INTELLECTUAL

REVOLUTIONS THAT
DEFINED SOCIETY
STS : CHAPTER 2
INTRODUCTION

• This section provides students with background on the different intellectuals

who made great contributions to science that propelled scientific and
technological revolutions. Emphasis is given on how these intellectual
revolutions shape and transform society.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

• Articulate ways by which society is transformed by science and technology.
WHAT IS AN INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTION?

• a period where paradigm shifts occurred and where scientific

beliefs that have been widely embraced and accepted by the
people were challenged and opposed.
• According to Wootton, as cited by McCarthy (2019) : it is the
“replacement of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality by a
new type of decision making which may be termed
instrumental reasoning or cost-­benefit analysis”
WESTERN SCIENCE

• Greeks were the first to explain the

world in terms of natural laws rather
than myths about gods and heroes.
• They passed on the idea of the value of
math and experiment in science.
Image source: greeka.com
 Scientific Revolution was the golden age for people committed to scholarly line
in science yet it was also a deeply trying moment to some individuals that led to
their painful death or condemnation from religious institutions who tried to
preserve their faith, religion, and theological views. Some rulers and religious
leaders did not accept many of the early works of scientists.

There were the Renaissance scholars who were uncovering other Greek authors who
contradicted Aristotle. This was unsettling, since these scholars had a reverence for all
ancient knowledge as being nearly infallible. However, finding contradicting authorities
forced the Renaissance scholars to try to figure out which ones were right. When their
findings showed that neither theory was right, they had to think for themselves and find
a new theory that worked. This encouraged skepticism, freethinking, and
experimentation, all of which are essential parts of modern science.
REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED
SOCIETY: COPERNICAN
REVOLUTION
ARISTOTLE

• most influential figure in Western science until the 1600's

• Aristotle's theories made sense when taken in a logical order. Image from:literariness.org

• Problem: His theories relied very little on experiment

Constrictions for opposing his theories:

1. attacking one part of Aristotle's system involved attacking the whole
thing
2. the Church had grafted Aristotle's theories onto its theology, thus making
any attack on Aristotle an attack on the tradition and the Church itself.
Aristotle
“the natural motion of the earth
as a whole, like that of its parts,
is towards the center of the
Universe: that is the reason why
it is now lying at the center.”

Picture Source/Optional reading material:

http://www1.kcn.ne.jp/~h-uchii/arist.space.html
Claudius Ptolemy (Astronomer and Geographer in Alexandria, 2 nd
century AD)
• Stated that the planets, as well as the sun and the moon, moved
in a circular motion around the Earth ~ “Geocentrism”
• The sun and the moon’s revolution explained the existence of
days and nights.
• His geocentric model was widely accepted by the people and
was one of the greatest discoveries of that time
• The Christian church adopted many of its assumptions like the
idea that the Earth was the center of all and that man was the
most important of God’s creation, with domineering power over
the Earth (central doctrine of Christianity).

• Ptolemy’s Model of the Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch/EpSy0Lkm3zM

Image source:atnf.csiro.au
Aristarchus of Samos
• Used eccentric trigonometric measurements to calculate
the relative distances of the sun and moon in the 3rd
century BC.
• He was able to find out that the sun was very large, and
Image from: Ancient History Encyclopedia
this inspired him to suggest that the sun was a more
likely the pivot point for a movement of the universe.

Nicole Oresme (French Philosopher)

• In his work, Book of the Heavens and the Earth (1377),
he demonstrated the lack of real proof that the Earth
was static and vehemently argued that there was no
reason to think that it was not in motion.
Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish Mathematician and Astronomer,
scholar working at the University of Padua in northern Italy)
• Problem of geocentrism: the paths of planetary orbits. the
heavens do not always appear to move in perfect,
uninterrupted circles as they sometimes seem to move
backwards (a.k.a. retrogradations). Astronomers account for
these irregularities by adding smaller circular orbits
(epicycles) that spun off the main orbits. By the 1500's, the Source: nationalgeographic.com
model of the universe had some 80 epicycles attached to ten
crystalline spheres (one for the moon, sun, each of the five
known planets, the totality of the stars, a sphere to move the
other spheres, and heaven).
• Copernicus' solution: By placing the sun at the center of the
universe and having the earth orbit it, he reduced the
unwieldy number of epicycles from 80 to 34.
• Concerning the Revolutions of the Celestial
Worlds, published in 1543, laid the
foundations for a revolution in how
Europeans would view the world and its
place in the universe but this book was
banned on 1616.
• Copernicus' intention was not to create a
radically new theory, but to get back to
even older ideas by such Greeks as Plato
and Pythagoras who believed in a
heliocentric (sun centered) universe. Once
again, ancient authorities were set against
one another, leaving it for others to
develop their own theories.
Tycho Brahe (Danish Astronomer, 1546-1601)
• Planets revolved around the sun, but the sun and the
moon remained revolving around the globe, “Geo-
heliocentric System”
• using only the naked eye, tracked the entire orbits of Image source: britanica.com

various stars and planets.

• Brahe kept extensive records of his observations, but
did not really know what to do with them.
Johannes Kepler (German Astronomer, 1571-1630)
• He was the first to successfully use math to define the workings of the cosmos.
• He realized that Brahe's data showed the planetary orbits were not circular, but
elliptical.
• His analysis of the observations of Tycho Brahe (his mentor) enabled him to introduce
Image from:en.Wikipedia.org

the Laws of Planetary Motion.

1. The path of the planets about the sun is elliptical in shape, with the center of the
sun being located at one focus. (The Law of Ellipses)
2. An imaginary line drawn from the center of the sun to the center of the planet
sweeps out equal areas in equal intervals of time. (The Law of Equal Areas)
3. The ratio of the squares of the periods of any two planets is equal to the ratio of
the cubes of their average distances from the sun. (The Law of Harmonies)
Galileo Galilei (Italian Scientist)
• Using his telescope, Galileo saw the sun's perfection
marred by sunspots and the moon's perfection marred by
craters. He also saw four moons orbiting Jupiter. In his
book, The Starry Messenger (1611), he reported these
disturbing findings and spread the news across Europe. Source: Britannica.com

Most people could not understand Kepler's math, but

anyone could look through a telescope and see for himself
the moon's craters and Jupiter's moons.
• The Church tried to preserve the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic
view of the universe by clamping down on Galileo and his
book and made him promise not to preach his views.
• In 1632, Galileo published his next book, Dialogue on the Great World
Systems, which technically did not preach the Copernican theory (which
Galileo believed in), but was only a dialogue presenting both views "equally".
Galileo got his point across by having the advocate of the Church and
Aristotelian viewnamed Simplicius (Simpleton). He was quickly faced with the
Inquisition and the threat of torture. Being an old man of 70, he recanted his
views. However, it was too late. Word was out, and the heliocentric heresy
was gaining new followers daily.
 Isaac Newton
• realized that the same force pulling the apples to earth was keeping
the moon in its orbit.
• to prove this mathematically, Newton had to invent calculus for
figuring out rates of motion and change.
Image source: britannica.com

The implications of Newton's theory of gravity can easily escape us, since we
now take it for granted that physical laws apply the same throughout the
universe. To the mentality of the 1600’s, which saw a clear distinction between
the laws governing the terrestrial and celestial elements, it was a staggering
revelation. His three laws of motion were simple, could be applied everywhere,
and could be used with calculus to solve any problems of motion that came up.
 The universe that emerged was radically different from that of Aristotle. Thanks to Newton,
it was within our grasp to understand, predict, and increasingly manipulate the laws of the universe
in ways no one had been able to do before. Newton's work also completed the fusion of math
promoted by Renaissance humanists, Aristotelian logic pushed by medieval university professors,
and experiment to test a hypothesis pioneered by such men as Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo into
what we call the scientific method. This fusion had gradually been taking place since the
Renaissance, but the invention of calculus made math a much more dynamic tool in predicting and
manipulating the laws of nature.

The printing of Newton's book, Principia Mathematica, in 1687 is often seen as the
start of the Enlightenment (1687-­1789). It was a significant turning point in history, for, armed with
the tools of Newton's laws and calculus, scientists had an unprecedented faith in their ability to
understand, predict, and manipulate the laws of nature for their own purposes. This sense of power
popularized science for other intellectuals and rulers in Europe, turning it into virtual religion for
some in the Enlightenment. Even the geometrically trimmed shrubbery of Versailles offers testimony
to that faith in our power over nature. Not until this century has that faith been seriously
undermined or put into a more realistic perspective.
REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED
SOCIETY: DARWINIAN
REVOLUTION
 Philosophers and theologians argued that the functional design of
organisms manifests the existence of an all-­wise Creator. Wherever there is
design, there is a designer.
WILLIAM PALEY IN HIS NATURAL THEOLOGY
(1802)
 elaborated the argument-­from-­design as forceful demonstration of the
existence of the Creator.
Image source: en.wikipedia.com

 The functional design of the human eye, argued Paley, provided conclusive evidence
of an all-­wise Creator.
1. It is consisted of a series of transparent lenses
2. There is a black cloth or canvas spread out behind these lenses so as to receive
the image formed by pencils of light transmitted through them, and placed at
the precise geometrical distance at which, and at which alone, a distinct image
could be formed.
3. a large nerve communicating between this membrane and the brain."
THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES

• published between 1833 and 1840

• written by eminent scientists and philosophers
• set forth "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the
Creation."
• for example: The structure and mechanisms of man's hand were cited as
incontrovertible evidence that the hand had been designed by the same
omniscient Power that had created the world.
CHARLES DARWIN

• he published “The Origin of Species” in 1859. Image source: britannica.com

• he accumulated evidence demonstrating that organisms evolve and

discovered the process, natural selection, by which they evolve.
• he completed the Copernican revolution by drawing out for biology the
notion of nature as a lawful system of matter in motion.

With this, scientific explanations, derived from natural laws, dominated

the world of nonliving matter, on the earth as well as in the heavens.
THE SUPERNATURAL

Supernatural explanations, depending

on the unfathomable deeds of the Creator,
accounted for the origin and configuration of
living creatures—the most diversified, complex,
and interesting realities of the world. It was
Darwin's genius to resolve this conceptual
schizophrenia.
REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED
SOCIETY: FREUDIAN
REVOLUTION
PRE-FREUDIAN REVOLUTION

Mental illness was almost universally considered 'organic‘ – it was thought to

come from some kind of deterioration or disease of the brain.
Research on treating mental illness was primarily concerned with discovering
exactly which kinds of changes in the brain led to insanity. Many diseases did not
manifest obvious signs of physical difference between healthy and diseased brains, but
it was assumed that this was simply because the techniques for finding the differences
were not yet sufficient.
Physical diseases of the brain cause mental illness, psychological causes are
ignored.
SIGMUND FREUD
• born in 1856, in Moravian town of Freiberg, in the
Austrian Empire .
• Freud's most obvious impact was to change the
way society thought about and dealt with mental
illness.
• He had the idea that people’s hidden thoughts and
feelings influence their behavior especially with
respect to the causes and treatment of dreams,
etc.
• Together with Josef Breuer, another Jewish neurologist, Image source: en.wikipedia.org

published a series of case studies on their patients

called Studies on Hysteria.
JEAN-­MARTIN CHARCOT

• the famous French psychiatrist who influenced Freud.

• he claimed that hysteria had primarily organic causes, and that it had a
regular, comprehensible pattern of symptoms.
• Freud agreed that it had a regular, comprehensible pattern of symptoms but
disagreed that it had only organic causes.
PSYCHOANALYSIS
• is based on the concept that individuals are unaware of the many factors that
cause their behavior and emotions. These unconscious factors have the potential
to produce unhappiness, which in turn is expressed through a score of
distinguishable symptoms, including disturbing personality traits, difficulty in
relating to others, or disturbances in self-esteem or general disposition.
• It had an enormous impact on the practice of psychiatry, particularly within the
United States, but today it is regarded by most sources as almost entirely incorrect
in its conception of the mind.
• Psychoanalysis in its many varieties appears to have little or no efficacy in treating
mental illness.
WHY IS FREUD’S CONTRIBUTION STILL
IMPORTANT?

1. Psychoanalysis has enormous historical significance: Mental illness affects an

large proportion of the population, either directly or indirectly, so any
curative scheme as widely accepted.
2. Freud gave people a new way of thinking about why they acted the way they
did. He created a whole new way of interpreting behaviors: one could now
claim that a person had motives, desires, and beliefs–all buried in the
unconscious–which they knew nothing about but which nonetheless directly
controlled and motivated their conscious thought and behavior.
IMPACT OF FREUDIAN REVOLUTION

• Psychology and psychiatry turned away from the search for organic causes
and toward the search for inner psychic conflicts and early childhood traumas.
• The line between sane and insane was blurred: everyone, according to Freud,
had an Oedipal crisis, and everyone could potentially become mentally ill.
 REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED
SOCIETY: SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION IN MESO-
AMERICA
MESO-AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

• Meso-­America is the region from Mexico to Guatemala, Belize and parts of

Honduras and El Salvador.
• Mesoamerican civilization were isolated from the accumulated scientific
knowledge of Africa, Asia and Europe. It developed on its own and became
much more self-­reliant.
• Maya civilization was the most advanced Mesoamerican civilization.
MAYA CIVILIZATION
• They used pictorial script called Maya hieroglyphs.
• They knew how to make paper and they created books on long strips of paper
folded in harmonica-­style.
• Dresden Codex contains predictions of solar eclipses for centuries and a table
of predicted positions of Venus.
• the Maya made predictions by aligning stars with two objects that were
separated by a large distance.
• They developed the most accurate calendar ever designed.
• In architecture the Maya were the first to use pitched ceilings in their
buildings.
THE AZTEC

• The Aztec had their own script and languages but they assimilated all they
could learn from Maya society.
• Their manuscripts describe how the Maya performed their astronomical
observations.
• They manufactured of rubber and used a rubber ball in the ball game tlachtli
• Public latrines were found along all highways, and to prevent pollution of Lake
Texcoco canoes transported the sewage from Tenochtitlán to the mainland
every morning.
OTHER MESO-AMERICAN CONTRIBUTIONS

• cultivated crop plants such as corn (maize), papaya, avocado and cocoa.
• several sculptures found at Meso-­American sites in 1975, 1979 and 1983 and
dating back to 2000 -­1500 BC have clear magnetic properties, shaped as if it
was used to indicate direction. This suggests that the early Meso-­American
civilizations knew about and used magnetism. (Malmström, 1976, 1979)
 REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED
SOCIETY: ASIAN
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
ASIA’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE
DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
• The general conception is that many of the cutting-­edge technological developments, and to a lesser
extent scientific advancements, emanate from Asia.
• Japan is probably the most notable country in Asia in terms of scientific and technological
achievement, particularly in terms of its electronics and automobile products.
• Other countries are also notable in other scientific fields such as chemical and physical achievements.
• Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China produce 90% of the world’s digital gadgets.
• nations across Asia are becoming increasingly important to the global supply of digital content and
services.
• South Korea’s cultural popularity around the world has caused a number of startup’s to emerge
working within the digital and technology sectors, including website viki.com.
• Taiwan is focused on software and content development.
MIDDLE EAST
• During the 3,000 years of urbanized life in Mesopotamia and Egypt tremendous strides
were made in various branches of science and technology.
• In Mesopotamia, greater progress was made in astronomy and mathematics. The
development of astronomy seems to have been greatly accelerated by that of astrology,
which took the lead among the quasi-­sciences involved in divination.
• The Egyptians remained far behind the Babylonians in developing astronomy, but are
more advanced in medicine. Egyptians also took an early lead on engineering and
architecture, owing largely to the stress they laid on the construction of such elaborate
monuments as vast pyramids and temples of granite and sandstone. Whereas, the
Babylonians led in the development of such practical arts as irrigation.
• Both sciences and pseudosciences spread from Egypt and Mesopotamia to Phoenicia
and Anatolia.
MIDDLE EAST

• The Phoenicians in particular transmitted much of their knowledge to the

various lands of the Mediterranean, especially to the Greeks.
• A combination of excavated art forms as well as to Greek tradition, prove the
direction of movement is from Egypt to Syria, Phoenicia, and Cyprus.
Mesopotamian influence can be traced especially through the partial
borrowing of Babylonian science and divination by the Hittites and later by
the transmission of information through Phoenicia.
• The greatest accomplishment of the ancient Middle East might be the
invention of the alphabet.
MIDDLE EAST: DEVELOPMENT OF ALPHABET
• In the early Hyksos period (17th century BC) the Northwestern Semites living in Egypt
adapted hieroglyphic characters—in at least two slightly differing forms of letters—to
their own purposes.
• It is imitated in northern Syria, with the addition of two letters to designate vowels used
with the glottal catch.
• This alphabet spread rapidly and was in quite common use among the Northwestern
Semites (Canaanites, Hebrews, Aramaeans, and especially the Phoenicians) soon after its
invention.
• By the 9th century BC the Phoenicians were using it in the western Mediterranean, and
the Greeks and Phrygians adopted it in the 8th.
• The alphabet contributed vastly to the Greek cultural and literary revolution in the
immediately following period. And, from the Greeks it was transmitted to other Western
people.
 REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED
SOCIETY: SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION IN AFRICA
AFRICAN CONTRIBUTIONS
• The applied sciences of agronomy, metallurgy, engineering and textile production, as well as
medicine, dominated the field of activity across Africa.
• In “Black Rice”, Judith Carnoy demonstrates the legacy of enslaved Africans to the Americas in the
sphere of rice cultivation.
• a variety of African plants were adopted in Asia, including coffee, the oil palm, fonio or acha
(digitaria exilis), African rice (oryza glabberima), and sorghum (sorghum bicolor).
• Africans also used plants for anesthetics or pain killers, analgesics for the control of fever,
antidotes to counter poisons, and anthelmints aimed at deworming.
• They were also knowledgeable in cardiovascular, gastro-­intestinal, and dermatological contexts.
Some of these such as hoodia gordonii and combrettum caffrum are being integrated within
contemporary pharmaceutical systems (Emeagwali, n.d.).
• Africa’s areas of scientific investigation include the fields of astronomy, physics, and mathematics.
AFRICAN ASTRONOMY

• Malian has cosmological myths and their perceptions of the structure of

matter and the physical world.
• Dogon knowledge systems have also been explored in terms of their
perceptions on astronomy. The solar calendar that we use today evolved from
the Egyptian calendar of twelve months, calibrated according to the day on
which the star Sirius rose on the horizon with the Sun.
AFRICAN MATHEMATICS

• Nubian builders calculated the volumes of masonry and building materials, as

well as the slopes of pyramids, for construction purposes.
• a Nubian engraving at Meroe, in ancient Sudan, dated to the first century
B.C.E., includes several lines, inclined at a 72-­degree angle, running diagonally
from the base of a pyramid.
• the Nubians of Meroe constructed more pyramids than the Egyptians, built
steep, flat-­topped pyramids.
AFRICAN MEDICINE
• Among the common principles and procedures were hydrotherapy, heat
therapy, spinal manipulation, quarantine, bone-­setting and surgery.
• Incantations and other psychotherapeutic devices sometimes accompanied
other techniques.
• The knowledge of specific medicinal plants was quite extensive in some
kingdoms, empires, and city states such as Aksum, and Borgu (in Hausaland).
• Borgu (in Hausaland) is also well known for orthopedics (bone-­setting), as is
the case of Funtua in Northern Nigeria.
• Many traditional techniques are still utilized in some areas. Others have
undergone change over time, have been revived in more recent periods, or
have fallen into oblivion.
 AFRICAN METALLURGY
• Various types of metal products have been used ranging from gold, tin, silver, bronze, brass, and
iron/steel.
• The Sudanic empires of West Africa, Ethiopia and Sudan in the North and East, and the kingdom
of Monomotapa (Munhumutapa) in Southern Africa were the major producers of gold.
• specific techniques and scientific principles included: excavation and ore identification;
separation of ore from non-­ore bearing rock; smelting by the use of bellows and heated
furnaces; and smithing and further refinement.
• The use of multishaft and open-­shaft systems facilitated circulation of air in intense heating
processes, while the bellows principle produced strong currents of air in a chamber expanded to
draw in or expel air through a valve.
• products: armor (as in some northern Nigerian city-­states), jewelry (of gold, silver, iron, copper
and brass), cooking utensils, cloth dyeing, sculpture, and agricultural tools.
AFRICAN ARCHITECTURE
• Builders integrated the concepts of the arch, the dome, and columns and aisles in their
constructions.
• underground vaults and passages, as well as the rock-­hewn churches, of Axum are matched in
Nubia and Egypt with pyramids of various dimensions.
• Sahelian region, adobe, or dried clay, was preferred in the context of moulded contours, at
times integrated with overall moulded sculpture.
• Permanent scaffolding made of protruding planks characterized the Malian region.
• evaporative cooling was integrated into building design: mats were used as part of the decor
and also to be saturated repeatedly in order to cool the room.
• Derelict ruins from walled cities—such as Kano, Zazzau, and other city-­states of Hausaland in
the central Sudanic region of West Africa—complement structures such as the rock-­hewn and
moulded churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia or the Zimbabwe enclosures.
 REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED
SOCIETY: INFORMATION
REVOLUTION
INFORMATION REVOLUTION

• is a period of change that describes current economic, social and

technological trends beyond the Industrial Revolution.
• was fueled by advances in semiconductor technology, particularly the metal-­
oxide-­semiconductor field-­effect transistor (MOSFET) and the integrated
circuit (IC) chip, leading to the Information Age in the early 21st century
(Lukasiak, 2010;; Orton, 2009).
• has led us to the age of the internet, where optical communication
networks play a key role in delivering massive amounts of data.
IMPACTS OF INFORMATION REVOLUTION

• the explosive emergence of the Internet as a major worldwide distribution

channel for goods, for services, and, surprisingly, for managerial and
professional jobs has changed economies, markets, and industry structures;
products and services and their flow, consumer segmentation, consumer
values, and consumer behavior, jobs and labor markets.
• It also has an impact on societies and politics and, on the way we see the
world and ourselves in it.
Thank you!
REFERENCES
• This material is sourced primarily from the module “Science, technology, and Society” by Gonzales, Maalihan and Montalbo.
• Images are copied from the stated sources.
• Other references were sourced from the previous lecture notes with the following references:
Geron-Tegon, Antonette G., et al. (2018). Science, Technology and Society. Malabon City: Mutya Publishing House, Inc.
McNamara, Daniel J., et al. (2018). Science, Technology, and Society. Quezon City:C & E Publishing, Inc.
https://www.slideshare.net/GualbertoJrLantaya/intellectual-revolutions
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolaus-Copernicus/Copernicuss-astronomical-work
https://www.britannica.com/science/Keplers-laws-of-planetary-motion
https://www.slideshare.net/dorotheemabasa/intellectual-revolution-freud-and-darwin
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/beystehner.html
https://www.sparknotes.com/biography/freud/summary/
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/beystehner.html
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/psychodynamic-perspectives-on-personality/