INTRODUCTION

Science and Technology strongly influence our lives since through these we are able to
control and manipulate the environment to a great extent. Consequently, science and
technology have also become major cultural determinants (Susskind 1993)—as important as
philosophy, religion, social organizations, or political systems in shaping human lives. Since we
have become so dependent on science and technology, it is expedient that you acquire a
holistic perspective on these two influences in particular, lest you find yourself worshipping
science and technology, giving these the status of gods or maybe using these as the only
measures of what is good, or true, or beautiful…

HOLISTIC LEARNING - holistic education seeks to help students grow and develop in
all dimensions: emotional, psychological, creative, social, imaginative, physical, intuitive, and
spiritual as well as intellectual. (www.academia.edu/8448987/HOLISTIC_LEARNING_THEORY)

The various subjects in this program aim to give a more holistic perspective of man by
studying him in several dimensions and aspects, and not just as a human body, or solely as a
human mind (psychology), or merely as a political animal, or only a social being, or simply as a
purely economic player. This course hopes to impart to you a balanced view of man and in so
doing, make you more truly human.

Humanities simply guide our priorities by educating us on the philosophical principles

that essentially remind us that the human person—the concrete, really existing individual—is of
primary importance since he is or should be the immediate and ultimate object of efforts to make
life better. The sciences, on the other hand, when based on philosophical principles that respect
the true nature of man, lead to true development of man and society. This course will enable you
to see the unity and continuity of all human knowledge and, in the long run, develop a more
holistic view of life.

STS is humanized science education; and like any other general education course, it is a

good channel for communicating values. These values come from a deep understanding
of human nature and the dignity of the human being, and these values will be the foundation of
the principles that will guide the progress in science and technology.

STS aims to remind you that because you have been given powers to shape the world,
you have great responsibilities to fulfil in society. This course also helps you realize that the
benefits we presently enjoy are the contributions of other people who have shared their
knowledge and skills with the rest of the world. And not only must that, but that eventually, you,
too, give your contribution to society.

This course shall prepare you to face up to this responsibility by equipping you with a
holistic perspective that includes sound human values.

Source: (RIMSTS: Really Important Matters for Students to Study, 2008 Edition. By: Del Rosario, Maria
Nora B., MS)
The Advent of Science (600 BC to 1400 AD)

It has been said that man’s bewilderment and scientific view of the globe started in what
was known then as ancient Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia

- A historical region in Western Asia

- Situated within the Tigris-Euphrates River

- From the Greek word meaning “The Land between two rivers”

- The Cradle of Civilization o People Developed agriculture o Development of Permanent

Housing – Beginning of Government o Development of Sailboat, the wheel, and the first
plow

Ancient Greece

The people of Ancient Greece did not consider science as a distinct subject from that of
Philosophy. But we can consider the work of one philosopher as showing signs of scientific
perspectives.

Thales

- from Miletus in Asia Minor now known as Turkey

- A pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, and Astronomer

- One of the seven Sages in Greece

- Became famous for predicting a solar eclipse on May 28, 585 BCE

Quotes:

“The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”

“Nothing is more active than thought, for it travels over the universe, and nothing is stronger
than necessity for all must submit to it.”
Many of the early Greek Philosophers made Athens their center for learning.

Aristotle

- Along with Plato, he is considered the Father of Western Philosophy

- He was from Stagira, Greece

· Nicomachean Ethics o The goal of the ethics is to determine how best

to achieve happiness.
o Happiness depends on living in accordance with appropriate virtues
§ Virtue is a disposition rather than an activity
§ A virtuous person is naturally disposed to behave in the right ways and
for the right reasons, and to feel pleasure in behaving rightly.
o While the moral virtues dispose us to behave in the correct manner, it is
necessary also to have the right intellectual virtues in order to reason properly
about how to behave.
o Pleasure accompanies and perfects our activities. A good person will feel
pleasure in doing good things. The highest good of all is rational
contemplation. A life that consist exclusively of contemplation is obviously
impossible, but we should aim to approximate this ideal as closely as
possible.
o The practical sciences, then, help us find the right path toward this highest
good and help us deal with the practical matters of everyday life that
inevitably occupy a great deal of our time and attention.

Archimedes

- From Syracuse, Italy; Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer

- Famous for his Law of Buoyance: o Heiron II wanted to give Ptolemy II a gift so he asked
Archimedes to supervise the building of a great ship—the Syracusia.
o The ship will include the following:

§ Cargo:
· 400 Tons of Grain
· 10000 jars of pickled fish
· 20 horses with individual shelters inside the ship
· 74 tons of drinking water
· 600 tons of wool
§ Can cater to at least 1000 person including 600 soldiers
§ A temple for the goddess Aphrodite
 § A Library with books and statues
§ A pool with heated water
§ A gymnasium
§ A missile launcher that can fire a 180 pounds stone
§ 8 watchtower built on the of the statue of Atlas carrying the globe at his
back

Eratosthenes

- He was from Cyrene (now Libya in North Africa)

- Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist

- Chief Librarian at the library of Alexandria

- Invented the discipline of geography, including the terms we used up to today

- He calculated the circumference of the earth using only his wooden stick and his mind

Ctesibius

- Greek inventor and mathematician

- Father of Pneumatics

- From Alexandria

- He discovered elasticity

- He developed the suction pump

- Constructed a precise water clock

- Hydraulis – a musical instrument which is the ancestor of pipe organ

Inventions of the Chinese during the Onset of Science and Technology in Asia:

- Gunpowder

- Fireworks

- Rockets

- Metals

- Guns
- They were also believed to have first invented the first seismograph and the first compass
India
- India was not to be left behind as many of the most advanced technology in the first
millennium AD, such as the spinning wheel, was first used by Indians, and Indian farming
techniques were considered superior even to the Chinese.

- Brilliant Indian mathematicians were also responsible for the development of what we now
call the “Arabic number system”

By 750 AD, the capital of the Islamic Caliphate was moved from Damascus to Baghdad,
in what is now known as the city of Iraq.

After the age of Ancient Greeks and the end of the Roman Empire, the science of
astronomy went into decline in Western Europe. Barbarian incursions and empire building
meant that little attention was paid to science and learning, and any such pursuits were limited
to monasteries and the homes of nobles.

Islam saw a shift of scientific knowledge from the philosophers of Greece, and the
engineers of Rome to the East.

House of Wisdom

- The Caliph founded this in the capital in accordance with the Islamic saying “the ink of a
scholar is more holy than the blood of martyr.”

- Its main purpose is to be a great library and formidable center of research.

Al-Sufi (Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sufi)

- Persian Astronomer

- Lunar crater Azoph was named after him

- One of the two most outstanding practical astronomers of the middle ages

Alhazen

- Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic golden age

- Wrote a book about optics (comparable with the work of Newton)

Al-Razi
- A physician who formulated soap and made distinctions between smallpox and measles

Al-Khwarizmi

- Introduced algebra and algorithms

Al-Jazari

- An engineer who was the first to use rod systems still found in cars today

THE GREAT SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION (1400 – 1700 AD)

The Golden Age of the Islamic period, which allowed for the blossoming of the sciences
in the 750s, lasted for more than five centuries. It was very important because it provided the
basis for experiments to flourish and allowed the use of modern scientific ways.

For many centuries, many intellectuals, including the Catholic Church, tinkered with the
thought that the Earth was at the epicentre of all heavenly objects. Until…

Nicolaus Copernicus

- A doctor from Poland who had the idea that it was the sun which was at the center of the
solar system.
§ Because of the sensitivity of the issue at that time, Copernicus did not
publish his conclusions until he was at the threshold of death.

Johannes Kepler

- A German astrologer who observed the elliptical orbits of Mars

Galileo Galilei

- An Italian who identified around four moons of the planet Jupiter using more powerful
telescopes, which marked the dawn of a new age in cosmology.
- He also ably showed the utilization of scientific data by conducting experiments on falling
objects and propagated the use of the pendulum as a keeper of time.

Christian Huygens

- Dutchman who took advantage of Galileo’s ideas with pendulum and soon built the first
pendulum clock in 1657.

Francis Bacon

- An English Philosopher who made a pitch for the use of scientific method and, thus, laid a
strong foundation for modern science that is grounded on observation and experiment.

Robert Boyle

- Discovered Air Pump

- He defined elements, compounds, and mixtures, and he coined the new term ‘chemical analysis

- He discovered Boyle’s Law – the first of the gas laws – relating the pressure of a gas to its
volume; he established that electrical forces are transmitted through a vacuum, but sound is
not; and he also stated that the movement of particles is responsible for heat. He was the
first person to write specific experimental guidance for other scientists, telling them the
importance of achieving reliable, repeatable results.

Isaac Newton

- English Physicist and Mathematician

Ole Romer

- Danish astronomer who was famous due to his calculations on the approximate speed of light
Bishop Nicolas Steno

- A contemporary of Ole Romer who also made inroads into modern science and developed
his own thinking in the fields of anatomy and geology.

- Among his accomplishments was the study of rock layers, which established a new scientific
ground for the emerging science of geology.

THE AGE OF MICRO BEINGS

The 1600’s saw the growth of new technological developments that drove scientists to
study objects in their smallest state and become obsessed with anything minute.

Robert Hooke

- In the late 1600’s, revealed for the very first time to the scientific community his findings on
the complex structure of small insects, such as fleas and bugs.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

- Dutchman and store owner of fabric, who started making his own microscopes and was able
to found small life forms in places where scientists had not thought of conducting their
research before, such as water.

- He soon discovered life forms with single cells, like bacteria.

Jan Swammerdam

- Showed that the different stages in the development of an insect were not separate animals
but were just one and the same and just undergoing a process; thus, outdated ideas, which
dated back to the time of Aristotle were proven untrue by these latest discoveries.

John Ray

- An Englishman biologist who made a great collection of plants species which was
considered the first important attempt to systematize the classification of living things.
THE DAWN OF THE MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS

The new discoveries were quite important as they laid a stable foundation and basis for
the rise of modern scientific disciplines, such as astronomy, chemistry, physics, and biology.

The best achievement of the century, however, belonged to Newton, whose magnificent
treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematical, laid to rest doubts over laws of motion
and gravity.

THE EXPANSION OF SCIENTIFIC HORIZONS (1700 – 1800)

The 17th century finally ended, and the toast of the century, Isaac Newton, had just
publicized his mind-boggling laws of motion and gravity, which stunned the science community
and impacted it with giant repercussions, such as making science results perfect and
mathematics-oriented.

Stephen Hales

- In the early 18th century, he was able to discover root pressure (rising of sap within plants)
and, invented a trough for collecting gases. This instrument, later on, was found useful in
dissecting air composition.

Daniel Bernoulli

- A Swiss mathematician, who was primarily responsible for the Bernoulli principle, which
stated that “the pressure of a fluid falls when it is moving.” This principle allowed the Swiss
wizard to keep tabs on blood pressure. This principle was later on utilized in the principles
governing the flying of an aircraft.

Joseph Black

- A Scottish Chemist

- He was able to produce an amazing doctoral thesis about calcium carbonate degeneration
and the extraction of carbon dioxide.

Henry Cavendish

- Made an important contribution by illustrating that water was made of two parts of hydrogen
to one of oxygen.
Jan Ingenhousz

- He demonstrated how green plants emitted oxygen under the sun and carbon dioxide in the
dark.

Antoine Lavoisier

- He explained that many elements, including carbon and phosphorus, could burn by
combining with oxygen to form what is now termed as oxides.

Joseph Proust

- A French chemist who made another important discovery by figuring out that chemical
elements, most of the time, merged in exact shares. This was an essential step toward
knowing the production of simple compunds.

THE FIELD OF EARTH SCIENCES

While great strides were made in the fields of physics and chemistry, the functions of the
earth also came to be realized.

Benjamin Franklin

- An American who was able to show how big-scale ocean currents flowed at the bottom of
the sea with his inquiries of the Gulf Stream.

George Handley

- An English amateur meteorologist, who expounded in a paper the impact of the trade winds
in relation to the rotation of the globe.

Nevil Maskelyne

- He took advantage of Newton’s idea, by taking measurements of the gravitational pull of a

mountain in Scotland, and in the process, was able to find out the density of the earth.
James Hutton

- Who became engrossed in geology and soon made the conclusion that the earth was a little
bit older than anyone had previously believed.

THE BASIS OF LIFE

With the emergence of knowledge on the earth’s real age, many scientists theorized on
the evolution of life and how it originated.

Georges-Louis Leclerc

- A French naturalist and mathematician who was one of those who pioneered the creation of
a theory of evolution.

Christian Sprengel

- He spent most of his time delving into the complex relationship between plants and insects
and later made the conclusion that bisexual flowers did not have the ability to fertilize
themselves because they produced male and female flowers at different peroiods.

Thomas Maltus

- An Englishman who focused his study on specifics about demography and predicted the
end of the world if population growth was left unchecked. He emphasized this predicament
with his essay, “The Principle of Population.”

- Inasmuch as Malthus’s negative thoughts was proven to be unrealistic so far, his belief that
the unbridled population of man would soon have a tremendous effect on the availability of
resources, later had a deeper influence on the thinking of Charles Darwin.

Alessandro Volta

- An Italian physicist who made big strides with the iconic invention of the electric battery. This
invention advanced the spread of technology in the coming decades.

William Whewell

- An English philosopher who introduced the creation of new profession separate from that of
philosophy. He suggested a name for this man of science: the scientist.
A HUNDRED YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT (1800 – 1900)

As had already been said, the invention of electric battery in 1799 created a whole new
field of scientific ideas and in the following years, various scientists discovered new things.

Hans Christian Orsted

- A Danish who established a connection between electricity and magnetism.

Michael Faraday

- A member of London Royal Institution who invented the world’s first electric motor.

James Clerk Maxwell

- A Scottish who made some calculations and in the process, solved the complex
mathematics of electromagnetism.

William Herschel

- German astronomer who, during his scientific endeavours, realized that his thermometer
showed a higher temperature over the red end of the visible spectrum. He had accidentally
stumbled upon infrared radiation, and thus, proved that there was more than meets the eye
in the spectrum aside from visible light.

Wilhelm Rontgen

- He discovered the soon-to-be famous X-rays in his experiments in Germany.

Thomas Young

- He was a British Physician who put to rest the argument of whether light was a wave or a
particle by discovering wavelike interference in his studies.
Christian Doppler

- Austrian physicist who also made famous the “Doppler effect” by expounding on the colour
of binary stars.

Hippolyte Fizeau & Leon Foucault

- They were able to measure the speed of light and concluded that light travelled faster in air
than in water.

John Dalton
British meteorologist who focused on the