LA SALLE UNIVERSITY

Ozamiz City

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

LEARNING MODULE

Course STS (Science, Technology and Society )

Module/Term Module 2/ Week 3-4
TITLE: Historical Developments of Science and Technology (S&T)
EXPLORE: INTRODUCTION:
(4 hrs. & 30 Science and technology have had a major impact on society, and their
mins.) impact is growing. By drastically changing our means of
communication, the way we work, our housing, clothes, and food, our
methods of transportation, and, indeed, even the length and quality of
life itself, science has generated changes in the moral values and basic
philosophies of mankind.
Beginning with the plow, science has changed how we live and
what we believe. By making life easier, science has given man the
chance to pursue societal concerns such as ethics, aesthetics,
education, and justice; to create cultures; and to improve human
conditions. But it has also placed us in the unique position of being
able to destroy ourselves.

For your guidance, let us divide this Module into the following
periods:

 S&T in the ancient times (through 599 BCE)

Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, & Neolithic)
Bronze Age
Iron Age
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.
Bronze age (About 3700 BC to about 500 BC)
 is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze.
 Ancient civilization is defined to be bronze age either by
producing bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying with
tin, arsenic, or other metals or by trading.
 Bronze Age civilizations gain a technological advantage.
 The Bronze Age is the name given to the period of time between
the Stone and Iron Ages
 Greater range of tools and weapons
 Growth of trade for bronze and bronze products was aided by
improved navigation skills
 The invention of the wheel meant that animal drawn vehicles
could drive along tracks and roads
 The potter's wheel and textile production meant that better pottery
and clothing could be produced
 Some Bronze Age societies developed a ruling class who were
supported by military power.

 S&T in “Antiquity” (600 to 529 BCE)

Greek civilization
Ancient Greek civilization
the period following Mycenaean civilization, which ended about
1200 BCE, to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BCE. It was a
period of political, philosophical, artistic, and scientific achievements
that formed a legacy with unparalleled influence on Western
civilization.
The Acropolis, Athens

 S&T in the middle ages (530 to 1452)

Middle Ages
The period in European history from the collapse of Roman
civilization in the 5th century CE to the period of
the Renaissance (variously interpreted as beginning in the 13th, 14th,
or 15th century, depending on the region of Europe and other factors).
 The term and its conventional meaning were introduced by
Italian humanists with invidious intent. The humanists were engaged
in a revival of Classical learning and culture, and the notion of a
thousand-year period of darkness and ignorance separating them from
the ancient Greek and Roman world served to highlight the humanists’
own work and ideals. It would seem unnecessary to observe that the
men and women who lived during the thousand years or so preceding
the Renaissance were not conscious of living in the Middle Ages. A
few—Petrarch was the most conspicuous among them—felt that their
lot was cast in a dark time, which had begun with the decline of the
Roman Empire. Indeed, Petrarch would provide something of a
founding statement for the humanists when he wrote, “For who can
doubt that Rome would rise again instantly if she began to know
herself?”
 Renaissance and the Scientific revolution (1453 to 1659)
Renaissance
(French: “Rebirth”) period in European civilization immediately
following the Middle Ages and conventionally held to have been
characterized by a surge of interest in Classical scholarship and values.
The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and exploration of new
continents, the substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system
of astronomy, the decline of the feudal system and the growth of
commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially
powerful innovations as paper, printing, the mariner’s compass, and
gunpowder. To the scholars and thinkers of the day, however, it was
primarily a time of the revival of Classical learning and wisdom after a
long period of cultural decline and stagnation.

Scientific Revolution
drastic change in scientific thought that took place during the
16th and 17th centuries. A new view of nature emerged during the
Scientific Revolution, replacing the Greek view that had
dominated science for almost 2,000 years. Science became
an autonomous discipline, distinct from
both philosophy and technology, and it came to be regarded as having
utilitarian goals. By the end of this period, it may not be too much to
say that science had replaced Christianity as the focal point of
European civilization. Out of the ferment of
the Renaissance and Reformation there arose a new view of science,
bringing about the following transformations: the reeducation of
common sense in favour of abstract reasoning; the substitution of a
quantitative for a qualitative view of nature; the view of nature as
a machine rather than as an organism; the development of an
experimental, scientific method that sought definite answers to certain
limited questions couched in the framework of specific theories; and
the acceptance of new criteria for explanation, stressing the “how”
rather than the “why” that had characterized the Aristotelian search for
final causes.

 Scientific Method: Measurement and Communication (1660 to

1734)
Scientific method
A mathematical and experimental technique employed in the
sciences. More specifically, it is the technique used in the construction
and testing of a scientific hypothesis.
Science From The Enlightenment To The 20th Century
Seminal contributions to science are those that change the tenor
of the questions asked by succeeding generations. The works of
Newton formed just such a contribution. The mathematical rigour of
the Principia and the experimental approach of the Opticks became
models for scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Celestial
mechanics developed in the wake of his Principia, extending its scope
and refining its mathematical methods. The more qualitative,
experimental, and hypothetical approach of
Newton’s Opticks influenced the sciences of optics, electricity and
magnetism, and chemistry.

 The Enlightenment and the Industrial revolution (1735 to 1819)

Enlightenment
French siècle des Lumières (literally “century of the
Enlightened”); German Aufklärung,
A European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries
in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were
synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and
that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and
politics. Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and
celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the
universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational
humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.

Industrial Revolution
In modern history, 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. Although used earlier by
French writers, the term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by
the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) to describe
Britain’s economic development from 1760 to 1840. Since Toynbee’s
time the term has been more broadly applied.

 S&T in the 19th Century (1820 to 1894)

The Industrial Revolution (1750–1900) forever changed the way
people in Europe and the United States lived and worked. These
inventors and their creations were at the forefront of a new society.
Spinning and weaving
The steam engine
Harnessing electricity
The telegraph and the telephone
The internal-combustion engine and the automobile

 Rise of modern S&T (1895 to 1945)

The pace of technological innovation began to quicken.
Particularly in Italy, the political demands of the time gave new
importance to technology, and a new profession emerged, that of civil
and military engineer. These people faced practical problems that
demanded practical solutions. Leonardo da Vinci is certainly the most
famous of them, though he was much more as well. A painter of
genius, he closely studied human anatomy in order to give
verisimilitude to his paintings. As a sculptor, he mastered the difficult
techniques of casting metal. As a producer-director of the form of
Renaissance dramatic production called the masque, he devised
complicated machinery to create special effects. But it was as a
military engineer that he observed the path of a mortar bomb being
lobbed over a city wall and insisted that the projectile did not follow
two straight lines—a slanted ascent followed by a vertical drop—as
Aristotle had said it must. Leonardo and his colleagues needed to
know nature truly; no amount of book learning could substitute for
actual experience, nor could books impose their authority upon
phenomena. What Aristotle and his commentators asserted as
philosophical necessity often did not gibe with what could be seen
with one’s own eyes. The hold of ancient philosophy was too strong to
be broken lightly, but a healthy skepticism began to emerge.

 Big science and the Post-industrial society (1946 to 1972)

Postindustrial society
A society marked by a transition from a manufacturing-based
economy to a service-based economy, a transition that is also
connected with subsequent societal restructuring.
Postindustrialization is the next evolutionary step from an
industrialized society and is most evident in countries and regions that
were among the first to experience the Industrial Revolution, such as
the United States, western Europe, and Japan.

 The Information Age (1973 to present)

By the end of the 19th century, the dream of the mastery of nature
for the benefit of humankind, first expressed in all its richness by Sir
Francis Bacon, seemed on the verge of realization. Science was
moving ahead on all fronts, reducing ignorance and producing new
tools for the amelioration of the human condition. A comprehensible,
rational view of the world was gradually emerging from laboratories
and universities. One savant went so far as to express pity for those
who would follow him and his colleagues, for they, he thought, would
have nothing more to do than to measure things to the next decimal
place.
In the 21st century the revolution in Science, specifically physics
spilled over into chemistry and biology and led to hitherto undreamed-
of capabilities for the manipulation of atoms and molecules and of
cells and their genetic structures. Chemists perform molecular
tailoring today as a matter of course, cutting and shaping molecules at
will. Genetic engineering and the subsequent development of gene
editing, a highly accurate and efficient means of altering DNA, made
possible active human intervention in the evolutionary process and
held out the possibility of tailoring living organisms, including the
human organism, to specific tasks. This second scientific revolution
may prove to be, for good or ill, one of the most important events in
the history of humankind.

Read the ppt given, and browse some of the reading materials below:
 https://www.slideshare.net/MerlynH/science-technology-and-
society-66057613
 https://www.explainthatstuff.com/timeline.html

Watch the videos from the source below:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hz-V-wA6KY
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjc7N6DfQp0
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCOSJF_7RKE