse's shoulders and permitting him to breathe, and lateral traces or shafts placed
so that the point of traction is effective. With this new harness a team of horses could pull four or
five times the load they could draw with a yoke harness.
Hitherto the horse had been valued for its speed; the new harness made horse-power
available in conjunction with that speed. The first evidence of habitual plowing with horses, who
worked perhaps twice as fast as oxen, comes from Norway in the late 9th century. By 1100, horses
were customarily drawing plows, at least in favored regions, all the way from the English Channel
to the Ukraine, and throughout the later Middle Ages the horse steadily displaced the ox for farm
labor. But this occurred only in Northern Europe, where the three-field rotation made possible, in
the spring planting, the surplus of oats needed to feed many horses. The Mediterranean peasants
could not shift from oxen to the more efficient horses because, for climatic reasons, they could
not produce enough oats.
The early Middle Ages then, witnessed, in Northern Europe, an agricultural revolution
unparalleled since the first invention of tillage. Its elements--the heavy plow, open fields, three-
field rotation, and horse harness--accumulated and consolidated into a new agrarian system from
the 6th through the 9th century. More than anything else the increased surplus of food which it
produced accounts for the permanent shift, in Carolingian times, of the focus of European culture
away from the Mediterranean to the great plains between the Loire and the Elbe rivers. It accounts
for the steady increase of population until the late 13th century, when, because no further
agricultural innovations had been introduced, the point of diminishing returns was reached and
overcrowding began to worsen the living conditions of the peasantry and undercut the boom in
the general economy of Europe which had prevailed from the end of the Viking invasions, c. 1000,
until 1300. During these three centuries, the surplus of food permitted an unprecedented growth
of cities and an accumulation of capital best symbolized by the enormous Gothic cathedrals which
towered over them and which were the pride of the burgher capitalists who created the basic
economic and political patterns of the modern West.
Transportation Developments
The Middle Ages likewise revolutionized transport, which made it possible to move the
surplus food to the cities where it was needed. Thus technological innovations in agriculture and
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transportation, along with more settled political conditions, made possible the renewal of town life
from about the 12th century on, and hence the foundations on which modern civilization was
ultimately to be constructed.
The modern horse-harness, emerging c. 800, was essential to the use of horses not only
for plowing but also for hauling. However, the wear on a horse's hooves was greater in hauling
over roads than it was in tilling fields, and in moist climates horses' hooves grow softer than those
of oxen. In the 890's the problem was solved by the daring invention of nailed horseshoes, which
appear almost simultaneously in Siberia, Byzantium, and Germany. Iron shoes very quickly became
habitual for ridden horses; but there was another problem to be solved before horses could be
used for heavy hauling. A horse could plow with lateral traces attached directly to the plow because
a furrow is straight. But with traces fastened directly to a wagon, a right turn puts all the strain on
the left trace, and vice versa, risking breakage of the harness and overturning the load. The solution,
which equalizes the pull on the load, was the whippletree, which appeared in the 11th century.
Now, with an efficient horse harness, horseshoes, and the whippletree, heavy hauling by horses
was feasible for the first time; and in the early 12th century the horse-drawn longa caretta (large
cart), holding many people and large quantities of goods, emerged.
About the same time travel was made more comfortable through the development of the
springed carriage. Without springs, prolonged speed over rutted and potholed roads is
unendurable; the essence of the coach is suspension of the carriage body to cushion the jolts. The
germ of this innovation appears among the western Slavs in the 10th century. Four hundred years
later this had become a suspended body holding at least six persons. That it moved rapidly is
indicated by the fact that a man with bagpipes was perched up on its rear to clear the road ahead;
the ancestor of the coach horn and of the modern automobile horn.
Water transportation has always been cheaper than land haulage, and the Middle Ages did
not neglect this mode of transport. The essential invention for inland waterways, the canal-lock
chamber seems to have been used at Bruges by 1236. But it was in salt-water navigation that the
most significant improvements were made.
As we have seen, man had early harnessed the power of the wind to drive his vessels
through sails. But how to go against the wind? Tacking into the wind was a great problem for
square-sailed Roman ships. To be sure, fore-and-aft rigs had been applied to small skiffs since the
first century B.C., but not to large vessels, perhaps because their keels were not sufficiently deep
to prevent lateral drift during tacking. The lateen sail, well adapted to tacking, first appears on
merchant ships at Marseilles in the 6th century. Since lateen comes from the rare Latin word latinus
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meaning "easy, handy," linguistic evidence would seem to indicate that this new rig was probably
developed in the western Mediterranean.
In antiquity, ships were constructed by first building up the shell of the hull out of planks
firmly attached to each other and afterwards inserting the skeleton of ribs. This produced a strong
vessel, but the process was slow and costly. Skin-diving archaeologists have found the wreck of a
Byzantine ship in the Aegean dating from the early 7th century still built in this way. We do not
yet know when or where during the Middle ages our present system of ship-building, by first
constructing the skeleton and then nailing on the planks, was developed. Certainly it reduced the
costs of maritime commerce notably.
Another great advance in ship-building was the invention of the modern rudder. Early
ships were steered by lateral oars which were easily broken in storms and which, when large, were
so awkward that they tended to limit the size of ships. In the early 13th century the North Sea area
produced a new rudder hinged to the ship's sternpost and operated by a horizontal lever. This was
capable of standing the buffeting of great waves, and it could be used on vessels of any size.
Vessels could now be constructed strongly enough to venture into the open seas with
safety, and they could be steered against the wind. But how was the navigator to find his way when
out of sight of familiar landmarks and when the sky was not clear enough to steer by the stars?
Here the East was to provide a technological aid for the West, for the magnetic compass
presumably came from China. It reached Europe in the 1190's, and within thirty years was in
habitual use even as far as Iceland. Strangely, there is no evidence of it in Islam until 1232. The
compass so profoundly affected the art of navigation that, for example, two round-trips annually
from the Italian ports to the Near East were now possible, whereas previously only one had been
attempted. The returns on capital investment in ships were greatly improved, and the safety of sea
voyages enormously increased. By the end of the 13th century, Europe was beginning to
contemplate using oceanic sea-routes. In 1291, two members of a great Genoese merchant family,
the Vivaldi, led a well-equipped fleet through the Strait of Gibraltar to open the path to India
around Africa. The expedition perished, but technological advances by that time had reached such
a point that anticipation of Vasco da Gama's historic voyage around Africa in 1498 seemed not
impractical.
Arts and Crafts

Warfare, agriculture, and transport then advanced technologically during the Middle Ages;
what of industry?
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There is no firm evidence that the water mill was applied in Europe (as distinct from China)
to any task save the grinding of grain until about 1000 A.D. The early 9th-century plan of the
abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland may indicate water-powered triphammers, but both their
identification and their use is uncertain. About the turn of the millennium, however, it is clear that
such devices were being employed for fulling cloth, forging metal, and several other industrial
processes. Thanks to the same inventions which facilitated hauling, the horse-mill, in which an
animal walking in circles turned a vertical shaft to which various types of machinery could be
attached, also spread widely and with many applications. Shortly before 1185 the horizontal-axle
windmill was invented in the North Sea region, and within seven years it had spread as far as Syria.
In the 10th century, vertical-axle windmills, perhaps inspired by Tibetan wind-driven prayer
cylinders, had been used in Afghanistan, but these were never diffused in Islam. The windmill was
particularly useful in those regions where the flow of streams was so sluggish that water mills were
unsatisfactory, or where rainfall was so scanty that streams were scarce. In the 1320's a monk
complained that England was being deforested partly because of the search for long timbers for
windmill vanes: clearly he lived in a society vividly exploiting power machinery and labor saving
devices.
Machine design was also progressing. While the crank had been known in China since the
Han dynasty, it first appeared in Europe in the early 9th century, and by the 12th it had wide
application. The compound crank, a combination of the crank and connecting-rod which allows
the conversion of continuous rotary motion to reciprocating motion, and vice versa, appeared in
1335. Cams, although known in antiquity, were first generally used in the triphammer machines of
the 11th century; the groove cam is first found in the 1480's. The flywheel as a regulator of rotary
motion in machines is recorded in the 12th century, but, strangely, the pendulum to regulate
reciprocating motion is not observable for another 300 years. The earliest machine having two
correlated motion is shown c. 1235 in a notebook of the French engineer Villard de Honnecourt:
a water-driven sawmill which, in addition to the reciprocating action of the saw, provides a rotary
feed to keep the log pressed against the saw. The first belt-transmission of power came about 1280
in the earliest spinning wheel, at Speyer, Germany. The 14th century saw an astonishing
development of gearing, culminating in 1364 in Giovanni de' Dondi's great planetarium clock. The
five centuries following 1000 A.D. greatly elaborated the methods of harnessing and utilizing
mechanical power.
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The Diffusion of Technology

The spread of technology in the Middle Ages, as in modern times, knew no geographical
barriers. There was nothing self-contained about medieval technology. Norsemen who settled in
Greenland taught the Eskimos to make cooperage, and European merchants in the Far East--in
the early 14th century the Franciscans maintained a hospice for them in Amoy--showed the
Chinese how to distill liquor, an Italian invention of the 12th century. On the western coast of
India the crossbow was considered a Frankish weapon and even in the 15th century a Persian poet
knew that eyeglasses--discovered in Tuscany in the 1280's--were European in origin. On their part
the Westerners avidly absorbed every item which seemed useful. From sub-Saharan Africa they
took sorghum for their fields and the Guinea fowl for their barnyards; buckwheat was brought in
from Central Asia by 1396.
Even the distant East Indies made their contribution, thanks to the perennial spice trade.
During the 10th century the Javanese fiddle bow reached Europe and eventually became the most
important item in Western instrumental music. In the early 15th century the blow-gun arrived,
bringing its Malay name with it. Shortly it stimulated interest in air guns, and the air gun, together
with the suction pump (an early 15th-century invention), was the chief stimulus to the scientific
study of air pressures and vacua .
The Technological Progress of the Middle Ages

It has often been said that the greatest of inventions is the idea of invention itself. The
European mind first grasped invention as a total project in the later 13th century. For example, at
that time the idea of perpetual motion reached Europe from India, and we know that at least two
groups were struggling to make perpetual-motion machines. A contemporary Italian surgeon
remarks that for the extraction of arrows "every day a new instrument and a new method is
invented." The program for producing a weight-driven clock was clearly formulated by about 1271,
although the task seems to have required another sixty years or more. Once it was accomplished,
a technician in Milan immediately built weight-driven grain mills on the analogy of the new clocks.
As early as 1260 Friar Roger Bacon was looking forward to an age of flying machines,
motor boats, submarines, and automobiles. He did not know how all of this was going to be
accomplished, but he was confident that it could be done. Not only in its gadgetry but also in its
mentality, the later Middle Ages provided the foundation for the subsequent structure of European
technology.
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Thus the conventional picture of the Middle Ages as a pause in mankind's struggle to
conquer environment is inaccurate. Far from stagnating, medieval technology produced a
revolution in man's use of energy resources, through the development of water wheels, windmills,
and horse-traction; it transformed the art of war by the new power it gave to cavalry and by the
development of military fortifications; it increased man's capacity to wrest a living from nature by
the use of the heavy-wheeled plow and the three-field system of agriculture; it enabled man to sail
afar on the seas through improvements in ships and navigation; and it devised new tools and
combinations of tools to make work easier. Above all, it offered a new outlook toward
technological innovation, which prepared the way for the mechanical devices of the following
period of Western history, known as the Renaissance.
Sketch a castle below as if you were looking down on it from above. Label all the
rooms and key parts. Think about what you’d need in it to survive.
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Draw the front gate of your castle below
Describe your castle’s defenses. Include where it is located. Explain any unique defenses or traps.
Explain anything that isn’t shown clearly in your sketch.
Explain how an attack by an army of 1000 knights and 100 archers would be stopped by your
defenses.
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Lesson 6
Pre Colonial Philippines
Objective • Discuss the events during the Pre-colonial Philippines

s:
• Relate the important events of the Pre-colonial Philippines to current events.
Draw a Philippine village before it was colonized by other countries in the space
Activity:
below.
Analysis If the Philippines was not colonized, do you think it would be better or the same
:
as it is now? Explain your answer in the space below.
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A HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE PHILIPPINES

by Olivia C. Caoili
Paper prepared for the University of the Philippines Science Research Foundation in connection with its project on
"Analysis of Conditions for National Scientific and Technological Self-Reliance: The Philippine Situation," June 1986.
Introduction
The need to develop a country's science and technology has generally been
recognized as one of the imperatives of socioeconomic progress in the contemporary world. This
has become a widespread concern of governments especially since the post world war II years.(1)
Among Third World countries, an important dimension of this concern is the problem of
dependence in science and technology as this is closely tied up with the integrity of their political
sovereignty and economic self-reliance. There exists a continuing imbalance between scientific and
technological development among contemporary states with 98 per cent of all research and
development facilities located in developed countries and almost wholly concerned with the latter's
problems.(2) Dependence or autonomy in science and technology has been a salient issue in
conferences sponsored by the United Nations.(3)
It is within the above context that this paper attempts to examine the history of science
and technology in the Philippines. Rather than focusing simply on a straight chronology of events,
it seeks to interpret and analyze the interdependent effects of geography, colonial trade, economic
and educational policies and socio-cultural factors in shaping the evolution of present Philippine
science and technology.
As used in this paper, science is concerned with the systematic understanding and
explanation of the laws of nature. Scientific activity centers on research, the end result of which is
the discovery or production of new knowledge.(4) This new knowledge may or may not have any
direct or immediate application.
In comparison, technology has often been understood as the "systematic knowledge of the
industrial arts."(5) As this knowledge was implemented by means of techniques, technology has
become commonly taken to mean both the knowledge and the means of its utilization, that is, "a
body, of knowledge about techniques."(6) Modern technology also involves systematic research but
its outcome is more concrete than science, i.e. the production of "a thing, a chemical, a process,
something to be bought and sold."(7)
In the past, science and technology developed separately, with the latter being largely a
product of trial and error in response to a particular human need. In modern times, however, the
progress of science and technology have become intimately linked together. Many scientific
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discoveries have been facilitated by the development of new technology. New scientific knowledge
in turn has often led to further refinement of existing technology or the invention of entirely new
ones.
Precolonial Science and Technology

There is a very little reliable written information about Philippine society, culture and
technology before the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521.(8) As such, one has to reconstruct a picture
of this past using contemporary archaeological findings, accounts by early traders and foreign
travelers, and the narratives about conditions in the archipelago which were written by the first
Spanish missionaries and colonial officials. According to these sources, there were numerous,
scattered, thriving, relatively self-sufficient and autonomous communities long before the
Spaniards arrived. The early Filipinos had attained a generally simple level of technological
development, compared with those of the Chinese and Japanese, but this was sufficient for their
needs at that period of time.
Archaeological findings indicate that modern men (homo sapiens) from the Asian
mainland first came over-land and across narrow channels to live in Palawan and Batangas around
50,000 years ago. For about 40,000 years, they made simple tools or weapons of stone flakes but
eventually developed techniques for sawing, drilling and polishing hard stones. These Stone Age
inhabitants, subsequently formed settlements in the major Philippine islands such as Sulu,
Mindanao (Zamboanga, and Davao), Negros, Samar, Luzon (Batangas, Laguna, Rizal, Bulacan and
the Cagayan region). By about 3,000 B.C., they were producing adzes ornaments of seashells and
pottery of various designs. The manufacture of pottery subsequently became well developed and
flourished for about 2,000 years until it came into competition with imported Chinese porcelain.
Thus over time pottery making declined. What has survived of this ancient technology is the lowest
level, i.e., the present manufacture of the ordinary cooking pot among several local communities.(9)
Gradually, the early Filipinos learned to make metal tools and implements -- copper, gold,
bronze and, later, iron. The iron age is considered to have lasted from the second or third century
B.C. to the tenth century A.D. Excavations of Philippine graves and work sites have yielded iron
slags. These suggest that Filipinos during this period engaged in the actual extraction of iron from
ore, smelting and refining. But it appears that the iron industry, like the manufacture of pottery,
did not survive the competition with imported cast iron from Sarawak and much later, from
China.(10)
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By the first century A.D., Filipinos were weaving cotton, smelting iron, making pottery
and glass ornaments and were also engaged in agriculture. Lowland rice was cultivated in diked
fields, and in the interior mountain regions as in the Cordillera, in terraced fields which utilized
spring water.(11)
Filipinos had also learned to build boats for the coastal trade. By the tenth century A.D.,
this had become a highly developed technology. In fact, the early Spanish chroniclers took note of
the refined plank-built warship called caracoa. These boats were well suited for inter-island trade
raids. The Spaniards later utilized Filipino expertise in boat-building and seamanship to fight the
raiding Dutch, Portuguese, Muslims and the Chinese pirate Limahong as well as to build and man
the galleons that sailed to Mexico.(12)
By the tenth century A.D., the inhabitants of Butuan were trading with Champa (Vietnam);
those of Ma-i (Mindoro) with China. Chinese records with have now been translated contain a lot
of references to the Philippines. These indicate that regular trade relations between the two
countries had been well established during the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. Archaeological
findings (in various parts of the archipelago) of Chinese porcelains made during this period support
this contention. From the Sung (960-1278) and Yuan (1260-1368) Dynasties, there are descriptions
of trade with the Philippines, and from the Sung and Ming (1360-1644) Dynasties there are notices
of Filipino missions to Peking.(13)
The most frequently cited Chinese account in Philippine history textbooks is that of Chao
Ju-Kua in 1225. He described the communities and trading activities in the islands of Ma-i
(Mindoro) and San-hsu (literally three islands which present-day historians think refer to the group
of Palawan and Calamian Islands).(14) The people of Ma-i and San-hsu traded beeswax, cotton, true
pearls, tortoise shell, medicinal betelnuts, yu-ta cloth (probably jute or ramie?) and coconut heart
mats for Chinese porcelain, iron pots, lead fishnet sinkers, colored glass beads, iron needles and
tin. These were practically the same commodities of trade between the islands and China which
the first Spanish colonial officials recorded when they came to the Philippines more than two
centuries later.(15)
The Filipinos in Mindanao and Sulu traded with Borneo, Malacca and parts of the Malay
peninsula. This trade seems to have antedated those with the Chinese. By the time the Spaniards
reached the archipelago, these trade relations had been firmly established such that the alliance
between the rulers of manila and Brunei had become strengthened by marriage. It was through
these contacts that Hindu-Buddhist, Malay-Sanskrit and Arab-Muslim Cultural and technological
influences spread to the Philippines. There have also been some references (by early travelers
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during the precolonial period) to trade relations between Japan and the Philippines. To date
however, Philippine historians have not found any prehispanic references to the Philippines in
Japanese literature of the period. (16)
By the time the Spaniards came to colonies the Philippines in 1565, they found many
scattered, autonomous village communities (called barangays) all over the archipelago. These were
kinship groups or social units rather than political units. They were essentially subsistence
economies producing mainly what they needed.
These communities exhibited uneven technological development. Settlements along the
coastal areas which had been exposed to foreign trade and cultural contacts such as Manila,
Mindoro, Cebu, Southern Mindanao and Sulu, seem to have attained a more sophisticated
technology. In 1570, for example, the Spaniards found the town of Mindoro "fortified by a stone
wall over fourteen feet thick," and defended by armed Moros -- "bowmen, lancers, and some
gunners, linstocks in hand." There were a "large number of culverins" all along the hillside of the
town. They found Manila similarly defended by a palisade along its front with pieces of artillery at
its gate. The house of Raja Soliman (which was burned down by Spaniards) reportedly contained
valuable articles of trade -- "money, copper, iron, porcelain, blankets, wax, cotton and wooden
vats full of brandy." Next to his house was a storehouse which contained:
much iron and copper; as well as culverins and cannons which had melted.
Some small and large cannon had just begun. There were the clay and wax
moulds, the largest of which was for a cannon seventeen feet long, resembling
a culverin... (17)
These reports indicate that the Filipinos in Manila had learned to make and use modern
artillery. The Spanish colonizers noted that all over the islands, Filipinos were growing rice,
vegetables and cotton; raising swine, goats and fowls; making wine, vinegar and salt; weaving cloth
and producing beeswax and honey. The Filipinos were also mining gold in such places as Panay,
Mindoro and Bicol. They wore colorful clothes, made their own gold jewelry and even filled their
teeth with gold. Their houses were made of wood or bamboo and nipa. They had their own system
of writing,(18) and weights and measures. Some communities had become renowned for their plank-
built boats. They had no calendar but counted the years by moons and from one harvest to
another.
In the interior and mountain settlements, many Filipinos were still living as hunters. They
gathered forest products to trade with the lowland and coastal settlements. But they also made
"iron lance-points, daggers and certain small tools used in transplanting."(19)
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On the whole, the pre-colonial Filipinos were still highly superstitious. The Spaniards
found no temples or places of worship. Although the Filipinos knew how to read and write in their
own system, this was mainly used for messages and letters. They seem not to have developed a
written literary tradition at that time.(20) This would have led to a more systematic accumulation
and dissemination of knowledge, a condition that is necessary for the development of science and
technology. Because of the abundance of natural resources, a benign environment and generally
sparse population, there seemed to have been little pressure for invention and innovation among
the early Filipinos. As governor Francisco de Sande observed in 1575, the Filipinos
do not understand any kind of work, unless it be to do something actually
necessary -- such as to build their houses, which are made of stakes after their
fashion; to fish, according to their method; to row, and perform the duties of
sailors; and to cultivate the land... (21)
Developments in Science and Technology During the Spanish Regime

The beginnings of modern science and technology in the Philippines can be traced to the
Spanish regime. The Spaniards established schools, hospitals and started scientific research and
these had important consequences for the rise of the country's professions. But the direction and
pace of development of science and technology were greatly shaped by the role of the religious
orders in the conquest and colonization of the archipelago and by economic and trade adopted by
the colonial government.
The interaction of these forces and the resulting socio-economic and political changes
must, therefore, be analyzed in presenting a history of science and technology in the Philippines.
Spanish conquest and the colonization of the archipelago was greatly facilitated by the
adoption of an essentially religious strategy which had earlier been successfully used in Latin
America. Known as reduccion, it required the consolidation of the far-flung, scattered barangay
communities into fewer, larger and more compact settlements within the hearing distance of the
church bells. This was a necessary response to the initial shortage of Spanish missionaries in the
Philippines. This policy was carried out by a combination of religious conversion and military
force.
The net result of reduccion was the creation of towns and the foundation of the present
system of local government. The precolonial ruling class, the datus and their hereditary successors,
were adopted by the Spanish colonial government into this new system to serve as the heads of
the lowest level of local government; i.e. as cabezas de barangay. The colonial authorities found the
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new set-up expeditious for establishing centralized political control over the archipelago -- for the
imposition and collection of the tribute tax, enforcement of compulsory labor services among the
native Filipinos, and implementation of the compulsory sale of local products to the government.
The Filipinos naturally resisted reduccion as it took them away from their rice fields, the
streams and the forests which were their traditional sources of livelihood and also subjected them
to the onerous economic exactions by the colonial government. Thus the first century of Spanish
rule brought about serious socio-economic dislocation and a decline kin agricultural production
and traditional crafts in many places. In the region surrounding the walled city of Manila, Filipinos
migrated from their barangays to the city in order to serve in the convents and thus avoid the
compulsory labor services in the shipyards and forests.(22) Over the centuries, this population
movement would greatly contribute to the congestion of Manila and its suburbs.
The religious orders likewise played a major role in the establishment of the colonial
educational system in the Philippines. They also influenced the development of technology and
promotion of scientific research. hence, these roles must next be examined.
Various decrees were issued in Spain calling for the establishment of a school system in
the colony but these were not effectively carried out.(23) Primary instruction during the Spanish
regime was generally taken care of by the missionaries and parish priests in the villages and towns.
Owing to the dearth of qualified teachers, textbooks and other instructional materials, primary
instruction was mainly religious education. Higher education was provided by schools set up by
the different religious orders in the urban centers, most of them in Manila. For example, the Jesuits
founded in Cebu City the Colegio de San Ildefonso (1595) and in Manila, the Colegio de San
Ignacio (1595), the Colegio de San Jose (1601) and the Ateneo de Manila (1859). The Dominicans
had the Colegio de San Juan de Letran (1640) in Manila.(24) Access to these schools was, however,
limited to the elite of the colonial society -- the European-born and local Spaniards, the mestizos
and a few native Filipinos. Courses leading to the B.A. degree, Bachiller en Artes, were given which
by the nineteenth century included science subjects such as physics, chemistry, natural history and
mathematics.(25)
On the whole, however, higher education was pursued for the priesthood or for clerical
positions in the colonial administration. It was only during the latter part of the nineteenth century
that technical/vocational schools were established by the Spaniards.(26)
Throughout the Spanish regime, the royal and pontifical University of Santo Tomas
remained as the highest institution of learning.(27) Run by the Dominicans, it was established as a
college in 1611 by Fray Miguel de Benavides. it initially granted degrees in theology, philosophy
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and humanities.(28) During the eighteenth century, the faculty of jurisprudence and canonical law
was established. In 1871, the schools of medicine and pharmacy were opened. From 1871 to 1886,
the University of Snato Tomas granted the degree of Licenciado en Medicina to 62 graduates.(29)
For the doctorate degree in medicine, at least an additonal year of study was required at the
Universidad Central de Madrid in Spain.
The study of pharmacy consisted of a preparatory course with subjects in natural history
and general chemistry and five years of studies in subjects such as pharmaceutical operations at
the school of pharmacy. At the end of this period of the degree of Bachiller en Farmacia was
granted. The degree of licentiate in pharmacy, which was equivalent to a master's degree, was
granted after two years of practice in a pharmacy, one of which could be taken simultaneously with
the academic courses after the second year course of study. In 1876, the university granted the
bachelor's degree in pharmacy to its first six graduates in the school of pharmacy. Among them
was Leon Ma. Guerrero, who is usually referred to as the "Father of Philippine Pharmacy" because
of his extensive work on the medicinal plants of the Philippines and their uses(30) The total number
of graduates in pharmacy during the Spanish period was 164.(31)
There were no schools offering engineering at that time. The few who studied engineering
had to go to Europe. There was a Nautical School created on 1 January 1820 which offered a four-
year course of study (for the profession of pilot of merchant marine) that included subjects as
arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, hydrography, meteorology, navigation and
pilotage.(32) A School of Commercial Accounting and a School of French and English Languages
were established in 1839.(33)
In 1887, the Manila School of Agriculture was created by royal decree but it was able to
open only in July 1889. The School was designed to provide theoretical and practical education of
skilled farmers and overseers and to promote agricultural development in the Philippines by means
of observation, experiment and investigation. Agricultural stations were also established in Isabela,
Ilocos, Albay, Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and parts of Mindanao. The professors in the School were
agricultural engineers. The School was financed by the government, but it appears that its direction
was also left to the priests. The certificates of completion of the course were awarded by the
university of Santo Tomas or the Ateneo Municipal. It seems that the School was not successful
as Filipinos did not show much inclination for industrial pursuits. (34)
In 1863, the colonial authorities issued a royal decree designed to reform the existing
educational system in the country. It provided for the establishment of a system of elementary,
secondary and collegiate schools, teacher-training schools, and called for government supervision
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of these schools. The full implementation of this decree, however, was interrupted by the coming
of the Americans in 1898.
Higher education during the Spanish regime was generally viewed with suspicion and
feared by the colonial authorities as encouraging conspiracy and rebellion among the native
Filipinos. For this reason, only the more daring and persevering students were able to undertake
advantaged studies. The attitude of the Spanish friars towards the study of the sciences and
medicine was even more discouraging. As one Rector of the University of Santo Tomas in the
1960s said: "Medicine and the natural sciences are materialistic and impious studies."(35) It was not
surprising, therefore, that few Filipinos ventured to study these disciplines. Those who did were
poorly trained when compared with those who had gone to European universities. Science courses
at the University of Santo Tomas were taught by the lecture/recitation method. Laboratory
equipment was limited and only displayed for visitors to see. There was little or no training in
scientific research.(36) Sir John Bowring, the British Governor of Hongkong who made an official
visit to the Philippines in the 1850s wrote:
Public instruction is in an unsatisfactory state in the Philippines--the provisions
are little changed from those of the monkish ages. In the University of Santo
Tomas... no attention is given to the natural sciences... nor have any of the
educational reforms which have penetrated most of the colleges of Europe and
America found their way to the Philippines.(37)
In spite of the small number of Filipino graduates from the UST in medicine and the
sciences they still faced the problem of unemployment. This was because the colonial government
preferred to appoint Spanish and other European-trained professionals to available positions in
the archipelago.(38) Many of these graduates later joined the revolutionary movement against Spain.
With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the consequent ease in travel and
communications that it brought about, the liberal ideas and scientific knowledge of the West also
reached the Philippines. The prosperity that resulted from increased commerce between the
Philippines and the rest of the world enabled Filipino students to go to Europe for professional
advanced studies. These included Jose Rizal who was able to pursue studies in Medicine and
specialize in ophthalmology in Spain and Germany; Graciano Apacible who studied medicine in
Madrid; Antonio Luna who obtained his Ph.D. in pharmacy in Madrid and later worked with
renowned scientists in Ghent and Paris; (39) Jose Alejandrino who took up engineering in Belgium,
and others. It was this group of students which set up the Propaganda Movement in Europe that
eventually led to the Philippine revolution against Spain.
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The religious orders provided most of the teaching force and institutions of learning in the
colony. This was similar to the situation that had earlier prevailed in Europe (where they had come
from) during the medieval ages. Inevitably, members of the religious orders also took the lead in
technological innovation and scientific research. This involvement invariably arose from their need
to provide for basic necessities as they went around the archipelago to perform their missionary
work of propagating the Catholic faith and to finance the colleges, hospitals and orphanages that
they had established.
The Spaniards introduced the technology of town planning and building with stones, brick
and tiles. In many places, the religious (such as Bishop Salazar in Manila) personally led in these
undertakings.(40) Because of the lack of skilled Filipinos in these occupations, the Spaniards had to
import Chinese master builders, artisans and masons. The native Filipinos were drafted, through
the institution of compulsory labor services, to work on these projects. In this manner, the
construction of the walls of Manila, its churches, convents, hospitals, schools and public buildings
were completed by the seventeenth century.(41)
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the religious orders had established several
charity hospitals in the archipelago and in fact provided the bulk of this public service. These
hospitals became the setting for rudimentary scientific work during the Spanish regime long before
the establishment of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) college of medicine. Research in these
institutions were confined to pharmacy and medicine and concentrated on the problems of
infections diseases, their causes and possible remedies.(42) Several Spanish missionaries observed,
catalogued and wrote about Philippine plants, particularly those with medicinal properties. The
most notable of these was Father Fernando de Sta. Maria's Manual de Medicinas Caseras published
in 1763 which was so in demand that it had undergone several editions by 1885.(43)
By the second half of the nineteenth century, studies of infectious diseases such as
smallpox,(44) cholera, bubonic plague, dysentery, leprosy and malaria were intensified with the
participation of graduates of medicine and pharmacy from UST.(45) At this time, native Filipinos
began to participate in scientific research. In 1887, the Laboratorio Municipal de Ciudad de Manila
was created by decree. Its main functions were to conduct biochemical analyses for public health
and to undertake specimen examinations for clinical and medico-legal cases. It had a publication
called Cronica de Ciencias Medicas de Filipinas showing scientific studies being done during that
time.(46)
There was very little development in Philippine agriculture and industry during the first
two centuries of Spanish rule. This was largely due to the dependence of the Spanish colonizers
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on the profits from the Galleon or Manila-Acapulco trade, which lasted from 1565 to 1813. It was
actually based on the trade with China which antedated Spanish rule.(47) The galleons brought to
Latin America Chinese goods -- silk and other cloths, porcelain and the like -- and brought back
to Manila Mexican silver. When the Spanish and Portuguese thrones were united from 1581 to
1640, goods brought to Manila by ships from Japan and Portuguese ships from Siam, India,
Malacca, Borneo and Cambodia were also carried by the galleons to Mexico.(48) During the this
time, Manila prospered as the entrepot of the Orient.
The Filipinos hardly benefited from the Galleon trade. Direct participation in the trade
was limited to Spanish inhabitants of Manila who were given shares of lading space in the galleons.
Many of them simply speculated on these trading rights and lived off on their profits. It was the
Chinese who profited most from the trade. They acted as the trade's packers, middlemen, retailers
and also provided services and other skills which the Spanish community in Intramuros needed.(49)
Spanish preoccupation with the Manila Galleon eventually led to the neglect of agriculture
and mining and the decline of native handicrafts and industries in the Philippines. The deleterious
effects of the trade on the archipelago's domestic economy had been pointed out by some Spanish
officials as early as 1592.(50) But this seems to have been largely ignored by colonial policy-makers.
Only the local shipbuilding industry continued to prosper because of necessity -- to build the
galleons and other ships required for internal commerce and the defense of the archipelago. This
had become quite well developed according to a French visitor in the nineteenth century. He
observed:
In many provinces shipbuilding is entirely in the hands of the natives. The
excellence of their work is proof that they are perfectly capable of undertaking
the study of abstruse sciences and that mathematical equations are by no means
(51)
beyond their comprehension
Agricultural development was left to the resident Chinese and the Spanish friars. The latter
saw in the cultivation of their large estates around Manila a steady source of financial support for
their churches, colleges, hospitals and orphanages in Intramuros. The friar estates profited from
the expanding domestic food market as a result of the population growth of Manila and its
suburbs.(52) But the friars contribution in the development of existing agricultural technology was
more of quantitative than qualitative in nature. (53) The profitability of their estates was largely
derived from the intensive exploitation of native technology and their free compulsory personal
services.
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Successive shipwrecks of and piratical attacks on the galleons to Mexico led to declining
profits from the trade and triggered an economic depression in Manila during the latter part of the
seventeenth century(54) This situation was aggravated by increasing restrictions on the goods carried
by the Manila Galleon as a consequence of opposition coming from Andalusion merchants and
mercantilists in Spain.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Bourbon dynasty ascended to the Spanish
throne and brought with it political and economic ideas of the French Enlightenment. This paved
the way for more government attention to the economic development of the Philippines.
Enterprising Spaniards began to exploit the mineral wealth of the islands, develop its agriculture,
and establish industries. These efforts were further encouraged by the need to promote economic
recovery after the British Occupation of Manila in 1762-1764.(55)
Research in agriculture and industry was encouraged by the founding of the Real Sociedad
Economica de los Amigos del Pais de Filipinas (Royal Economic Society of Friends of the
Philippines) by Governador Jose Basco y Vargas under authority of a royal decree of 1780.
Composed of private individuals and government officials, the Society functioned somewhat like
the European learned societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a modern
National Research Council, (56) It undertook the promotion of the cultivation of indigo, cotton,
cinnamon, and pepper and the development of the silk industry. During the nineteenth century, it
was endowed with funds which it used to provide prizes for successful experiments and inventions
for the improvement of agriculture and industry: to finance the publication of scientific and
technical literature, trips of scientists from Spain to the Philippines, professorships; and to provide
scholarships to Filipinos.(57)
In 1789, Manila was opened to Asian shipping. This inaugurated an era of increasing
Philippine exports of rice, hemp, sugar, tobacco, indigo and others and rising imports of
manufactured goods.(58) In 1814, Manila was officially opened to world trade and commerce;
subsequently other Philippine ports were opened.
Foreign capital was allowed to operate on an equal footing with Spanish merchants in
1829. By this means agricultural production particularly of sugar and hemp, was accelerated and
modernized. Local industries flourished in Manila and its suburbs -- weaving, embroidery,
hatmaking, carriage manufacture, rope-making, cigar and cigarettes-making.(59) Much of the
finished products of these industries were exported. Yet although Philippine exports kept rising
during the nineteenth century, imports of manufactured goods also rose and foreign, particularly
English capital dominated external trade and commerce.(60) This partly because of short-sighted
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Spanish colonial trade policies and the relative inexperience and lack of capital of Spanish colonial
trade policies and the relative inexperience and lack of capital of Spanish and Filipino merchants.
The prosperity arising from expanded world trade and commerce in the nineteenth century
led to Manila's rapid development as a cosmopolitan center. Modern amenities -- a waterworks
system, steam tramways, electric lights, newspapers, a banking system -- were introduced into the
city by the latter half of the nineteenth century. (61) Undoubtedly, commercial needs led to the
Spanish governments establishment of a Nautical School, vocational schools and a School of
Agriculture during the nineteenth century. Various offices and commissions were also created by
the Spanish government to undertake studies and regulations of mines, research on Philippine
flora, agronomic research and teaching, geological research and chemical analysis of mienral waters
throughout the country.(62) However, little is known about the accomplishments of these scientific
bodies.
Meteorological studies were promoted by Jesuits who founded the Manila Observatory in
1865. The Observatory collected and made available typhoon and climatological observations.
These observations grew in number and importance so that by 1879, it became possible for Fr.
Federico Faura to issue the first public typhoon warning. The service was so highly appreciated by
the business and scientific communities that in April 1884, a royal decree made the Observatory
an official institution run by the Jesuits, and also established a network of meteorological stations
under it.(63) In 1901, the Observatory was made a central station of the Philippine Weather Bureau
which was set up by the American colonial authorities. It remained under the Jesuit scientists and
provided not only meteorological but also seismological and astronomical studies.
The benefits of economic development during the nineteenth century were unevenly
distributed in the archipelago. While Manila prospered and rapidly modernized, much of the
countryside remained underdeveloped and poor. The expansion of agricultural production for
export exacerbated existing socio-economic inequality, that had been cumulative consequence of
the introduction of land as private property at the beginning of Spanish rule. There was increasing
concentration of wealth among the large landowners -- the Spaniards, especially the religious
orders, the Spanish and Chinese mestizos, the native Principalia -- and poverty and landlessness
among the masses. This inequality, coupled with abuses and injustices committed by the Spanish
friars and officials gave rise to Philippine nationalism and eventually the Revolution of 1896.
At the end of the Spanish regime, the Philippines had evolved into a primary agricultural
exporting economy. Progress in agriculture had been made possible by some government support
for research and education in this field. But it was largely the entry of foreign capital and technology
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which brought about the modernization of some sectors, notably sugar and hemp production. The
lack of interest in and support for research and development of native industries like weaving, for
example, eventually led to their failure to survive the competition with foreign imports. Because
of necessity and the social prestige attached to university education, medicine and pharmacy
remained the most developed science-based professions during the Spanish regime.
Science and Technology During the First Republic

There was very little development in science and technology during the short-lived
Philippine Republic (1898-1900). The government took steps to establish a secular educational
system by a decree of 19 October 1898, it created the Universidad Literaria de Filipinas as a secular,
state-supported institution of higher learning. It offered courses in law, medicine, surgery,
pharmacy and notary public. During its short life, the University was able to hold graduation
exercises in Tarlac on 29 September 1899 when degrees in medicine and law were awarded.(64)
Developments in Science and Technology During the American Regime

Science and technology in the Philippines advanced rapidly during the American regime.
This was made possible by the simultaneous government encouragement and support for an
extensive public education system; the granting of scholarships for higher education in science and
engineering; the organization of science research agencies and establishment of science-based
public services.
The Americans introduced a system of secularized public school education as soon as civil
government was set up in the islands. On 21 January 1901, the Philippine Commission, which
acted as the executive and legislative body for the Philippines until 1907, promulgated Act No. 74
creating a Department of Public Instruction in the Philippines. It provided for the establishment
of schools that would give free primary education, with English as the medium of instruction. This
was followed by the setting up of a Philippine Normal School to train Filipino teachers. Secondary
schools were opened after a further enactment of the Philippine Commission in 1902. The
Philippine Medical School was established in 1905 and was followed by other professional and
technical schools. These were later absorbed into the University of the Philippines.
The colonial authorities initially adopted a coordinated policy for the promotion of higher
education in the sciences and government research institutions and agencies performing technical
functions. The University of the Philippines was created on 18 June 1908 by Act of the Philippine
Legislature. Among the first colleges to be opened were the College of Agriculture in Los Baños,
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Laguna in 1909, the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Engineering and Veterinary Medicine in 1910 and
the College of Law in 1911. By 1911, the University had an enrollment of 1,400 students, (65) Four
Years later, its enrollment had almost doubled (to 2,398) and the University included two new
units, a School of Pharmacy and a Graduate School of Tropical Medicine and Public Health.(66) In
1916, the School of Forestry and Conservatory of Music were established; and in 1918, the College
of Education was opened.
Except in the College of Medicine, where there were already a number of Filipino
physicians who were qualified to become its faculty members when it was opened in 1907, most
of the early instructors and professor in the sciences and engineering at the University of the
Philippines were Americans and other foreigners. Qualified Filipinos were sent abroad for
advanced training and by this means foreign faculty were gradually replaced by Filipinos. For
example, in 1920, Filipino Ph.D. graduates of U.S. universities took over the Department of
Agriculture Chemistry in the College of Agriculture. By December 1926, the university's
enrollment in all colleges had reached 6,464 and out of a total teaching staff of 463, only 44 were
Americans and other foreigners.(67)
Before 1910, the American colonial government encouraged young men and women to
get higher professional education as much as possible in American colleges. In 1903, the Philippine
commission passed an Act to finance the sending of 135 boys and girls of high school age to the
United States to be educated as teachers, engineers, physicians and lawyers.(68) One third of these
were chosen by the governor-general on a nation-wide basis and the rest by the provincial
authorities. In exchange for this privilege, the pensionados, as they came to be called, were to serve
in the public service for five years after their return from their studies. Between 1903 and 1912,
209 men and women were educated under this program in American schools. (69) After the
establishment of the University of the Philippines, scholarships for advanced studies of a scientific
or technical nature in American Universities were given only in preparation for assignment to jobs
in the public service.
The Philippine Commission introduced science subjects and industrial and vocational
education into the Philippine school system but they found that industrial and vocation courses
were very unpopular with the Filipinos. When the Manila Trade School was opened in 1901, the
school authorities found it difficult to get students to enroll in these courses. Because of their
almost 400 years of colonial experience under the Spaniards, middle class Filipinos had developed
a general disdain for manual work and a preference for the prestigious professions of the time,
namely, the priesthood, law and medicine. Education in these professions came to be regarded as
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the means of making the best of the limited opportunities in the Spanish colonial bureaucracy and
thus of rising from one's social class. Hence, even at the newly-opened University of the
Philippines, it was difficult to get students to enroll in courses which required field work such as,
for example, agriculture, veterinary medicine, engineering and other applied science. Scholarships
were thus offered by the government to attract a sufficient number of students to enroll in courses
that were needed to fill up the technical positions in the government service.(70)
In the field of medicine, the Philippine Commission provided for as many scholarships as
there were regularly organized provinces in the Islands. These were awarded by the school
departments after competitive examinations in the provinces.(71) A recipient of these scholarships
was required to return to the province from whence he came and to serve as a physician for as
many years as his medical education was paid for by the government. This policy was adopted not
only to assure the medical school a continuing supply of carefully selected students but also to
ensure a balanced geographical distribution of physicians in the different provinces and to
counteract their tendency to settle in the large urban areas.
Selected graduates of the schools of medicine and nursing were also sent on government
scholarship to universities in the United States for postgraduate courses and training in special
fields. In 1921, the Rockefeller foundation provided for six fellowships for qualified Filipinos in
universities in the United States and Europe, two each in the fields of public health (preventive
medicine), public health laboratory work and teacher training in nursing education.(72) Over several
years, the Foundation provided more than thirty of these fellowships and also financed shorter
observation trips of many other health officials.
It also greatly aided in the establishment and development of the Graduate School of
Public Health and Hygiene in the University of the Philippines. (73)
When the Bureau of Public Works was created in 1901, the Americans found that there
were no competent Filipino engineers, and American engineers had to be imported. As a
consequence, a special effort was made to attract Filipinos to pursue advanced studies leading to
careers as engineers. In many cases government financial assistance was provided to enable them
to complete their professional studies in the United States. Upon achieving their professional
qualifications they were employed as junior engineers in the Bureau of Public Works. Many of
them rapidly advanced in their positions. Their career progress can be seen from the fact that
whereas in 1913 there were only 18 Filipino engineers out of a total of 145 engineers in the Bureau
of Public Works, the rest being American; by the end of 1925, out of 190 engineers in the Bureau,
only 16 were Americans and 174 were Filipinos.(74)
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The establishment of the University of the Philippines satisfied the short-run needs for
professionally trained Filipinos in the colonial government's organization and programs. What the
authorities did not recognize was that by providing for an extensive public school system at the
elementary and secondary levels they had increased tremendously the social demand for
professional education. The University of the Philippines remained the only publicly-supported
institutions for higher education, and, since it could not meet the increasing social demand for
universities was left to the initiative of enterprising Filipinos. For many Filipinos, private education
became the alternative for professional education.
Many of the existing private nonsectarian universities were organized during the early
period of the American regime to help meet the increasing demand for professional education and
the country's need for trained manpower. At the same time, these schools remained distinctively
Filipino in orientation as they were conceived by their founders as a means to conserve the national
heritage and prevent the complete Americanization of the Filipinos.(75)
At the outset of the American regime, there was no definite government policy on private
schools. Because of the widespread disorganization that followed a more of these schools were set
up, government regulation and control was found necessary. The first attempt to regulate private
schools was through the Corporation Law (Act No. 1459) enacted by the Philippine Commission
in 1906. In effect, it treated the schools like commercial firms or business enterprises except that
they would be under the supervision of the Department of Public Instruction rather than the
Department of Trade and Industry.
In 1917, Act No. 2076 (Private School Act) was enacted by the Philippine Legislature. The
Act recognized private schools as educational institutions and not commercial ventures. It required
the Secretary of Public Instruction to "maintain a general standard of efficiency in all private
schools and colleges so that...(they shall) furnish adequate instruction to the public..." and
authorized him to "inspect and watch" these school and colleges. The supervision of these schools
was entrusted to a staff of four within the Department of Public Instruction -- a superintendent,
an assistant superintendent and two supervisors.
The number of private colleges increased rapidly. In 1925 a survey of the educational
system of the Island was authorized Survey which was headed by Paul Monroe made a
comprehensive investigation of all public and private institutions of learning in the country. The
Monroe Survey found most private schools substandard. It reported that most of these were
physically ill equipped and with more part-time than full-time faculty members. Among the private
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colleges and universities, it found out that: "The equipment of all these institutions is owefully
inadequate, the laboratory for the teaching of science being but a caricature of the real thing"(77)
As a consequence of the findings of the Monroe Survey, the Government took steps to
improve the machinery for the supervision of private schools. The Philippine Legislature created
the Office of Private Education to look into such matters as physical plant, school facilities,
libraries, laboratory equipment and student load, and administrative work such as enforcement of
relevant government regulations, evaluating credits taken by students, managing admission of
foreign students and the like. As a result of the increased outlay for supervision of private schools,
their standard were improved.
During the American regime, the development of science gained more government
support along with efforts to establish an old extensive public school system and public health
programs. The old Laboratorio Municipal was absorbed by the Bureau of Government
Laboratories created by the Philippine Commission in 1901. In 1905, the latter was reorganized
and renamed Bureau of Science. It remained the principal government research establishment until
the end of the second World War. It had a biological laboratory, a chemical laboratory, a serum
laboratory for the production of vaccine virus, serums and prophylactics, a library. Most of the
senior scientists in the Bureau were initially Americans but as Filipinos acquired the necessary
training, they gradually took over their positions.(78)
The Bureau of Science served as a valuable training ground for Filipino scientists. (79) It
performed the needed chemical and biological examinations for the Philippine General Hospital
and Bureau of Health and manufactured the serums and prophylactics needed by the latter.
Pioneering research was done at the Bureau of Science on such diseases as leprosy, tuberculosis,
cholera, dengue fever, malaria and beri-beri. Results of these studies were readily available to the
Bureau of Health for use in its various programs.(80) Studies on the commercial value of tropical
products, tests of Philippine minerals and roadbuilding materials, the nutritional value of foods,
and other were similarly done at the Bureau of Science. From 1906, it published the Philippine
Journal of Science which reported not only work done in local laboratories but also scientific
developments abroad which had relevance to Philippine problems.(81)
The American colonial authorities organized other offices which, by the nature of their
operations, contributed further to the growth of scientific research. These were the Weather
Bureau (1901), the Board (later Bureau) of Health (1898), Bureau of Mines (1900), Bureau of
Forestry (1900), Bureau of Agriculture (1901), Bureau of Coast and Geodetic Survey (1905),
Bureau of Plant Industry (1929) and Bureau of Animal Industry (1929) (82) From 1927, there were
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proposals from professional societies for the creation of a National Medical Research Council and
a National Research Council similar to those in the United States, Canada, and Australia.(83) The
Philippine Legislature passed an Act in 1933 creating the National Research Council of the
Philippine Islands (NRCP).(84) Aside from working for the promotion of scientific research, the
NRCP actively participated in the deliberations and drafting of provisions affecting science and
industry in the 1934 Constitutional Convention.
Educational and science policy during the American regime was not coordinated with
colonial economic policy. While Filipinos were provided opportunities for higher education in the
sciences and engineering, the economy remained basically agricultural. To a great extent, Philippine
economic development was determined by free trade relations established in 1909 between the
Philippines and the United States,(85) and these continued long after independence was achieved in
1946.(86) As a result of this policy, the Philippine economy became tied to that of the United States,
remaining primarily an exporter of agricultural crops and raw materials and an importer of
American manufactured goods.(87) Undoubtedly this delayed Philippine industrialization.(88) The
relative underdevelopment of the physical sciences vis-a-vis the medical and agricultural sciences
may be traced to this policy. Basic and applied research in the medical, agricultural and related
sciences received much greater government support during the American regime than did
industrial research.(89)
Science and Technology During the Commonwealth Period

In 1935, the Philippine Commonwealth was inaugurated and ushered in a period of
transition to political independence. The Constitution acknowledged the importance of promoting
scientific development for the economic development of the country by incorporating a provision
(Article XIII, Section 4) declaring that "The State shall promote scientific research and invention,
Arts and Letters shall be under its patronage..."
The government, which was by this time completely under Filipino management,
continued to expand its public school system to accommodate the increasing number of
schoolchildren. The Government abolished Grade VII as the terminal grade in the elementary
curriculum and also instituted the "double-single session" plan thus reducing the time allotment
or dropping certain subjects in the elementary school. (90) The government also enacted
Commonwealth Act No. 180 (13 November 1936) reestablishing the Office of Private Education
which had been abolished in 1932.
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On the whole, higher education was provided mainly by the private sector. By 1936, there
were 425 private schools recognized by the government, 64 of which we institutions at the College
level and 7 were universities. These were Centro Escolar University, Far Easter University,
National University, Philippine Women's University, Silliman University, University of Manila and
the University of Santo Tomas. Together with the University of the Philippines these had a total
of 19,575 college students in all universities in the country.(91) The combined significant increase
in trained scientists and engineers in the Philippines before the Second World War.
The Commonwealth government worked towards the development of economic self-
reliance which would be necessary to sustain genuine political independence. It created the
National Economic Council to prepare an economic program and advise the government on
economic and financial questions. Several government corporations were reorganized and new
ones were created to perform such varied functions as the exploitation and development of natural
resources (e.g., the National Power Corporation); the development and promotion of local
industries (such as the National Development Company (NDC) and its subsidiaries, the National
Abaca and Other Fibers Corporation); promotion of agricultural production and marketing; and
the like. The NDC was especially mandated to undertake the development of successful researches
of government science agencies (such as the Bureaus of Science, Animal Industry and Plant
Industry) for commercial production.
The Commonwealth government likewise adopted measures to encourage and provide
assistance to private Filipino businessmen in the establishment of industries and manufacturing
enterprises. For example, it created new agencies, such as the Bureau of Mines, to provide
assistance to businessmen undertaking mining exploration and development. It also increased
appropriations for the Bureaus of Science, Plant and Animal Industry, and thereby encouraged
more scientific research for industrial purposes.
In spite of all these efforts, the Commonwealth government was unable to achieve its goal
of economic self-reliance.(92) This was primarily because foreign trade and tariff policies remained
under the control of the American government. Free trade relations also continued and thus
perpetuated the preferential treatment of exports of agricultural raw materials. Moreover, the
Pacific War broke out in 1941 and the Philippines was occupied by Japanese troops.
The occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese during the War brought educational
and scientific activities practically to a halt as able bodied citizens joined the resistance movement.
Worse still, much of the country was reduced to ruins during the battles fought for the liberation
in 1944-45. Manila, which was the center of all educational and scientific activities, was razed to
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the ground, destroying everything that had been built up before. It was in this condition that the
Philippines became an independent state. The government had to contend with economic
reconstruction, normalization of operations as well as the task of planning the direction of
economic development.
Science and Technology Since Independence

The underlying pattern of education and training of scientists, engineers and physicians
established during the America regime, as well as the direction of government support for scientific
research and development, has basically remained unchanged since independence in 1946. State
support for education continues to be concentrated at the elementary school level; private colleges
and universities provide education for the majority of the collegiate population.
The number of state universities and colleges has been increasing since 1946. However,
their growth has not been based on a rational plan. Partisan political considerations often
determined the creation, location and staffing of these institutions. Hence, many of them were ill-
equipped and ill-prepared to provide quality higher education particularly in the sciences and
engineering. State universities and colleges vary in standards arising largely from the uneven
distribution of faculty development programs. The University of the Philippines System remains
the most developed with extensive graduate and undergraduate degree programs in the sciences
and engineering. It receives over half of the national budget for state universities and colleges.(93)
Private universities and colleges have similarly increased in numbers since 1946. However,
these vary in standards. Most non-sectarian universities and colleges are organized and managed
like business enterprises and are heavily dependent on tuition fees. To operate profitably, they tend
to concentrate on low-cost courses like business administration, liberal arts and education, and
encourage large enrollments in these. Sectarian universities and college tend to be financially better
endowed. Hence, they have been able to impose selective admissions, lower faculty-student ratios
and provide laboratory and library facilities requires for science and engineering program. The
large number of private colleges and universities to be supervised and the limited Department of
Education and Culture (now the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports) staff to do it has
hampered effective government supervision and control of their standards.
The number of college students and graduates from public and private universities and
colleges has shown tremendous increases since 1946. Nevertheless, the proportion of those in
agriculture, medical and natural sciences, and engineering has remained relatively low.(94) There are
very few graduates in the physical sciences. Most students (and graduates) in agriculture come from
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state institutions while most of those in engineering and medical sciences come from private
institutions. In both, the majority of college students and graduates continue to be in teacher
training/education and commerce/business administration courses. This situation results from the
fact that students tend to enroll in courses where there are perceived employment opportunities
and which their families can afford. Engineering and science courses entail longer periods of study
and have generally been more expensive to pursue.
The rise of professional organizations of scientists and engineers followed closely the
growth of higher education in the Philippines. The earliest organizations were in medicine and
pharmacy, professions which were the first to be introduce during the colonial era. As the number
of graduates in a particular discipline increased, associations were formed to promote professional
interests and regulate standards of practice and these were modelled after their counterparts in the
United States. Self-regulation by professional associations was eventually institutionalized in
government laws which established professional examining boards and licensing procedures.
In certain cases, professional organizations initiated changes in the collegiate curriculum
for their specialization and worked for improvements in educational standards. The Philippine
Medical Association (PMA) actively worked to improve standards of medical education by limiting
enrollment in medical colleges and adding courses required for the medical degree. Academic
members of the profession have led in questioning the relevance of Western-oriented medical
curriculum to Philippine conditions. This has resulted in recent innovations in medical training
such as more exposure of students to community medicine and the experimental curriculum to
produce doctors for rural areas. In the field of engineering, the Philippine Institute of Chemical
Engineers initiated a series of conference to discuss curriculum revisions for its profession. Results
of these conferences were then endorsed to the Department of Education and Culture (DEC) for
official adoption. In other branches of engineering, the government through DEC convened
meetings of educators, members of professional examining boards, representatives of professional
organizations and the private sector to update and adopt uniform core curricula for all universities
and colleges to follow. These developments took place in 1973-1974.
On the whole, there has been little innovation in the education and training of scientists
and engineers since independence in 1946. This is in part due to the conservative nature of self-
regulation by the professional associations. Because of specialized training, vertical organization
by disciplines and lack of liaison between professions, professional associations have been unable
to perceive the dynamic relationship between science, technology and society and the relevance of
their training to Philippine conditions.
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Paralleling the increasing number of state colleges and universities has been a rise in
government science agencies since 1946. In 1947, the Bureau of Science was reorganized into an
Institute of Science.(95) In the same year, an Instituter of Nutrition, and in 1952, the Science
Foundation of the Philippines (SFP) were created and placed (along with the Institute of Science)
under the Office of the President.(96) The Institute of Nutrition was to perform research, advisory
and extension functions while the Science Foundation was to stimulate research in the sciences
and engineering and promote science consciousness among the people. In 1952, the Commission
on Volcanology was also created and placed under the National Research Council of the
Philippines (NRCP).(97) Its function was primarily basic research on volcanology.
Scientific work in government suffered from a lack of support, planning and coordination
during the early postwar years. The U.S. Economic Survey Mission to the Philippines in 1950,
noted in its Report the dearth of basic information needed by industries of the country, the neglect
of experimental work and the meager appropriation in the national budget for scientific research,
including the low salaries of government scientists.(98) The Bell Mission recommended, among
other things, the systematic exploration of the country's natural resources to determine their
potentialities for economic development.
Following the Bell Mission's Report, the Institute of Science was reorganized in 1951.
Renamed Institute of Science and Technology, it acquired the status of a government-owned
corporation and was placed under the office of Economic Coordination.
Added to its former functions of resources survey, testing and standardization, were the
responsibility for improving industrial processes and stimulating technological development.(99)
In 1957, a report was submitted to the President pointing out the deterioration of
Philippine science since the early years of the American regime.(100) The report analyzed the causes
of this decline -- the lack of government support; dearth of scientists of high training and ability;
low morale of scientists and a lack of public awareness of Science. It made several
recommendations towards a long-range development of science in the country. Consequently,
Congress enacted the Science Act of 1958.(101)
The Science Act created the National Science Development Board (NSDB) to formulate
policies for the development of science and coordinate the work of science agencies. The Act also
created the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and the National Institute of Science
and Technology (NIST) and placed these, along with the NRCP, under the NSDB.
In the 1960s additional science agencies were created by law which thereby expanded
NSDB's organization and functions. These were the Philippine Inventors Commission (1964),
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Philippine Coconut Research Institute (1964), Philippine Textile Research Institute (1967), and
Forest Products Research and Industries Development Commission (1969).(102) Several existing
agencies were also attached to NSDB for policy coordination -- the NRCP, Metals Industry
Research and Development Center (MIRDC), the SFP, Philippine Science High School (PSHS)
and Philippine Council for Agriculture and Resources Research (PCARR).(103)
The creation of these science agencies undoubtedly shows increasing government concern
and support for the development of Philippine science and technology. In 1974, a national science
development program was also included in the government's Four-Year Development Plan FY
1974-77.(104)
In 1982, NSDB was further reorganized into a National Science and Technology Authority
(NSTA) composed of four research and Development Councils; Philippine Council for
Agriculture and Resources Research and Development; Philippine Council for Industry and
Energy Research Development; Philippine Council for Health Research and Development and
the NRCP. NSTA has also eight research and development institutes and support agencies under
it. These are actually the former organic and attached agencies of NSDB which have themselves
been reorganized.(106)
The expanding number of science agencies has given rise to a demand for high calibre
scientists and engineers to undertake research and staff universities and colleges. Hence, measures
have also been taken towards the improvement of the country;s science and manpower. In March
1983, Executive Order No. 889 was issued by the President which provided for the establishment
of a national network of centers of excellence in basic sciences. As a consequence, six new
institutes were created: The National Institutes of Physics, Geological Sciences, Natural Sciences
Research, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematical Sciences. Related to this efforts was the
establishment of a Scientific Career System in the Civil Service by Presidential Decree No. 901 on
19 July 1983. This is designed to attract more qualified scientists to work in government and
encourage young people to pursue science degrees and careers.
Summary and Conclusion

This paper has shown that the development of science and technology in the Philippines
has been greatly influenced by its historical experience as a colony of Spain and the United States.
Colonial policies, particularly those on economic development and external trade, have over the
centuries fostered a primarily agricultural, export-oriented economy dependent on the outside
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world as market for its products and a source of manufactured goods. This has led to a neglect
and lack of support for industrialization.
This problem of colonial development has effected the historical development of
Philippine science and technology. The agricultural science generally tended to receive more
funding and support compared to the physical sciences. This pattern of support persisted despite
the introduction of the other sciences into the country's educational system during the American
regime.
The continuing dependence of the Philippine economy on the United States even after
independence in 1946, as a result of the free trade relations and the virtual imposition of the
"parity" amendment to the Philippine Constitution by the US Congress (107) has perpetuated the
predominantly agricultural and rural character of Philippine economy and society. This dependent
development of Philippine society and economy has had serious repercussions for the
advancement of Philippine science and technology. Increasing social demand for higher education
has led to the growth of highly-trained professional manpower, particularly scientists, engineers
and physicians. However, because of the underdeveloped state of the economy, many of these
science-based professionals have either been unemployed or underemployed. Consequently, many
of them have been forced to migrate to developed countries, thus creating a "brain drain" or loss
of valuable human resources for the Philippines. (108) Worse still, this "brain drain" helps to
perpetuate Philippine dependent development as many of those who leave are highly educated and
better trained professionals who are needed in the country's development efforts. There is thus a
need for the government to critically reexamine the interrelations between past and present
education and science policies with those of its economic development policies in order to be able
to redirect these towards the goal of attaining a strong, self-reliant economy and society. A well
developed national science and technology is a critical factor in the achievement of this goal.
References:
(1) For a brief summary of the evolution of government concern for the development of science and technology, see Olivia C.
Caoili, Dimensions of Science Policy and National Development: The Philippine Experience, Monograph Series No. 1
(College, Laguna: Center for Policy and Development Studies, University of the Philippines at Los Baños, October 1982),
pp. 4-34.
(2) Guy B. Gresford and Bertrand H. Chatel, "Science and Technology in the United Nations," World Development, Vol. II No.
1 (January 1974), p. 44.
(3) See, for example, UNESCO, Science and Technology in Asian Development: Conference and Application of Science and
Technology to the Development of Asia, New Delhi, August 1968 (Paris: UNESCO, 1970); United Nations Conference on
Science and Technology for Development, Vienna, Austria, 1979, in Nature, Vol. 280 (16 August 1979), pp. 525-532.
(4) Jerome R. Ravetz, Scientific knowledge and Its Social Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), chap. 1; James B. Conant,
Science and Common Sense (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974), chap. 2; Bernard Dixon, What is Science
For? (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), chap. 2: David Knight, The Nature of Science: The History of Science in Western
Culture Since 1600 (London: Andre Deutsch, 1976), chaps. 1-2.
(5) E. Layton, "Conditions of Technological Development," in Ina Spiegel-Rosing and Derek de Solla Price, eds., Science,
Technology and Society, A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective (London and Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1977), p. 199.
(6) C. Freeman, "Economics of Research and Development." in Rosing and Price, ibid., p. 235.
(7) Derek de Solla Price, Science Since Babylon (Enlarged ed.; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), p. 125.
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(8) William Henry Scott in Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History (Rev. ed.; Quezon City: New Day
Publishers, 1984), asserts that there are only two authentic medieval Chinese accounts about prehispanic Philippines. He
points out questionable documents which have been the basis for information about this period and which were popularized
in Philippines History textbooks, including theories that have been mistaken for facts. Cf. Otley Beyer, "The Philippines
before Magellan," and Robert B. Fox, "The Philippines in Prehistoric Times," in readings in Philippine Prehistory (Manila:
Filipiniana Book Guild, 1979), Second Series, Vol. I, pp. 8-34; 35-61.
(9) Scott, op. cit., pp. 20-22.
(10) Ibid., pp. 18-19.
(11) Ibid., pp. 136-137; Fox. op.cit., pp. 49-50.
(12) Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, first published in 1609, trans. and ed. by J.S. Cummins (Cambridge: Published
for the Hakluyt Society at Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 252-253; Francisco Colin, Labor Evangelica (1663) in
Horacio de la Costa, S.J., Readings in Philippine History (Manila: Bookmark, 1965), p. 9; William Henry Scott, "Boat-Building
and Seamanship in Classic Philippine Society," in Cracks in the Parchment Curtain and Other Essays in Philippine History
(Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1982), pp. 60-96.
(13) See Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials..., chap. 3; Berthold Laufer, "The Relations of the Chinese to the Philippines," in
Readings in Philippine Prehistory, pp. 142-177; Austin Craig, "A Thousand Years of Philippine History Before the Coming
of the Spaniards," in ibid., pp. 128-141.
(14) Chao Ju-Kua was a Superintendent of maritime Trade in Ch'uanchow, Fukien province, when he wrote his Chu Fan Chih (An
Account of the Various Barbarians) in 1225. Scott, in Prehispanic Source Materials... pp. 66-70 has a translation of this
account. See also "Chao Ju-Kua's description of the Philippines in the Thirteenth Century," in Readings in Philippine
Prehistory, pp. 194-196; de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 9-11.
(15) See Antonio Pigafetta, First Voyage Around the World and Maximilianus Transylvanus, De Maluccis Insulis (Manila:
Filipiniana Book Guild, 1969), passim; excerpts of accounts by Garcia Escalante de Alvarado in 1548 and Rodrigo de
Espinosa in 1564, in de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 12-13; "Relation of the Voyage to Luzon," (1570) in The Colonization and
Conquest of the Philippines by Spain, Some contemporary Source Documents, 1559-1577 (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild,
1965), pp. 160-178.
(16) Antonio M. Regidor y Jurado and J. Warren T. Mason (in Commercial Progress in the Philippine Islands, published in London,
1905, and reprinted in Manila by the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands, 1925, pp. 8-11), claim that
the Japanese not only traded and lived in different parts of the Philippines before the Spaniards arrived, they also taught the
Filipinos the art of working in metals, weaving, gold-mining, furniture making, duck-raising and fish-breeding for export.
Scott (in Prehispanic Source Materials..., pp. 78-79) doubts the authenticity of these reports as research on Japanese literature
during this period has yielded no references to prehispanic Philippines.
(17) "Relation of the Voyage to Luzon," (1570), op. cit., pp. 163, 176-177.
(18) Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials. pp. 52-62._
(19) "Relation of Conquest of the Island of Luzon," (1572) and "Relation of the Filipino Islands, by Francisco de Sande." (1575),
in The Colonization and Conquest of the Philippines by Spain. op. cit., pp. 190-210; 292-33; "Relation of the Philippine
Islands by Miguel de Loarca," (1575) and "Customs of the Tagalogs by Juan de Plascencia," in Readings in Philippine
Prehistory, pp. 197-220; 221-234.
(20) The Code of Kalantiao and Maragtas Code which have been taught by historians as precious prehispanic documents were
recently shown to have been fabricated much later. See Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials, Chaps. 4-5.
(21) "Relation of the Filipino Islands, by Francisco de Sande," (1575), op. cit., p. 313.
(22) On the consequences of reduccion, tributes and forced labor services, see John Leddy Phelan, The Hispanization of the
Philippines, Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565-1700 (Madison: The Univesity of Wisconsin, 1959), chaps. IV, VII-
IX; Nicholas P. Cushner, S.J., Spain in the Philippines; from Conquest to Revolution (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University, Institute of Philippine Culture, 1971), chaps. 4-5; de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 35-37.
(23) Henry Frederick Fox, "Primary Education in the Philippines, 1565-1862," Philippine Studies, Vol. 13 (1965), pp. 207-231,
Encarnacion Alzona, A History of Education in the Philippines, 1565-1930 (1st ed.; Manila: University of the Philippines
Press, 1932), pp. 20-23, 46-52; Eliodoro G. Robles, The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: Malaya Books
Inc., 1969), pp. 219-229; J. Mallat, "Educational Institutions and Conditions," (1846), in Emma H. Blair and James Alexander
Robertson, The Philippine Islands 1493-1898 (Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1906), Vol. XLV, pp. 263-278.
(24) The Colegio de San Ildefonso grew to become the present University of San Carlos in Cebu City. It was taken over by the
Society of the Divine Word in 1933 and continues to be administered by this Order. The Colegio de San Ignacio prospered
and was elevated to the rank of a royal and pontifical university in 1621. It was closed when the Jesuits were expelled from
the Philippines on 17 May 1768 by a royal decree of Charles III. The Colegio de San Jose was seized by the Crown upon the
expulsion of the jesuits and later became the medical and pharmacy departments of the University of Santo Tomas. The
Ateneo de manila is now a University run by the Jesuits. Alzona, op. cit., pp. 24-29; Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. XLV,
pp. 101-140.
(25) The B.A. then was more equivalent to the present high school diploma.
(26) The first school of arts and trades was founded in the province of Pampanga and a school of agriculture was opened in Manila
in 1889. See Alzon, op. cit., pp. 43-46; 156-164.
(27) There was a Royal University of San Felipe established in Manila by a royal decree of 1707. It remained open until 1726 when
its work was taken over by the Jesuit University of San Ignacio which was closed in 1768. See ibid., p. 31.
(28) The following brief history of the University of Sto. Tomas is based on an account written by Fray E. Arias, reproduced in
United States Bureau of the Census, Census of the Philippine Islands, 1903, Vol. III (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1905), pp. 621-631; Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. XLV, pp. 141-169.
(29) Arias, op. cit., p. 631.
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(30) His works included Medicinal Plants of the Philippine Islands, published in 1903 and Medicinal Uses of Philippine Plants,
published in 1921. See Miguel Ma. Valera, S.J. et al., Scientists in the Philippines (Bicutan, Taguig, Rizal: National Science
Development Board, 1974), pp. 95-114.
(31) Milagros G. Niño, "Pharmaceutical Education in the Philippines," UNITAS, Vol. 43 (JUNE 1970), p. 73.
(32) Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. XLV, pp. 241-243.
(33) Census of the Philippine Islands, 1903, op. cit., pp. 613-615.
(34) "School of Agriculture," in Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. XLV, pp. 315-318. The required course of study included subjects
such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural history, agriculture, topography, linear and topography drawing, etc. as well
as practical work. At the start of the American regime, a German physician of Manila submitted a report to the authorities
on the conditions at UST's medical college. The report mentions, among others, its lack of library facilities, the use of
outdated textbooks (some published in 1845), that no female cadaver had ever been dissected and the anatomy course was a
"farce", that most graduates "never had attended even one case of confinement or seen a case of laparotomy" and that
bacteriology had been introduced only since the American occupation and "was still taught without microscopes!" See Le
Roy, op. cit., pp. 205-206.
(37) Sir John Bowring, A Visit to the Philippine Islands (London: Smith & Elder Co., 1858), p. 194. See also Robert MacMicking,
Recollections of Manila and the Philippines during 1848, 1849, and 1850, ed. and annotated by Morton J. Netzorg (Manila:
Filipiniana Book Guild, 1967, reprint of 1851 book published in London by Richard Bentley), pp. 31-32.
(38) Alzona, op. cit., pp. 143-144, cited a memorial sent to the Madrid exposition in 1887 by officials of the University of Santo
Tomas criticizing this government policy and urging its change "in order to prevent political disturbances which might be
caused by the large number of dissatisfied professional men who could not find work." See also Census of the Philippine
Islands 1903, op. cit., pp. 632-633. Apolinario Mabini wrote: "All the departments and provincial governments were staffed
with peninsular Spaniards personnel unfamiliar with the country and relieved every time there was a cabinet change (in
Madrid). Very few Filipinos secured employment as army officers, as officials in the civil administration, or as judges and
prosecuting attorneys..," See his The Philippine Revolution translated into English by Leon Ma. Guerrero (Manila:
Department of Education. National Historical Commission, 1969), p. 27.
(39) Vivencio R. Jose, The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna. Special Issue of Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review. Vol.
XXXVI, Nos. 1-4 (March-December 1971), pp. 43-48.
(40) de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 28, 31-33.
(41) For a description of Manila during this period, see Giovanni Francesco Gemlli Careri, A Voyage to the Philippines (originally
published in London, 1744-46; reprinted in Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1963), Chap. 2.
(42) Euologio B. Rodriguez, "Brief observations on Science in the Philippines in the Pre-American Era," National Research Council
of the Philippines Islands (NRCP), Annual Report, 1934-35, bulletin No. 43 (Manila: February 1935), pp. 84-128; J.P. Bantug,
"The Beginnings of Medicine in the Philippines," NRCP, op. cit., Bulletin No. 4, pp. 227-246; Vicente Ferriols, "Early History
of Veterinary Science in the Philippine Islands," NRCP, ibid., pp. 334-337; M.V. del Rosario, "Chemistry in the Pre-American
Regime," NRCP, op. cit., bulletin No. 5, pp. 359-362.
(43) Eduardo Quisumbing, "Development of Science in the Philippines," Journal of East Asiatic Studies, Vol. VI, No. 2 (April
1957), p. 132.
(44) As early as 1803, an edict was passed to control smallpox by introducing vaccination. In 1806, a Board of Vaccination was set
up to take charge of the propagation and preservation of the virus against smallpox. See Hilario Lara, "Development of
Hygiene and Preventive Medicine (Public Health) in the Philippines," NRCP, op. cit., Bulletin No. 4, pp. 265-266.
(45) Specimens were usually submitted to pharmacists for examination. Thus drugstores, notably the Botica Boie and Botica de
Santa Cruz in Manila, served as research laboratories as well as manufacturers of drugs and household remedies. See
Patrocinio Valenzuela, "Pharmaceutical Research in the Philippines," in NRCP, op. cit., Bulletin No. 5, pp. 404-406.
(46) Anacleto del Rosario, one of the first graduates of pharmacy at UST, was appointed as the first director of the Laboratorio.
He pioneered in bacteriological research, particularly in the search for causes of cholera, tuberculosis and leprosy and
investigated the origin of beriberi which was one of the leading causes of death during that time. See Varela, et al., op. cit.,
pp. 173-189.
(47) Fedor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (Reprint of 1875 English ed., (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1965), chap. 2; William,
Lytle Schurz, The Manila Galleon (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1959); Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, chap. 6.
(48) Morga, op. cit., pp. 287; 304-309.
(49) Ibid., pp. 314-316; de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 39-41.
(50) de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 39-40; Morga, op. cit., p. 310.
(51) Jean Baptiste Mallat de Bassilan, Les Philippines (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1846), in de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 154-155. Mcmicking,
op. cit., pp. 264-266, has similar positive observations on shipbuilding during that time.
(52) See Nicholas P. Cushner, The Landed Estates in the Colonial Philippines (Monograph Series No. 20; New Haven Conn: Yale
University Southeast Asia Studies, 1976).
(53) Paul P. de la Gironiere, Twenty Years in the Philippine Islands (New York: Harper & Bros. Publishers, 1854), pp. 306-307,
has sketches showing the simple agricultural tools and implements still used during the mid-nineteenth century.
(54) de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 106-107.
(55) For accounts of those attmepts to promote mining and industrial development, see ibid., pp. 107-114; Cushner, Spain in the
Philippines, pp. 186-194.
(56) The Society's early organization included sections of natural history, agriculture, and rural economy, factories and
manufactures, industries and popular education. See Benito Legarda, Jr., "Foreign Trade, Economic Change and
Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century Philippines" (Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Economics,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1955), pp. 117-119, 321-326; Patrocinio Valenzuela, "A Historical Review of
Movements to Establish a Research Council of the Philippines, in NRCP, op. cit., Bulletin No. 3, pp. 77-79; Blair and
Robertson, op. cit, Vol. LII, pp. 289-324; Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, pp. 194-195.
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(57) Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. LI, pp. 38-39.
(58) de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 138-142; Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, pp. 195-197.
(59) de la Costa, op. cit., pp. 143-160; Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, op. cit., pp. 197-209; Mcmicking, op. cit., chaps. XXVI-
XXVII; Bowring, op. cit. chap. I.
(60) Carlos Recur, Filipinas; Estudios Administrativos y Commerciales (Madrid: Imprenta de Ramon Moreno y Ricardo Rojas,
1879), pp. 93-122. Recur observed (p. 110) that from the commercial point of view, the Philippines was an Anglo-Chinese
colony flying the Spanish flag ("... bajo el punto de vista comercial Filipinas es una colonia anglo-china con bandera
espanola...").
(61) John Foreman, The Philippine Islands (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, Ld., 1890), chap. 9; Mcmicking,
op. cit., chap. XXV.
(62) There were the Inspeccion General de Minas created by Royal Decree in 1837; Commission de Flora de Filipinas, 1876;
Comision Agronomica de Filipinas, 1881; Comision Especial de Estudios Geologicos y Geograficos de Filipinas, 1885; and
Comision de Estudios de las Aguas Minero Medicinales, 1884. See Leoncio Lopez Rizal, "Scientific and Technical
Organizations in the Philippine Islands," in NRCP. op. cit., Bulletin No. 3, pp. 155-159.
(63) The meteorological studies done at the Observatory, notably by Jose Algue Sanllei, became world renowned. Some were
subjects of discussion at International Meteorological Congresses and were published in the Journal of the Royal
Meteorological Society in London. See John N. Schumacher, "One Hundred Years of Jesuit Scientists: The manila
Observatory 1865-1965," Philippine Studies, Vol. 13 (1965), pp. 258-286; Valera, op. cit., pp. 1-22.
(64) Most of its faculty and students had actually come from the University of Santo Tomas. See Alzona, op. cit., pp. 177-180;
Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Malolos; The Crisis of the Republic (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1960), pp. 250-
251.
(65) Distributed among its various colleges and follows: College of Liberal Arts -- 215, College of Medicine and Surgery - 56,
College of Agriculture -- 186, College of Veterinary Science -- 14, College of Engineering -- 11, College of Law -- 154 and
School of Fine Arts -- 801. See Census Office of the Philippine Islands, Census of the Philippine Islands, 1918) Vol. IV, Part
II: Schools Universities, Commerce and Transportation, Banks and Insurance (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1921), p. 602.
(66) See ibid, p. 608.
(67) Findings of the Monroe Survey of Education in the Philippines cited in W. Cameron Forbes, The Philippine Islands Vol. I
(Boston and New York: Hougton Mifflin Co., 1929) p. 477.
The University began in 1911 with a faculty of only 36 scholars with the rank of assistant professor or higher,
of which only five (14 per cent) were Filipinos, mostly from the College of Medicine. The remaining members
of the faculty were Americans or in one or two cases other foreign professionals. In 1925, of 150 faculty
members with the rank of assistant professor or higher, 117 (78 per cent) were Filipinos and 33 (22 per cent)
were American or other foreign scholars. See Harry L. Case and Robert A. Bunnel, The University of the
Philippines; External Assistance and Development (East Lansing, Michigan: Institute for International Studies
in Education, Michigan State University, 1970), p. 10, Table 1.
(68) Forbes, op. cit., p. 457
(69) Charles Burke Elliott, The Philippines to the End of the Commission Government: A Study in Tropical Democracy (New
York: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1968), p. 242. The author served as Secretary of Commerce and Police in the Philippines
Commission from 1910-1912.
(70) Elliott (in ibid., p. 238) observed the situation at that time was not very different from what was happening in the United States
where students crowded the schools to get an education in the learned professions. A change in the Filipino attitude towards
manual work was observed by Hugo Miller (in his Economic Conditions in the Philippines (rev. ed.; Boston: Ginn and Co.,
1920), p. 304) during the second decade of American rule. As he wrote:
When the common schools were first established in the Philippines under the American regime, family servants
often carried the pupil's books to school. Students generally expressed great distastes for any kind of industrial
work. This was a reflection of the ideas of their parents on the aims of education and the dignity of labor.
Today, however, this dislike for industrial instruction is not evident even with respect to such form of gardening
and growing corn.
(71) Philippine Commission, Act No. 1632, 25 April 1907, in Forbes, op. cit., p. 354.
(72) Forbes, ibid., p. 361.
(73) Joseph Ralston Hayden, The Philippines: A Study in National Development (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1942), pp. 644-
645.
(74) Only one Filipino engineer, however, held the post of Director of Public Works during the first 25 years of American civil
government. He was Jose Paez and held the position of Director from 1919 to 1924. In 1924, he resigned to become President
of the Manila Railroad Company and was replaced by an American engineer. Paez had pursued advanced engineering studies
in the United States and Europe at his own expense. See Forbes, op. cit., p. 408.
(75) Some of these schools were the Liceo de Manila, now Manila Central University, which was organized by the Sociedad
Filomatica in 1900, the Colegio Filipino established in 1900 and which became the National University in 1921, the Instituto
de Manila in 1913 which became the University of Manila in 1929, the Centro Escolar de Senoritas founded in 1910 which
became the Centro Escolar University in 1930 and the Philippine Women's college founded in 1919 which became a
University in 1932. Antonio Isidro and Maximo D. Ramos, Private Colleges and Universities in the Philippines) (Quezon
City: Almar's, 1973), pp. 15-20.
(76) Act No. 3162, 8 March 1924. See Forbes, op. cit., p. 435.
(77) Quoted in Isidro and Ramos, op. cit.m p. 21.
(78) Dean Worcester, a Zoologist from the University of Michigan who became a member of the Philippine Commission and
Secretary of the Interior, was responsible for planning the organization of the Bureau of Government Laboratories. He
envisioned the close collaboration and coordination of scientific efforts between the staff of the future College of Medicine
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of the University of the Philippines, Philippine General Hospital, Bureau of Health and Bureau of Government Laboratories.
Dr. Paul Freer, a physician with advanced training in chemistry, also from the University of Michigan, helped prepare the
plan as well as implemented it as the first Director of the Bureau of Government Laboratories. See Dean Worcester, The
Philippines Past and Present., Vol. I (London: Mills and Boon 1914), pp. 488-499.
(79) Staff members of the Bureau held concurrent appointments as faculty members of the College of Medicine of the University
of the Philippines and other units of the University, as well as appointments at the Philippine General Hospital. Officers of
the Bureau of Health were likewise appointed to the faculty of the College of Medicine. All of these scientists conducted
their research work at the Bureau of Science.
(80) A former Governor General W. Cameron Forbes (op. cit., p. 365) wrote that in the Bureau of Science "was created one of the
first large public health laboratories under the American Flag. Since then laboratories doing similar work have been created
in nearly every state and city of the United States and extensively emulated abroad."
(81) In the first decade of the Philippine Journal of Science, less than ten per cent of published articles were authorized by Filipinos.
Many of these surveyed the country's flora and fauna. See J.R. Velasco, "Manpower Needs in Scientific and Technological
Component (Los Baños: Society for the Advancement of Research, Inc., April 1974), p. 10. For a more detailed description
of the work of the Bureau of Science, see Jose R. Velasco and Luz Baens- Arcega, National Institute of Science and
Technology, 1901-1982 (Manila: PHILAAS, 1984).
(82) Rizal, op. cit., pp. 169-176.
(83) The creation of a National Medical Research Council in the Philippine Islands was proposed by the Philippine Islands Medical
Association and the Colegio Medico-Farmaceutico de Filipinas during separate meetings in 1927. The latter similarly
sponsored in 1931 a meeting to discuss proposals for the establishment of a National Research Council of the Philippine
Islands. This was further discussed at the Second Philippine Science Convention sponsored by the Philippine Scientific
Society in February 1933. See Valenzuela, "A Historical Review of Movements to Establish a Research Council for the
Philippines," op. cit., pp. 80-83.
(84) Act No.4120, 8 December 1933. The NRCP was first organized in 1934 with 114 chartered members appointed by the
Governor General. Its initial funding came from the Department of Agriculture and commerce.
(85) On the consequences of free trade relations on Philippine social, economic and political structures, see Renato Constantino,
The Philippines: A Past Revisited (Quezon City: Tala Publishing Services, 1975), especially pp. 296-307.
(86) Under the Philippine Trade Relations Act passed by the United States Congress in 1946, free trade relations continued until
1954, after which it was gradually dismantled by decreasing duty free quotas and increasing tariff duties, ending in 1974. See
Teodoro A. Agoncillo, A Short History of the Philippines (A Mentor Book: New York: The New American Library, 1969),
pp. 253-255; Garel A. Grunder and William E. Livezey, The Philippines and the United States (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1951), pp. 110-121, 259-264.
(87) For an extensive analysis of economic problems arising from this setup, see Shirley Jenkins, American Economic Policy
Toward the Philippines (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1953).
(88) Whether intended or not, American consumer values and tastes were also disseminated in the Philippine public school system
through the use of American Textbooks and materials. With the spread of the mass media, these have become firmly rooted
in the Philippines. This may be regarded as "cultural imperialism," and needs further research. See, for example, Martin
Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: David McKay Co., Inc., 1974), especially chapters 1-2. For a
nationalist interpretation of American educational policy in the Philippines, see Renato Constantino, The Filipinos in the
Philippines and Other Essays (Manila: Malay Books, 12966), pp. 39-80.
(89) This may be discerned from the progress reports of the various disciplines in the National Research Council of the Philippine
Islands, Annual Report, 1934-35 (Manila: February 1935). The NRCP's 114 chartered members included two physicists, one
mathematician, two industrial chemists and seven engineers. The rest were in the medical, agricultural, biological and related
sciences. See ibid., Bulletin No. 7.
(90) Commonwealth Act No. 589, 19 August 1940.
(91) Isidro and Ramos, op. cit., p. 23.
(92) See Manuel A. Caoili, "Quezon and His Business Friends: Notes on the Origins of Philippine National Capitalism," paper
prepared for the Andres Soriano Professorial Chair in Business and Public Administration, U.P. College of Public
Administration (15 January 1986, mimeo, 44 pp.).
(93) For more details on public and private universities and college offering science and engineering courses, see Olivia C. Caoili.
Science Policy in the Philippines; The Education and Training of Scientists and Engineers (Ph.D. Thesis, Queen's University
at Kingston, Canada, 1980), pp. 92-144.
(94) For example, of 707,460 graduates in 1971-1972, 1.9 per cent were in agriculture, 7.0 per cent in medical sciences, 2.2 per cent
in natural sciences (i.e. biological and physical sciences) and 12.5 per cent in engineering. Source of data: unpublished statistics
from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports compiled by the Writer.
(95) Executive Order No. 94, 4 October 1947.
(96) Republic Act No. 770, 20 June 1952.
(98) U.S. Economic Survey Mission to the Philippines, Report to the President (Washington, D.C.: 9 October 1950) cited in A.V.H.
hartendorp. History of Industry and Trade of the Philippines Vol. I(Manila: American Chamber of Commerce in the
Philippines, Inc.,1958), pp. 469-470.
(99) Jose R. Velasco, "A Critique of Our Science Effort in the Last 15 Years," Fookien Times Yearbook (1973), p. 220.
(100) Frank Co Tui, The Status of Science in the Philippines (Manila: Phoenix Press, 1957).
(102) Republic Act Nos. 3850 (14 April 1964), 4059 (18 June 1964), 1088 (18 June 1964), and 4724 (18 June 1966); NSDB
Resolution 246-R3 (3 January 1967) and Republic Act No. 5526 (21 June 1969), respectively.
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(103) The PSHS, MIRDC and PCARR were created by Republic Act Nos. 3661 (22 June 1963) and 4724 (18 June 1966)
and Presidential Decree No. 48 (10 November 1972), respectively.
(104) Republic of the Philippines, National Economic and Development Authority, Four-Year Development Plan FY 1974-
1977 (Manila: 1973), pp. 327-328.
(105) See National Science and Technology Authority, Planning Services Staff, National R & D Expenditures and
Manpower: Integrated Report (Bicutan, Taguig, Metro Manila: NSTA, 1982).
(106) Office of the President, Executive Order No. 784 (17 March 1982), and Emil Q. Javier, "Towards a Revitalized Science
and Technology system," 1983-84 Fookien Times Philippine Yearbook, pp. 252-254.
(107) On the political maneuvering to get approval of the "parity" amendment, see Hernando J. Abaya, Betrayal in the
Philippines (New York: A.A. Wyn, Inc., 1946); Stephen R. Shalom, "Philippine Acceptance of the Bell Trade Act of
1946: A Study of Manipulatory Democracy," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. XLIX, No. 3 (August 1980), pp. 499-
517 and his The United States and the Philippines: A Study of Neocolonialism (Philadelphia Institute for the Study
of Human Issues, 1981), p. 2.
(108) For more on this, see Olivia C. Caoili, Underemployment and Unemployment of Scientists and Engineers:
Reflections for Science Policy. Monograph Series No. 2 (College, Laguna: Center for Policy and Development
Studies, University of the Philippines at Los Baños, February 1983).
Discuss what needs to improve in the Philippines today to become a

“competitive” country. Write your answer on the space provided.
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MODULE 2:
Lesson 1- Renaissance
Lesson 2- Scientific Revolution Lesson 3- Industrial Revolution
Lesson 4- Western Imperialism
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Module 2 Society
Renaissance
Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
• Determine the diffusion of technology during the Renaissance period.

• Explain the relevance of Renaissance towards human history and
present society.
Introduction:
Good day! Welcome to Lesson 1 of Module 2. In this lesson, you will be exploring the different
breakthroughs and diffusion of technology during the Renaissance period.
Activity:
Arrange the following set of scrambled letters to come up with different words
which will describe the highlights during the Renaissance.
TRACHICURETE
Analysis:
Referring to your answers from the activity, identify from which fields do these
people belong:
PEOPLE FIELD/S
1. Leonardo Da Vinci
2. Johann Gutenberg
3. Michelangelo
4. Galileo Galilei
5. Christopher Columbus
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Abstraction:
A. Rupert Hall, "Early Modern Technology, to 1600", in Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Purcell, Jr. (eds.), Technology in
Western Civilization, Vol. I (Oxford University Press: New
York, 1967), pp. 79-103.
The period from the mid-14th century to the beginning of the 17th was the age of the
Renaissance, so called because it represented rebirth (re-naitre) of interest in the Greece and
Rome of Classical antiquity. Rebelling against medieval canons of taste and
scholarship, even rejecting in part the claim of religion to dominate all aspects of human
activity, the men of the Renaissance sought wider fields of knowledge, keener
satisfaction of the senses, a freer range of endeavor. In so doing they took themselves to be
re-creating the life of the ancient world, which appeared to them as so much more
beautiful, wise, and ingenious than their contemporaneous European world. To the
exponents of this Classical revival, the collapse of the golden civilization of antiquity had
introduced an epoch of barbarism from which their own generations were the first to
escape. Artists, writers, scientists, and even the more refined craftsmen looked to the
past for inspiration and examples on which to model their own work. Latin and Greek were the
indispensable keys to style, knowledge, and good taste, assuming a foundational
significance in education they were to retain for centuries.
Naturally, the merits of new techniques and styles were not ignored outside Italy; by the
end of the 16th century Italianate products of all kinds were being manufactured in France, the
Netherlands, and England. In most cases in the 16th century--and indeed long
afterwards--the diffusion of techniques was chiefly affected by persuading skilled workers to
emigrate to regions where their skills were not yet plentiful. Despite the rapid diffusion of
techniques, local methods and regional excellencies could remain significant for
relatively long periods. The best of the instrument-makers were splendid craftsmen; some
were learned, while others profited by putting into practice the ideas of their learned
friends. Their best trade, probably, was in instruments for navigation and surveying, both of
which were becoming advanced, mathematical arts.
The Renaissance is regarded today as one of the most creative and glorious periods of
human endeavor. Yet in terms of the history of technology it perhaps does not rank as high as
the Middle Ages with its power revolution and its agricultural innovations. In terms of the
basic inventions and improvements made in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance did little more
than to increase their size and scope. Machines became larger and more intricate and
production increased, but there were few basic innovations. Yet, as we have seen, there
were two major innovations during the Renaissance, i.e., gunpowder and printing, which
were to have immense consequences for the development of Western civilization.
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The Diffusion of Technology
• With the general population growth of the 16th century there was a demand for more food.
•Increase production by enriching the land with animal manure, seaweeds, marl, or lime (a practice
used long before but neglected before).
•Increase land area by breaking new ground or replacing vineyards with grain fields and by
reclaiming and draining wastes.
•Andries Vierlingh wrote (about 1578) the first systematic account of land drainage, which was to
become a Dutch skill above all.
• The earliest mills were little wooden huts containing the machinery placed high on a strutted
post, so that the sails could sweep clear of the ground.
• Detailed improvement with its essential structure was first illustrated by Ramelli (1588) and well
established by the end of the 16th century.
• The fully developed windmill with capacity power output up to 50horsepower was the most
elaborate large-scale machine before the steam engine.
• As early as the 14th century, water power was applied to many industrial uses besides the
grinding of grain.
• Georgius Agricola (1556) in “De re metallica” described, in relation to mining and metallurgy,
overshot water-driven machines for pumping water (suction and rag-and-chain), for hoisting
spoil, for ventilating the mine, for crushing ore and grinding it, for stirring the mixing tubs, and
for blowing the smelting furnaces.
• Both iron and steel were largely used for the manufacture of knives, tools, weapons, armor,
chains, anchors, screw-bolts, nails, chests, locks, clocks, agricultural implements, and so on,
through the various arts of the smith.
• Writers of the 16th century dealt with metallurgy all devoted particular attention to the precious
metals.
• Lazarus Ercker (1574) whole career life was explicitly directed to the practical goals of metallurgy
and mining.
• From the first assay of ores through to the trial of the purity of the finished product, the
treatment of the precious metals was an exact art.
• Agriculture, the omnipresent grain mill, the metal industries represented by a smith in every
village--these were part of the technological fabric of life that was changing rapidly in early
modern times.
• Tools changed as steel cheapened; the iron spade replaced the wooden spade with an iron tip.
Buttons replaced tied "points"; shoes were still made to fit either foot, but in the 16th century
knitted silk hose became the rage. Hops transformed ale into beer, and the first bottled beer was
not far off. Wheat and barley began to supplant medieval rye
• William Lee, an English clergyman invented a knitting machine (1589), ancestor of the later
"stocking-frame."
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TRANSPORTATION EXPANSION
• Great expansion of trade and travel due to the demand for higher living standards and of the
increasing technical proficiency that made such rising standards possible.
•Bigger port facilities were required for the bigger and more numerous ships; large dockside cranes,
various types of dredgers, quays were built with timber piling or masonry; and warehouses were put
up for the storage of goods.
•There were also two important additions to industrial land transport: the introduction of the
wheelbarrow, and of wooden tracks in mines along which little four-wheel carts were pushed.
• The birth of the railway. The first true canals were begun near Milan in the 1450's.
•England was noted for its high quality woolens; cotton, silk, and rugs came from the East; fine linen,
figured fabrics, tapestries, and so on had their particular centers of manufacture.
•An unknown inventor of the 15th century added the "flyer" to the older spindle wheel so that
twisting the yarn and winding it became a single operation rather than two successive ones. But
fingers still had to manipulate the yarn.
• The concept of sewing machine as a complex mechanical device came from the spinning wheel.
•The invention of clock increasingly ruled human affairs as part of everyday life since the mid-14th
century.
•Extraordinary craftsmanship was to make the clock into a most beautiful and ingenious device,
enriched with automata, astronomical displays, chimes, and alarm mechanisms.
•Along with these crafts of the skilled metalworkers a new one emerged, that of the maker of scientific
instruments. This craft really had several branches, for some instruments were made of wood
(mariners' forestaffs and quadrants), others of brass (astrolabes, gunners' quadrants, astronomical
instruments), and others again of steel (calipers, large drawing compasses).
• Introduction of the telescope (1609) the optical lens-maker.
•War is one human activity which, though deplorable, was almost continuous in early modern times
and touched on almost every technique.
• Unfolding consequences of the discovery of gunpowder.
• The beginning of modern European history can be dated from the introduction of gunpowder.
•By 1325 primitive cannon were in action, and from 1370 mechanical artillery (on the lever
principle) was falling into suspension.
• By 1450 the hand gun had appeared, beginning the obsolescence of crossbow and longbow.
Powder-making became an important industry, along with cannon-founding and gun-making.
• By 1500 heavy guns, mortars, and explosive mines had made the medieval castle almost untenable.
•Invention of printing help to remove the barriers of communication between men. This invention
has had incalculable significance to human history, far beyond its immediate technological effect.
• Invention of printing is credited to Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany, sometime in the 1440's.
•He developed a satisfactory method of producing separate type of such accurate dimensions that it
could be assembled easily and when assembled could be held firmly together so that successive images
could be made from them with reasonable speed and convenience.
•The invention of printing, therefore, like that of many other devices, rests upon many prior
inventions. Like many other inventors, Gutenberg's contribution was that of a creative synthesis--
sorting and selecting the essential elements and combining them into a new form.
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Application:
The discovery of gunpowder and invention of printing were the
is most important in
our present society today? Defend your answer.
Assessment:
The word “Renaissance” is translated from Latin which

means rebirth.
Answer:
of
transportation.
Answer:
The first true canals begun somewhere in Venice, Italy.
Answer:
Artists, writers, scientists, and even the more refined
craftsmen did not look to the past for inspiration and
examples on which to model their own work.
Answer:
The diffusion of techniques and technology was greatly
affected by the pursuit of skilled workers to other regions.
Answer:
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Module 2 Society
Scientific Revolution
Objectives:
• Identify the major phases in the transformation of Science.

• Identify the significant figures of the Scientific Revolution and their
contribution to scientific knowledge.
Introduction:
Good day! Welcome to Lesson 2 of Module 2. In this lesson, you about to learn the major
phases in the transformation of science. We will also learn about the significant figures of
the scientific revolution and their contribution to scientific knowledge.
Activity:
Arrange the following sets into the correct process of scientific method.
HYPOTHESIS
Analysis:
In your own words kindly define each steps of the scientific method.
STEPS IN SCIENTIFIC METHOD DEFINITION

(Arrangement is not in order)
Hypothesis
Conclusion
Experiment
Observation
Result
Question/Problem
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Abstraction:
J.D. Bernal, Science in History, Chapter 7, Vol. 2 (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1971) pp. 374-497.
The Scientific Revolution in Europe lasting from roughly from 1500-1700. Philosopher,
historian, and trained physicist Thomas Kuhn had a lot of thoughts on what makes a revolution in
science. He wrote a book called “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” published in 1962. Kuhn
argued that the different sciences undergo “revolutions” when scientist gather enough data that
they cannot explain using their current paradigm, or unstated, world-organizing theory about
how the universe works. Normal science is the kind of knowledge that professional scientist
or natural philosophers make most of the time. They have a combine research program and
philosophy about what counts as valid knowledge called a paradigm. Anomalies are things that
the paradigm cannot explain. Too many anomalies lead to scientific revolutions.
The tracing of the development in the new science from the critical period of its birth and early
growth to intellectual maturity is the major task of this chapter. It is necessary first to show its
relation to the new social forces of the Renaissance and Reformation and then to examine
how its achievements were to determine the technology and mold the ideas of the Modern age
that was to follow. The change in ideas in science in this crucial period was indeed far greater than
that in politics and religion, all-important as these seemed at the time. It amounted to a
Scientific Revolution, in which the whole edifice of the intellectual assumptions inherited from the
Greeks and canonized by Islamic and Christian theologians alike was overthrown and a
radically new system put in its place. A new quantitative, atomic, infinitely extended, and
secular world-picture took place of the old qualitative, continuous, limited, and religious world-
picture which the Muslim and the Christian schoolmen had inherited from the Greeks. The
hierarchical universe of Aristotle gave way before the world machine of Newton. During the
transition destructive criticism and constructive synthesis came so close together that it is
impossible to draw a line between them.
The First Phase: The Renaissance (1440-1540)
In the use of science, by contrast, the Renaissance, marked an era of decisive achievement.
The scientific effort of the early Middle Ages had faded away, largely as has been
suggested, because no practical use could be found for it. The achievements of the
Renaissance navigators did provide just what was necessary - a secure and growing field of
application. From now on science was secure; it had become a necessity for the most vital,
active, and profitable of enterprises - for trade and war. Later it could extend its services
to manufacture, agriculture, and even medicine. The overall importance of the Renaissance
was
Thethat is marked
Marriage of thethe first break-away
Craftsman from the economy, the politics, and the ideas of the
to the Scholar
feudal Middle Ages. Most of the constructive work had still to be done but there was to be
no turning back. Science was beginning to make its mark on history.
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The Marriage of the Craftsman to the Scholar

Technicians and artists were no longer so despised as they had been in classical or medieval
times. The enhancement of the status of the craftsman made it possible to renew the link
between his traditions and those of the scholars that had been broken almost since the
beginning of the early civilizations.
Contribute the world

views, the ideas, and
possibly most of all,
Could add to the old the logical methodsof
argument derived
antiquity the new from the Greeks by
way of Arabic and
methods of
computation.
The opening phase of the Scientific Revolution was one of description and criticism rather than
constructive thought. First must come the exploration of wide horizons and the challenge to old
authority. The pursuit of the arts and the challenge to old authority. The pursuit of the arts and
techniques furnished the positive incentives and the material means for the advancement of the
new science From now on science was secure; it had become a necessity for the most vital, active,
and profitable of enterprises - for trade and war. Later it could extend its services to manufacture,
agriculture, and even medicine. The overall importance of the Renaissance was that is marked the
first break-away from the economy, the politics, and the ideas of the feudal Middle Ages.
Revolution (1540-1650)
In the field of science, the period includes the first great triumphs of the new observational,
experimental approach. It opens fresh from the first exposition of the solar system by
Copernicus and closes with its firm establishment - despite the condemnation of the Church
- through the work of Galileo. It includes in its scope Gilbert's description in 1600 of the earth
as a magnet and Harvey's discovery in 1628 of the circulation of the blood. It witnesses the
first use of the two great extenders of visible Nature, the telescope, and the microscope.
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The Separation of Religion and Science
The effect of Descartes’s division ever

Producing the type of pure scientist
since was to enable scientists to carry
who kept out of fields where he was
on their work free
likely to be involved in controversies
from religion interferences so long
of a religious or political kind.
as they did not trespass into the
religious sphere.
From his famous first deduction

Descartes consequently set himself
Jepense donc je suis -- 'I think,
to the task of showing that his
therefore I am" -- he drew the
systems could prove the existence of
conclusion that as all men can
God quite as well as, if not better
conceive something more
than, the older philosophies.
perfect than themselves, a perfect
being must exist.
Descartes's system was so

carefully guarded against
theological attack that, in spite of
protests from the universities, it was
accepted in that most Catholic
country.
The Third Phase: Science Comes of Age (1650-1690)
Science Becomes
•Formation of the first an Institution •Establishment and
well-established spreads of government
scientific societies such as • Scientifc societies socities and organization.

the Royal Society of became in effect a jury for •Evolution of coherent
London and the French science with a sufficient dicipline of experiment
Royal Academy. authority to exculde may and calculation.
charlatans and madmen.
Foundation of Science Established
Scientific Socities
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NICOLAUS COPERNICUS (1473-1543)

• Priest, mathematician, and astronomer who proposed that the usn was stationary in the
center of the universe and the earth revolved around it.
• Heliocentric model.
• Wrote the book "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" in 1543.
• Mapped the stars.

• Documented a new star or "nova".
• Most sophisticated observatory of his days on Uraniborg.
• Developed the laws of planetary motion.

• He abandoned his perfect circle model and discovered that an ellipe (an oval shape with two
foci) could precisely predict planetray movement.
• Planets do not move in uniform speeds in their orbits.
• Wrote the book "Astronomia Nova" in 1609.
• Italian scientist who were the early practitioner of the experimental method or the scientfic
method.
• Contributed to the science of motion through an innovative combination of experiment and
mathematics.
• The telescope he invented was used to see magnified, upright images on the earth and
published his intial telescopic astronomical observations in 1610 in a brief treatise entitled
"Sidereus Nuncius".
RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)
• French philosopher and mathematician.
• Wrote "Meditations on First Philosophy" in 1639, in which he provided a philosophical
groundwork for the possibility of science and concluded, "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore
I am).
• Being famous for having made an important connections between geometry and algebra.
• Together with Bacon, he stood in the point between medieval and modern science.
• English philosopher, writer, and stateman.

• One fo the leading figures in natural philosophy and in the field of scientific methodology.
• Emphasized the essentially practical side of the new movement, its applications to the
improvement of the arts, its usefulness in bringing about a more common-sense appreciation
of the world around them.
ISAAC NEWTON (1643-1727)

• English mathematician, physicist, astronnomer, theologian, and author.
• One of the widely recognized as the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in
the siecntifc revolution.
• Wrote the book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687.
• Formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation.
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Application:
The usage of the scientific method is one of the most important
with your own
simple problem and how you resolve it using
Assessment:
statement/event belongs:
Statement/Event Phase
1. Scientific societies were recognized.
2. Development of planetary motion.
3. Craftsman and scholar as one.
4. Clear separation between science and

religion.
5. “I think, therefore I am.”
6. The field of science strongly established

and accepted.
7. The law of motion by Isaac Newton was
established.
8. First usage of telescope to study
astronomy.
9. Marked the era of scientific achievement.
10. The birth of intellectual and scientific

discovery.
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Module 2 Society
Industrial Revolution
Objectives:
• Determine the technological developments during industrial revolution.

• Explain the relevance of industrial revolution towards human history.
Introduction:
Good day! Today, you will be exploring the different industrial breakthroughs during the
Industrial revolution.
Activity:
Arrange the following set of letters to come up with three words which is considered
to be one of the greatest invention during Industrial Revolution.
EATMEGINNTWASTE
Analysis:
Upon the completion of the activity with the correct answer of the scrambled
letters. Answer the following question.
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Society
Abstraction:
Industrial Revolution, the process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to
one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. This process began in Britain in the 18th
century and from there spread to other parts of the world. Due to western Europe’s
tremendous population growth during the late 18th century, extending well into the 19th
century itself. Between 1750 and 1800, the populations of major countries increased between 50
and 100 percent, chiefly as a result of the use of new food crops (such as the potato) and a
temporary decline in epidemic disease. Population growth of this magnitude compelled
change.
It started early of 18th century in Great Britain, when people there had used up most of their
trees for building houses and ships and for cooking and heating. In their search for
something else to burn, they turned to coal that they found near the surface of the earth. Soon
they were digging deeper to mine it. Their coal mines filled with water that needed to be
removed; horses pulling up bucketful proved slow going. To the rescue came James Watt
(1736–1819), a Scottish instrument- maker who in 1776 designed an engine in which burning
coal produced steam, which drove a piston assisted by a partial vacuum. Its first application
was to more quickly and efficiently pump water out of coal mines, to better allow for extraction
of the natural resource. This engine has been improved and been used for other industrial
application such as mills and mines up to steam boat and steam engine trains. The following
are some important technological inventions that advances human society:
1. Spinning Jenny - The ‘Spinning Jenny’ was an engine for spinning wool or
cotton invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves, who had it
patented in 1770. It was a key development in the
industrialization of weaving, as it could spin many spindles
at a time, beginning with eight at a time and increasing to
eighty as the technology improved. Weaving of cloth was
now no longer centered in the homes of textile workers.
2. The locomotive - The first recorded steam railway journey took place on 21
February 1804, when Cornishman Richard Trevithick’s
‘Pen-y-Darren’ locomotive carried ten tons of iron, five wagons and seventy men the 9.75
miles from the ironworks at Penydarren to the Merthyr-Cardiff Canal in four hours and five
minutes. The journey had an average speed of c. 2.4 mph.
3. Telegraph - On 25 July 1837 Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Charles
Wheatstone successfully demonstrated the first electrical
telegraph, installed between Euston and Camden Town in
London. In America, the first telegraph service opened in
1844 when telegraph wires connected Baltimore and
Washington D.C. One of the main figures behind the
invention of the telegraph was the American Samuel
Morse, who also went on to develop Morse Code to allow
the easier transmission of messages across telegraph lines.
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4. Dynamite - Dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish

chemist, in the 1860s. Prior to its invention, gunpowder (called black powder) had been used
to shatter rocks and fortifications. Dynamite, however, proved stronger and safer, quickly
gaining widespread use. Alfred called his new invention dynamite, after the ancient Greek word
‘dunamis’, meaning ‘power.’ He did not want it to be used for military purposes but, as we all
know, the explosive was soon embraced by armies across the world.
5. The photograph - In 1826, French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created

the first permanent photograph from a camera image.
Niépce captured the photograph from his upstairs window
using a camera obscura, a primitive camera, and a pewter
plate, having experimented with various light-sensitive
materials.
6. The typewriter - In 1829 William Burt, an American inventor, patented the

first typewriter which he called a ‘typographer’. Only 38
years later, in 1867, the first modern typewriter was
invented by Christopher Latham Sholes. This typewriter,
patented in 1868, featured a keyboard with keys arranged
in alphabetical order, which made the letters easy to find.
7. Electric generator - The first electric generator was invented by Michael

Faraday in 1831: the Faraday Disk. Although the machine’s design was not very effective,
Faraday’s experimentation with electromagnetism, including the discovery of
electromagnetic induction soon led to improvements, such as the dynamo which was the first
generator capable of delivering power for industry.
These technologies and many others improves the lifestyle of the families since livelihood
opportunities have been open to the people who are willing to work in factories where
production of materials are massively produced. Because of the increase of population, the
demand for different products and services for a comfortable life that will fit to the standard
of living was also sought by the society. This includes:
Glass making - A new method of producing glass, known as the cylinder process, was developed
in Europe during the early 19th century. In 1832 this process was used by the Chance Brothers to
create sheet glass.
Paper machine - A machine for making a continuous sheet of paper on a loop of wire fabric was
patented in 1798 by Nicholas Louis Robert.
Agriculture - The British Agricultural Revolution is considered one of the causes
of the Industrial Revolution because improved agricultural productivity freed up workers to
work in other sectors of the
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economy. Industrial Revolution eventually resulted in precision manufacturing techniques in the

late 19th century for mass- producing agricultural equipment, such as reapers, binders and
combine harvesters.
Canals - canals began to be built in the late 18th century to link the major
manufacturing centers across United Kingdom (UK). It proves to be more effective in bringing
products to areas difficult to reach due to roads’ condition.
Railways - The rapid introduction of railways followed the 1829 which is a
success for the transport of freight and commodities with minimum delay. Construction
of major railways connecting the larger cities and towns began in the 1830s.
Housing - The rapid population growth in the 19th century included the new
industrial and manufacturing cities, as well as service centers. The critical factor was financing,
which was handled by building societies that dealt directly with large contracting firms.
Private renting from housing landlords was the dominant tenure.
Application:
which have the

footprints of the early technologies during the industrial revolution.
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Assessment:
Circle the letter of your answer.
1. Which of the following is the driving force for the society to take necessary change to meet the basic
needs such as food?
b. Education c. Population d. Commerce
Which of the following opens the industrialization of weaving?

a. Agriculture c. Cotton Plantation d. Spinning Jenny
3. Which of the following helps in bringing bulk of commodities on major cities with less delay?
b. Ship yard d. Railways
the cities to
work in factories for them to experience standard of living?
a. Train b. Canal c. Housing d. Factories
Which of the following opens the gate for us to enjoy “selfie”?

Nicholas Louis Robert
Chance Brothers
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
Michael Faraday
References:
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020, September 10). Industrial Revolution. Retrieved
September 22, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution
The Industrial Revolution (article). (n.d.). Retrieved September 22, 2020, from
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/big-history-project/acceleration/bhp-acceleration/a/the-
industrial-revolution
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Hughes, T. (2020, August 19). 10 Key Inventions of the Industrial Revolution. Retrieved September 22,
2020, from https://www.historyhit.com/key-inventions-of-the-industrial-revolution/
Industrial Revolution. (2020, September 19). Retrieved September 24, 2020, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
Module 2 Society
Western
4 Imperialism
Objectives:
• discuss the significant events that took place along with the spread
of Western Science and
• investigate the birth of independent scientific tradition in some
Asian countries.
Introduction:
Hello, how are you? I hope you are doing well! Welcome to Lesson 4 of Module
2. In this lesson, you are about to learn about the small circle of Western European
nations that provided the original home for modern Science. We will also explore the
sequence of phases in the diffusion of Western Science.
So, are you ready? Alright, let’s begin!
Activity:
Help WESTERN SCIENCE reach the New Lands of Nonscientific societies.
NONSCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
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Analysis:
scientific activity over time.
DIFFUSION OF WESTERN SCIENCE
Abstraction:
THE SPREAD OF WESTERN SCIENCE

by George Basalla A small circle of Western European nations provided the original
home for modern science during the 16th and 17th centuries: Italy, France, England,
the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries. The relatively small
geographical area covered by these nations was the scene of the Scientific Revolution
which firmly established the philosophical viewpoint, experimental activity, and social
institutions we now identify as modern science.
Three overlapping phases or stages constitute my proposed model. During “phase 1” the
nonscientific society or nation provides a source for European science. The word nonscientific refers to
the absence of modern Western science and not to a lack of ancient, indigenous scientific thought of
the sort to be found in China or India; European, as used hereafter in this article, means “Western
European.” “Phase 2” is marked by a period of colonial science, and “phase 3” completes the process of
transplantation with a struggle to achieve an independent scientific tradition (or culture).
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The first phase of the transmission

process is characterized by the
European who visits the new
and
fauna, studies its physical
of his work back to
Europe.
DIFFUSION OF WESTERN SCIENCE
Botany, zoology, and geology predominate during this phase, but astronomy,
geophysics, and a cluster of geographical sciences--topography, cartography,
hydrography, and meteorology--sometimes rival them in importance. Anthropology,
ethnology, and archeology, when they are present, clearly rank in a secondary
position. These various scientific studies may be undertaken by the trained scientists or by
the amateur who in the role of explores, traveler, missionary, diplomat, physician,
merchant, military or naval man, artist, or adventurer, makes an early contact with the
newly opened territory.
Training and expertise in a science will increase the European observer’s awareness of the
value and novelty of his discoveries, but they are not the crucial factors. What is
important is the fact that the observer is a product of a scientific culture that values the
systematic exploration of nature.
Phase-1 science is not limited to the uncivilized country where European settlement is the
object. It is also to be found in regions already occupied by ancient civilizations, some with
indigenous scientific traditions. The historical record is filled with examples of European
naturalists collecting and classifying the plant and animal life they find in remote jungles,
deserts, mountains, and plains then publishing the results of art illumination of the
European scientific community.
2nd Phase – COLONIAL SCIENCE
For clarify, the

use of ‘colonial’ term is explained in Fig. 4.2.
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the scientific activity in the new land is based primarily upon
culture.
. Second, colonial science is not a pejorative term. It does not imply

the
non-European nation is suppressed or maintained in a servile state by an
imperial power.
. Third, phase-2 can occur in a situations where there is no actual

colonial relationship. The dependent country may or may not be a
science in
Russia or Japan as well as in the United States or India.
Figure 4.2 WHAT COLONIAL SCIENCE MEANS
INDEPENDENT SCIENTIFIC TRADITION
The struggle to establish an independent scientific tradition, which takes place during the
third phase, is the least understood, appreciated or studied aspect of the process of
transference of modern science to the wider world. Historians and sociologists of
science have failed to realize the difficulty of fully integrating science into a society that
previously had little contact with Western science. The easy success of colonial science
does not adequately prepare a country for the arduous task of creating and supporting
native scientific institutions and fostering attitudes conducive to the rapid growth of
science.
Since phase 3 is marked by a conscious struggle to reach an independent status, most

scientists will not personally achieve all of these goals, but there will be general
agreement that an overt effort should be made to realize them.
If a colonial, dependent scientific culture is to be exchanged for an independent one, many

tasks must be completed. Some of the more important ones are as follows.
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1. Resistance to science on the basis of philosophical and religious beliefs must be

overcome and replaced by positive encouragement of scientific research.
2. The social role and place of the scientist need to be determined in order to insure
society’s approval of his labors.
3. The relationship between science and government should be clarified so that, at

most, science receives state financial aid and encouragement and, at least,
government maintains a neutral position in scientific matters.
4. The teaching of science should be introduced into all levels of educational system,
provided, of course, an adequate educational system already exists.
5. Native scientific organizations should be founded which are specifically dedicated

to the promotion of science.
6. Channels must be opened to facilitate formal national and international scientific

communication.
7. A proper technological base should be made available for the growth of science.
Application:
EVENTS PHASES
1. Scientific activity in the new land is based A. First Phase
primarily upon institutions and traditions of a
nation with an established scientific culture.
2. Transmission process is characterized by the B. Second Phase

European who visits the new land, surveys and
collects it flora and fauna, studies its physical
features, and then takes the results of his work
back to Europe.
3. C. Third Phase
The struggle to establish an independent scientific
tradition.
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Assessment:
FALSE.
1. There were overlapping phases or stages that constitute the model

proposed by Basalla in his model on the diffusion of Western Science.
2. During the first phase, Europeans visited and collected different species of
plants and animals and then takes the results back to Europe.
3. In order to establish independent scientific tradition resistance to science on

the basis of philosophical and religious beliefs must be overcome and replaced by positive
encouragement of scientific research.
4. In Western Science, the observer is a product of a scientific culture that

values the systematic exploration of nature.
5. Western European nations were able to establish independent

scientific tradition during the diffusion of Western Science in the third phase.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have successfully completed Module 2! Should you have any
questions or queries regarding Lesson 4, please do not hesitate to reach out to your
instructors.
Are you ready to work on your next Module?
MODULE 3 will discuss about SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY WITH
AN EMPHASIS IN THE PHILIPPINES CONTEXT. Good luck and enjoy reading!
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Module 3: Science and Technology

in the 20th Century
Lesson 1: Technology from 1900 to 1945
Lesson 2: Space Age Technology
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Lesson 1
Technology from 1900 to 1945
Objectives: • Identify the common technologies used today.

• Relate the evolution of technologies today.
___________________
Activity: List the 10 technologies that are within your house today. How do they assist help you
and your family?
Technology Function
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
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THE 20TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES:
TECHNOLOGY FROM 1900 TO 1945
by Robert Angus Buchanan
Professor of the History of Technology; Director, Centre for the History of Technology, Science, and Society, University of Bath,
England. Author of The Power of the Machine. Article lifted from Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/technology/history-
of-technology/The-20th-century)
Recent history is notoriously difficult to write, because of the mass of material and the problem
of distinguishing the significant from the insignificant among events that have virtually the power of
contemporary experience. In respect to the recent history of technology, however, one fact stands out
clearly: despite the immense achievements of technology by 1900, the following decades witnessed more
advance over a wide range of activities than the whole of previously recorded history. The airplane, the
rocket and interplanetary probes, electronics, atomic power, antibiotics, insecticides, and a host of new
materials have all been invented and developed to create an unparalleled social situation, full of
possibilities and dangers, which would have been virtually unimaginable before the present century.
In venturing to interpret the events of the 20th century, it will be convenient to separate the years
before 1945 from those that followed. The years 1900 to 1945 were dominated by the two World Wars,
while those since 1945 were preoccupied by the need to avoid another major war. The dividing point is
one of outstanding social and technological significance: the detonation of the first atomic bomb at
Alamogordo, N.M., in July 1945.
There were profound political changes in the 20th century related to technological capacity and
leadership. It may be an exaggeration to regard the 20th century as “the American century,” but the rise
of the United States as a superstate was sufficiently rapid and dramatic to excuse the hyperbole. It was a
rise based upon tremendous natural resources exploited to secure increased productivity through
widespread industrialization, and the success of the United States in achieving this objective was tested
and demonstrated in the two World Wars. Technological leadership passed from Britain and the
European nations to the United States in the course of these wars. This is not to say that the springs of
innovation went dry in Europe. Many important inventions of the 20th century originated there. But it
was the United States that had the capacity to assimilate innovations and take full advantage from them
at times when other countries were deficient in one or other of the vital social resources without which
a brilliant invention cannot be converted into a commercial success. As with Britain in the Industrial
Revolution, the technological vitality of the United States in the 20th century was demonstrated less by
any particular innovations than by its ability to adopt new ideas from whatever source they come.
The two World Wars were themselves the most important instruments of technological as well
as political change in the 20th century. The rapid evolution of the airplane is a striking illustration of this
process, while the appearance of the tank in the first conflict and of the atomic bomb in the second show
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the same signs of response to an urgent military stimulus. It has been said that World War I was a
chemists’ war, on the basis of the immense importance of high explosives and poison gas. In other
respects the two wars hastened the development of technology by extending the institutional apparatus
for the encouragement of innovation by both the state and private industry. This process went further in
some countries than in others, but no major belligerent nation could resist entirely the need to support
and coordinate its scientific-technological effort. The wars were thus responsible for speeding the
transformation from “little science,” with research still largely restricted to small-scale efforts by a few
isolated scientists, to “big science,” with the emphasis on large research teams sponsored by governments
and corporations, working collectively on the development and application of new techniques. While the
extent of this transformation must not be overstated, and recent research has tended to stress the
continuing need for the independent inventor at least in the stimulation of innovation, there can be little
doubt that the change in the scale of technological enterprises had far-reaching consequences. It was one
of the most momentous transformations of the 20th century, for it altered the quality of industrial and
social organization. In the process it assured technology, for the first time in its long history, a position
of importance and even honour in social esteem.
1 Fuel and power
There were no fundamental innovations in fuel and power before the breakthrough of 1945, but
there were several significant developments in techniques that had originated in the previous century. An
outstanding development of this type was the internal-combustion engine, which was continuously
improved to meet the needs of road vehicles and airplanes. The high-compression engine burning heavy-
oil fuels, invented by Rudolf Diesel in the 1890s, was developed to serve as a submarine power unit in
World War I and was subsequently adapted to heavy road haulage duties and to agricultural tractors.
Moreover, the sort of development that had transformed the reciprocating steam engine into the steam
turbine occurred with the internal-combustion engine, the gas turbine replacing the reciprocating engine
for specialized purposes such as aero-engines, in which a high power-to-weight ratio is important.
Admittedly, this adaptation had not proceeded very far by 1945, although the first jet-powered aircraft
were in service by the end of the war. The theory of the gas turbine, however, had been understood since
the 1920s at least, and in 1929 Sir Frank Whittle, then taking a flying instructor’s course with the Royal
Air Force, combined it with the principle of jet propulsion in the engine for which he took out a patent
in the following year. But the construction of a satisfactory gas-turbine engine was delayed for a decade
by the lack of resources, and particularly by the need to develop new metal alloys that could withstand
the high temperatures generated in the engine. This problem was solved by the development of a nickel-
chromium alloy, and, with the gradual solution of the other problems, work went on in both Germany
and Britain to seize a military advantage by applying the jet engine to combat aircraft.
1.1 Gas-turbine engine
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The principle of the gas turbine is that of compressing and burning air and fuel in a combustion
chamber and using the exhaust jet from this process to provide the reaction that propels the engine
forward. In its turbopropeller form, which developed only after World War II, the exhaust drives a shaft
carrying a normal airscrew (propeller). Compression is achieved in a gas-turbine engine by admitting air
through a turbine rotor. In the so-called ramjet engine, intended to operate at high speeds, the
momentum of the engine through the air achieves adequate compression. The gas turbine has been the
subject of experiments in road, rail, and marine transport, but for all purposes except that of air transport
its advantages have not so far been such as to make it a viable rival to traditional reciprocating engines.
1.2 Petroleum
As far as fuel is concerned, the gas turbine burns mainly the middle fractions (kerosene, or
paraffin) of refined oil, but the general tendency of its widespread application was to increase still further
the dependence of the industrialized nations on the producers of crude oil, which became a raw material
of immense economic value and international political significance. The refining of this material itself
underwent important technological development. Until the 20th century it consisted of a fairly simple
batch process whereby oil was heated until it vaporized, when the various fractions were distilled
separately. Apart from improvements in the design of the stills and the introduction of continuous-flow
production, the first big advance came in 1913 with the introduction of thermal cracking. This process
took the less volatile fractions after distillation and subjected them to heat under pressure, thus cracking
the heavy molecules into lighter molecules and so increasing the yield of the most valuable fuel, petrol or
gasoline. The discovery of this ability to tailor the products of crude oil to suit the market marks the true
beginning of the petrochemical industry. It received a further boost in 1936, with the introduction of
catalytic cracking. By the use of various catalysts in the process, means were devised for still further
manipulating the molecules of the hydrocarbon raw material. The development of modern plastics
followed directly on this (see below Plastics). So efficient had the processes of utilization become that by
the end of World War II the petrochemical industry had virtually eliminated all waste materials.
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Petroleum refinery at Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia. Herbert Lanks/Shostal Associates

1.3 Electricity
All the principles of generating electricity had been worked out in the 19th century, but by its end
these had only just begun to produce electricity on a large scale. The 20th century witnessed a colossal
expansion of electrical power generation and distribution. The general pattern has been toward ever-
larger units of production, using steam from coal- or oil-fired boilers. Economies of scale and the greater
physical efficiency achieved as higher steam temperatures and pressures were attained both reinforced
this tendency. Experience in the United States indicates the trend: in the first decade of the 20th century,
a generating unit with a capacity of 25,000 kilowatts with pressures up to 200–300 pounds per square
inch at 400–500 °F (about 200–265 °C) was considered large, but by 1930 the largest unit was 208,000
kilowatts with pressures of 1,200 pounds per square inch at a temperature of 725 °F, while the amount
of fuel necessary to produce a kilowatt-hour of electricity and the price to the consumer had fallen
dramatically. As the market for electricity increased, so did the distance over which it was transmitted,
and the efficiency of transmission required higher and higher voltages. The small direct-current
generators of early urban power systems were abandoned in favour of alternating-current systems, which
could be adapted more readily to high voltages. Transmission over a line of 155 miles (250 km) was
established in California in 1908 at 110,000 volts, and Hoover Dam in the 1930s used a line of 300 miles
(480 km) at 287,000 volts. The latter case may serve as a reminder that hydroelectric power, using a fall
of water to drive water turbines, was developed to generate electricity where the climate and topography
make it possible to combine production with convenient transmission to a market. Remarkable levels of
efficiency were achieved in modern plants. One important consequence of the ever-expanding
consumption of electricity in the industrialized countries has been the linking of local systems to provide
vast power grids, or pools, within which power can be shifted easily to meet changing local needs for
current.
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1.4 Atomic power
Until 1945, electricity and the internal-combustion engine were the dominant sources of power
for industry and transport in the 20th century, although in some parts of the industrialized world steam
power and even older prime movers remained important. Early research in nuclear physics was more
scientific than technological, stirring little general interest. In fact, from the work of Ernest Rutherford,
Albert Einstein, and others to the first successful experiments in splitting heavy atoms in Germany in
1938, no particular thought was given to engineering potential. The war led the Manhattan Project to
produce the fission bomb that was first exploded at Alamogordo, N.M. Only in its final stages did even
this program become a matter of technology, when the problems of building large reactors and handling
radioactive materials had to be solved. At this point it also became an economic and political matter,
because very heavy capital expenditure was involved. Thus, in this crucial event of the mid-20th century,
the convergence of science, technology, economics, and politics finally took place.
2 Industry and innovation
There were technological innovations of great significance in many aspects of industrial
production during the 20th century. It is worth observing, in the first place, that the basic matter of
industrial organization became one of self-conscious innovation, with organizations setting out to
increase their productivity by improved techniques. Methods of work study, first systematically examined
in the United States at the end of the 19th century, were widely applied in U.S. and European industrial
organizations in the first half of the 20th century, evolving rapidly into scientific management and the
modern studies of industrial administration, organization and method, and particular managerial
techniques. The object of these exercises was to make industry more efficient and thus to increase
productivity and profits, and there can be no doubt that they were remarkably successful, if not quite as
successful as some of their advocates maintained. Without this superior industrial organization, it would
not have been possible to convert the comparatively small workshops of the 19th century into the giant
engineering establishments of the 20th, with their mass-production and assembly-line techniques. The
rationalization of production, so characteristic of industry in the 20th century, may thus be legitimately
regarded as the result of the application of new techniques that form part of the history of technology
since 1900.
2.1 Improvements in iron and steel
Another field of industrial innovation in the 20th century was the production of new materials.
As far as volume of consumption goes, humankind still lives in the Iron Age, with the utilization of iron
exceeding that of any other material. But this dominance of iron has been modified in three ways: by the
skill of metallurgists in alloying iron with other metals; by the spread of materials such as glass and
concrete in building; and by the appearance and widespread use of entirely new materials, particularly
plastics. Alloys had already begun to become important in the iron and steel industry in the 19th century
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(apart from steel itself, which is an alloy of iron and carbon). Self-hardening tungsten steel was first
produced in 1868 and manganese steel, possessing toughness rather than hardness, in 1887. Manganese
steel is also nonmagnetic; this fact suggests great possibilities for this steel in the electric power industry.
In the 20th century steel alloys multiplied. Silicon steel was found to be useful because, in contrast to
manganese steel, it is highly magnetic. In 1913 the first stainless steels were made in England by alloying
steel with chromium, and the Krupp works in Germany produced stainless steel in 1914 with 18 percent
chromium and 8 percent nickel. The importance of a nickel-chromium alloy in the development of the
gas-turbine engine in the 1930s has already been noted. Many other alloys also came into widespread use
for specialized purposes.
2.2 Building materials
Methods of producing traditional materials like glass and concrete on a larger scale also supplied
alternatives to iron, especially in building; in the form of reinforced concrete, they supplemented
structural iron. Most of the entirely new materials were nonmetallic, although at least one new metal,
aluminum, reached proportions of large-scale industrial significance in the 20th century. The ores of this
metal are among the most abundant in the crust of the Earth, but, before the provision of plentiful cheap
electricity made it feasible to use an electrolytic process on an industrial scale, the metal was extracted
only at great expense. The strength of aluminum, compared weight for weight with steel, made it a
valuable material in aircraft construction, and many other industrial and domestic uses were found for it.
In 1900 world production of aluminum was 3,000 tons, about half of which was made using cheap electric
power from Niagara Falls. Production rose rapidly since.
Electrolytic processes had already been used in the preparation of other metals. At the beginning
of the 19th century, Davy pioneered the process by isolating potassium, sodium, barium, calcium, and
strontium, although there was little commercial exploitation of these substances. By the beginning of the
20th century, significant amounts of magnesium were being prepared electrolytically at high
temperatures, and the electric furnace made possible the production of calcium carbide by the reaction
of calcium oxide (lime) and carbon (coke). In another electric furnace process, calcium carbide reacted
with nitrogen to form calcium cyanamide, from which a useful synthetic resin could be made.
2.3 Plastics
The quality of plasticity is one that had been used to great effect in the crafts of metallurgy and
ceramics. The use of the word plastics as a collective noun, however, refers not so much to the traditional
materials employed in these crafts as to new substances produced by chemical reactions and molded or
pressed to take a permanent rigid shape. The first such material to be manufactured was Parkesine,
developed by the British inventor Alexander Parkes. Parkesine, made from a mixture of chloroform and
castor oil, was “a substance hard as horn, but as flexible as leather, capable of being cast or stamped,
painted, dyed or carved.” The words are from a guide to the International Exhibition of 1862 in London,
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at which Parkesine won a bronze medal for its inventor. It was soon followed by other plastics, but—
apart from celluloid, a cellulose nitrate composition using camphor as a solvent and produced in solid
form (as imitation horn for billiard balls) and in sheets (for men’s collars and photographic film)—these
had little commercial success until the 20th century.
The early plastics relied upon the large molecules in cellulose, usually derived from wood pulp.
Leo H. Baekeland, a Belgian American inventor, introduced a new class of large molecules when he took
out his patent for Bakelite in 1909. Bakelite is made by the reaction between formaldehyde and phenolic
materials at high temperatures; the substance is hard, infusible, and chemically resistant (the type known
as thermosetting plastic). As a nonconductor of electricity, it proved to be exceptionally useful for all
sorts of electrical appliances. The success of Bakelite gave a great impetus to the plastics industry, to the
study of coal tar derivatives and other hydrocarbon compounds, and to the theoretical understanding of
the structure of complex molecules. This activity led to new dyestuffs and detergents, but it also led to
the successful manipulation of molecules to produce materials with particular qualities such as hardness
or flexibility. Techniques were devised, often requiring catalysts and elaborate equipment, to secure these
polymers—that is, complex molecules produced by the aggregation of simpler structures. Linear
polymers give strong fibres, film-forming polymers have been useful in paints, and mass polymers have
formed solid plastics.
2.4 Synthetic fibres
The possibility of creating artificial fibres was another 19th-century discovery that did not become
commercially significant until the 20th century, when such fibres were developed alongside the solid
plastics to which they are closely related. The first artificial textiles had been made from rayon, a silklike
material produced by extruding a solution of nitrocellulose in acetic acid into a coagulating bath of
alcohol, and various other cellulosic materials were used in this way. But later research, exploiting the
polymerization techniques being used in solid plastics, culminated in the production of nylon just before
the outbreak of World War II. Nylon consists of long chains of carbon-based molecules, giving fibres of
unprecedented strength and flexibility. It is formed by melting the component materials and extruding
them; the strength of the fibre is greatly increased by stretching it when cold. Nylon was developed with
the women’s stocking market in mind, but the conditions of war gave it an opportunity to demonstrate
its versatility and reliability as parachute fabric and towlines. This and other synthetic fibres became
generally available only after the war.
2.5 Synthetic rubber
The chemical industry in the 20th century put a wide range of new materials at the disposal of
society. It also succeeded in replacing natural sources of some materials. An important example of this is
the manufacture of artificial rubber to meet a world demand far in excess of that which could be met by
the existing rubber plantations. This technique was pioneered in Germany during World War I. In this
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effort, as in the development of other materials such as high explosives and dyestuffs, the consistent
German investment in scientific and technical education paid dividends, for advances in all these fields
of chemical manufacturing were prepared by careful research in the laboratory.
2.6 Pharmaceuticals and medical technology
An even more dramatic result of the growth in chemical knowledge was the expansion of the
pharmaceutical industry. The science of pharmacy emerged slowly from the traditional empiricism of the
herbalist, but by the end of the 19th century there had been some solid achievements in the analysis of
existing drugs and in the preparation of new ones. The discovery in 1856 of the first aniline dye had been
occasioned by a vain attempt to synthesize quinine from coal tar derivatives. Greater success came in the
following decades with the production of the first synthetic antifever drugs and painkilling compounds,
culminating in 1899 in the conversion of salicylic acid into acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), which is still the
most widely used drug. Progress was being made simultaneously with the sulfonal hypnotics and the
barbiturate group of drugs, and early in the 20th century Paul Ehrlich of Germany successfully developed
an organic compound containing arsenic—606, denoting how many tests he had made, but better known
as Salvarsan—which was effective against syphilis. The significance of this discovery, made in 1910, was
that 606 was the first drug devised to overwhelm an invading microorganism without offending the host.
In 1935 the discovery that Prontosil, a red dye developed by the German synthetic dyestuff industry, was
an effective drug against streptococcal infections (leading to blood poisoning) introduced the important
sulfa drugs. Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928 was not immediately followed up,
because it proved very difficult to isolate the drug in a stable form from the mold in which it was formed.
But the stimulus of World War II gave a fresh urgency to research in this field, and commercial
production of penicillin, the first of the antibiotics, began in 1941. These drugs work by preventing the
growth of pathogenic organisms. All these pharmaceutical advances demonstrate an intimate relationship
with chemical technology.
Other branches of medical technology made significant progress. Anesthetics and antiseptics had
been developed in the 19th century, opening up new possibilities for complex surgery. Techniques of
blood transfusion, examination by X-rays (discovered in 1895), radiation therapy (following
demonstration of the therapeutic effects of ultraviolet light in 1893 and the discovery of radium in 1898),
and orthopedic surgery for bone disorders all developed rapidly. The techniques of immunology similarly
advanced, with the development of vaccines effective against typhoid and other diseases.
3 Food and agriculture
The increasing chemical understanding of drugs and microorganisms was applied with outstanding
success to the study of food. The analysis of the relationship between certain types of food and human
physical performance led to the identification of vitamins in 1911 and to their classification into three
types in 1919, with subsequent additions and subdivisions. It was realized that the presence of these
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materials is necessary for a healthy diet, and eating habits and public health programs were adjusted
accordingly. The importance of trace elements, very minor constituents, was also discovered and
investigated, beginning in 1895 with the realization that goitre is caused by a deficiency of iodine.
As well as improving in quality, the quantity of food produced in the 20th century increased rapidly as a
result of the intensive application of modern technology. The greater scale and complexity of urban life
created a pressure for increased production and a greater variety of foodstuffs, and the resources of the
internal-combustion engine, electricity, and chemical technology were called upon to achieve these
objectives. The internal-combustion engine was utilized in the tractor, which became the almost universal
agent of mobile power on the farm in the industrialized countries. The same engines powered other
machines such as combine harvesters, which became common in the United States in the early 20th
century, although their use was less widespread in the more labour-intensive farms of Europe, especially
before World War II. Synthetic fertilizers, an important product of the chemical industry, became popular
in most types of farming, and other chemicals—pesticides and herbicides—appeared toward the end of
the period, effecting something of an agrarian revolution. Once again, World War II gave a powerful
boost to development. Despite problems of pollution that developed later, the introduction of DDT as
a highly effective insecticide in 1944 was a particularly significant achievement of chemical technology.
Food processing and packaging also advanced—dehydration techniques such as vacuum-contact drying
were introduced in the 1930s—but the 19th-century innovations of canning and refrigeration remained
the dominant techniques of preservation.
4 Civil engineering
Important development occurred in civil engineering in the first half of the 20th century, although
there were few striking innovations. Advancing techniques for large-scale construction produced many
spectacular skyscrapers, bridges, and dams all over the world but especially in the United States. The city
of New York acquired its characteristic skyline, built upon the exploitation of steel frames and reinforced
concrete. Conventional methods of building in brick and masonry had reached the limits of feasibility in
the 1800s in office blocks up to 16-stories high, and the future lay with the skeleton frame or cage
construction pioneered in the 1880s in Chicago. The vital ingredients for the new tall buildings or
skyscrapers that followed were abundant cheap steel—for columns, beams, and trusses—and efficient
passenger elevators. The availability of these developments and the demand for more and more office
space in the thriving cities of Chicago and New York caused the boom in skyscraper building that
continued until 1931, when the Empire State Building, with its total height of 1,250 feet (381 metres) and
102 stories, achieved a limit not exceeded for 40 years and demonstrated the strength of its structure by
sustaining the crash impact of a B-25 bomber in July 1945 with only minor damage to the building. The
Great Depression brought a halt to skyscraper building from 1932 until after World War II.
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Concrete, and more especially reinforced concrete (that is, concrete set around a framework or
mesh of steel), played an important part in the construction of the later skyscrapers, and this material
also led to the introduction of more imaginative structural forms in buildings and to the development of
prefabrication techniques. The use of large concrete members in bridges and other structures has been
made possible by the technique of prestressing: by casting the concrete around stretched steel wires,
allowing it to set, then relaxing the tension in the wires, it is possible to induce compressive stresses in
the concrete that offset the tensile stresses imposed by the external loading, and in this way the members
can be made stronger and lighter. The technique was particularly applicable in bridge building. The
construction of large-span bridges received a setback, however, with the dramatic collapse of the Tacoma
Narrows (Washington) Suspension Bridge in the United States in 1940, four months after it was
completed. This led to a reassessment of wind effects on the loading of large suspension bridges and to
significant improvements in subsequent designs. Use of massed concrete has produced spectacular high
arch dams, in which the weight of water is transmitted in part to the abutments by the curve of the
concrete wall; such dams need not depend upon the sheer bulk of impervious material as in a
conventional gravity or embankment dam.
5 Transportation
Some of the outstanding achievements of the 20th century are provided by transportation history.
In most fields there was a switch from steam power, supreme in the previous century, to internal
combustion and electricity. Steam, however, retained its superiority in marine transport: the steam turbine
provided power for a new generation of large ocean liners beginning with the Mauretania, developing
70,000 horsepower and a speed of 27 knots (27 nautical miles, or 50 km, per hour) in 1906 and continuing
throughout the period, culminating in the Queen Elizabeth, launched in 1938 with about 200,000
horsepower and a speed of 28.5 knots. Even here, however, there was increasing competition from large
diesel-powered motor vessels. Most smaller ships adopted this form of propulsion, and even the
steamships accepted the convenience of oil-burning boilers in place of the cumbersome coal burners
with their large bunkers.
On land, steam fought a long rearguard action, but the enormous popularity of the automobile
deprived the railways of much of their passenger traffic and forced them to seek economies in conversion
to diesel engines or electric traction, although these developments had not spread widely in Europe by
the outbreak of World War II. Meanwhile, the automobile stimulated prodigious feats of production.
Henry Ford led the way in the adoption of assembly-line mass production; his spectacularly successful
Model T, the “Tin Lizzie,” was manufactured in this way first in 1913, and by 1923 production had risen
to nearly two million per year. Despite this and similar successes in other countries, the first half of the
20th century was not a period of great technological innovation in the motorcar, which retained the main
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design features given to it in the last decade of the 19th century. For all the refinements (for example, the
self-starter) and multitudinous varieties, the major fact of the automobile in this period was its quantity.
The airplane is entirely a product of the 20th century, unlike the automobile, to which its
development was intimately related. This is not to say that experiments with flying machines had not
taken place earlier. Throughout the 19th century, to go back no further, investigations into aerodynamic
effects were carried out by inventors such as Sir George Cayley in England, leading to the successful
glider flights of Otto Lilienthal and others. Several designers perceived that the internal-combustion
engine promised to provide the light, compact power unit that was a prerequisite of powered flight, and
on Dec. 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright in their Flyer I at the Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina
achieved sustained, controlled, powered flight, one of the great “firsts” in the history of technology. The
Flyer I was a propeller-driven adaptation of the biplane gliders that the Wright brothers had built and
learned to fly in the previous years. They had devised a system of control through elevator, rudder, and
a wing-warping technique that served until the introduction of ailerons. Within a few years the brothers
were flying with complete confidence, astonishing the European pioneers of flight when they took their
airplane across the Atlantic to give demonstrations in 1908. Within a few months of this revelation,
however, the European designers had assimilated the lesson and were pushing ahead the principles of
aircraft construction. World War I gave a great impetus to this technological development, transforming
small-scale scattered aircraft manufacture into a major industry in all the main belligerent countries, and
transforming the airplane itself from a fragile construction in wood and glue into a robust machine
capable of startling aerobatic feats.
The end of the war brought a setback to this new industry, but the airplane had evolved
sufficiently to reveal its potential as a medium of civil transport, and during the interwar years the
establishment of transcontinental air routes provided a market for large, comfortable, and safe aircraft.
By the outbreak of World War II, metal-framed-and-skinned aircraft had become general, and the
cantilevered monoplane structure had replaced the biplane for most purposes. War again provided a
powerful stimulus to aircraft designers; engine performance was especially improved, and the gas turbine
received its first practical application. Other novel features of these years included the helicopter, deriving
lift from its rotating wings, or rotors, and the German V-1 flying bomb, a pilotless aircraft.
The war also stimulated the use of gliders for the transport of troops, the use of parachutes for
escape from aircraft and for attack by paratroops, and the use of gas-filled balloons for antiaircraft
barrages. The balloon had been used for pioneer aeronautical experiments in the 19th century, but its
practical uses had been hampered by the lack of control over its movements. The application of the
internal-combustion engine to a rigid-frame balloon airship by Ferdinand von Zeppelin had temporarily
made a weapon of war in 1915, although experience soon proved that it could not survive in competition
with the airplane. The apparently promising prospects of the dirigible (that is, maneuverable) airship in
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civil transport between the wars were ended by a series of disasters, the worst of which was the
destruction of the Hindenburg in New Jersey in 1937. Since then the airplane has been unchallenged in
the field of air transport.
6 Communications
The spectacular transport revolution of the 20th century was accompanied by a communications
revolution quite as dramatic, although technologically springing from different roots. In part, well-
established media of communication like printing participated in this revolution, although most of the
significant changes—such as the typewriter, the Linotype, and the high-speed power-driven rotary
press—were achievements of the 19th century. Photography was also a proved and familiar technique
by the end of the 19th century, but cinematography was new and did not become generally available until
after World War I, when it became enormously popular.
The real novelties in communications in the 20th century came in electronics. The scientific
examination of the relationship between light waves and electromagnetic waves had already revealed the
possibility of transmitting electromagnetic signals between widely separated points, and on Dec. 12, 1901,
Guglielmo Marconi succeeded in transmitting the first wireless message across the Atlantic. Early
equipment was crude, but within a few years striking progress was made in improving the means of
transmitting and receiving coded messages. Particularly important was the development of the thermionic
valve, a device for rectifying (that is, converting a high-frequency oscillating signal into a unidirectional
current capable of registering as a sound) an electromagnetic wave. This was essentially a development
from the carbon-filament electric lightbulb. In 1883 Edison had found that in these lamps a current
flowed between the filament and a nearby test electrode, called the plate, if the electric potential of the
plate was positive with respect to the filament. This current, called the Edison effect, was later identified
as a stream of electrons radiated by the hot filament. In 1904 Sir John Ambrose Fleming of Britain
discovered that by placing a metal cylinder around the filament in the bulb and by connecting the cylinder
(the plate) to a third terminal, a current could be rectified so that it could be detected by a telephone
receiver. Fleming’s device was known as the diode, and two years later, in 1906, Lee De Forest of the
United States made the significant improvement that became known as the triode by introducing a third
electrode (the grid) between the filament and the plate. The outstanding feature of this refinement was
its ability to amplify a signal. Its application made possible by the 1920s the widespread introduction of
live-voice broadcasting in Europe and America, with a consequent boom in the production of radio
receivers and other equipment.
This, however, was only one of the results derived from the application of the thermionic valve.
The idea of harnessing the flow of electrons was applied in the electron microscope, radar (a detection
device depending on the capacity of some radio waves to be reflected by solid objects), the electronic
computer, and in the cathode-ray tube of the television set. The first experiments in the transmission of
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pictures had been greeted with ridicule. Working on his own in Britain, John Logie Baird in the 1920s
demonstrated a mechanical scanner able to convert an image into a series of electronic impulses that
could then be reassembled on a viewing screen as a pattern of light and shade. Baird’s system, however,
was rejected in favour of electronic scanning, developed in the United States by Philo Farnsworth and
Vladimir Zworykin with the powerful backing of the Radio Corporation of America. Their equipment
operated much more rapidly and gave a more satisfactory image. By the outbreak of World War II,
television services were being introduced in several countries, although the war suspended their extension
for a decade. The emergence of television as a universal medium of mass communication is therefore a
phenomenon of the postwar years. But already by 1945 the cinema and the radio had demonstrated their
power in communicating news, propaganda, commercial advertisements, and entertainment.
7 Military technology
It has been necessary to refer repeatedly to the effects of the two World Wars in promoting all
kinds of innovation. It should be observed also that technological innovations transformed the character
of war itself. One weapon developed during World War II deserves a special mention. The principle of
rocket propulsion was well known earlier, and its possibilities as a means of achieving speeds sufficient
to escape from Earth’s gravitational pull had been pointed out by such pioneers as the Russian
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the American Robert H. Goddard. The latter built experimental liquid-
fueled rockets in 1926. Simultaneously, a group of German and Romanian pioneers was working along
the same lines, and it was this team that was taken over by the German war effort in the 1930s and given
the resources to develop a rocket capable of delivering a warhead hundreds of miles away. At the
Peenemünde base on the island of Usedom in the Baltic, Wernher von Braun and his team created the
V-2. Fully fueled, it weighed 14 tons; it was 40 feet (12 metres) long and was propelled by burning a
mixture of alcohol and liquid oxygen. Reaching a height of more than 100 miles (160 km), the V-2 marked
the beginning of the space age, and members of its design team were instrumental in both the Soviet and
U.S. space programs after the war.
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Test launch of a V-2 rocket. Camera Press/Globe Photos

Technology had a tremendous social impact in the period 1900–45. The automobile and electric
power, for instance, radically changed both the scale and the quality of 20th-century life, promoting a
process of rapid urbanization and a virtual revolution in living through mass production of household
goods and appliances. The rapid development of the airplane, the cinema, and radio made the world
seem suddenly smaller and more accessible. In the years following 1945 the constructive and creative
opportunities of modern technology could be exploited, although the process has not been without its
problems.
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From the technologies discussed in the article, select 2 technologies and how have these
affected your life?
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Lesson 2
Space Age Technology
Objectives: • Report on the scientific and technological developments in the 20th century.
• Discuss the positive and negative effects of these 20th century technologies to the
environment and society.
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Group With your group, make a 5-10 minute video report on the topic assigned to you by the
Activity:
instructor. Topics will be those below.
- Computers and Information Technology
- Internet and Other Advanced Telecommunication Technologies
- Automation and Robotics
- Advanced Energy Technologies
- Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
Instructions:
1. Provide a short introduction of the topic.
2. Identify 5 technologies from the topic.
- Each technology has to be made in the last 5 years (2015-2020)
- Each technology must be available in the Philippines.
- Each technology must be specific i.e. manufacturer, model no.
3. Provide a short introduction of each technology
4. Evaluate the positive and negative aspects of each technology on society.

SPACE AGE TECHNOLOGY
of-technology/Space-age-technology)
The years since World War II ended have been spent in the shadow of nuclear weapons, even
though they have not been used in war since that time. These weapons underwent momentous
development: the fission bombs of 1945 were superseded by the more powerful fusion bombs in 1950,
and before 1960 rockets were shown capable of delivering these weapons at ranges of thousands of miles.
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This new military technology had an incalculable effect on international relations, for it contributed to
the polarization of world power blocs while enforcing a caution, if not discipline, in the conduct of
international affairs that was absent earlier in the 20th century.
The fact of nuclear power was by no means the only technological novelty of the post-1945 years.
So striking indeed were the advances in engineering, chemical and medical technology, transport, and
communications that some commentators wrote, somewhat misleadingly, of the “second Industrial
Revolution” in describing the changes in these years. The rapid development of electronic engineering
created a new world of computer technology, remote control, miniaturization, and instant
communication. Even more expressive of the character of the period was the leap over the threshold of
extraterrestrial exploration. The techniques of rocketry, first applied in weapons, were developed to
provide launch vehicles for satellites and lunar and planetary probes and eventually, in 1969, to set the
first men on the Moon and bring them home safely again. This astonishing achievement was stimulated
in part by the international ideological rivalry already mentioned, as only the Soviet Union and the United
States had both the resources and the will to support the huge expenditures required. It justifies the
description of this period, however, as that of “space-age technology.”
1 Power
The great power innovation of this period was the harnessing of nuclear energy. The first atomic
bombs represented only a comparatively crude form of nuclear fission, releasing the energy of the
radioactive material immediately and explosively. But it was quickly appreciated that the energy released
within a critical atomic pile, a mass of graphite absorbing the neutrons emitted by radioactive material
inserted into it, could generate heat, which in turn could create steam to drive turbines and thus convert
the nuclear energy into usable electricity. Atomic power stations were built on this principle in the
advanced industrial world, and the system is still undergoing refinement, although so far atomic energy
has not vindicated the high hopes placed in it as an economic source of electricity and presents formidable
problems of waste disposal and maintenance. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the effort devoted to
experiments on more direct ways of controlling nuclear fission will eventually produce results in power
engineering.
Meanwhile, nuclear physics was probing the even more promising possibilities of harnessing the
power of nuclear fusion, of creating the conditions in which simple atoms of hydrogen combine, with a
vast release of energy, to form heavier atoms. This is the process that occurs in the stars, but so far it has
only been created artificially by triggering off a fusion reaction with the intense heat generated
momentarily by an atomic fission explosion. This is the mechanism of the hydrogen bomb. So far
scientists have devised no way of harnessing this process so that continuous controlled energy can be
obtained from it, although researches into plasma physics, generating a point of intense heat within a
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stream of electrons imprisoned in a strong magnetic field, hold out some hopes that such means will be
discovered in the not-too-distant future.
1.1 Alternatives to fossil fuels
It may well become a matter of urgency that some means of extracting usable power from nuclear
fusion be acquired. At the present rate of consumption, the world’s resources of mineral fuels, and of
the available radioactive materials used in the present nuclear power stations, will be exhausted within a
period of perhaps a few decades. The most attractive alternative is thus a form of energy derived from a
controlled fusion reaction that would use hydrogen from seawater, a virtually limitless source, and that
would not create a significant problem of waste disposal. Other sources of energy that may provide
alternatives to mineral fuels include various forms of solar cell, deriving power from the Sun by a chemical
or physical reaction such as that of photosynthesis. Solar cells of this kind are already in regular use on
satellites and space probes, where the flow of energy out from the Sun (the solar wind) can be harnessed
without interference from the atmosphere or the rotation of the Earth.
1.2 Gas turbine
The gas turbine underwent substantial development since its first successful operational use at
the end of World War II. The high power-to-weight ratio of this type of engine made it ideal for aircraft
propulsion, so that in either the pure jet or turboprop form it was generally adopted for all large aircraft,
both military and civil, by the 1960s. The immediate effect of the adoption of jet propulsion was a
spectacular increase in aircraft speeds, the first piloted airplane exceeding the speed of sound in level
flight being the American Bell X-1 in 1947, and by the late 1960s supersonic flight was becoming a
practicable, though controversial, proposition for civil-airline users. Ever larger and more powerful gas
turbines were designed to meet the requirements of airlines and military strategy, and increasing attention
was given to refinements to reduce the noise and increase the efficiency of this type of engine. Meanwhile,
the gas turbine was installed as a power unit in ships, railroad engines, and automobiles, but in none of
these uses did it proceed far beyond the experimental stage.
2 Materials
The space age spawned important new materials and uncovered new uses for old materials. For
example, a vast range of applications have been found for plastics that have been manufactured in many
different forms with widely varied characteristics. Glass fibre has been molded in rigid shapes to provide
motorcar bodies and hulls for small ships. Carbon fibre has demonstrated remarkable properties that
make it an alternative to metals for high-temperature turbine blades. Research on ceramics has produced
materials resistant to high temperatures suitable for heat shields on spacecraft. The demand for iron and
its alloys and for the nonferrous metals has remained high. The modern world has found extensive new
uses for the latter: copper for electrical conductors, tin for protective plating of less-resistant metals, lead
as a shield in nuclear power installations, and silver in photography. In most of these cases the
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development began before the 20th century, but the continuing increase in demand for these metals is
affecting their prices in the world commodity markets.
3 Automation and the computer
Both old and new materials were used increasingly in the engineering industry, which was
transformed since the end of World War II by the introduction of control engineering, automation, and
computerized techniques. The vital piece of equipment has been the computer, especially the electronic
digital computer, a 20th-century invention the theory of which was expounded by the English
mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage in the 1830s. The essence of this machine is the use of
electronic devices to record electric impulses coded in the very simple binary system, using only two
symbols, but other devices such as punched cards and magnetic tape for storing and feeding information
have been important supplementary features. By virtue of the very high speeds at which such equipment
can operate, even the most complicated calculations can be performed in a very short space of time.
The Mark I digital computer was at work at Harvard University in 1944, and after the war the
possibility of using it for a wide range of industrial, administrative, and scientific applications was quickly
realized. The early computers, however, were large and expensive machines, and their general application
was delayed until the invention of the transistor revolutionized computer technology. The transistor is
another of the key inventions of the space age. The product of research on the physics of solids, and
particularly of those materials such as germanium and silicon known as semiconductors, the transistor
was invented by John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley at Bell Telephone
Laboratories in the United States in 1947. It was discovered that crystals of semiconductors, which have
the capacity to conduct electricity in some conditions and not in others, could be made to perform the
functions of a thermionic valve but in the form of a device that was much smaller, more reliable, and
more versatile. The result has been the replacement of the cumbersome, fragile, and heat-producing
vacuum tubes by the small and strong transistor in a wide range of electronic equipment. Most especially,
this conversion has made possible the construction of much more powerful computers while making
them more compact and less expensive. Indeed, so small can effective transistors be that they have made
possible the new skills of miniaturization and micro miniaturization, whereby complicated electronic
circuits can be created on minute pieces of silicon or other semiconducting materials and incorporated
in large numbers in computers. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s the computer grew from an exotic
accessory to an integral element of most commercial enterprises, and computers made for home use
became widespread in the ’80s.
The potential for adaptation and utilization of the computer seems so great that many
commentators have likened it to the human brain, and there is no doubt that human analogies have been
important in its development. In Japan, where computer and other electronics technology made giant
strides since the 1950s, fully computerized and automated factories were in operation by the mid-1970s,
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some of them employing complete work forces of robots in the manufacture of other robots. In the
United States the chemical industry provides some of the most striking examples of fully automated,
computer-controlled manufacture. The characteristics of continuous production, in contrast to the batch
production of most engineering establishments, lend themselves ideally to automatic control from a
central computer monitoring the information fed back to it and making adjustments accordingly. Many
large petrochemical plants producing fuel and raw materials for manufacturing industries are now run in
this way, with the residual human function that of maintaining the machines and of providing the initial
instructions. The same sort of influences can be seen even in the old established chemical processes,
although not to the same extent: in the ceramics industry, in which continuous firing replaced the
traditional batch-production kilns; in the paper industry, in which mounting demand for paper and board
encouraged the installation of larger and faster machines; and in the glass industry, in which the float-
glass process for making large sheets of glass on a surface of molten tin requires close mechanical control.
In medicine and the life sciences the computer has provided a powerful tool of research and
supervision. It is now possible to monitor complicated operations and treatment. Surgery made great
advances in the space age; the introduction of transplant techniques attracted worldwide publicity and
interest. But perhaps of greater long-term significance is research in biology, with the aid of modern
techniques and instruments, that began to unlock the mysteries of cell formation and reproduction
through the self-replicating properties of the DNA molecules present in all living substances and thus to
explore the nature of life itself.
4 Food production
Food production has been subject to technological innovation such as accelerated freeze-drying
and irradiation as methods of preservation, as well as the increasing mechanization of farming throughout
the world. The widespread use of new pesticides and herbicides in some cases reached the point of abuse,
causing worldwide concern. Despite such problems, farming was transformed in response to the demand
for more food; scientific farming, with its careful breeding, controlled feeding, and mechanized handling,
became commonplace. New food-producing techniques such as aquaculture and hydroponics, for
farming the sea and seabed and for creating self-contained cycles of food production without soil,
respectively, are being explored either to increase the world supply of food or to devise ways of sustaining
closed communities such as may one day venture forth from the Earth on the adventure of interplanetary
exploration.
5 Civil engineering
One industry that has not been deeply influenced by new control-engineering techniques is
construction, in which the nature of the tasks involved makes dependence on a large labour force still
essential, whether it be in constructing a skyscraper, a new highway, or a tunnel. Nevertheless, some
important new techniques appeared since 1945, notably the use of heavy earth-moving and excavating
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machines such as the bulldozer and the tower crane. The use of prefabricated parts according to a
predetermined system of construction became widespread. In the construction of housing units, often in
large blocks of apartments or flats, such systems are particularly relevant because they make for
standardization and economy in plumbing, heating, and kitchen equipment. The revolution in home
equipment that began before World War II has continued apace since, with a proliferation of electrical
equipment.
6 Transport and communications
Many of these changes were facilitated by improvements in transport and communications.
Transport developments have for the most part continued those well established in the early 20th century.
The automobile proceeded in its phenomenal growth in popularity, causing radical changes in many of
the patterns of life, although the basic design of the motorcar has remained unchanged. The airplane,
benefiting from jet propulsion and a number of lesser technical advances, made spectacular gains at the
expense of both the ocean liner and the railroad. However, the growing popularity of air transport
brought problems of crowded airspace, noise, and airfield siting.
World War II helped bring about a shift to air transport: direct passenger flights across the
Atlantic were initiated immediately after the war. The first generation of transatlantic airliners were the
aircraft developed by war experience from the Douglas DC-3 and the pioneering types of the 1930s
incorporating all-metal construction with stressed skin, wing flaps and slots, retractable landing gear, and
other advances. The coming of the big jet-powered civil airliner in the 1950s kept pace with the rising
demand for air services but accentuated the social problems of air transport. The solution to these
problems may lie partly in the development of vertical takeoff and landing techniques, a concept
successfully pioneered by a British military aircraft, the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. Longer-term solutions
may be provided by the development of air-cushion vehicles derived from the Hovercraft, in use in the
English Channel and elsewhere, and one of the outstanding technological innovations of the period since
1945. The central feature of this machine is a down-blast of air, which creates an air cushion on which
the craft rides without direct contact with the sea or ground below it. The remarkable versatility of the
air-cushion machine is beyond doubt, but it has proved difficult to find very many transportation needs
that it can fulfill better than any craft already available. Despite these difficulties, it seems likely that this
type of vehicle will have an important future. It should be remembered, however, that all the machines
mentioned so far, automobiles, airplanes, and Hovercraft, use oil fuels, and it is possible that the
exhaustion of these will turn attention increasingly to alternative sources of power and particularly to
electric traction (electric railroads and autos), in which field there have been promising developments
such as the linear-induction motor. Supersonic flight, for nearly 30 years an exclusive capability of military
and research aircraft, became a commercial reality in 1975 with the Soviet Tu-144 cargo plane; the
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Concorde supersonic transport (SST), built jointly by the British and French governments, entered
regular passenger service early in 1976.
In communications also, the dominant lines of development continue to be those that were
established before or during World War II. In particular, the rapid growth of television services, with
their immense influence as media of mass communication, was built on foundations laid in the 1920s
and 1930s, while the universal adoption of radar on ships and airplanes followed the invention of a device
to give early warning of aerial attack. But in certain features the development of communications in the
space age has produced important innovations. First, the transistor, so significant for computers and
control engineering, made a large contribution to communications technology. Second, the establishment
of space satellites, considered to be a remote theoretical possibility in the 1940s, became part of the
accepted technological scene in the 1960s, and these have played a dramatic part in telephone and
television communication as well as in relaying meteorological pictures and data. Third, the development
of magnetic tape as a means of recording sound and, more recently, vision provided a highly flexible and
useful mode of communication. Fourth, new printing techniques were developed. In phototypesetting,
a photographic image is substituted for the conventional metal type. In xerography, a dry copying
process, an ink powder is attracted to the image to be copied by static electricity and then fused by
heating. Fifth, new optical devices such as zoom lenses increased the power of cameras and prompted
corresponding improvements in the quality of film available to the cinema and television. Sixth, new
physical techniques such as those that produced the laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of
radiation) made available an immensely powerful means of communication over long distances, although
these are still in their experimental stages. The laser also acquired significance as an important addition
to surgical techniques and as an instrument of space weaponry. The seventh and final communications
innovation is the use of electromagnetic waves other than light to explore the structure of the universe
by means of the radio telescope and its derivative, the X-ray telescope. This technique was pioneered
after World War II and has since become a vital instrument of satellite control and space research. Radio
telescopes have also been directed toward the Sun’s closest neighbours in space in the hope of detecting
electromagnetic signals from other intelligent species in the universe.
7 Military technology
Military technology in the space age has been concerned with the radical restructuring of strategy
caused by the invention of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them by intercontinental ballistic
missiles. Apart from these major features and the elaborate electronic systems intended to give an early
warning of missile attack, military reorganization has emphasized high maneuverability through
helicopter transport and a variety of armed vehicles. Such forces were deployed in wars in Korea and
Vietnam, the latter of which also saw the widespread use of napalm bombs and chemical defoliants to
remove the cover provided by dense forests. World War II marked the end of the primacy of the heavily
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armoured battleship. Although the United States recommissioned several battleships in the 1980s, the
aircraft carrier became the principal capital ship in the navies of the world. Emphasis now is placed on
electronic detection and the support of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with missiles carrying
nuclear warheads. The only major use of nuclear power since 1945, other than generating large-scale
electric energy, has been the propulsion of ships, particularly missile-carrying submarines capable of
cruising underwater for extended periods.
8 Space exploration
The rocket, which has played a crucial part in the revolution of military technology since the end of
World War II, acquired a more constructive significance in the U.S. and Soviet space programs. The first
spectacular step was Sputnik 1, a sphere with an instrument package weighing 184 pounds (83 kilograms),
launched into space by the Soviets on Oct. 4, 1957, to become the first artificial satellite. The feat
precipitated the so-called space race, in which achievements followed each other in rapid succession.
They may be conveniently grouped in four chronological although overlapping stages.
The first stage emphasized increasing the thrust of rockets capable of putting satellites into orbit
and on exploring the uses of satellites in communications, in weather observation, in monitoring military
information, and in topographical and geological surveying.
The second stage was that of the manned space program. This began with the successful orbit of
the Earth by the Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin on April 12, 1961, in the Vostok 1. This flight
demonstrated mastery of the problems of weightlessness and of safe reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
A series of Soviet and U.S. spaceflights followed in which the techniques of space rendezvous and
docking were acquired, flights up to a fortnight were achieved, and men “walked” in space outside their
craft.
The third stage of space exploration was the lunar program, beginning with approaches to the
Moon and going on through automatic surveys of its surface to manned landings. Again, the first
achievement was Soviet: Luna 1, launched on Jan. 2, 1959, became the first artificial body to escape the
gravitational field of the Earth, fly past the Moon, and enter an orbit around the Sun as an artificial planet.
Luna 2 crashed on the Moon on Sept. 13, 1959; it was followed by Luna 3, launched on Oct. 4, 1959,
which went around the Moon and sent back the first photographs of the side turned permanently away
from the Earth. The first soft landing on the Moon was made by Luna 9 on Feb. 3, 1966; this craft carried
cameras that transmitted the first photographs taken on the surface of the Moon. By this time excellent
close-range photographs had been secured by the United States Rangers 7, 8, and 9, which crashed into
the Moon in the second half of 1964 and the first part of 1965; and between 1966 and 1967 the series of
five Lunar Orbiters photographed almost the entire surface of the Moon from a low orbit in a search for
suitable landing places. The U.S. spacecraft Surveyor 1 soft-landed on the Moon on June 2, 1966; this
and following Surveyors acquired much useful information about the lunar surface. Meanwhile, the size
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and power of launching rockets climbed steadily, and by the late 1960s the enormous Saturn V rocket,
standing 353 feet (108 metres) high and weighing 2,725 tons (2,472,000 kilograms) at lift-off, made
possible the U.S. Apollo program, which climaxed on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Edwin
Aldrin clambered out of the Lunar Module of their Apollo 11 spacecraft onto the surface of the Moon.
The manned lunar exploration thus begun continued with a widening range of experiments and
achievements for a further five landings before the program was curtailed in 1972.
U.S. weather satellite orbiting the Earth. NASA
The fourth stage of space exploration looked out beyond the Earth and the Moon to the
possibilities of planetary exploration. The U.S. space probe Mariner 2 was launched on Aug. 27, 1962,
and passed by Venus the following December, relaying back information about that planet indicating
that it was hotter and less hospitable than had been expected. These findings were confirmed by the
Soviet Venera 3, which crash-landed on the planet on March 1, 1966, and by Venera 4, which made the
first soft landing on Oct. 18, 1967. Later probes of the Venera series gathered further atmospheric and
superficiality data. The U.S. probe Pioneer Venus 1 orbited the planet for eight months in 1978, and in
December of that year four landing probes conducted quantitative and qualitative analyses of the
Venusian atmosphere. Surface temperature of approximately 900 °F reduced the functional life of such
probes to little more than one hour.
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Research on Mars was conducted primarily through the U.S. Mariner and Viking probe series.
During the late 1960s, photographs from Mariner orbiters demonstrated a close visual resemblance
between the surface of Mars and that of the Moon. In July and August 1976, Vikings 1 and 2, respectively,
made successful landings on the planet; experiments designed to detect the presence or remains of
organic material on the Martian surface met with mechanical difficulty, but results were generally
interpreted as negative. Photographs taken during the early 1980s by the U.S. probes Voyagers 1 and 2
permitted unprecedented study of the atmospheres and satellites of Jupiter and Saturn and revealed a
previously unknown configuration of rings around Jupiter, analogous to those of Saturn.
In the mid-1980s the attention of the U.S. space program was focused primarily upon the
potentials of the reusable space shuttle vehicle for extensive orbital research. The U.S. space shuttle
Columbia completed its first mission in April 1981 and made several successive flights. It was followed
by the Challenger, which made its first mission in April 1983. Both vehicles were used to conduct myriad
scientific experiments and to deploy satellites into orbit. The space program suffered a tremendous
setback in 1986 when, at the outset of a Challenger mission, the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff,
killing the crew of seven. The early 1990s saw mixed results for NASA. The $1.5 billion Hubble Space
Telescope occasioned some disappointment when scientists discovered problems with its primary mirror
after launch. Interplanetary probes, to the delight of both professional and amateur stargazers, relayed
beautiful, informative images of other planets.
At the dawn of the space age it is possible to perceive only dimly its scope and possibilities. But
it is relevant to observe that the history of technology has brought the world to a point in time at which
humankind, equipped with unprecedented powers of self-destruction, stands on the threshold of
extraterrestrial exploration.
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Discuss. In at least 50 words per question.

Is technology helping you?
How does it help you?
Does it harm you?
What are you doing to lessen the bad effects of technology on you?
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Module 4: IMPACTS OF SCIENCE

AND TECHNOLOGY IN SOCIETY AND
ITS CULTURE
Lesson 1: Perceptions of Technology
Lesson 2: STS and Ethics
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Lesson 1
Perceptions of Technology
Objectives: • Exemplify how science and technology has affected society and its culture
• Discuss the positive and negative effects of science and technology on society and its
culture.
• Evaluate societal concerns arising from the use of recent advances in science and
technology.
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Activity: What product of science and technology has helped you the most? Discuss how it helps
you. Discuss also ways how it does not help you.
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PERCEPTIONS OF TECHNOLOGY
of-technology/Perceptions-of-technology)
1. Science and technology

Among the insights that arise from this review of the history of technology is the light it throws
on the distinction between science and technology. The history of technology is longer than and distinct
from the history of science. Technology is the systematic study of techniques for making and doing
things; science is the systematic attempt to understand and interpret the world. While technology is
concerned with the fabrication and use of artifacts, science is devoted to the more conceptual enterprise
of understanding the environment, and it depends upon the comparatively sophisticated skills of literacy
and numeracy. Such skills became available only with the emergence of the great world civilizations, so
it is possible to say that science began with those civilizations, some 3,000 years BCE, whereas technology
is as old as humanlike life. Science and technology developed as different and separate activities, the
former being for several millennia a field of fairly abstruse speculation practiced by a class of aristocratic
philosophers, while the latter remained a matter of essentially practical concern to craftsmen of many
types. There were points of intersection, such as the use of mathematical concepts in building and
irrigation work, but for the most part the functions of scientist and technologist (to use these modern
terms retrospectively) remained distinct in the ancient cultures.
The situation began to change during the medieval period of development in the West (500–1500
CE), when both technical innovation and scientific understanding interacted with the stimuli of
commercial expansion and a flourishing urban culture. The robust growth of technology in these
centuries could not fail to attract the interest of educated men. Early in the 17th century the natural
philosopher Francis Bacon recognized three great technological innovations—the magnetic compass, the
printing press, and gunpowder—as the distinguishing achievements of modern man, and he advocated
experimental science as a means of enlarging man’s dominion over nature. By emphasizing a practical
role for science in this way, Bacon implied a harmonization of science and technology, and he made his
intention explicit by urging scientists to study the methods of craftsmen and urging craftsmen to learn
more science. Bacon, with Descartes and other contemporaries, for the first time saw man becoming the
master of nature, and a convergence between the traditional pursuits of science and technology was to
be the way by which such mastery could be achieved.
Yet the wedding of science and technology proposed by Bacon was not soon consummated.
Over the next 200 years, carpenters and mechanics—practical men of long standing—built iron bridges,
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steam engines, and textile machinery without much reference to scientific principles, while scientists—
still amateurs—pursued their investigations in a haphazard manner. But the body of men, inspired by
Baconian principles, who formed the Royal Society in London in 1660 represented a determined effort
to direct scientific research toward useful ends, first by improving navigation and cartography, and
ultimately by stimulating industrial innovation and the search for mineral resources. Similar bodies of
scholars developed in other European countries, and by the 19th century scientists were moving toward
a professionalism in which many of the goals were clearly the same as those of the technologists. Thus,
Justus von Liebig of Germany, one of the fathers of organic chemistry and the first proponent of mineral
fertilizer, provided the scientific impulse that led to the development of synthetic dyes, high explosives,
artificial fibres, and plastics, and Michael Faraday, the brilliant British experimental scientist in the field
of electromagnetism, prepared the ground that was exploited by Thomas A. Edison and many others.
The role of Edison is particularly significant in the deepening relationship between science and
technology, because the prodigious trial-and-error process by which he selected the carbon filament for
his electric lightbulb in 1879 resulted in the creation at Menlo Park, N.J., of what may be regarded as the
world’s first genuine industrial research laboratory. From this achievement the application of scientific
principles to technology grew rapidly. It led easily to the engineering rationalism applied by Frederick W.
Taylor to the organization of workers in mass production, and to the time-and-motion studies of Frank
and Lillian Gilbreth at the beginning of the 20th century. It provided a model that was applied rigorously
by Henry Ford in his automobile assembly plant and that was followed by every modern mass-production
process. It pointed the way to the development of systems engineering, operations research, simulation
studies, mathematical modeling, and technological assessment in industrial processes. This was not just
a one-way influence of science on technology, because technology created new tools and machines with
which the scientists were able to achieve an ever-increasing insight into the natural world. Taken together,
these developments brought technology to its modern highly efficient level of performance.
2. Criticisms of technology
Judged entirely on its own traditional grounds of evaluation—that is, in terms of efficiency—the
achievement of modern technology has been admirable. Voices from other fields, however, began to
raise disturbing questions, grounded in other modes of evaluation, as technology became a dominant
influence in society. In the mid-19th century the non-technologists were almost unanimously enchanted
by the wonders of the new man-made environment growing up around them. London’s Great Exhibition
of 1851, with its arrays of machinery housed in the truly innovative Crystal Palace, seemed to be the
culmination of Francis Bacon’s prophetic forecast of man’s increasing dominion over nature. The new
technology seemed to fit the prevailing laissez-faire economics precisely and to guarantee the rapid
realization of the Utilitarian philosophers’ ideal of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Even
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Marx and Engels, espousing a radically different political orientation, welcomed technological progress
because in their eyes it produced an imperative need for socialist ownership and control of industry.
Similarly, early exponents of science fiction such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells explored with zest the
future possibilities opened up to the optimistic imagination by modern technology, and the American
utopian Edward Bellamy, in his novel Looking Backward (1888), envisioned a planned society in the year
2000 in which technology would play a conspicuously beneficial role. Even such late Victorian literary
figures as Lord Tennyson and Rudyard Kipling acknowledged the fascination of technology in some of
their images and rhythms.
Yet even in the midst of this Victorian optimism, a few voices of dissent were heard, such as
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ominous warning that “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.” For the first
time it began to seem as if “things”—the artifacts made by man in his campaign of conquest over
nature—might get out of control and come to dominate him. Samuel Butler, in his satirical novel
Erewhon (1872), drew the radical conclusion that all machines should be consigned to the scrap heap.
And others such as William Morris, with his vision of a reversion to a craft society without modern
technology, and Henry James, with his disturbing sensations of being overwhelmed in the presence of
modern machinery, began to develop a profound moral critique of the apparent achievements of
technologically dominated progress. Even H.G. Wells, despite all the ingenious and prophetic
technological gadgetry of his earlier novels, lived to become disillusioned about the progressive character
of Western civilization: his last book was titled Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945). Another novelist,
Aldous Huxley, expressed disenchantment with technology in a forceful manner in Brave New World
(1932). Huxley pictured a society of the near future in which technology was firmly enthroned, keeping
human beings in bodily comfort without knowledge of want or pain, but also without freedom, beauty,
or creativity, and robbed at every turn of a unique personal existence. An echo of the same view found
poignant artistic expression in the film Modern Times (1936), in which Charlie Chaplin depicted the
depersonalizing effect of the mass-production assembly line. Such images were given special potency by
the international political and economic conditions of the 1930s, when the Western world was plunged
in the Great Depression and seemed to have forfeited the chance to remold the world order shattered
by World War I. In these conditions, technology suffered by association with the tarnished idea of
inevitable progress.
Paradoxically, the escape from a decade of economic depression and the successful defense of
Western democracy in World War II did not bring a return of confident notions about progress and faith
in technology. The horrific potentialities of nuclear war were revealed in 1945, and the division of the
world into hostile power blocs prevented any such euphoria and served to stimulate criticisms of
technological aspirations even more searching than those that have already been mentioned. J. Robert
Oppenheimer, who directed the design and assembly of the atomic bombs at Los Alamos, N.M., later
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opposed the decision to build the thermonuclear (fusion) bomb and described the accelerating pace of
technological change with foreboding:
“One thing that is new is the prevalence of newness, the changing scale and scope
of change itself, so that the world alters as we walk in it, so that the years of man’s
life measure not some small growth or rearrangement or moderation of what he
learned in childhood, but a great upheaval.”
The theme of technological tyranny over individuality and traditional patterns of life was
expressed by Jacques Ellul, of the University of Bordeaux, in his book The Technological Society (1964,
first published as La Technique in 1954). Ellul asserted that technology had become so pervasive that
man now lived in a milieu of technology rather than of nature. He characterized this new milieu as
artificial, autonomous, self-determining, nihilistic (that is, not directed to ends, though proceeding by
cause and effect), and, in fact, with means enjoying primacy over ends. Technology, Ellul held, had
become so powerful and ubiquitous that other social phenomena such as politics and economics had
become situated in it rather than influenced by it. The individual, in short, had come to be adapted to the
technical milieu rather than the other way round.
While views such as those of Ellul have enjoyed a considerable vogue since World War II—and
spawned a remarkable subculture of hippies and others who sought, in a variety of ways, to reject
participation in technological society—it is appropriate to make two observations on them. The first is
that these views are, in a sense, a luxury enjoyed only by advanced societies, which have benefited from
modern technology. Few voices critical of technology can be heard in developing countries that are
hungry for the advantages of greater productivity and the rising standards of living that have been seen
to accrue to technological progress in the more fortunate developed countries. Indeed, the
antitechnological movement is greeted with complete incomprehension in these parts of the world, so
that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that only when the whole world enjoys the benefits of
technology can we expect the subtler dangers of technology to be appreciated, and by then, of course, it
may be too late to do anything about them.
The second observation about the spate of technological pessimism in the advanced countries is
that it has not managed to slow the pace of technological advance, which seems, if anything, to have
accelerated. The gap between the first powered flight and the first human steps on the Moon was only
66 years, and that between the disclosure of the fission of uranium and the detonation of the first atomic
bomb was a mere six and a half years. The advance of the information revolution based on the electronic
computer has been exceedingly swift, so that, despite the denials of the possibility by elderly and
distinguished experts, the sombre spectre of sophisticated computers replicating higher human mental
functions and even human individuality should not be relegated too hurriedly to the classification of
science fantasy. The biotechnic stage of technological innovation is still in its infancy, and, if the recent
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rate of development is extrapolated forward, many seemingly impossible targets could be achieved in the
next century. Not that this will be any consolation to the pessimists, as it only indicates the ineffectiveness
to date of attempts to slow down technological progress.
3. The technological dilemma
Whatever the responses to modern technology, there can be no doubt that it presents
contemporary society with a number of immediate problems that take the form of a traditional choice of
evils, so that it is appropriate to regard them as constituting a “technological dilemma.” This is the
dilemma between, on the one hand, the overdependence of life in the advanced industrial countries on
technology, and, on the other hand, the threat that technology will destroy the quality of life in modern
society and even endanger society itself. Technology thus confronts Western civilization with the need
to make a decision, or rather, a series of decisions, about how to use the enormous power available to
society constructively rather than destructively. The need to control the development of technology, and
so to resolve the dilemma, by regulating its application to creative social objectives, makes it ever more
necessary to define these objectives while the problems presented by rapid technological growth can still
be solved.
These problems, and the social objectives related to them, may be considered under three broad
headings. First is the problem of controlling the application of nuclear technology. Second is the
population problem, which is twofold: it seems necessary to find ways of controlling the dramatic rise in
the number of human beings and, at the same time, to provide food and care for the people already living
on the Earth. Third, there is the ecological problem, whereby the products and wastes of technical
processes have polluted the environment and disturbed the balance of natural forces of regeneration.
When these basic problems have been reviewed, it will be possible, finally, to consider the effect of
technology on life in town and countryside, and to determine the sort of judgments about technology
and society to which a study of the history of technology leads.
3.1 Nuclear technology
The solution to the first problem, that of controlling nuclear technology, is primarily political. At
its root is the anarchy of national self-government, for as long as the world remains divided into a
multiplicity of nation-states, or even into power blocs, each committed to the defense of its own
sovereign power to do what it chooses, nuclear weapons merely replace the older weapons by which such
nation-states maintained their independence in the past. The availability of a nuclear armoury has
emphasized the weaknesses of a world political system based upon sovereign nation-states. Here, as
elsewhere, technology is a tool that can be used creatively or destructively. But the manner of its use
depends entirely on human decisions, and in this matter of nuclear self-control the decisions are those
of governments. There are other aspects of the problem of nuclear technology, such as the disposal of
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radioactive waste and the quest to harness the energy released by fusion, but, although these are important
issues in their own right, they are subordinate to the problem of the use of nuclear weapons in warfare.
3.2 Population explosion
Assuming that the use of nuclear weapons can be averted, world civilization will have to come to
grips with the population problem in the next few decades if life is to be tolerable on planet Earth in the
21st century. The problem can be tackled in two ways, both drawing on the resources of modern
technology.
In the first place, efforts may be made to limit the rate of population increase. Medical technology,
which through new drugs and other techniques has provided a powerful impulse to the increase of
population, also offers means of controlling this increase through contraceptive devices and through
painless sterilization procedures. Again, technology is a tool that is neutral in respect to moral issues
about its own use, but it would be futile to deny that artificial population control is inhibited by powerful
moral constraints and taboos. Some reconciliation of these conflicts is essential, however, if stability in
world population is to be satisfactorily achieved. Perhaps the experience of China, already responsible
for one-quarter of the world’s population, is instructive here: in an attempt to prevent the population
growth from exceeding the ability of the country to sustain the existing standards of living, the
government imposed a “one-child family” campaign in the 1970s, which is maintained by draconian
social controls.
In the second place, even the most optimistic program of population control can hope to achieve
only a slight reduction in the rate of increase, so an alternative approach must be made simultaneously in
the shape of an effort to increase the world’s production of food. Technology has much to contribute at
this point, both in raising the productivity of existing sources of food supply, by improved techniques of
agriculture and better types of grain and animal stock, and in creating new sources of food, by making
the deserts fertile and by systematically farming the riches of the oceans. There is enough work here to
keep engineers and food technologists busy for many generations.
3.3 Ecological balance
The third major problem area of modern technological society is that of preserving a healthy
environmental balance. Though humans have been damaging the environment for centuries by
overcutting trees and farming too intensively and though some protective measures, such as the
establishment of national forests and wildlife sanctuaries, were taken decades ago, great increases in
population and in the intensity of industrialization are promoting a worldwide ecological crisis. This
includes the dangers involved in destruction of the equatorial rainforests, the careless exploitation of
minerals by open-mining techniques, and the pollution of the oceans by radioactive waste and of the
atmosphere by combustion products. These include oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, which produce acid
rain, and carbon dioxide, which may affect the world’s climate through the greenhouse effect. It was the
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danger of indiscriminate use of pesticides such as DDT after World War II that first alerted opinion in
advanced Western countries to the delicate nature of the world’s ecological system, presented in a
trenchant polemic by American science writer Rachel Carson in her book Silent Spring (1962); this was
followed by a spate of warnings about other possibilities of ecological disaster. The great public concern
about pollution in the advanced nations is both overdue and welcome. Once more, however, it needs to
be said that the fault for this waste-making abuse of technology lies with man himself rather than with
the tools he uses. For all his intelligence, man in communities behaves with a lack of respect for the
environment that is both shortsighted and potentially suicidal.
4. Technological society
Much of the 19th-century optimism about the progress of technology has dispersed, and an
increasing awareness of the technological dilemma confronting the world makes it possible to offer a
realistic assessment of the role of technology in shaping society today.
4.1 Interactions between society and technology
In the first place, it can be clearly recognized that the relationship between technology and society
is complex. Any technological stimulus can trigger a variety of social responses, depending on such
unpredictable variables as differences between human personalities; similarly, no specific social situation
can be relied upon to produce a determinable technological response. Any “theory of invention,”
therefore, must remain extremely tentative, and any notion of a “philosophy” of the history of technology
must allow for a wide range of possible interpretations. A major lesson of the history of technology,
indeed, is that it has no precise predictive value. It is frequently possible to see in retrospect when one
particular artifact or process had reached obsolescence while another promised to be a highly successful
innovation, but at the time such historical hindsight is not available and the course of events is
indeterminable. In short, the complexity of human society is never capable of resolution into a simple
identification of causes and effects driving historical development in one direction rather than another,
and any attempt to identify technology as an agent of such a process is unacceptable.
4.2 The putative autonomy of technology
Secondly, the definition of technology as the systematic study of techniques for making and doing
things establishes technology as a social phenomenon and thus as one that cannot possess complete
autonomy, unaffected by the society in which it exists. It is necessary to make what may seem to be such
an obvious statement because so much autonomy has been ascribed to technology, and the element of
despair in interpretations like that of Jacques Ellul is derived from an exaggerated view of the power of
technology to determine its own course apart from any form of social control. Of course it must be
admitted that once a technological development, such as the transition from sail to steam power in ships
or the introduction of electricity for domestic lighting, is firmly established, it is difficult to stop it before
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the process is complete. The assembly of resources and the arousal of expectations both create a certain
technological momentum that tends to prevent the process from being arrested or deflected.
Nevertheless, the decisions about whether to go ahead with a project or to abandon it are undeniably
human, and it is a mistake to represent technology as a monster or a juggernaut threatening human
existence. In itself, technology is neutral and passive: in the phrase of Lynn White, Jr., “Technology opens
doors; it does not compel man to enter.” Or, in the words of the traditional adage, it is a poor craftsman
who blames his tools, and so, just as it was naive for 19th-century optimists to imagine that technology
could bring paradise on Earth, it seems equally simplistic for pessimists today to make technology itself
a scapegoat for human shortcomings.
4.3 Technology and education
A third theme to emerge from this review of the history of technology is the growing importance
of education. In the early millennia of human existence, a craft was acquired in a lengthy and laborious
manner by serving with a master who gradually trained the initiate in the arcane mysteries of the skill.
Such instruction, set in a matrix of oral tradition and practical experience, was frequently more closely
related to religious ritual than to the application of rational scientific principles. Thus, the artisan in
ceramics or sword making protected the skill while ensuring that it would be perpetuated. Craft training
was institutionalized in Western civilization in the form of apprenticeship, which has survived as a
framework for instruction in technical skills. Increasingly, however, instruction in new techniques
requires access both to general theoretical knowledge and to realms of practical experience that, on
account of their novelty, were not available through traditional apprenticeship. Thus, the requirement for
a significant proportion of academic instruction has become an important feature of most aspects of
modern technology. This accelerated the convergence between science and technology in the 19th and
20th centuries and created a complex system of educational awards representing the level of
accomplishment from simple instruction in schools to advanced research in universities. French and
German academies led in the provision of such theoretical instruction, while Britain lagged somewhat in
the 19th century, owing to its long and highly successful tradition of apprenticeship in engineering and
related skills. But by the 20th century all the advanced industrial countries, including newcomers like
Japan, had recognized the crucial role of a theoretical technological education in achieving commercial
and industrial competence.
The recognition of the importance of technological education, however, has never been complete
in Western civilization, and the continued coexistence of other traditions has caused problems of
assimilation and adjustment. The British author C.P. Snow drew attention to one of the most persistent
problems in his perceptive essay The Two Cultures (1959), in which he identified the dichotomy between
scientists and technologists on the one hand and humanists and artists on the other as one between those
who did understand the second law of thermodynamics and those who did not, causing a sharp
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disjunction of comprehension and sympathy. Arthur Koestler put the same point in another way by
observing that the traditionally humanities-educated Westerner is reluctant to admit that a work of art is
beyond comprehension but will cheerfully confess to not understanding how a radio or heating system
works. Koestler characterized such a modern individual as an “urban barbarian,” isolated from a
technological environment that he or she possesses without understanding. Yet the growing prevalence
of “black-box” technology, in which only the rarefied expert is able to understand the enormously
complex operations that go on inside the electronic equipment, makes it more and more difficult to avoid
becoming such a barbarian. The most helpful development would seem to be not so much seeking to
master the expertise of others in our increasingly specialized society as encouraging those disciplines that
provide bridges between the two cultures, and here there is a valuable role for the history of technology.
4.3 The quality of life
A fourth theme, concerned with the quality of life, can be identified in the relationship between
technology and society. There can be little doubt that technology has brought a higher standard of living
to people in advanced countries, just as it has enabled a rapidly rising population to subsist in the
developing countries. It is the prospect of rising living standards that makes the acquisition of technical
competence so attractive to these countries. But however desirable the possession of a comfortable
sufficiency of material goods, and the possibility of leisure for recreative purposes, the quality of a full
life in any human society has other even more important prerequisites, such as the possession of freedom
in a law-abiding community and of equality before the law. These are the traditional qualities of
democratic societies, and it has to be asked whether technology is an asset or a liability in acquiring them.
Certainly, highly illiberal regimes have used technological devices to suppress individual freedom and to
secure obedience to the state: the nightmare vision of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), with
its telescreens and sophisticated torture, has provided literary demonstration of this reality, should one
be needed. But the fact that high technological competence requires, as has been shown, a high level of
educational achievement by a significant proportion of the community holds out the hope that a society
that is well educated will not long endure constraints on individual freedom and initiative that are not
self-justifying. In other words, the high degree of correlation between technological success and
educational accomplishment suggests a fundamental democratic bias about modern technology. It may
take time to become effective, but, given sufficient time without a major political or social disruption and
a consequent resurgence of national assertiveness and human selfishness, there are sound reasons for
hoping that technology will bring the people of the world into a closer and more creative community.
Such, at least, must be the hope of anybody who takes a long view of the history of technology
as one of the most formative and persistently creative themes in the development of humankind from
the Paleolithic cave dwellers of antiquity to the dawn of the space age. Above all other perceptions of
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technology, the threshold of space exploration on which humankind stands provides the most dynamic
and hopeful portent of human potentialities. Even while the threat of technological self-destruction
remains ominous and the problems of population control and ecological imbalance cry out for
satisfactory solutions, man has found a clue of his own future in terms of a quest to explore and colonize
the depths of an infinitely fascinating universe. As yet, only a few visionaries have appreciated the richness
of this possibility, and their projections are too easily dismissed as nothing more than imaginative science
fiction. But in the long run, if there is to be a long run for our uniquely technological but willful species,
the future depends upon the ability to acquire such a cosmic perspective, so it is important to recognize
this now and to begin the arduous mental and physical preparations accordingly. The words of Arthur
C. Clarke, one of the most perceptive of contemporary seers, in his Profiles of the Future (1962), are
worth recalling in this context. Thinking ahead to the countless aeons that could stem from the
remarkable human achievement summarized in the history of technology, he surmised that the all-
knowing beings who may evolve from these humble beginnings may still regard our own era with
wistfulness: “But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of Creation; for we knew
the Universe when it was young.”
___________________
Complete the table in the next page. Provide three products of science and technology
according to each important aspects of society. Give a short description and provide the
effects on society.
Topic Product of Science and Short Description of Product Good effect on the topic Bad effect on the topic
Technology Affecting the Topic
Business and 1.
Economics
2.
3.
Environment 1.
2.
3.
Art 1.
2.
3.
War 1.
2.
3.
Politics 1.
2.
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3.
Society
Lesson 2
STS and Ethics
Objectives: • Exemplify how science and technology has affected society and its culture
• Discuss the positive and negative effects of science and technology on society and its
culture.
• Evaluate societal concerns arising from the use of recent advances in science and
technology.
___________________
Activity: What is ethics? Do you have ethics? How do you use ethics in daily life? Provide three
examples.
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TOP 10 ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN SCIENCE FOR 2020

by Michelle Taylor
Article lifted from Laboratory Equipment: Discovery and Design in the US (https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/558920-
Top-10-Ethical-Dilemmas-in-Science-for-2020/)
For the eighth consecutive year, Dr. Jessica Baron, in collaboration with the John J. Reilly Center
for Science, Technology and Values at the University of Notre Dame, has released the annual list of
emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology for 2020.
The list, which features up-and-coming technology extensively used in the science and technology
industries, is released annually in mid-December. The thought-provoking selections are intended to ramp
up dialogue among citizens and scientists alike. As Baron writes, “We live in an era of rapid development
as technologies that seemed theoretical only a few years ago are increasingly incorporated into our daily
lives. Our concern is that there’s little public dialog about the use and risks of these technologies, and
that dialog is necessary to keep public policy in pace with science and technology.”
Here is Baron’s 2020 list, presented in no particular order.
1. The Pseudoscience of Skincare
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/the-pseudoscience-of-skincare/)
Society is vain—no surprise there. But the skincare market is taking advantage of that fact, with
“skin tech” expected to be worth $12.8 billion in 2020. The subcategory of skin tech includes, but is not
limited to: LED masks, electronic face scrubbers, facial massagers, smart mirrors and skincare cameras.
The problem here is that beauty companies market themselves as “clinically proven” when that is, in fact,
not the case. Most research done by manufacturers does not meet the scientific method and is not
reproducible. The experts hired to tout these products are not scientists either—they are often celebs or
even dermatologist-celebs who have their own agenda.
2. AI and Gamification in Hiring
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/ai-and-gamification-in-hiring/)
Here Baron asks a startling question: are you your data? While hiring companies can already see
a candidate’s social media history, some companies are going a level beyond and using neurological games
and emotion-sensing recognition as part of their assessments. If taken to the extreme, this means a
machine could decide if you are right for a position based entirely on your responses to a game of your
facial expressions. Nevermind your resume, your phone interview, your in-person interview, or your
impressive track record—it could all be for naught.
3. Predatory Journals
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/predatory-journals/)
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Researchers estimate there are roughly 8,000 predatory journals, or journals that lack ethical practices
such as peer-review and have extremely low standards. The thing is, when these journals publish anything,
the information becomes fodder for unknowing researchers and scientists who are duped into believing
it’s the truth. Given the immense amount of pressure on academics to publish, some become desperate
enough to—intentionally or unintendedly—engage with these predatory journals. As you’ll read later on
in this list, fake data is not something we can afford much more of.
4. The HARPA SAFEHOME Proposal
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/the-harpa-safehome-proposal/)
US President Donald Trump’s White House is considering a controversial plan to monitor the
mentally ill as a way to stop mass shootings in the U.S.—a program that sounds a lot like a real-life
Minority Report. HARPA, run by a third-party pancreatic cancer foundation with no governmental ties,
would leverage data available on phones and smartwatches to detect when mentally ill people are about
to turn violent. Beyond the infringement of civil liberties, research has not found reliable benchmarks to
predict violent behavior, or even classify the mentally ill versus non-mentally ill.
5. Class Dojo and Classroom Surveillance
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/class-dojo-and-classroom-surveillance/)
ClassDojo is a popular online tool that, through recording in the classroom, scores children on
their behavior, and then shares that with the class, as well as parents. The system’s company says it is
meant to foster positive behavior in the classroom, but pundits raise more than a few concerns, including:
1) can the information be hacked.
2) how is good behavior quantified/defined? and;
3) does it promote anxiety/shame among students?
6. Grinch Bots
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/grinch-bots/)
Aptly named “Grinch Bots” include online entities that buy up popular goods as soon as they hit the
market in order to control supply and demand. Once the goods are sold-out, they are resold on the
secondary market at an inflated price. This isn’t a new problem, but there also isn’t a new solution, either.
In 2016, Congress passed the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, but it hasn’t been very effective.
The Stopping Grinchbots Act 2018 was introduced last year and is currently awaiting more action from
the House. However, the bill would only make it illegal to resell products purchased by automated bots,
and obviously doesn’t apply to the rest of the world.
7. Project Nightingale
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/project-nightingale/)
Dubbed Project Nightingale, this partnership sees Ascension, the second-largest health care
system in the U.S., collaborate with Google to host health records on the Google Cloud. With roughly
2,600 hospitals, doctors’ offices and other related facilities spread over 21 states, it holds 10s of millions
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of patient records. Both companies signed a HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act), meaning Google can’t do anything with the records other than provide a cloud hosting service.
However, The Wall Street Journal reported that neither doctors nor patients had been informed of what
was happening with these records and that roughly 150 Google employees had access to the data. As
data increasingly moves to the cloud and other storage options, and companies such as Microsoft and
Apple also launch health projects, we have be ensure our data is protected.
8. Student Tracking Software
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/student-tracking-software/)
Universities are increasingly using predictive analytics to—essentially—stalk a candidate. Some
college websites use software that reveals the name, age, ethnicity, address and contact information of a
candidate, as well as which specific college sub-pages he/she visited and how long was spent on each
web page. The college then uses these factors to determine an “affinity score” that decides how likely a
candidate is to accept an offer from the college. But, Baron says, when colleges assign scores to students
based on income and interest, it strips applications of much of their context and it also discriminates
against low-income students or those without dedicated Internet access. The analytics have the potential
to harm a prospective student’s college admission based on an algorithm that assumes ideal candidates.
9. The Corruption of Tech Ethics
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/the-corruption-of-tech-ethics/)
When CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing went mainstream in 2012, researchers immediately called a
moratorium due to the high-power potential of the system. There were then nationwide meetings,
international meetings, multiple groups got involved—overall, it went exactly as it was supposed to. Now,
however, the legitimacy of the ethical researcher is taking a hit as lawyers, business people, journalists
and others muddy the waters. Ethics officers need to have rigorous training and understand the
frameworks for ethical decision making. Otherwise, ethics turns into a merry-go-round.
10. Deep fakes
(Read more: http://reillytop10.com/deepfakes/)
Manipulating video and audio to make it appear as something it is not is not new. However, the recent
application of deep learning to create hard-to-identify fakes is more sophisticated, and more concerning.
States are attempting to build legislation against deep fakes, and companies like Facebook and Microsoft
want to help develop tools to spot them. But these days, just about anyone can download deep fake
software to create fake videos or audio recordings that look and sound like the real thing—and nothing
gets deleted from the Internet.
___________________
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How do you think each item discussed in the article above affect you especially if it will
be implemented in the Philippines?
1. The Pseudoscience of Skincare

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2. AI and Gamification in Hiring
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3. Predatory Journals
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4. The HARPA SAFEHOME Proposal
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5. Class Dojo and Classroom Surveillance
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6. Grinch Bots
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7. Project Nightingale
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8. Student Tracking Software
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9. The Corruption of Tech Ethics
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10. Deep fakes
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STS 121: Science, Technology and

Module 1: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN HISTORY THAT CHANGED SOCIETY 3

Module 2: SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS 111

Moule 3: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY 134

Module 4: IMPACTS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN 161

Course Title: Science, Technology and Society

Time Frame: 54 hours

Lesson 1: Introduction to the

Lesson 2: Stone Age

Lesson 3: Bronze Age

Lesson 4: Iron Age

Lesson 5: Middle Ages

Lesson 6: Pre Colonial Philippines

Objective • Defining science, technology and society

Do they relate to each other in just one direction? Both directions?

Human need Technology that solves the need

Here we see a committee is constituted to supervise genetic recombination technology

Objective • Discuss the events during the Stone Age

Technology is as old as man himself. Man was evidently a "tool-making primate"

The Biological Basis of Tool-Making

Early Stone Tools

Invention and Discovery

The Use of Fire

Advances in Stone Tools

The Beginnings of Mining

Technology and Aspects of Early Society

The Domestication of Animals

The Beginnings of Agriculture

The Urban Revolution

Man at the Dawn of History

How to survive the Stone Age

Objective • Discuss the events during the Bronze Age

How do you imagine the events of the Bronze Age?

The Rise of Mesopotamia

The Rise of Egypt

Role of the Craftsmen

Water Works for Irrigation

Water Supply for Cities

Processing of Raw Materials

The Building Arts

The Conditions of Technology

Are there similarities between the Bronze Age and today?

Objective • Discuss the events during the Iron Age

The Origins of Iron Age Cultures

The Impact of the Discovery of Iron

The Metallurgy of Iron

Axe and Plough

Ships and Trade

Money and Debt

The Alphabet and Literature

Phoenicians and Hebrews

The Bible: Law and Righteousness

The Birth of Abstract Science

The Economic Basis of the Greek City

The Separation of Science from Technique

Content and Method in Greek Science

Stages in the Development of Greek Science

Rome and the Decadence of Classical Science

Public Works and Trade

Administration and Law

Decline and Fall

Economic and Intellectual Breakdown

Mysticism and Organized Religion

Loss of Organization and Technique