SCIENCE,

TECHNOLOGY
AND
SOCIETY
DEFINITIONS
• What is Science?
▪ Systematic, organized knowledge based on
facts.
▪ This systematic nature sets science apart
from other types of understanding.
▪ Concerned with evidence and theories.
▪ Science is said to be dynamic, constantly
moving, the knowledge changes.
▪ What you know yesterday and today may
not be
What is Technology?
• Technology is the product of science.
• Technology is the practical application of
scientific and other knowledge to meet the
needs of the society.
• Technologists are scientists.
• Scientists produce or generate knowledge
and technologists turn it to important
products and devices such as computers,
aircraft carriers, spacecraft, etc.
What is Society?
• Society is a population that occupies the
same territory, subject to the same political
authority, and participates in common
culture.
• The society is made up of community of
people. Among these people are scientists
and technologists.
• What proceeds from the work of the
scientists
and technologists are used up by the society.
What is Science, Technology and
Society or STS?
• STS is an abbreviation for Science,
Technology and Society.
• Refers to the study of science and
technology in society – that is, the study
of the ways in which technical and social
phenomena interact and influence each
other.
• Emphasis has been shifted from Integrated
Science to STS by UNESCO and other stake
holders in science education.
What is Science, Technology and
Society or STS?
• STS provides a context for science study
and thereby becomes more appropriate
for all learners (Yager, 1992).
• STS is the teaching and learning of science
in the context of human experience.
An automobile is a product of science.
We use cars in the community. It took
a lot of Physics knowledge,
Chemistry knowledge to manufacture
a car. The smoke from a car
constitutes health hazard. The
chemist will tell you how carbon
monoxide is hazardous to your
health.
• STS is a form of integrating
knowledge
from the various sciences.
• STS takes you into
consideration because you
live in the society.
Why Study Science
and
Technology
in
Society?
Front page of a large San
Francisco peninsula
newspaper displayed the
following stories on March
23, 1986.
▪Tentative 350 million dollar settlements of tens
of billions of dollars of damage claims
against the Union Carbide Corporation for the
thousands of victims of the largest known
industrial disaster in history.
▪The December 1984 toxic gas leak at the
company’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, India,
which took over 2,000 lives and inflicted
200, 000 casualties.
• Detonation the previous day of a nuclear
bomb beneath the Nevada desert, which is
roughly ten times as powerful as the
weapon that destroyed Hiroshima in
August 1945.
• Declaration of American Medical
Association that it is ethically appropriate
for physicians to withhold and withdraw
feeding tubes from hopelessly comatose
patients.
• Report on the imminent approval by the
city of Palo Alto, California, of a
contract that would make it and a
number of adjacent communities part
of what would become at that time the
nation’s largest subscriber- owned
cable-TV system.
What do these news items
have in
common?
They all involve phenomena of
science and technology in the
society.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY IN
CONTEMPORARY
SOCIETY
MILITARY SIGNIFICANCE
• The outcome of the World War II depended
heavily on the superior scientific and
technological capabilities of the United States
and its allies.
• Today, those technical resources remain vital to
the
national security of many governments.
• About three quarters of approximately $60
billion
U.S. federal government research and
development budget went for military related
ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE
• Played a major role in increasing
productivity.
• Science and technology companies were
leading companies in the industry.
• 7 out of 10 industrial corporations with
highest
sales in U.S. were S & T companies.
• Increasingly important factor in national
economic competitiveness for the future.
MEDICAL SIGNIFICANCE
• Advances in medical diagnosis
(X-rays,
CT scan, MRI, etc.)
• Surgery
• Vaccines
• Therapeutic Drugs
• Prosthetic Drugs
• Rehabilitative Apparatus
Why is science and technology a subject of vital
practical as well as academic importance?
SUCCESSES FAILURES
• Landing on the • Bhopal Disaster
moon • Fall of Chernobyl
• Polio vaccines • Pesticide DDT
• Aircraft • Building collapses
Transportatio • Airplane crashes
ns • Defective
• Double-helical Engineering
structure of • Environment
DNA al
Threats to Human Survival
• Nuclear Weapons
• Products designed for chemical and
biological processes
• Toxic or lethal by-products of
manufacturing or
energy-generation processes
• Products that threaten the viability of the
ecosystem
Ethical Dilemmas
• Euthanasia
• Stem-cell Research
• Exploitation of Laboratory
Specimens
• Teratogenic Drugs
• Nuclear Research
REFLECT
…
• Would you rather allow your loved
one to suffer excruciating pain
caused by a terminal disease or
let them perish in peace by mercy
killing?
• Do you think Filipinos are
spiritually
and socially ready for Euthanasia?
Disparities in Human
Well-BeingTV (1 per x Persons GNP per
Country people) per Capita (US
(1986) Vehicle Dollars)
US 1.7 1.4 16 360
West
2.7 2.3 10 950
Germany
Japan 4.0 2.7 11 310
Nigeria 196 241 790
Afganistan 860 268 230
• What can you tell about the
glaring disparity of material
affluence between the
developed and less- developed
countries including the
Philippines?
Social Conflict
• Much of the social conflict has been
occasioned by
developments in technology and science.
• In the U.S., much of the social conflict
swirled in the ff:
▪ Location of recombinant DNA laboratories in or
near
residential communities
▪ Use of laboratory animals in medical research
▪ Proliferation of high-rise office buildings in
urban
• Can you cite other examples of
conflict that have been caused by
the use of science and technology
in everyday life?
 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ROLES
SCIENCE
1. COMBATTING IRRATIONALITY
– Beginning in the 18th century, science came to be
assigned the task of weaning the populace from
myth, superstition, and resultant irrational belief
and behavior.
– One clear mission of the 20th century science is to
deflate narcissism and combat assorted noxious
claims to inherent superiority associated with
various “isms”, including racism, sexism, ageism,
etc.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ROLES
2. Preeminent source of cognitive
authority
• In the 20th century, a new social role for
science has emerged. Science has been
recognized as the leading source of
cognitive authority in modern western life.
• Scientists are the high priests of the 20th
century and most of the faithful laity defer
to the authority conferred by specialized
expertise.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ROLES
TECHNOLOGY
1. SUSTAINING THE PRIVATE
CORPORATION
• Technology helps corporations survive and
increase their profits, something assumed to
translate into substantial benefits for the
society at large.
2. SOURCE OF PERSONAL IDENTITY
• The items of technology a person possesses have,
along with work, become more increasingly
important sources of identity and self-esteem.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ROLES
3. SOCIAL INTEGRATION AND STRATIFICATION
• It is used in various ways to counteract
centrifugal tendencies (e.g. the weakened
bonds of family and community)
characteristic of large-scale, high mobile 20 th
century societies.
• It carries out this integrative role by
promoting shared political awareness,
common value orientations, and similar
consumption patterns, as well as by
facilitating intermittent contact between
THE RISE OF CONCERN
OVER SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY IN
SOCIETY: HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
World War II
• Manhattan project culminating in August
1945 in
the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Participation of many German scientists and
engineers in the Nazi war effort.
• These raised the issue of the social
responsibility of scientists and engineers to
a new level of awareness, at least among
technical practitioners.
1945 - 1960
• The emerging affluence of concerns following
World
War II was made possible in part by
technology and science during this period.
• The government funded scientific and
technological
researches.
• These served effectively to suppress
public consideration of these issues.
• However, the development of H-bomb and its
deployment for possible use in war in USSR or
China kept the embers of concern from being
Precipitating Factors: Twin Crises of
War and Environment
• Public awareness of environmental
degradation began to increase.
• The awareness was due to the
following:
▪ Toxic chemical waste disposal
▪ Oil-rig and tanker spillages
▪ Strip mining
▪ Anti-personnel bombs
Response of the Academic World
• Emergence of programs devoted to study the
social relations of science and technology.
• STS courses provided an innovative form
of liberal education appropriate for
technological era.
• These courses imparted needed skills to
different
sectors of the undergraduate student body.
• The study of STS would help tomorrow’s
decision makers in medicine, law, business,
The 1970’s
• Interest in STS matters increased
fuelled by a series of controversial
scientific and technological
developments
▪ Nuclear power
▪ Computers
▪ Genetic engineering
▪ Human reproduction and life
prolongation
1980 to Present
• In the first half of the 1980s, there was little
opposition in society or in academia to
technology and science.
• In the mid 1980s, STS concern received new
impetus from philanthropic foundation
efforts to promote a basic grasp of scientific,
technological, and mathematical thinking
and methods among nontechnical college
and university students.
1980 to Present
• “Technical literacy” is seen by some as a
precondition for enhanced public
understanding of technology and science.
• Also, it is something essential for
realizing meaningful participatory
democracy in the contemporary era.
• The late 1980s witnessed the emergence
in academia of small but growing number
of programs and departments devoted to
study of STS at the doctoral level.