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Science, Technology, and Society

CHAPTER I:
General Concepts and Historical Events in Science,
Technology, and Society
Lesson 1:
Intellectual Revolutions
That Defined Society
• Scientific Revolution
• Some Intellectuals and their Revolutionary Ideas
• Nicolaus Copernicus
• Charles Darwin
• Sigmund Freud
• Cradles of Early Science
• Mesoamerica
• Asia
• Africa
Lesson 1:
Intellectual Revolutions
That Defined Society

Scientific
Revolution
SCIENCE
Science as a
Science as an Science as a body
Science as an idea personal and social
intellectual activity of knowledge
activity

- Includes ideas, - Both knowledge

- Body of
theories, and all - encompasses a and activities done
knowledge that
available systematic systematic and by human beings to
deals with the
explanations and practical study of develop better
process of learning
observations about the natural and understanding of
about the natural
the natural and physical world the world and to
and physical world
physical world improve their lives
REVOLUTION
activity or a fundamental
movement change in the
a changeover
a sudden, a fundamental designed to way of
in use or
radical, or change in effect thinking about
preference
complete political fundamental or visualizing
especially in
change organization changes in the something : a
technology
socioeconomic change of
situation paradigm
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
•The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern
period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including
human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature.

•The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons: collaboration, the
derivation of new experimental methods, the ability to build on the legacy of existing
scientific philosophy, and institutions that enabled academic publishing.

•Under the scientific method, which was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural
and artificial circumstances were abandoned and a research tradition of systematic
experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community.
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
•During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist in
respect to nature, and the value of experimental or observed evidence, led to a scientific
methodology in which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role.

•As the scientific revolution was not marked by any single change, many new ideas
contributed. Some of them were revolutions in their own fields.

•Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many
Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated
scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of
the development of free speech and thought.
 SCIENCE
IDEAS

SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

HUMANS SOCIETY
Lesson 1:
Intellectual Revolutions
That Defined Society

Some
Intellectuals
and their
Revolutionary
Ideas
Variables that Influence the Development of
Science Ideas, Science Discoveries, and
Technology

CREATIVITY
SCIENCE IDEAS
SCIENTISTS
SCIENCE
CURIOSITY Passion to know
DISCOVERIES
Passion to discover
TECHNOLOGY
CRITICAL
THINKING
Some Intellectuals and
their Revolutionary
Ideas

ASTRONOMY
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
The first to propound a comprehensive heliocentric theory equal in scope
and predictive capability to Ptolemy’s geocentric system. Copernicus’s
theory, published in 1543, possessed a qualitative simplicity that Ptolemaic
astronomy appeared to lack. In contrast to Platonic instrumentalism,
Copernicus asserted that to be satisfactory astronomy must describe the real,
physical system of the world.
Copernicus’s book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri
VI (“Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs”),
published in 1543, became a standard reference for advanced problems in
astronomical research, particularly for its mathematical techniques. Thus, it
was widely read by mathematical astronomers, in spite of its central
cosmological hypothesis, which was widely ignored. In 1551 the German
astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published the Tabulae
prutenicae (“Prutenic Tables”), computed by Copernican methods. The
tables were more accurate and more up-to-date than their 13th-century
predecessor and became indispensable to both astronomers and astrologers.
 HELIOCENTRISM
- a cosmological model in which the Sun is assumed to lie at or near a
central point while the Earth and other bodies revolve around it.
- In the 5th century BC the Greek
philosophers Philolaus and Hicetas speculated separately that the
Earth was a sphere revolving daily around some mystical “central fire”
that regulated the universe.
- Two centuries later, Aristarchus of Samos extended this idea by
proposing that the Earth and other planets moved around a definite
central object, which he believed to be the Sun.
In the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria suggested that
this discrepancy could be resolved if it were assumed that the Earth was
fixed in position, with the Sun and other bodies revolving around it. As a
result, Ptolemy’s geocentric (Earth-centred) system dominated
scientific thought for some 1,400 years.
In 1444 Nicholas of Cusa again argued for the rotation of the Earth and of other heavenly bodies, but it was not
until the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI (“Six
Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs”) in 1543 that heliocentrism began to be
reestablished. Galileo Galilei’s support of this model resulted in his famous trial before the Inquisition in
1633.
TYCHO BRAHE
- During the 16th century the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe,
rejecting both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems,
unwittingly providing the data that ultimately decided the
argument in favor of the new astronomy. Using larger, stabler, and
better calibrated instruments, he observed regularly, thereby
obtaining a continuity of observations that were accurate
for planets to within about one minute of arc—several times better
than any previous observation.
- Several of Tycho’s observations
contradicted Aristotle’s system: a nova that appeared in 1572
exhibited no parallax and was thus not of the sublunary sphere and
therefore contrary to the Aristotelian assertion of the immutability
of the heavens; similarly, a succession of comets appeared to be
moving freely through a region that was supposed to be filled with
solid, crystalline spheres. Tycho devised his own world system—a
modification of Heracleids'’—to avoid various
undesirable implications of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems.
JOHANNES KEPLER
- At the beginning of the 17th century, the German astronomer Johannes
Kepler placed the Copernican hypothesis on firm astronomical footing.

- In 1609 Kepler announced two new planetary laws derived from Tycho’s data:
- (1) the planets travel around the Sun in elliptical orbits, one focus of
the ellipse being occupied by the Sun; and
- (2) a planet moves in its orbit in such a manner that a line drawn from the
planet to the Sun always sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
- With these two laws, Kepler abandoned uniform circular motion of the planets on
their spheres, thus raising the fundamental physical question of what holds the
planets in their orbits.

- He attempted to provide a physical basis for the planetary motions by means of a force analogous to
the magnetic force, the qualitative properties of which had been recently described in England by William
Gilbert in his influential treatise, De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus et de Magno Magnete
Tellure (1600; “On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies, and the Great Magnet of the Earth”). The
impending marriage of astronomy and physics had been announced. In 1618 Kepler stated his third law,
which was one of many laws concerned with the harmonies of the planetary motions: (3) the square of the
period in which a planet orbits the Sun is proportional to the cube of its mean distance from the Sun.
GALILEO GALILEI
- Galileo Galilei used the telescope early in the 17th
century, a recent invention of Dutch lens grinders, to
look toward the heavens.
- In 1610 Galileo announced observations that
contradicted many traditional cosmological
assumptions.
- He observed that the Moon is not a smooth, polished
surface, as Aristotle had claimed, but that it is
jagged and mountainous.
- Earthshine on the Moon revealed that Earth, like the
other planets, shines by reflected light.
- Jupiter was observed to have satellites.
- The phases of Venus proved that that planet orbits
the Sun, not Earth.
Some Intellectuals and
their Revolutionary
Ideas

PHYSICS
GALILEO GALILEI
- Galileo’s contributions to the science of mechanics were related
directly to his defense of Copernicanism. Although in his youth he
adhered to the traditional impetus physics, his desire to mathematize
in the manner of Archimedes led him to abandon the traditional
approach and develop the foundations for a new physics that was
both highly mathematizable and directly related to the problems
facing the new cosmology.
- Interested in finding the natural acceleration of falling bodies, he was
able to derive the law of free fall. Combining this result with
his rudimentary form of the principle of inertia, he was able to
derive the parabolic path of projectile motion. Furthermore, his
principle of inertia enabled him to meet the traditional physical
objections to Earth’s motion: since a body in motion tends to
remain in motion, projectiles and other objects on the terrestrial
surface will tend to share the motions of Earth, which will thus be
imperceptible to someone standing on Earth
RENÉ DESCARTES
- He was principally concerned with the conceptions of
matter and motion as part of his general program for
science—namely, to explain all the phenomena of nature in
terms of matter and motion. This program, known as the
mechanical philosophy, came to be the dominant theme
of 17th-century science.

- Descartes rejected the idea that one piece of matter could

act on another through empty space; instead, forces must
be propagated by a material substance, the “ether,” that
fills all space. Although matter tends to move in a straight
line in accordance with the principle of inertia, it cannot
occupy space already filled by other matter, so the only kind
of motion that can actually occur is a vortex in which each
particle in a ring moves simultaneously.
CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS

- According to Descartes, all natural

phenomena depend on the collisions of
small particles, and so it is of great
importance to discover the
quantitative laws of impact. This
was done by Descartes’s disciple, the
Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens,
who formulated the laws
of conservation of
momentum and of kinetic energy
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
- The work of Sir Isaac Newton represents the culmination of
the Scientific Revolution at the end of the 17th century. His
monumental Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica (1687; Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy) solved the major problems posed by
the Scientific Revolution in mechanics and in cosmology. By
means of the concept of force, Newton was able to
synthesize two important components of the Scientific
Revolution, the mechanical philosophy and the
mathematization of nature.

- Newton was able to derive all these striking results from his three laws of motion:
- Every body continues in its state of rest or of motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to
change that state by force impressed on it;
- The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and is made in the
direction of the straight line in which that force is impressed;
- To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two
bodies upon each other are always equal.
Some Intellectuals and
their Revolutionary
Ideas

CHEMISTRY
PARACELSUS
- Chemistry emerged as a separate science only with the rise of
mechanical philosophy in the 17th century.
- Aristotle had regarded the four elements earth, water, air, and
fire as the ultimate constituents of all things.
- Originating in Egypt and the Middle East, alchemy had a
double aspect: on the one hand it was a practical endeavor
aimed to make gold from baser substances, while on the other it
was a cosmological theory based on the correspondence
between man and the universe at large.
- Paracelsus, a 16th-century Swiss natural philosopher, was
a seminal figure in the history of chemistry, putting together in
an almost impenetrable combination the Aristotelian theory
of matter, alchemical correspondences, mystical forms
of knowledge, and chemical therapy in medicine. His
influence was widely felt in succeeding generations
ROBERT BOYLE

- best example of the influence of the

mechanical philosophy in chemistry is the
work of Robert Boyle. The thrust of his work
was to understand the chemical properties
of matter, to provide experimental evidence
for the mechanical philosophy, and to
demonstrate that all chemical properties can
be explained in mechanical terms. He was an
excellent laboratory chemist and developed a
number of important techniques, especially
color-identification tests.
Some Intellectuals and
their Revolutionary
Ideas

BIOLOGY
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN
- (born February 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire,
England—died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent), English
naturalist whose scientific
theory of evolution by natural selection became the
foundation of modern evolutionary studies.
An affable country gentleman, Darwin at first shocked
religious Victorian society by suggesting that animals
and humans shared a common ancestry. However, his
nonreligious biology appealed to the rising class of
professional scientists, and by the time of his death
evolutionary imagery had spread through all
of science, literature, and politics. Darwin, himself
an agnostic, was accorded the ultimate
British accolade of burial in Westminster Abbey,
London
THE BEAGLE VOYAGE
- The circumnavigation of the globe
would be the making of the 22-year-
old Darwin. He spent only 18 months of
the voyage aboard the ship.
- His fossil discoveries raised more
questions. Darwin’s periodic trips over
two years to the cliffs at Bahía
Blanca and farther south at Port St.
Julian yielded huge bones of
extinct mammals.
THE BEAGLE VOYAGE
- On the last leg of the voyage Darwin
finished his 770-page diary, wrapped up
1,750 pages of notes, drew up 12 catalogs
of his 5,436 skins, bones, and carcasses.
When he landed in October 1836, the
vicarage had faded, the gun had given way
to the notebook, and the supreme
theorizer—who would always move from
small causes to big outcomes—had the
courage to look beyond the conventions of
his own Victorian culture for new answers.
ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
- On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
a scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is
published in England on November 24, 1859.
- Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve
through a process he called “natural selection.”
- In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that
suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants
than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus
influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.
- The idea of organic evolution was not new. It had been
suggested earlier by, among others, Darwin’s grandfather
Erasmus Darwin, a distinguished English scientist, and
Lamarck, who in the early 19th century drew the first
evolutionary diagram—a ladder leading from one-celled
organisms to man.
THE DESCENT OF MAN
- Published on November 24, 1859,
Origin of Species sold out immediately.
Controversy over Darwin’s ideas
deepened with the publication of The
Descent of Man, and Selection in
Relation to Sex (1871), in which he
presented evidence of man’s
evolution from apes.
- By the time of Darwin’s death in 1882,
his theory of evolution was generally
accepted.
Some Intellectuals and
their Revolutionary
Ideas

PSYCHOLOGY
SIGMUND FREUD
- (born May 6, 1856, Freiberg, Moravia,
Austrian Empire [now Příbor, Czech
Republic]—died September 23, 1939, London,
England), Austrian neurologist and the
founder of psychoanalysis.

- His creation of psychoanalysis was at once a

theory of the human psyche, a therapy for the
relief of its ills, and an optic for the
interpretation of culture and society.
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
- Freud developed the technique of free association. This was announced in the work
Freud published jointly with Breuer in 1895, Studien über Hysterie (Studies in
Hysteria).
- By encouraging the patient to express any random thoughts that came associatively to
mind, the technique aimed at uncovering hitherto unarticulated material from the realm of
the psyche that Freud, following a long tradition, called the unconscious. Because of its
incompatibility with conscious thoughts or conflicts with other unconscious ones, this
material was normally hidden, forgotten, or unavailable to conscious reflection. Difficulty
in freely associating—sudden silences, stuttering, or the like—suggested to Freud the
importance of the material struggling to be expressed, as well as the power of what he
called the patient’s defenses against that expression.
- Freud concluded, based on his clinical experience with female hysterics, that the most
insistent source of resisted material was sexual in nature. He linked the etiology of
neurotic symptoms to the same struggle between a sexual feeling or urge and the
psychic defenses against it.

Screen memories
- rather than being memories of actual
events, these shocking recollections
were the residues of infantile impulses
and desires to be seduced by an adult.
What was recalled was not a
genuine memory but what he would
later call a screen memory,
or fantasy, hiding a primitive wish.
That is, rather than stressing the
corrupting initiative of adults in the
etiology of neuroses, Freud concluded
that the fantasies and yearnings of the
child were at the root of later conflict.
- Freud’s work on hysteria had focused
on female sexuality and its potential
for neurotic expression. To be fully
universal, psychoanalysis—a term
Freud coined in 1896—would also have
to examine the male psyche in a
condition of what might be called
normality.
The interpretation of
dreams
- The Interpretation of
Dreams provides a hermeneutic for
the unmasking of the dream’s disguise,
or dreamwork. The manifest content of
the dream, that which is remembered
and reported, must be understood as
veiling a latent meaning. Dreams defy
logical entailment and
narrative coherence, for they
intermingle the residues of immediate
daily experience with the deepest,
often most infantile wishes. Yet they
can be ultimately decoded by attending
to four basic activities of the
dreamwork and reversing their
mystifying effect.
- Condensation
- Displacement
- Representation
- Secondary Revision
Further theoretical
development
• In 1904 Freud published Zur
Psychopathologie des
Alltagslebens (The
Psychopathology of Everyday
Life), in which he explored such
seemingly insignificant errors as slips
of the tongue or pen (later colloquially
called Freudian slips), misreadings, or
forgetting of names.
• In 1905 Freud extended the scope of
this analysis by examining Der Witz
und seine Beziehung zum
Unbewussten (Jokes and Their
Relation to the Unconscious). But
insofar as jokes are more deliberate
than dreams or slips, they draw on the
rational dimension of the psyche that
Freud was to call the ego as much as on
what he was to call the id.
Lesson 1:
Intellectual Revolutions
That Defined Society

Cradles of
Early Science
DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
MESO-
ASIA
AMERICA

MIDDLE
AFRICA
EAST
 DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
MESO-AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

Olmec

The mysterious Olmec civilization, located in ancient

Mexico, prospered in Pre-classical Mesoamerica
from c. 1200 BCE to c. 400 BCE and is generally
considered the forerunner of all subsequent
Mesoamerican cultures including the Maya and
Aztecs.
• Monumental sacred complexes
• Massive stone sculptures
• Ball games
• The drinking of chocolate
• Animal gods
DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
MESO-AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

Maya
• Lasted for about 2,000 years
• Mayans believed that stars and constellations, the planets and the moon
were living beings
• Built large, elaborate palaces and pyramid shaped temples for
astronomical observation
• Using two complicated calendar systems (260-day calendar and the
365-day calendar)
• Built hydraulics system and looms for weaving cloth and devised a
rainbow of glittery paint
• First to produce rubber products
• Made paper and had a pictorial script known as Mayan Hieroglyphics
• Dresden Codex
• used advance numbering system that included the concept of zero
 DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
MESO-AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

Aztec

• Mandatory Education
• Chocolates
• Antispasmodic
medication
• Chinampa
• Aztec Calendar
• Invention of the Canoe
DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
MESO-AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

Inca
• Roads paved with stones
• Designed the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco (strong enough to survive
centuries of earthquakes and hard weather)
• They developed improved methods of terrace farming and irrigation
system and technique for storing water for their crops to grow in all types
of land
• They also developed the calendar with 12 months to mark their religious
festivals and prepare them for planting season
• They created the first suspension bridge
• Developed a record keeping system that used colored, knotted string
known as Quipu
• Inca textiles since cloth was one of the specially prized artistic
achievements
 DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
ASIA

India
• known for iron and metallurgical works
• Ayurveda system
• Sushruta Samhita’s most well-known contribution to plastic surgery
• developed theories on the configuration of the universe, the spherical self-
supporting Earth and the year of 360 days with 12 equal parts of 30 days each
• Siddhata Shiromani
• Indus Valley Civilization tried to standardized measurement of length to a high
degree of accuracy and designed a ruler, the Mohenjodaro
• Aryabhata introduced a number of trigonometric functions, tables and techniques
as well as algorithms of algebra
• Brahmahgupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction; zero as a place
holder and a decimal digit along with Hindu-Arabic numeral system
• Madhama of Sangamagrama is also considered as the founder of Mathematical
Analysis
DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
ASIA

China
• Silk road, a great trade route linking China to other Roman
Empire
• Acupuncture
• Discoveries and inventions include compass, papermaking,
gunpowder and printing tools
• Invention of iron plough, wheelbarrow and propeller; design for
different models of bridges
• Invented the first seismological detector and developed a dry
dock facility
• Significant records on supernovas, lunar and solar eclipses and
comets which were carefully recorded and preserved to
understand better heavenly bodies and their effects to our world
 DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
MIDDLE EAST

Muslims
• Put a greater value on science experiments rather than plain thought
experiments which led to the development of the scientific method in the
Muslim world
• Ibn al-Haytham, is also regarded as the Father of Optics
• Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, gave his name to the concept of
algorithm
• Ibn Sina, pioneered the science of experimental medicine and was the first
physician to conduct clinical trials. Among his many contributions were
the discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases and the
introduction of clinical pharmacology
• Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine were two of the most notable
books of Ibn Sina, these books were used as standard Medicinal texts
 DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
AFRICA

Egyptian
• Rules of geometry were developed to preserve
layout and ownership of Farmlands along Nile
River and build rectilinear structures, the post of
lintel architecture of Egypt
• Egyptian pyramids and early dams built to divert
water from Nile River
• Egypt is known to be the Center of Alchemy
• Ancient Egyptians are good in the four
fundamental mathematical operations and other
mathematical skills
DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE IN
AFRICA

African

• Used three types of calendars: lunar, solar

and stellar or a combination of the three
• Metallurgy was also known in the African
Regions
• Lebombo Bone – oldest known
mathematical artifact which may have
been a tool for multiplication, division
and simple mathematical computation
References:
Science, Technology, and
Society – Serafica et.al.
https://www.britannica.com/