Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Science Technology and Society
Science Technology and Society
Science Technology and Society
MODULE IN GEd 109
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
Abegail L. Gonzales
Erma D. Maalihan
Sherryl M. Montalbo
Table of Contents
TOPIC
PAGE No.
PART I
General Concepts and STS Historical Developments
Chapter 1 – Historical Antecedents
A. Historical Antecedents in Which Social
Considerations Changed the Course of Science and Technology
What is Science, Technology and Society 1
Historical Antecedents in the World 5
From Ancient Times to 600 BC 5
The Advent of Science 6
Islamic Golden Age 6
Ancient China 7
The Renaissance 8
The Enlightenment Period 9
Industrial Revolution 10
20th Century Science 11
Fourth Industrial Revolution 12
Activities 14
B. Historical Development of Science and Technology
in the Philippines
Pre-Spanish Era 18
Spanish Colonial Era 19
American Period 20
Commonwealth Period 21
S&T Since Independence 21
S&T in the 60s to 90s 22
Hopes in Philippines S&T 25
Current Initiatives in Philippine S&T 26
C. Paradigm Shifts
What is a paradigm? 28
What is a paradigm shift? 29
Chapter 2 – Intellectual Revolutions that Defined Society
A. What is an Intellectual Revolution? 31
B. The Birth of Modern Science 31
C. Copernican Revolution 32
D. Darwinian Revolution 35
E. Freudian Revolution 36
F. Scientific Revolution in MesoAmerica 38
G. Asian Scientific Revolution 39
H. Scientific Revolution in Middle East 39
I. Scientific Revolution in Africa 41
J. Information Revolution 43
K. Activity: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants 45
Chapter 3 - Science and Technology, and Nation Building
A. The Philippine Government S&T Agenda 48
B. In Focus: Batangas State University KIST Park 51
C. Major Development Programs in Science and Technology 52
D. Personalities in Science and Technology in the Philippines 54
E. Science Education in the Philippines 58
Part II
Science and Technology and the Human Condition
Chapter 4 - The Human Person Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
A. Technology as a Way of Revealing 62
B. Human Flourishing 64
Chapter 5 – The Good Life
A. What is a Good Life? 69
B. What is Human Existence? 72
C. What is a Public Good? 73
Chapter 6 - When Technology and Humanity Cross
A. The Ethical Dilemmas of Robotics 76
B. Human, Morals and Machines 79
C. Why the Future Does Not Need Us? 81
D. Activity 86
Part III
Specific Issues in Science, Technology and Society
Chapter 7 - The Information Age
A. Pre-Gutenberg Period 89
B. Gutenberg Revolution 90
C. Printed Materials as Agents of Change 91
D. Post-Gutenberg Period
E. Activity 94
Chapter 8 – Biodiversity and Healthy Society
A. Biodiversity and Healthy Society 96
B. Threats to Biodiversity 97
C. GMOs 99
D. Risk Related to the Use of GMOs 104
E. Activity 106
Chapter 9 – The Nano World
A. What is Nanotechnology 108
B. Environmental Aspects of Nanotechnology 111
C. Nanotechnology in the Philippines 112
D. Nanotechnology and Education 113
E. Activity 115
Chapter 10 – Gene Therapy
A. Approaches to Gene Therapy 117
B. Stem Cell Therapy 118
C. Activity 119
Chapter 11 - Climate Change, Energy Crisis and Environmental Awareness
A. What is Climate Change 121
B. Causes of Climate Change 121
C. Impacts of Climate Change 122
D. Activity 125
Chapter 1
Historical Antecedents in Which Social Considerations Changed
the Course of Science and Technology
Introduction
This section presents an overview of how science and technology evolved from
ancient times to the present. It shows how man was able to develop crude technological
tools and eventually improve them through time to make his way of living more convenient
and the society more progressive.
Intended Learning Outcomes:
1. Discuss the interactions between science and technology and society throughout
history
2. Discuss how scientific and technological developments affect society and the
environment
3. Identify the paradigm shifts in history
A. General Concepts
What is Science, Technology and Society?
Science and Technology and Society is an interdisciplinary course designed to
examine the ways that science and technology shape, and are shaped by, our society,
politics, and culture. It explores the conditions under which production, distribution and
utilization of scientific knowledge and technological systems occur;; and the effects of
these processes upon the entire society. History and philosophy of science and
technology, sociology and anthropology are greatly interconnected to the discussion of
STS because these are the very factors that molded the development of science and
technology as we know it today.
Science is an evolving body of knowledge that is based on theoretical expositions
and experimental and empirical activities that generates universal truths. Technology, on
the other hand is the application of science and creation of systems, processes and
objects designed to help humans in their daily activities. The development of science and
technology has brought immense progress in society and men. Scientific knowledge and
technology influences individuals and society. Better understanding of science and
technology is essential to know the unique attributes of each enterprise, then addressing
their implications for society.
Society is the sum total of our interactions as humans, including the interactions
that we engage in to understand the nature of things and to create things. It is also defined
as a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group
sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political
authority and dominant cultural expectations (Science Daily).
Science, technology and society is important to the public because it helps address
issues and problems that are of concern to the general population. Scientific and
technological principles have been and continue to be applied to solve problems that
people experience in their day-to-day aspects of living. But scientific findings must be
applied at the right scales. The impact of technological breakthroughs on people, society
and the environment must be critically assessed to preserve its value.
A lot of our problems in modern society involve not only technology but also human
values, social organization, environmental concerns, economic resources, political
decisions, and a myriad of other factors. These things sits at the interface between the
three fields and can also be solved (if they can be solved at all) by the application of
scientific knowledge, technical expertise, social understanding, and humane compassion.
In the past, science is learned as an independent study from other fields. It focuses
on the scientific methods, natural processes and understanding nature. But in the current
global scenario, science is studied holistically, often in an interdisciplinary method,
emphasizing systems rather than processes, synthesis more than analysis and predicting
nature’s behavior in order to have useful application in solving contemporary problems.
2
The scientific data that have built up a considerable base of knowledge led to a vast
portfolio of useful technologies, especially in the 21st century, to solve many of the
problems now facing humankind (UNESCO, 1999).
To solve our contemporary problems, science needs to become more
multidisciplinary and its practitioners should continue to promote cooperation and
integration between the social and natural sciences. A holistic approach also demands
that science draw on the contributions of the humanities (such as history and philosophy),
local knowledge systems, aboriginal wisdom, and the wide variety of cultural values.
The influence of science and technology on people’s lives is expanding. While
recent benefits to humanity are unparalleled in the history of the human species, in some
instances the impact has been harmful or the long-term effects give causes for serious
concerns. A considerable measure of public mistrust of science and fear of technology
exists today. In part, this stems from the belief by some individuals and communities that
they will be the ones to suffer the indirect negative consequences of technical innovations
introduced to benefit only a privileged minority. The power of science to bring about
change places a duty on scientists to proceed with great caution both in what they do and
what they say. Scientists should reflect on the social consequences of the technological
applications or dissemination of partial information of their work and explain to the public
and policy makers alike the degree of scientific uncertainty or incompleteness in their
findings. At the same time, though, they should not hesitate to fully exploit the predictive
power of science, duly qualified, to help people cope with environmental change,
especially in cases of direct threats like natural disasters or water shortages.
The Role of Science and Technology
1. alter the way people live, connect, communicate and transact, with profound
effects on economic development;;
2. key drivers to development, because technological and scientific revolutions
underpin economic advances, improvements in health systems, education and
infrastructure;;
3. The technological revolutions of the 21st century are emerging from entirely new
sectors, based on micro-processors, tele-communications, bio-technology and
nano-technology. Products are transforming business practices across the
economy, as well as the lives of all who have access to their effects. The most
remarkable breakthroughs will come from the interaction of insights and
applications arising when these technologies converge.
4. have the power to better the lives of poor people in developing countries
5. differentiators between countries that are able to tackle poverty effectively by
growing and developing their economies, and those that are not.
6. engine of growth
7. interventions for cognitive enhancement, proton cancer therapy and genetic
engineering
3
Reflective Question:
With the whole world suffering from CoViD-19 pandemic, discuss the interplay
between science, technology and society in mitigating this problem.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
4
B. Historical Antecedents in the World
Just like with any other discipline, the best way to truly understand where
we are in science today is to look back at what happened in the past. The history
of science can teach us many lessons about the way scientists think and
understand the world around us. A historical perspective will make us appreciate
more what science really is.
From Ancient Times to 600 BC
Science during ancient times involved practical arts like healing practices
and metal tradition. Some of the earliest records from history indicate that 3,000
years before Christ, the ancient Egyptians already had reasonably sophisticated
medical practices. Sometime around 2650 B.C., for example, a man named
Imhotep was renowned for his knowledge of medicine. Most historians agree that
the heart of Egyptian medicine was trial and error. Egyptian doctors would try one
remedy, and if it worked, they would continue to use it. If a remedy they tried didn’t
work, the patient might die, but at least the doctors learned that next time they
should try a different remedy. Despite the fact that such practices sound primitive,
the results were, sometimes, surprisingly effective.
The Egyptian medicine was considered advanced as compared with other
ancient nations because of one of the early inventions of Egyptian civilization – the
papyrus. The papyrus is an ancient form of paper, made from the papyrus plant,
a reed which grows in the marshy areas around the Nile river. As early as 3,000
years before Christ, Egyptians took thin slices of the stem of the papyrus plant, laid
them crosswise on top of each other, moistened them, and then pressed and dried
them. The result was a form of paper that was reasonably easy to write on and
store. The invention of this ancient form of paper revolutionized the way
information was transmitted from person to person and generation to generation.
Before papyrus, Egyptians, Sumerians, and other races wrote on clay tablets or
smooth rocks. This was a time-consuming process, and the products were not
easy to store or transport. When Egyptians began writing on papyrus, all of that
changed. Papyrus was easy to roll into scrolls. Thus, Egyptian writings became
easy to store and transport. As a result, the knowledge of one scholar could be
easily transferred to other scholars. As this accumulated knowledge was passed
down from generation to generation, Egyptian medicine became the most
respected form of medicine in the known world. Papyrus was used as a writing
material as early as 3,000 BC in ancient Egypt, and continued to be used to some
extent until around 1100 AD.
Although the Egyptians were renowned for their medicine and for papyrus,
other cultures had impressive inventions of their own. Around the time that papyrus
was first being used in Egypt, the Mesopotamians were making pottery using the
first known potter’s wheel. Not long after, horse-drawn chariots were being used.
5
As early as 1,000 years before Christ, the Chinese were using compasses to aid
themselves in their travels. The ancient world, then, was filled with inventions that,
although they sound commonplace today, revolutionized life during those times.
These inventions are history’s first inklings of science.
The Advent of Science (600 BC to 500 AD)
The ancient Greeks were the early thinkers and as far as historians can tell,
they were the first true scientists. They collected facts and observations and then
used those observations to explain the natural world. Although many cultures like
the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Chinese had collected observations
and facts, they had not tried to use those facts to develop explanations of the world
around them.
Scientific thought in Classical Antiquity becomes tangible from the 6th
century BC in pre-Socratic philosophy (Thales, Pythagoras). In circa 385
BC, Plato founded the Academy. With Plato's student Aristotle begins the
"scientific revolution" of the Hellenistic period culminating in the 3rd to 2nd
centuries with scholars such as Eratosthenes, Euclid, Aristarchus of
Samos, Hipparchus and Archimedes.
This period produced substantial advances in scientific knowledge,
especially in anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, mathematics and
astronomy;; an awareness of the importance of certain scientific problems,
especially those related to the problem of change and its cause;; and a recognition
of the methodological importance of applying mathematics to natural phenomena
and of undertaking empirical research.
The scholars frequently employed the principles developed in earlier Greek
thought: the application of mathematics and deliberate empirical research, in their
scientific investigations. This was passed on from ancient Greek philosophers to
medieval Muslim philosophers and scientists, to the European Renaissance and
Enlightenment, to the secular sciences of the modern day.
Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic and scientific
flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the eighth century to the
fourteenth century, with several contemporary scholars dating the end of the era
to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. This period is traditionally understood to have
begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the
inauguration of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars from various
parts of the world with different cultural backgrounds were mandated to gather and
translate all of the world's classical knowledge into the Arabic language and
subsequently development in various fields of sciences began. Science and
6
technology in the Islamic world adopted and preserved knowledge and
technologies from contemporary and earlier civilizations, including Persia, Egypt,
India, China, and Greco-Roman antiquity, while making numerous improvements,
innovations and inventions.
Islamic scientific achievements encompassed a wide range of subject
areas, especially astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Scientific inquiry was
practiced in other subjects like alchemy and chemistry, botany and agronomy,
geography and cartography, ophthalmology, pharmacology, physics and zoology.
Islamic science was characterized by having practical purposes as well as
the goal of understanding. Astronomy was useful in determining the Qibla, which
is the direction in which to pray, botany is applied in agriculture and geography
enabled scientists to make accurate maps. Mathematics also flourished during the
Islamic Golden Age with the works of Al-Khwarizmi, Avicenna and Jamshid al
Kashi that led to advanced in algebra, trigonometry, geometry and Arabic
numerals.
There was also great progress in medicine during this period. Al-Biruni, and
Avicenna produced books that contain descriptions of the preparation of hundred
of drugs made from medicinal plants and chemical compounds. Islamic doctors
describe diseases like smallpox and measles, and challenged classical Greek
medical knowledge.
Likewise, Islamic physicists such as Ibn Al-Haytham, Al-Biruni and others
studied optics and mechanics as well as astronomy, and criticized Aristotle’s view
of motion.
The significance of medieval Islamic science has been debated by
historians. The traditionalist view holds that it lacked innovation, and was mainly
important for handing on ancient knowledge to medieval Europe. The revisionist
view holds that it constituted a scientific revolution. Whatever the case, science
flourished across a wide area around the Mediterranean and further afield, for
several centuries, in a wide range of institutions.
Science and Technology in Ancient China
Ancient Chinese scientists and engineers made significant scientific
innovations, findings and technological advances across various scientific
disciplines including the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, military
technology, mathematics, geology and astronomy.
Ancient China gave the world the Four Great Inventions that include the
compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing. These were considered as
among the most important technological advances and were only known to Europe
7
1000 years later or during the end of the Middle ages. These four inventions had
a profound impact on the development of civilization throughout the world.
However, some modern Chinese scholars have opined that other Chinese
inventions were perhaps more sophisticated and had a greater impact on Chinese
civilization – the Four Great Inventions serve merely to highlight the technological
interaction between East and West.
As stated by Karl Marx, "Gunpowder, the compass, and the printing press
were the three great inventions which ushered in bourgeois society. Gunpowder
blew up the knightly class, the compass discovered the world market and found
the colonies, and the printing press was the instrument of Protestantism and the
regeneration of science in general;; the most powerful lever for creating the
intellectual prerequisites.”
The Renaissance (1300 AD – 1600AD)
The 14th century was the beginning of the cultural movement of the
Renaissance, which was considered by many as the Golden Age of Science.
During the Renaissance period, great advances occurred
in geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, anatomy,
manufacturing, and engineering. The rediscovery of ancient scientific texts was
accelerated after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the invention
of printing democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas.
Marie Boas Hall coined the term Scientific Renaissance to designate the
early phase of the Scientific Revolution, 1450–1630. More recently, Peter Dear
has argued for a two-phase model of early modern science: a Scientific
Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, focused on the restoration of the
natural knowledge of the ancients;; and a Scientific Revolution of the 17th century,
when scientists shifted from recovery to innovation.
But this initial period is usually seen as one of scientific backwardness.
There were no new developments in physics or astronomy, and the reverence for
classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the
universe. Renaissance philosophy lost much of its rigour as the rules of logic and
deduction were seen as secondary to intuition and emotion. At the same
time, Renaissance humanism stressed that nature came to be viewed as an
animate spiritual creation that was not governed by laws or mathematics. Science
would only be revived later, with such figures as Copernicus, Gerolamo
Cardano, Francis Bacon, and Descartes.
The most important technological advance of all in this period was the
development of printing, with movable metal type, about the mid-15th century in
Germany. Johannes Gutenberg is usually called its inventor, but in fact many
people and many steps were involved. Block printing on wood came to the West
8
from China between 1250 and 1350, papermaking came from China by way of the
Arabs to 12th-century Spain, whereas the Flemish technique of oil painting was
the origin of the new printers’ ink. Three men of Mainz—Gutenberg and his
contemporaries Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer—seem to have taken the final
steps, casting metal type and locking it into a wooden press. The invention spread
like the wind, reaching Italy by 1467, Hungary and Poland in the 1470s, and
Scandinavia by 1483. By 1500 the presses of Europe had produced some six
million books. Without the printing press it is impossible to conceive that the
Reformation would have ever been more than a monkish quarrel or that the rise of
a new science, which was a cooperative effort of an international community,
would have occurred at all. In short, the development of printing amounted to a
communications revolution of the order of the invention of writing;; and, like that
prehistoric discovery, it transformed the conditions of life. The communications
revolution immeasurably enhanced human opportunities for enlightenment and
pleasure on one hand and created previously undreamed-of possibilities for
manipulation and control on the other. The consideration of such contradictory
effects may guard us against a ready acceptance of triumphalist conceptions of
the Renaissance or of historical change in general.
The Enlightenment Period (1715 A.D. to 1789 A.D.)
The Enlightenment Period or the Age of Reason was characterized by
radical reorientation in science, which emphasized reason over superstition and
science over blind faith. This period produced numerous books, essays,
inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. The American and
French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals and
respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline. The
Enlightenment ultimately gave way to 19th-century Romanticism.
The Enlightenment’s important 17th-century precursors included the key
natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution, including Galileo Galilei,
Johannes Kepler and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Its roots are usually traced to
1680s England, where in the span of three years Isaac Newton published his
“Principia Mathematica” (1686) and John Locke his “Essay Concerning Human
Understanding” (1689)—two works that provided the scientific, mathematical and
philosophical toolkit for the Enlightenment’s major advances.
In this era dedicated to human progress, the advancement of the natural
sciences is regarded as the main exemplification of, and fuel for, such progress.
Isaac Newton’s epochal accomplishment in his Principia Mathematica consists in
the comprehension of a diversity of physical phenomena – in particular the motions
of heavenly bodies, together with the motions of sublunary bodies – in few
relatively simple, universally applicable, mathematical laws, was a great stimulus
to the intellectual activity of the eighteenth century and served as a model and
inspiration for the researches of a number of Enlightenment thinkers. Newton’s
9
system strongly encourages the Enlightenment conception of nature as an orderly
domain governed by strict mathematical-dynamical laws and the conception of
ourselves as capable of knowing those laws and of plumbing the secrets of nature
through the exercise of our unaided faculties. – The conception of nature, and of
how we know it, changes significantly with the rise of modern science. It belongs
centrally to the agenda of Enlightenment philosophy to contribute to the new
knowledge of nature, and to provide a metaphysical framework within which to
place and interpret this new knowledge.
Industrial Revolution (1760 - 1840)
The rise of modern science and the Industrial Revolution were closely
connected. It is difficult to show any direct effect of scientific discoveries upon the
rise of the textile or even the metallurgical industry in Great Britain, the home of
the Industrial Revolution, but there certainly was a similarity in attitude to be found
in science and nascent industry. Close observation and careful generalization
leading to practical utilization were characteristic of both industrialists and
experimentalists alike in the 18th century.
What science offered in the 18th century was the hope that careful
observation and experimentation might improve industrial production
significantly. The science of metallurgy permitted the tailoring of alloy steels to
industrial specifications, the science of chemistry permitted the creation of new
substances, like the aniline dyes, of fundamental industrial importance, and that
electricity and magnetism were harnessed in the electric dynamo and motor. Until
that period science probably profited more from industry than the other way
around. It was the steam engine that posed the problems that led, by way of a
search for a theory of steam power, to the creation of thermodynamics. Most
importantly, as industry required ever more complicated and intricate machinery,
the machine tool industry developed to provide it and, in the process, made
possible the construction of ever more delicate and refined instruments for science.
As science turned from the everyday world to the worlds of atoms and molecules,
electric currents and magnetic fields, microbes and viruses, and nebulae and
galaxies, instruments increasingly provided the sole contact with phenomena. A
large refracting telescope driven by intricate clockwork to observe nebulae was as
much a product of 19th-century heavy industry as were the steam locomotive and
the steamship.
The Industrial Revolution had one further important effect on the
development of modern science. The prospect of applying science to the problems
of industry served to stimulate public support for science. Governments, in varying
degrees and at different rates, began supporting science even more directly, by
making financial grants to scientists, by founding research institutes, and by
bestowing honors and official posts on great scientists. By the end of the 19th
century the natural philosopher following his private interests had given way to the
professional scientist with a public role.
10
The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were technological,
socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included the following: (1)
the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel, (2) the use of
new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal,
the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine, (3)
the invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that
permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy, (4) a
new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed
increased division of labor and specialization of function, (5) important
developments in transportation and communication, including the
steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and (6)
the increasing application of science to industry. These technological changes
made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass
production of manufactured goods.
20th Century Science: Physics and Information Age
The 20th century was an important century in the history of the sciences. It
generated entirely novel insights in all areas of research – often thanks to the
introduction of novel research methods – and it established an intimate connection
between science and technology. With this connection, science is dealing now with
the complexity of the real world. The scientific legacy of the 20th Century gave
proof of the revolutionary changes in many areas of the sciences – in
particular, physics, biology, astronomy, chemistry, neurosciences and earth and
environmental sciences – and how they contributed to these changes.
The epistemological and methodological questions as well as the
interdisciplinary aspects become ever more important in scientific research. The
common denominator of the sciences is the notion of discovery, and discovery is
an organised mode of observing nature. Twentieth century cosmology greatly
improved our knowledge of the place that man and his planet occupy in the
universe. The “wonder” that Plato and Aristotle put at the origin of thought,
today extends to science itself. Questions now arise on the origin and on the whole,
its history and its laws.
The start of the 20th century was strongly marked by Einstein’s formulation
of the theory of relativity (1905) including the unifying concept of energy related to
mass and the speed of light: E = mc2 . He made many more contributions, notably
to statistical mechanics, and he provided a great inspiring influence for many other
physicists.
In the second half of the 20th century several branches of science continued
to make great progress and we here list physics, chemistry, biology, geology and
astronomy. For example, there was the development of the semi-conductor
11
(transistor), followed by developments in nanotechnology that led to great
advances in information technology. In nuclear physics the discovery of sub-atomic
particles provided a great leap forward.
Modern physics grew in the 20th into a primary discipline contributing to all
today’s basic natural sciences, astronomy, chemistry and biology. Although it took
a hundred years since Clausius’s time for it to be fully recognized that all biological
processes have also to obey the laws of thermodynamics, the border between the
origin of the living and the non-living worlds has now at last been blurred. The year
1953 was an important landmark for biology with the description by Crick and
Watson of the structure of DNA, the carrier of genetic information (Rosch, 2014).
Physics has enabled us to understand the basic components of matter and
we are well on the way to an ever more consistent and unitary understanding of
the entire structure of natural reality, which we discover as being made up not only
of matter and energy but also of information and forms. The latest developments
in astrophysics are also particularly surprising: they further confirm the great unity
of physics that manifests itself clearly at each new stage of the understanding of
reality.
Biology too, with the discovery of DNA and the development of genetics,
allows us to penetrate the fundamental processes of life and to intervene in the
gene pool of certain organisms by imitating some of these natural mechanisms.
Information technology and the digital processing of information have transformed
our lifestyle and our way of communicating in the space of very few decades. The
20th century has seen medicine find a cure for many life-threatening diseases and
the beginning of organ transplants.
It is impossible to list the many other discoveries and results that
have broadened our knowledge and influenced our world outlook: from progress
in computational logic to the chemistry of materials, from the neurosciences to
robotics. Scientific research not only gives expression to the strength of rationality
in explaining the world and the way in which this is done. The application of
scientific knowledge can induce changes of environmental and thus living
conditions. It is these aspects, the interrelations between scientific progress and
social development, which together with insights into the epistemological structure
and the ethical implications of science play an important role in the life and the
work of scientists.
Science and Technology in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a way of describing the blurring of
boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. It’s a fusion of
advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D
printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies. It’s the
collective force behind many products and services that are fast becoming
12
indispensable to modern life. Think GPS systems that suggest the fastest route to
a destination, voice-activated virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri, personalized
Netflix recommendations, and Facebook’s ability to recognize your face and tag
you in a friend’s photo (https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2018/12/what-is-the-
fourth-industrial-revolution-4IR.html).
As a result of this perfect storm of technologies, the Fourth Industrial
Revolution is paving the way for transformative changes in the way we live and
radically disrupting almost every business sector. It’s all happening at an
unprecedented, whirlwind pace.
The easiest way to understand the Fourth Industrial Revolution is to focus on
the technologies driving it. Artificial intelligence (AI) describes computers that can
“think” like humans — recognizing complex patterns, processing information, drawing
conclusions, and making recommendations. AI is used in many ways, from spotting
patterns in huge piles of unstructured data to powering the autocorrect on your phone.
New computational technologies are making computers smarter. They enable
computers to process vast amounts of data faster than ever before, while the advent
of the “cloud” has allowed businesses to safely store and access their information from
anywhere with internet access, at any time. Quantum computing technologies now in
development will eventually make computers millions of times more powerful. These
computers will have the potential to supercharge AI, create highly complex data
models in seconds, and speed up the discovery of new materials.
Virtual reality (VR) offers immersive digital experiences (using a VR headset)
that simulate the real world, while augmented reality merges the digital and physical
worlds. Examples include L’Oréal’s makeup app, which allows users to digitally
experiment with makeup products before buying them, and the Google Translate
phone app, which allows users to scan and instantly translate street signs, menus,
and other text.
Biotechnology harnesses cellular and biomolecular processes to develop new
technologies and products for a range of uses, including developing new
pharmaceuticals and materials, more efficient industrial manufacturing processes, and
cleaner, more efficient energy sources. Researchers in Stockholm, for example, are
working on what is being touted as the strongest biomaterial ever produced.
Robotics refers to the design, manufacture, and use of robots for personal and
commercial use. While we’re yet to see robot assistants in every home, technological
advances have made robots increasingly complex and sophisticated. They are used
in fields as wide-ranging as manufacturing, health and safety, and human assistance.
3D printing allows manufacturing businesses to print their own parts, with less
tooling, at a lower cost, and faster than via traditional processes. Plus, designs can be
customized to ensure a perfect fit.
13
Innovative materials, including plastics, metal alloys, and biomaterials, promise
to shake up sectors including manufacturing, renewable energy, construction, and
healthcare.
The IoT describes the idea of everyday items — from medical wearables that
monitor users’ physical condition to cars and tracking devices inserted into parcels —
being connected to the internet and identifiable by other devices. A big plus for
businesses is that they can collect customer data from constantly connected products,
allowing them to better gauge how customers use products and tailor marketing
campaigns accordingly. There are also many industrial applications, such as farmers
putting IoT sensors into fields to monitor soil attributes and inform decisions such as
when to fertilize.
Energy capture, storage, and transmission represent a growing market sector,
spurred by the falling cost of renewable energy technologies and improvements in
battery storage capacity.
Activity:
1. List down the scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs in each
period. You may conduct additional researches and share what you have found in
the class.
a. Ancient Times to 600 BC
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
b. Advent of Science (600 BC to 500 AD)
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
c. Islamic Golden Age
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
d. Ancient China and the Far East
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
14
e. Renaissance
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
f. Enlightenment Period
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
g. Industrial Revolution
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
h. 20th century
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
i. Fourth Industrial Revolution
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
__________________________ __________________________
2. If given a chance to live back in time and considering the influence of science and
technology in the society and the environment, which period would you choose
and why? Would you prefer a less technologically driven society or you wouldn’t
trade the comforts of modern life?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
15
Assignment:
Film Viewing.
1. Watch the World’s Greatest Invention
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYYyfAl9Usc) and then answer the following
guide questions.
a. Among the mentioned greatest invention in the video, which do you think created
the most impact in your life now? Why?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
b. Name one invention and discuss how it transformed the society.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
2. Watch Stephen Colbert’s interview with Neil Tyson on YouTube
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXh9RQCvxmg&noredirect=1) and then
answer the following guide questions.
Guide Questions:
1. Stephen Colbert starts the interview by asking Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson, “Is it
better to know or not to know?” Ponder on this question and decide which one
is better. Give as many reasons as to why.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
16
2. Enumerate the various statements that Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson said about
the importance of science literacy and its relationship to society.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
17
C. Historical Development of Science and Technology in the Philippines
The current state of science and technology in the country can be traced back to its
historical development and the latent events that helped shape it since the pre-colonial
period to contemporary time. What we have or lack today in terms of science and
technology is very much an effect of the government policies that had been enacted by
past public officials in trying to develop a technological society that is responsive to the
needs of time.
Pre-Spanish Era.
There is not much written about the Philippines during pre-colonial time but analysis
from archeological artifacts revealed that the first inhabitants in the archipelago who
settled in Palawan and Batangas around 40 000 years ago have made simple tools or
weapons of stone which eventually developed techniques for sawing, drilling and
polishing hard stones. This very primitive technology was brought by primal needs of
survival by hunting wild animals and gathering fruits and vegetables in the forest. They
learned that by polishing hard stones, they can develop sharp objects that are useful in
their day to day activities. From this early, we can see that technology was developed
because of a great necessity.
Still on its primitive state, the first inhabitants in the country are learning what can
be harnessed from the environment. They have come to understand that when clay is
mixed with 2 water and then shaped into something before sun drying, it hardens to an
object that can also be useful to them. And because clay is moldable, it can be shaped
into various objects.
As the early Filipinos flourished, they have learned how to extract, smelt and refine
metals like copper, gold, bronze and iron from nature and consequently fashion them into
tools and implements. At this point, the inhabitants of the country are showing a deeper
understanding of their nature because they were able to obtain valuable resources from
nature.
As the inhabitants shifted from wandering from one place to another and learned to
settle in areas near the water source, they also learned how to weave cotton, engaged
themselves in agriculture and are knowledgeable on building boats for coastal trade.
From the above mentioned facts, it can be concluded that primitive Filipinos are
practicing science and technology in their everyday lives. The ancient crafts of stone
carving, pottery and smelting of metals involves a lot of science, which is understanding
the nature of matter involved. The ingenuity of the Ifugaos in building the Banaue Rice
Terraces The smelting of metals exhibited the primitive Filipino’s knowledge on the
composition of alloy and the optimum temperature that will produce the metal with
acceptable tensile strength. All in all, the primitive Filipinos were living in perfect harmony
with nature and they obtain from it what is just needed in their everyday life through a very
simple science of understanding how mother nature operates
18
Spanish Colonial Era.
As claimed by Caoili (1983), the beginnings of modern science and technology in
the country can be traced back to the Spanish regime because they established schools,
hospitals and started scientific research that had important consequences in the
development of the country. These schools, which are mostly run by Spanish friars,
formed the first Filipino professionals. The The 3 highest institution of learning during this
time was the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas.
But the very strict hold of the church among citizens and its intervention and
meddling to the government propelled by fear of intellectual awakening among Filipinos
have greatly hindered the progress of these professionals to further enhance their
knowledge, conduct scientific investigations and contribute to the advancement of
society. But a few of persistent Filipino scientists succeeded by educating themselves
abroad. One notable example of course is our national hero, the great Dr. Jose P. Rizal.
Dr. Jose Rizal is the epitome of the Renaissance man in the Philippine context. He is a
scientist, a doctor, an engineer (he designed and built a water system in Dapitan), a
journalist, a novelist, an urban planner and a hero. Being a doctor and scientist, he had
extensive knowledge on medicine and was able to operate his mother’s blinding eye.
When he was deported in Dapitan, his knowledge on science and engineering was
translated into technology by creating a water system that improved the sanitation of
households in the area. Dr. Jose
Dr. Jose Rizal was a brilliant man and his life stood out among his contemporaries.
But it cannot be said that there is no contribution to science and technology among the
Filipino men and women during the Spanish era. The charity hospitals became the
breeding ground for scientific researches on pharmacy and medicine, with great focus on
problems of infectious diseases, their causes and possible remedies. And in 1887, the
Laboratorio Municipal de Ciudad de Manila was created and whose functions were to
conduct biochemical analyses for public health and to undertake specimen examinations
for clinical and medico-legal cases. Its publication, probably the first scientific journal in
the country was titled Cronica de Ciencias Medicas de Filipinas showed the studies
undertaken during that time.
As the colonization of the Spaniards lengthened, they began to exploit the natural
resources of the country through agriculture, mining of metals and minerals and
establishing various kinds of industries to further promote economic growth. As such,
scientific research on these fields were encouraged by the government. By the nineteenth
century, Manila has become a cosmopolitan center and modern amenities were
introduced to the city. However, little is known about the accomplishments of scientific
bodies commissioned by the Spanish government during this time. Because of limited
scientific research and its consequent translation to technology during the Spanish
regime, none of the industries prosper. The Philippines had evolved into a primary
agricultural exporting economy, and this is not because of the researches undertaken on
19
this field, but was largely because of the influx of foreign capital and technology which
brought modernization of some sectors, notably sugar and hemp production.
American Period
If the development in science and technology was very slow during the Spanish
regime, the Philippines saw a rapid growth during the American occupation and was
made possible by the government’s extensive public education system from elementary
to tertiary schools. The establishment of various public tertiary schools like the Philippine
Normal School and University of the Philippines provided the needs for professionally
trained Filipinos in building the government’s organization and programs. The growth and
application of science were still concentrated on the health sector in the form of
biochemical analyses in hospitals. The government supported basic and applied research
in the medical, agricultural and related sciences. The University of the Philippines Los
Baños opened the College of Agriculture in 1909 while the University of the Philippines –
Diliman opened the Colleges of Arts, Engineering and Veterinary Medicine in 1910. The
College of Medicine was opened four years later.
During this time, there were already quite a number of qualified Filipino physicians
who held teaching positions in the College of Medicine, whereas most of the early
instructors and professors in other colleges such as in the sciences and engineering were
Americans and foreigners. Capacity building programs that include sending qualified
Filipinos abroad for advanced training were conducted to eventually fill up the teaching
positions in Philippine universities. Moreover, the American colonial government sent
Filipino youths to be educated as teachers, engineers, physicians and lawyers in
American colleges to further capacitate the Filipinos in various fields.
However, there was difficulty in recruiting students for science and technology
courses like veterinary medicine, engineering, agriculture, applied sciences and
industrial-vocational courses. The enrollment in these courses were dismal that the
government had to offer scholarships to attract students. The unpopularity of these
courses stemmed from the Filipinos’ disdain toward manual work that developed from the
400 years under Spanish colonization. The Filipinos then prefer prestigious professions
at that time like priesthood, law and medicine.
The government provided more support for the development of science and created
the Bureau of Government Laboratories in and was later changed to Bureau of Science.
It was composed of a biological laboratory, chemical laboratory, serum laboratory for the
production of virus vaccine, serums and prophylactics, and a library. The bureau was
initially managed by American senior scientists but as more Filipinos were trained and
acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, they eventually took over their positions. The
Bureau of Science served as the primary training ground for Filipino scientists and paved
the way for pioneering scientific research, most especially on the study of various tropical
diseases that were prevalent during those times like leprosy, tuberculosis, cholera,
dengue fever, malaria and beri-beri. Another great contribution of the Bureau of Science
to the development of science and technology in the country was the publication of the
20
Philippine Journal of Science. This scientific journal published researches done in local
laboratories and reported global scientific developments that had relevance to the
Philippine society. The Bureau of Science became the primary research center of the
Philippines until World War II. Lastly, on December 8, 1933, the National Research
Council of the Philippines was established.
Commonwealth Period
When the Americans granted independence and the Commonwealth government
was established, the Filipinos were busy in working towards economic reliance but
acknowledge the importance and vital role of science and technology for the economic
development of the country by declaring that “The State shall promote scientific research
and invention…” The short-lived Commonwealth Government was succeeded by the
Japanese occupation when the Pacific war broke out in 1941. The prevailing situations
during the time of Commonwealth period to the Japanese regime had made
developments in science and technology practically impossible. This is also true when
World War II ended and left Manila, the country’s capital, in ruins. The government had
to rebuild again and normalize the operations in the whole country.
Science and Technology since Independence
In 1946 the Bureau of Science was replaced by the Institute of Science and was
placed under the Office of the President of the Philippines. However, the agency faced
lack of financial support from the government and experienced planning and coordination
problems. In a report by the US Economic Survey to the Philippines in 1950, there is a
lack of basic information which were necessities to the country's industries, lack of support
of experimental work and minimal budget for scientific research and low salaries of
scientists employed by the government. In 1958, during the regime of President Carlos
P. Garcia, the Philippine Congress passed the Science Act of 1958 which established the
National Science Development Board (NSDB).
The Philippine government focused on science and technology institutional
capacity-building which were undertaken by establishing infrastructure-support facilities
such as new research agencies and development trainings. However good these projects
were, it produced insignificant effects because of lack of coordination and planning,
specifically technology planning, between concerned agencies which hindered them from
performing their assigned functions effectively. This was aptly illustrated in the unplanned
activities of the researchers within the agencies. Most areas of research were naively left
to the discretion of the researchers under the assumption that they were working for the
interests of the country. They were instructed to look for technologies and scientific
studies with good commercialization potential. Without clear research policy guidelines,
researches were done for their own sake, leaving to chance the commercialization of the
results.
21
Likewise, during this time, rebuilding the country involved establishing more state
funded manual and trading schools which would eventually become the current state
universities and colleges. The trade schools produced craftsmen, tradesmen and
technicians that helped in shaping a more technological Philippines while still being an
agricultural based nation. Eventually, when these trade schools were elevated to college
and university status, they produced much of the country’s professionals, although there
was a great disparity on the low proportion of those in agriculture, medical and natural
sciences with those from teacher training and commerce/business administration courses
which had higher number of graduates. The increase in the number of graduates led to
the rise of professional organizations of scientists and engineers. These organizations
were formed to promote professional interests and create and monitor the standards of
practice.
As summarized by Caoili, “There has been little innovation in the education and
training of scientists and engineers since independence in 1946. This is in part due to the
conservative nature of self-regulation by the professional associations. Because of
specialized training, vertical organizations by disciplines and lack of liaison between
professions, professional associations have been unable to perceive the dynamic
relationship between science, technology and society and the relevance of their
training to Philippine conditions.
Science and Technology in the 1960s to 1990s
During these years, the government gave greater importance to science and
technology. The government declared in Section 9(1) of the 1973 Philippine Constitution
that the “advancement of science and technology shall have priority in the national
development.”
On April 6, 1968, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos proclaimed the 35-hectare land in Bicutan,
Taguig as the site of the Philippine Science Community. Then in 1969, the government
provided funds to private universities to encourage them to conduct research and create
courses in science and technology. The government also conducted seminars for public
and private high school and college science teachers, training programs and scholarships
for graduate and undergraduate science scholars, and workshops on fisheries and
oceanography.
In the 1970s, focus on science and technology was given to applied research and
the main objective was to generate products and processes that were supposed to have
a greater beneficial impact to the society. Relative to this, several research institutes were
established under the National Science Development Board (NSDB) which includes the
Philippine Coconut Research Institute and Philippine Textile Research Institute.
Moreover, the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission, another agency under NSDB,
explored the uses of atomic energy for economic development. To prepare the pool of
scientists who will work on Philippine Atomic Commission, Pres. Marcos assisted 107
22
institutions in undertaking nuclear energy work by sending scientists abroad to study
nuclear science and technology, and providing basic training to 482 scientists, doctors,
engineers and technicians. Then in 1972, by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 4, the
National Grains Authority was created and it was tasked to improve the rice and corn
industry and thereby help in the economic development of the country. This was followed
by the creation of Philippine Council for Agricultural Research to support the progressive
development of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries in the country. The Marcos
administration also established the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and
Astronomical Service Administration (PAGASA) under the Department of National
Defense to provide environmental protection and to utilize scientific knowledge to ensure
the safety of the people through Presidential Decree No. 78, s. 1972. On the following
year, the Philippine National Oil Company was created by virtue of Presidential Decree
No. 334, s. 1973, to promote industrial and economic development through effective and
efficient use of energy sources. To strengthen the scientific culture in the country, the
National Academy of Science and Technology was established under Presidential Decree
No. 1003-A, s. 1976. The National Academy of Science and Technology was composed
of scientists with “innovative achievement in the basic and applied sciences” who will
serve as the reservoir of scientific and technological expertise for the country.
In the 1980s, science and technology was still focused on applied research. In 1982,
NSDB was further reorganized into a National Science and Technology Authority (NSTA)
composed of four research and development Councils;; Philippine Council for Agriculture
and Resources Research and Development (PCARRD);; Philippine Council for Industry
and Energy Research Development (PCIERD);; Philippine Council for Health Research
and Development (PCHRD) and the National Research Council of the Philippines
(NRCP). NSTA has also eight research and development institutes and support agencies
under it. These are actually the former organic and attached agencies of NSDB which
have themselves been reorganized.
The expanding number of science agencies has given rise to a demand for high
calibre scientists and engineers to undertake research and staff universities and colleges.
Hence, measures have also been taken towards the improvement of the country’s
science and manpower. In March 1983, Executive Order No. 889 was issued by the
President which provided for the establishment of a national network of centers of
excellence in basic sciences. As a consequence, six new institutes were created: The
National Institutes of Physics, Geological Sciences, Natural Sciences Research,
Chemistry, Biology and Mathematical Sciences. Related to this efforts was the
establishment of a Scientific Career System in the Civil Service by Presidential Decree
No. 901 on 19 July 1983. This is designed to attract more qualified scientists to work in
government and encourage young people to pursue science degrees and careers.
In 1986, under the Aquino administration, the National Science and Technology
Authority was replaced by the Department of Science and Technology, giving science
and technology a representation in the cabinet. Under the Medium Term Philippine
Development Plan for the years 1987-1992, science and technology's role in economic
recovery and sustained economic growth was highlighted. In this period, science and
23
technology was one of the top three priorities of the government towards economic
recovery.
With the agency's elevation to full cabinet stature by virtue of Executive Order 128
signed on 30 January 1987, the functions and responsibilities of DOST expanded
correspondingly to include the following: (1) Pursue the declared state policy of supporting
local scientific and technological effort;; (2) Develop local capability to achieve
technological self-reliance;; (3) Encourage greater private sector participation in research
and development. moreover, funding for the science and technology sector was tripled
from 464 million in 1986 to 1.7 billion in 1992.
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is the premiere science and
technology body in the country charged with the twin mandate of providing central
direction, leadership and coordination of all scientific and technological activities, and of
formulating policies, programs and projects to support national development. The Science
and Technology Master Plan was formulated which aimed at the modernization of the
production sector, upgrading research activities, and development of infrastructure for
science and technological purposes. A Research and Development Plan was also
formulated to examine and determine which areas of research needed attention and must
be given priority. The criteria for identifying the program to be pursued were, development
of local materials, probability of success, potential of product in the export market, and
the its strategic nature. The grants for the research and development programs was
included in the Omnibus Investment Law.
During President Fidel Ramos’s term, there was a significant increase in personnel
specializing in the science and technology field. In 1998, there was an estimated 3,000
competent scientists and engineers in the Philippines. Adding to the increase of scientists
would be the result of the two newly built Philippine Science High Schools in Visayas and
Mindanao which promotes further development of young kids through advance S&T
curriculum. The government provided 3,500 scholarships for students who were taking
up professions related to S&T. Priority for S&T personnel increased when Magna Carta
for Science and Technology Personnel (Republic Act No. 8439) was established. The
award was published in order to give incentives and rewards for people who have been
influential in the field of S&T.
Still under the Ramos administration, DOST established the “Science and
Technology Agenda for National Development (STAND)”, a program that was significant
to the field of S&T. It identified seven export products, 11 domestic needs, three other
supporting industries, and the coconut industry as priority investment areas. The seven
identified export products were computer software;; fashion accessories;; gifts, toys, and
houseware;; marine products;; metal fabrications;; furniture;; and dried fruits. The domestic
needs identified were food, housing, health, clothing, transportation, communication,
disaster mitigation, defense, environment, manpower development, and energy. Three
additional support industries were included in the list of priority sectors, namely,
packaging, chemicals, and metals because of their linkages with the above sectors.
24
In the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration, numerous laws and projects were
implemented which concerns both the environment and science to push technology as a
tool to increase the country’s economic level. This is to help increase the productivity from
Science, Technology and Innovations (STI) and help benefit the poor people. Moreover,
the term “Filipinnovation” was the coined term used in helping the Philippines to be an
innovation hub in Asia.
The STI was developed further by strengthening the schools and education system
such as the Philippine Science High School (PSHS), which focuses in science,
technology and mathematics in their curriculum. This helps schools produce get more
involve in this sector. Private sectors were also encouraged to participate in developing
the schools through organizing events and sponsorships. Future Filipino scientists and
innovators can be produced through this system.
Recently, the Philippines ranked 73rd out of 128 economies in terms of Science and
Technology and Innovation (STI) index, citing the country’s strength in research and
commercialization of STI ideas (DOST, 2018). However, a study by the Philippine Institute
for Development Studies highlighted the weak ties between innovation-driven firms and
the government, and it also identified the country’s low expenditure in research and
development (R&D). This is the reason the government is now extending all its efforts to
reach out with the private sector, explaining that STI plays an important role in economic
and social progress and is a key driver for a long-term growth of an economy. Technology
adoption allows a country’s firms and citizens to benefit from innovations created in other
countries, and allows it to catch up and even leap-frog obsolete technologies. Technology
adoption, the official said, allows a country’s firms and citizens to benefit from innovations
created in other countries, and allows it to catch up and even leap-frog obsolete
technologies.
One of these is the micro-satellite. In April 2016, the country launched into space
its first micro-satellite called Diwata-1. It was designed, developed and assembled by
Filipino researchers and engineers under the guidance of Japanese experts. The Diwata
(deity in English) satellite provides real-time, high-resolution and multi-color infrared
images for various applications, including meteorological imaging, crop and ocean
productivity measurement and high-resolution imaging of natural and man-made
features. It enables a more precise estimate of the country’s agricultural production,
provides images of watersheds and floodplains for a better understanding of water
available for irrigation, power and domestic consumption. The satellite also provides
accurate information on any disturbance and degradation of forest and upland areas.
25
The country also has the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH),
which uses the Lidar (light detection and ranging) technology. Project NOAH was initiated
in June 2012 to help manage risks associated with natural hazards and disasters. The
project developed hydromet sensors and high-resolution geo-hazard maps, which were
generated by light detection and ranging technology for flood modeling. Noah helps the
government in providing timely warning with a lead time of at least six hours in the wake
of impending floods. The country is now training the Cambodians on this technology, as
part of the partnerships among ASEAN countries, just like in the case of Japan which
assisted the country’s scientists and engineers in building its first micro-satellite.
DOST, in cooperation with HEIs and research institutions, established advanced
facilities that seek to spur R&D activities and provide MSMEs access to testing services
needed to increase their productivity and competitive advantage.
One is the Advanced Device and Materials Testing Laboratories. The center
houses advanced equipment for failure analysis and materials characterization to address
advanced analytical needs for quality control, materials identification and R&D. Closely
related to this facility is the Electronics Products Development Center, used to design,
develop and test hardware and software for electronic products.
There are also high-performance computing facilities that perform tests and run
computationally intensive applications for numerical weather prediction, climate
modeling, as well as analytics and data modeling and archiving.
The Philippines could also boast of its Genome Center, a core facility that
combines basic and applied research for the development of health diagnostics,
therapeutics, DNA forensics and preventive products, and improved crop varieties.
The country also has drug-discovery facilities, which address the requirements for
producing high-quality and globally acceptable drug candidates. She said the Philippines
also has nanotechnology centers, which provide technical services and enabling
environment for interdisciplinary and collaborative R&D in various nanotechnology
applications.
There are also radiation processing facilities that are used to degrade, graft, or
crosslink polymers, monomers, or chemical compounds for industrial, agricultural,
environmental and medical applications. The Philippines could also boast of its Die and
26
Mold Solutions Center, which enhances the competitiveness of the local tool and die
sector through the localization of currently imported dies and molds.
These are reflections that we are advancing, albeit slowly, to a culture that
embraces STI as a sure path to growth.
Activity:
Identify a contemporary Filipino invention and discuss how it improved the lives of our
countrymen. (Example: SALt lamp or “sustainable alternative lighting” lamp powered by
galvanic reaction of an anode with saline water invented by Aisa Mijeno)
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
27
D. Paradigm Shift
What is a paradigm?
A scientific paradigm is a framework containing all the commonly accepted views
about a subject, conventions about what direction research should take and how it should
be performed.
The philosopher Thomas Kuhn suggested that a paradigm includes “the practices
that define a scientific discipline at a certain point in time." Paradigms contain all the
distinct, established patterns, theories, common methods and standards that allow us to
recognize an experimental result as belonging to a field or not.
Science proceeds by accumulating support for hypotheses which in time become
models and theories. But those models and theories themselves exist within a larger
theoretical framework. The vocabulary and concepts in Newton’s three laws or the central
dogma in biology are examples of scientific “open resources" that scientists have adopted
and which now form part of the scientific paradigm.
Paradigms are historically and culturally bound. For example, a modern Chinese
medical researcher with a background in eastern medicine, will operate within a different
paradigm than a western doctor from the 1800s.
A paradigm dictates:
what is observed and measured
the questions we ask about those observations
how the questions are formulated
how the results are interpreted
how research is carried out
what equipment is appropriate
Many students who opt to study science do so with the belief that they are
undertaking the most rational path to learning about objective reality. But science, much
like any other discipline, is subject to ideological idiosyncrasies, preconceptions and
hidden assumptions.
In fact, Kuhn strongly suggested that research in a deeply entrenched paradigm
invariably ends up reinforcing that paradigm, since anything that contradicts it is ignored
or else pressed through the preset methods until it conforms to already established
dogma.
The body of pre-existing evidence in a field conditions and shapes the collection
and interpretation of all subsequent evidence. The certainty that the current paradigm is
reality itself is precisely what makes it so difficult to accept alternatives.
28
What is a Paradigm Shift?
"The successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual
developmental pattern of mature science" - Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
The shift from one paradigm to another occurs when enough anomalies to the
current paradigm build up, causing scientists to question the foundational principles upon
which their worldview rests. During “normal science,” when the current paradigm is in
place, these anomalies are discounted as acceptable levels of error. However, during
“revolutionary science” or a paradigm shift, these anomalies become the center of
attention as scientists attempt to construct a new world view that incorporates and
explains them. This period of intense focus on explaining anomalies and developing a
new paradigm is considered “revolutionary science,” and it is sparked by a “crisis”
where the old paradigm fails explain key anomalies or outliers. Once a new paradigm is
developed, however, there is a return to “normal science” under the new worldview.
29
An Example of a Paradigm Shift
Many physicists in the 19th century were convinced that the Newtonian paradigm
that had reigned for 200 years was the pinnacle of discovery and that scientific progress
was more or less a question of refinement. When Einstein published his theories on
General Relativity, it was not just another idea that could fit comfortably into the existing
paradigm. Instead, Newtonian Physics itself was relegated to being a special subclass of
the greater paradigm ushered in by General Relativity. Newton’s three laws are still
faithfully taught in schools, however we now operate within a paradigm that puts those
laws into a much broader context.
Interestingly, Kuhn’s theory itself was something of a game changer at the time,
since scientists were not accustomed to thinking of what they were doing in such
metaphysical terms. Kuhn’s theories are today understood to be part of a greater
paradigm shift in the social sciences, and have also been modified since their original
publication.
Kuhn later conceded that the process of scientific advancement might be more
gradual. For example, Relativity did not completely prove Newton wrong, but merely
reframed his theory. Even the Copernican revolution was a little more gradual in replacing
Ptolemy's beliefs.
The concept of paradigm is closely related to the Platonic and Aristotelian views
of knowledge. Aristotle believed that knowledge could only be based upon what is already
known, the basis of the scientific method. Plato believed that knowledge should be judged
by what something could become, the end result, or final purpose. Plato's philosophy is
more like the intuitive leaps that cause scientific revolution;; Aristotle's the patient
gathering of data.
Activity:
Create a poster or caricature that depicts a paradigm shift in science history. Share
and explain your work in the class.
30
Chapter 2
Intellectual Revolutions that Defined Society
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:
1. Articulate ways by which society is transformed by science and technology.
What is an Intellectual Revolution?
An intellectual revolution is a period where paradigm shifts occurred and where
scientific beliefs that have been widely embraced and accepted by the people were
challenged and opposed. Historically, this intellectual revolution can be summed up as
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” (Wootton
as cited by McCarthy, 2019).
The Birth of Modern Science
Western science, like so many other aspects of Western Civilization, was born with
the ancient Greeks. They were the first to explain the world in terms of natural laws rather
than myths about gods and heroes. They also passed on the idea of the value of math
and experiment in science, although they usually thought only in terms of one to the
exclusion of the other.
The most influential figure in Western science until the 1600's, was the
philosopher, Aristotle, who created a body of scientific theory that towered like a colossus
over Western Civilization for some 2000 years. Given the limitations under which the
Greeks were working compared to now, Aristotle's theories made sense when taken in a
logical order.
However, there were several factors that worked both to overthrow Aristotle's
theories and to preserve it. First of all, Aristotle's theories relied very little on experiment,
which left them vulnerable to anyone who chose to perform such experiments. But
attacking one part of Aristotle's system involved attacking the whole thing, which made it
a daunting task for even the greatest thinkers of the day. Secondly, 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.
31
Finally, 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.
The combination of these factors generated a cycle that undermined Aristotle, but
also slowed down the creation of a new set of theories. New observations would be made
that seemed to contradict Aristotle's theories. This would lead to new explanations, but
always framed in the context of the old beliefs, thus patching up the Aristotelian system.
However, more observations would take place, leading to more patching of the old
system, and so on. The first person who started this slow process of dismantling
Aristotle's cosmology was Copernicus. His findings would reinforce the process of finding
new explanations, which would lead to the work of Kepler and Galileo. The work of these
three men would lead to many new questions and theories about the universe until Isaac
Newton would take the new data and synthesize it into a new set of theories that more
accurately explained the universe.
A. Copernican Revolution
Nicolas Copernicus was a Polish scholar working at the University of Padua in
northern Italy. The problem he wrestled with was the paths of planetary orbits.
Through the centuries close observations had shown that the heavens do not always
appear to move in perfect, uninterrupted circles. Rather, they sometimes seem to
move backwards in what are known as retrogradations. In order to account for these
irregularities, astronomers did not do away with Aristotle's theory of perfectly circular
orbits around the earth. Instead, they expanded upon it, adding smaller circular orbits
(epicycles) that spun off the main orbits. These more or less accounted for the
retrogradations seen in orbits. Each time a new irregularity was observed, a new
epicycle was added. By the 1500's, the 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).
The second century Greek astronomer, Ptolemy was the main authority who put order
to and passed this cumbersome system of epicycles to posterity.
Copernicus' solution was basically geometric. 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. His book, 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. However, Copernicus' intention was not to
create a radically new theory, but to get back to even older ideas by such Greeks as
32
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.
It took some 150 years after Copernicus' death in 1543 to achieve a new model
of the universe that worked. The first step was compiling more data that tarnished the
perfection of the Ptolemaic universe and forced men to re-evaluate their beliefs.
Johannes Kepler
At this time, Tycho Brahe, using only the naked eye, tracked the entire orbits
of various stars and planets. Previously, astronomers would only track part of an orbit
at a time and assume that orbit was in a perfect circle. Brahe kept extensive records
of his observations, but did not really know what to do with them. That task was left
to his successor, Johannes Kepler.
Galileo
As important as Kepler's conclusions was his method of arriving at it. He was
the first to successfully use math to define the workings of the cosmos. Although such
a conclusion as elliptical orbits inevitably met with fierce opposition, the combination
of Brahe's observations and Kepler's math helped break the perfection of the
Aristotelian universe. However, it was the work of an Italian astronomer, Galileo
Galilei (1564-1642), armed with a new invention, the telescope, which would further
shatter the old theory and lead the way to a new one.
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. 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. However, 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 view
33
named 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.
Galileo's work was the first comprehensive attack on the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic
cosmic model. He treated celestial objects as being subject to the same laws as
terrestrial objects. However, Galileo was still enthralled with perfect circular motion
and, as a result, did not come up with the synthesis of all these new bits of information
into a new comprehensive model of the universe. This was left to the last, and
probably greatest, giant of the age, Isaac Newton.
Isaac Newton
The story of Newton being hit on the head by an apple may very well be true.
However, the significance of this popular tale is usually lost. People had seen apples
fall out of trees for thousands of years, but Newton realized, in a way no one else had
realized, that the same force pulling the apples to earth was keeping the moon in its
orbit. In order to prove this mathematically, Newton had to invent a whole new branch
of math, calculus, for figuring out rates of motion and change. The genius of Newton
in physics, as well as William Harvey in medicine and Mendeleev in chemistry, was
not so much in his new discoveries, as in his ability to take the isolated bits and pieces
of the puzzle collected by his predecessors and fit them together. In retrospect, his
synthesis seems so simple, but it took tremendous imagination and creativity to break
the bonds of the old way of thinking and see a radically different picture.
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
34
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.
The publication in 1859 of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin ushered
in a new era in the intellectual history of humanity. Darwin is deservedly given credit
for the theory of biological evolution: he accumulated evidence demonstrating that
organisms evolve and discovered the process, natural selection, by which they
evolve. But the importance of Darwin's achievement is that it completed
the Copernican revolution initiated three centuries earlier, and thereby radically
changed our conception of the universe and the place of humanity in it.
The discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, had gradually ushered in the notion that the workings of
the universe could be explained by human reason. It was shown that the earth is not
the center of the universe, but a small planet rotating around an average star;; that the
universe is immense in space and in time;; and that the motions of the planets around
the sun can be explained by the same simple laws that account for the motion of
physical objects on our planet. These and other discoveries greatly expanded human
knowledge, but the intellectual revolution these scientists brought about was more
fundamental: a commitment to the postulate that the universe obeys immanent laws
that account for natural phenomena. The workings of the universe were brought into
the realm of science: explanation through natural laws. Physical phenomena could
be accounted for whenever the causes were adequately known.
Darwin completed the Copernican revolution by drawing out for biology the
notion of nature as a lawful system of matter in motion. The adaptations and diversity
of organisms, the origin of novel and highly organized forms, even the origin of
humanity itself could now be explained by an orderly process of change governed by
natural laws.
The origin of organisms and their marvelous adaptations were, however, either
left unexplained or attributed to the design of an omniscient Creator. God had created
the birds and bees, the fish and corals, the trees in the forest, and best of all, man.
God had given us eyes so that we might see, and He had provided fish with gills to
breathe in water. 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;; the existence of a watch evinces the existence of a watchmaker.
35
The English theologian William Paley in his Natural Theology (1802)
elaborated the argument-from-design as forceful demonstration of the existence of
the Creator. The functional design of the human eye, argued Paley, provided
conclusive evidence of an all-wise Creator. It would be absurd to suppose, he wrote,
that the human eye by mere chance "should have consisted, first, of a series of
transparent lenses ... secondly of 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 ... thirdly of a large nerve communicating between this
membrane and the brain." The Bridgewater Treatises, published between 1833 and
1840, were written by eminent scientists and philosophers to set forth "the Power,
Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation." The structure and
mechanisms of man's hand were, for example, cited as incontrovertible evidence that
the hand had been designed by the same omniscient Power that had created the
world.
The advances of physical science had thus driven humanity's conception of
the universe to a split-personality state of affairs, which persisted well into the mid-
nineteenth century. Scientific explanations, derived from natural laws, dominated the
world of nonliving matter, on the earth as well as in the heavens. 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 (Ayala, no date).
C. Freudian Revolution
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856, before the advent of telephones, radios,
automobiles, airplanes, and a host of other material and cultural changes that had
taken place by the time of his death in 1939. Freud saw the entirety of the first
World War–a war that destroyed the empire whose capital city was his home for
more than seventy years–and the beginning of the next. He began his career as
an ambitious but isolated neurologist;; by the end of it, he described himself, not
inaccurately, as someone who had had as great an impact on humanity's
conception of itself as had Copernicus and Darwin.
Freud's most obvious impact was to change the way society thought about
and dealt with mental illness. Before psychoanalysis, which Freud invented, mental
illness was almost universally considered 'organic';; that is, it was thought to come
from some kind of deterioration or disease of the brain. Research on treating
mental illness was primarily concerned–at least theoretically–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
36
brains, but it was assumed that this was simply because the techniques for finding
the differences were not yet sufficient.
The conviction that physical diseases of the brain caused mental illness
meant that psychological causes–the kinds that Freud would insist on studying–
were ignored. It also meant that people drew a sharp dividing line between the
"insane" and the "sane." Insane people were those with physical diseases of the
brain. Sane people were those without diseased brains.
Freud changed all of this. Despite his background in physicalism (learned
during his stay in Ernst Brücke's laboratory), his theories explicitly rejected the
purely organic explanations of his predecessors. One of Freud's biggest influences
during his early days as a neurologist was Jean-Martin Charcot, the famous French
psychiatrist. Charcot claimed that hysteria had primarily organic causes, and that
it had a regular, comprehensible pattern of symptoms. Freud agreed with Charcot
on the latter point, but he disagreed entirely on the former. In essence, Freud
claimed that neurotic people had working hardware, but faulty software. Earlier
psychiatrists like Charcot, in contrast, had claimed that the problems were entirely
in the hardware. As psychoanalysis became increasingly popular, psychology and
psychiatry turned away from the search for organic causes and toward the search
for inner psychic conflicts and early childhood traumas. As a consequence, the line
between sane and insane was blurred: everyone, according to Freud, had an
Oedipal crisis, and everyone could potentially become mentally ill.
Psychoanalysis has had an enormous impact on the practice of psychiatry,
particularly within the United States, but today it is regarded by most sources–
medical, academic, governmental, and others–as almost entirely incorrect in its
conception of the mind. This judgment is based on the crucial test of
psychoanalysis: whether or not it really helps patients with behavioral or
psychological problems. The consensus is that is does not. Psychoanalysis in its
many varieties appears to have little or no efficacy in treating mental illness. In
contrast, psychopharmacology and cognitive- behavioral therapies (therapies that
simply try to change what the patient thinks and does rather than analyzing the
causes of the behavior), while far from perfect, do appear to help.
If this is true–and we have a great deal of evidence that it is–why is Freud
still so important? Why do we generally speak of him as a great figure in Western
thought, instead of as a strange and misguided figure of turn-of-the- century
Europe?
There are at least two reasons. The first is purely practical: 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 as was Freud's is important to our history in general. The second, more
important, reason is that 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
37
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. This hypothesis,
derived from but independent of Freud's psychiatric work, was the truly radical part
of his system of thought.
D. Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica
Meso-America is the region from Mexico to Guatemala, Belize and parts of
Honduras and El Salvador. There were no major ancient civilization that developed
in North America. The Mesoamerican civilization were isolated from the
accumulated scientific knowledge of Africa, Asia and Europe. They were
confronted with much harder conditions than the ancient civilizations of the Indus
valley, Mesopotamia, and Egypt which developed in parallel with each other and
established contacts between each other at a very early stage. This exchange of
knowledge between these ancient civilizations was critical in the development of
their scientific knowledge. Because of this isolation, Mesoamerican civilization
developed on their own and became much more self-reliant.
The most advanced Mesoamerican civilization was the Maya civilization that
was well on its way to develop true science. They knew how to make paper and
had pictorial script called Maya hieroglyphs that allowed them to record all
knowledge on long strips of paper folded harmonica-style into books. One of the
three books recovered called The Dresden Codex contains predictions of solar
eclipses for centuries and a table of predicted positions of Venus. Unlike the
European scientists who used astronomical instruments like telescopes, the Maya
made predictions by aligning stars with two objects that were separated by a large
distance, a technique that achieved great accuracy of angular measurement. As a
result, the Maya developed the most accurate calendar ever designed.
The Aztec followed the same road. They kept their own script and languages
but assimilated all they could learn from Maya society. Their manuscripts describe
how the Maya performed their astronomical observations.
Several outstanding achievements can be reported in the area of technology
and invention. The manufacture of rubber was one of the earliest inventions,
documented by the use of a rubber ball in the ball game tlachtli, a game played by
Meso-American civilizations from earliest times. In architecture the Maya were the
first to use pitched ceilings in their buildings after the invention of the corbelled
vault. Aztec city builders also understood the need for public sanitation;; 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.
(von Hagen, 1957)
American people were gifted horticulturalists and cultivated crop plants from
the earliest times. Among the plants that originated in Meso-America are corn
38
(maize), papaya, avocado and cocoa. Maize is the only cultivated plant that was
developed so early in human history that its wild ancestor is no longer known. It
can, however, still be crossed with two other plants found only on the Yucatan
Peninsula.
Finally, several sculptures found at Meso-American sites in 1975, 1979 and
1983 and dating back to 2000 - 1500 BC have clear magnetic properties. In some
of these sculptures the north and south poles are in most conspicuous positions,
for example at the snout and at the back of the head of a frog or turtle. Another
magnetic object found in 1966 was shaped as if it was to be used to indicate
direction. These finds strongly suggest that the early Meso-American civilizations
knew about and used magnetism. (Malmström, 1976, 1979)
E. Asian Scientific Revolution
Aside from China, there were other Asian countries that contributed to the
development of science and technology in the world, although it varied depending
on country and time, specially in the present times. Currently, 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.
The general conception is that many of the cutting-edge technological
developments, and to a lesser extent scientific advancements, emanate from Asia.
For instance, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China together produce a
staggering 90% of the world’s digital gadgets. Aside from the region’s hardware
dominance, nations across Asia are becoming increasingly important to the global
supply of digital content and services, something which will only increase as the
continent develops over the coming decades.
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 following a similar path to Japan meanwhile, moving away from
hardware production, instead turning to software and content development.
Together, the points raised throughout this article proves Asia is truly a
crucible of innovative technological development;; a continent that will play an
incredibly important role in the evolution of our digital age.
F. Scientific Revolution in 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. The greatest
advances were made in Mesopotamia—very possibly because of its constant shift of
population and openness to foreign influence, in contrast to the relative isolation of
Egypt and the consequent stability of its population. The Egyptians excelled in such
39
applied sciences as medicine, engineering, and surveying;; 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, while Babylonian medicine, because of its
chiefly magical character, was less advanced than that of Egypt. In engineering and
architecture Egyptians took an early lead, owing largely to the stress they laid on the
construction of such elaborate monuments as vast pyramids and temples of granite
and sandstone. On the other hand, the Babylonians led in the development of such
practical arts as irrigation (Albright, 2014).
Both sciences and pseudosciences spread from Egypt and Mesopotamia
to Phoenicia and Anatolia. The Phoenicians in particular transmitted much of this
knowledge to the various lands of the Mediterranean, especially to the Greeks. The
direction taken by these influences can be followed from Egypt to Syria, Phoenicia,
and Cyprus, thanks to a combination of excavated art forms that prove the direction
of movement, as well as to Greek tradition, which lays great stress on what the early
Greek philosophers learned from Egypt. 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 Egyptians
and Mesopotamians wrote no theoretical treatises;; information had to be transmitted
piecemeal through personal contacts.
Of all the accomplishments of the ancient Middle East, the invention of the
alphabet is probably the greatest. While pre-alphabetic systems of writing in the Old
World became steadily more phonetic, they were still exceedingly cumbersome, and
the syllabic systems that gradually replaced them remained complex and difficult. 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. Thus was developed the earliest known purely consonantal
alphabet, 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. From the Greeks it was transmitted to other
Western peoples. Since language must always remain the chief mode of
communication for people, its union with hearing and vision in a uniquely simple
phonetic structure has probably revolutionized civilization more than any other
invention in history.
40
G. Scientific Revolution in Africa
The history of the sciences in Africa is rich and diverse. The applied sciences of
agronomy, metallurgy, engineering and textile production, as well as medicine,
dominated the field of activity across Africa. So advanced was the culture of farming
within West Africa, that ‘New World‘ agricultural growth was spawned by the use of
captives from these African societies that had already made enormous strides in the
field of agronomy. In her work Black Rice, Judith Carnoy demonstrates the legacy of
enslaved Africans to the Americas in the sphere of rice cultivation. We know also that
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). Plants, whether in terms of legumes, grain, vegetables, tubers, or, wild or
cultivated fruits, also had medicinal implications for Africans and were used as
anesthetics or pain killers, analgesics for the control of fever, antidotes to counter
poisons, and anthelmints aimed at deworming. They were used also 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. Laird Scranton, making use of the extensive collections of Marcel
Griaule, has deepened our understanding of Malian 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. Dogon
propositions about Sirius B have been discussed by Charles Finch in The Star of
Deep Beginnings. 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. Scranton suggests major interconnections between
the thought of the ancient Egyptians and that of the Malians of West Africa.
In the field of Mathematics, Nubian builders calculated the volumes of masonry
and building materials, as well as the slopes of pyramids, for construction purposes.
Bianchi points to a Nubian engraving at Meroe, in ancient Sudan, dated to the first
century B.C.E., which reflects “a sophisticated understanding of mathematics.”
Included in the engraving were several lines, inclined at a 72-degree angle, running
diagonally from the base of a pyramid. Bianchi suggests that the Nubian King
Amanikhabale of the first century BCE was the owner of that pyramid. Interestingly,
the Nubians of Meroe, who constructed more pyramids than the Egyptians, built
steep, flat-topped pyramids.
In the field of medicine, common patterns and trends emerged across the
continent. These included scientifically proven methods, as well as techniques and
strategies which were culturally specific and psychologically significant. 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
41
knowledge of specific medicinal plants was quite extensive in some kingdoms,
empires, and city states such as Aksum, and Borgu (in Hausaland). The latter
continues to be 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.
Various types of metal products have been used over time by Africans, ranging
from gold, tin, silver, bronze, brass, and iron/steel. The Sudanic empires of West
Africa emerged in the context of various commercial routes and activities involving
the gold trade. In the North and East, Ethiopia and Sudan were the major suppliers
of gold, with Egypt a major importer. In Southern Africa, the kingdom of Monomotapa
(Munhumutapa) reigned supreme as a major gold producer. In the various spheres
of metal production, 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. The various metal
products served a wide range of purposes, including: armor (as in some northern
Nigerian city-states), jewelry (of gold, silver, iron, copper and brass), cooking utensils,
cloth dyeing, sculpture, and agricultural tools. The technical know-how and expertise
of blacksmiths helped to enhance their status, although they were also often
associated with supernatural and psychic powers, as well.
In various parts of ancient, medieval, and contemporary Africa, building
constructions of various dimensions, shapes, and types emerged, reflecting various
concepts, techniques, raw material preferences, and decorative principles. Builders
integrated the concepts of the arch, the dome, and columns and aisles in their
constructions. The underground vaults and passages, as well as the rock-hewn
churches, of Axum are matched in Nubia and Egypt with pyramids of various
dimensions. In the 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. The principle
of 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. The structures of ancient Nubia, as well as those of Egypt, are parallel
structures in the northeast.
42
H. Information Revolution
Information revolution is a period of change that describes current
economic, social and technological trends beyond the Industrial Revolution. The
information 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).
Information revolution might prove as significant to the lives of people.
Computer technology is at the root of this change, and continuing advancements
in that technology seem to ensure that this revolution would touch the lives of
people. Computers are unique machines;; they help to extend the brain power.
Computerized robots have been replacing blue-collar workers;; they might soon be
replacing white collar workers as well. Computers are merely devices that follow
sets of instructions called computer programs, or software, that have been written
by people called computer programmers. Computers offer many benefits, but there
are also many dangers. They could help others invade one's privacy or wage war.
They might turn one into button pusher and cause massive unemployment. User-
friendly systems can be easily used by untrained people. The key development
that made personal computers possible was the invention of the microprocessor
chip at Intel in 1971.
The information revolution led us to the age of the internet, where
optical communication networks play a key role in delivering massive amounts of
data. The world has experienced phenomenal network growth during the last
decade, and further growth is imminent. The internet will continue to expand due
to user population growth and internet penetration: previously
inaccessible geographical regions in Africa and Asia will come online. Network
growth will only be accelerated by improvements in integrated
circuits. Transistor size has been halved every two years since the middle of the
last century. The new internet-based global economy requires a worldwide network
with high capacity and availability, which is currently limited
by submarine optical communication cables.
New ideas keep coming from the information transport community. Since
the first edition of Undersea Fiber Communication Systems in 2002, the optical
fiber communication industry moved into the “coherent” era. We transport an order
of magnitude more bits than just five years ago. We encode information into phase,
polarization, and amplitude of electromagnetic waves. Michael Faraday would be
proud, knowing that we send over 10,000,000,000,000 bits every second across
the Atlantic Ocean in a single strand of fiber. We would leave in awe Sir William
Thomson (known as Lord Kelvin), who was the scientific leader of an 1858
endeavor that built the first submarine cable with a transmission speed of one word
per minute. Sir Thomson and Cyrus Field, an American businessman
and telecommunications pioneer, would be surprised to find out how many tools
43
developed during their first transatlantic expedition are still in use today. At first
glance, the modern cable looks similar to the 1858 cable, which was copper based
with a gutta-percha (trans-poly isoprene) isolator. In modern day cables, gutta-
percha has been replaced with polyethylene. We still use copper to power
submarine repeaters, and have added optical fibers during the last decade of the
last century.
The uniqueness of this engineering marvel is a combination of information
science, nonlinear optics, electrical engineering, material science, engineering
practices, project management, marine expertise, and high reliability standard.
Undersea fiber communication systems will continue to serve society.
Impact of Information Revolution
The truly revolutionary impact of the Information Revolution is just beginning
to be felt. But it is not "information" that fuels this impact. It is not "artificial
intelligence." It is not the effect of computers and data processing on decision-
making, policymaking, or strategy. It is something that practically no one foresaw
or, indeed, even talked about ten or fifteen years ago: e-commerce—that is, the
explosive emergence of the Internet as a major, perhaps eventually the major,
worldwide distribution channel for goods, for services, and, surprisingly, for
managerial and professional jobs. This is profoundly changing economies,
markets, and industry structures;; products and services and their flow;; consumer
segmentation, consumer values, and consumer behavior;; jobs and labor markets.
But the impact may be even greater on societies and politics and, above all, on the
way we see the world and ourselves in it.
At the same time, new and unexpected industries will no doubt emerge, and
fast. One is already here: biotechnology. And another: fish farming. Within the next
fifty years fish farming may change us from hunters and gatherers on the seas into
"marine pastoralists"—just as a similar innovation some 10,000 years ago changed
our ancestors from hunters and gatherers on the land into agriculturists and
pastoralists.
It is likely that other new technologies will appear suddenly, leading to major
new industries. What they may be is impossible even to guess at. But it is highly
probable—indeed, nearly certain—that they will emerge, and fairly soon. And it is
nearly certain that few of them—and few industries based on them—will come out
of computer and information technology. Like biotechnology and fish farming, each
will emerge from its own unique and unexpected technology.
Of course, these are only predictions. But they are made on the assumption
that the Information Revolution will evolve as several earlier technology-based
"revolutions" have evolved over the past 500 years, since Gutenberg's printing
revolution, around 1455. In particular, the assumption is that the Information
Revolution will be like the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. And that is indeed exactly how the Information Revolution
has been during its first fifty years.
44
Activity: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Motivation:
Please refer to the following quote in answering the given questions below.
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
- Sir Isaac Newton
1. What do you think Newton has seen?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
2. Who do you think Newton refers to as giants?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
3. What do you think this quote tells you about Newton’s character?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Pre-Activity Discussion
Scientists today build on the knowledge and discoveries made by others. It might
be that they continue and grow the work of the scientists who have mentored and
supervised them or that they build on prior discoveries – both recent and historical.
Tying in stories of science in history and scientific breakthroughs can offer
engaging opportunities for further exploration and learning. For example, the periodic
table that we know today was actually a result of numerous experiments and discoveries
that spanned for centuries starting from 1669 when the first scientific discovery of an
element was made by Hennig Brand. Over the next 200 years, a great deal of knowledge
about elements and compounds was gained. By the middle of the 19th century, about 60
elements had been discovered. Scientists began to recognize patterns in the properties
of these elements and set about developing classification schemes.
45
Scientists are constantly working on discovering new materials and further
investigating the properties of existing elements. The periodic table can be reviewed and
new elements can be added, but only added after rigorous scientific examination. The
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) verifies the additions of new
elements and at the end of 2015 the 7th period of the periodic table of elements was
completed with the addition of four new elements.
Activity Task:
The following timeline summarizes the development of the periodic table. Using
the brief history of the periodic table as an example and applying what you have learned
about intellectual revolutions, select any topic (can be an object or theory) and present its
historical evolution to its present day form. Identify the key persons who are instrumental
in its development and how each key person worked on the findings of his/her
predecessors in the field to further improve the work. Be creative in presenting your
timeline and in presenting your work.
46
1862
Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois plotted
the atomic weights of elements on paper tape and
wound them, spiral like, around a cylinder. He called
his model the telluric helix or screw.
1864
English chemist John Newlands proposed
his Law of octaves based on the periodic
similarity every seventh element.
1868
Lothar Meyer compiled a periodic table based on
regular repeating pattern of physical property such
as molar volume. Once again the elements were
arranged in order of increasing atomic weights.
1869
Dmitri Mendeleev produced a periodic table
based on atomic weights but arranged
“periodically”. Elements with similar
properties appeared under each other. Gaps
1894
William Ramsay discovered the noble gases
were left for yet to be discovered elements.
1944
Glenn Seaborg proposed an ‘actinide hypothesis’
and published his version of the table in 1945. The
lanthanide and actinide series form the two rows
under the periodic table of elements.
47
Chapter 3
Science, Technology and Nation Building
Introduction
This section presents the policies of the government regarding science and
technology, how it is being implemented through its various departments and agencies,
and its role in nation building. It also includes a list of Filipino inventors and their
inventions.
Intended Learning Outcomes
1. Discuss the role of science and technology in Philippine nation building.
2. Evaluate government policies on science and technology in terms of their
contributions to nation building.
3. Identify actual science and technology government policies and appraise their
impact on the development of the Filipino nation.
A. The Philippine Government Science and Technology Agenda
Scientists and technologists are the backbone of an industrialized nation that
propels socioeconomic gain and national progress. They are the key players and
lifeblood of research and innovation and plays an important role in the industry and
manufacturing sector. As such, it can be said that scientists and technologists are
essential players in nation building.
In the Philippines, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is tasked
to oversee and manage national technology development and acquisition, undertake
technological and scientific research and promote public consciousness of science
and technology. DOST is responsible for formulating and adopting a comprehensive
National Science and Technology plan for the Philippines and subsequently, to
monitor and coordinate its funding and implementation. It undertakes policy research,
technology assessment, feasibility and technical studies, and maintains a national
information system and databank on science and technology.
In 2017, DOST launched the Science for the People thru Administrative Order
No. 003 s. 2017. This is in response to the government’s call to address inequity in
developments within and among countries and is aligned with the national goals and
plans. It aims to make science and technology more relevant to the conditions, needs
and opportunities for contributing to regional development while keeping abreast with
the trends and development in the country and in the world. Likewise, the program
intends to maximize the use of science, enhance innovation and the creative capacity
of the Filipinos towards the achievement of inclusive and sustainable growth.
48
Stipulated in the strategic plan are the seven outcomes that the agency strives
to achieve. These are as follows:
1. Innovation and stimulus
2. Technology and adoption promoted and accelerated
3. Critical mass of globally competitive STI human resources developed
4. Productivity and efficiency of communities and the production sector,
particularly MSMEs improved
5. Resiliency to disaster risks and climate change ensured
6. Inequality in STI capacities and opportunities reduced
7. Effective STI governance achieved
The strategies to attain these outcomes are embodied in the DOST Eleven Point
Agenda as follows:
1. Pursue R&D to address pressing national problems.
2. Conduct R&D to enhance productivity and improve management of
resources.
3. Engage in R&D to generate and apply new knowledge and technologies
across sectors.
4. Strengthen and utilize regional R&D capabilities.
5. Maximize utilization of R&D results through technology transfer and
commercialization.
6. Develop STI human resources and build a strong STI culture.
7. Upgrade STI facilities and capacities to advance R&D activities and expand
S&T services.
8. Expand STI assistance to communities and the production sector,
particularly MSMEs.
9. Provide STI-based solutions for disaster risks and climate change
adaptation and mitigation.
10. Strengthen industry-academe-government and international STI
collaboration.
11. Enhance effectiveness of STI governance.
Agenda 1 highlights the latest advancements in research and development
geared towards the shared goal of improved nutrition and health for all. Focused on
health technology development, drug discovery and development remains to be the
high-impact and big ticket program supported by the Department in the area of health.
Central to this R&D program is the study of endemic resources, partnered with
documentation of traditional knowledge and practices in health, that could eventually
lead to decreased cost of medicines and health interventions for diseases that affect
the quality of lives of many Filipinos.
Agenda 2 presents how R&D can be utilized to make key traditional industries
steadfast and competitive through technological innovations that can address gaps in
productivity and increase production yield. Enhancing the capacity of marginalized
49
sub-sectors and people groups to use better and new technologies can expand their
access to participate in economic activities and progress. The primary industries that
will benefit from the featured major R&D programs include the agriculture, specifically
coconut and rice production, non-wood forest products, i.e., bamboo processing and
utilization, and natural textile among others.
Agenda 3 engages R&D in emerging scientific and technological platforms
which lay the inroads to the development of new products, services, and industries.
Promising new technologies may potentially disrupt and change the way things are
done. Recognizing this, the Department anticipates impact of new technologies in
existing industries in the country by supporting local capability programs in the areas
of artificial intelligence for new industry development and supporting research in
nanotechnology for new materials development.
Agenda 4 focuses in strengthening institutional capacity to undertake research
and development and contribute to regional development. Utilizing local researchers
equalize opportunities in generating new knowledge and technologies suited for the
specific need of the region. The Department partners with Higher Education Institutions
in the regions in establishing niche R&D centers which may also serve as hubs for
developing R&D capability of adjacent localities.
Agenda 5 includes mechanisms to encourage technology transfer and avenues
where R&D results are promoted in the bid to maximize its utilization. The Department
provided support in bringing R&D results to its final stage of development up to
commercialization.
50
Agenda 9 highlights the role of the Department in building a disaster-resilient
community through the provision of accurate and timely information. Specifically,
progress was made by establishing and upgrading observation and monitoring
systems, efforts in hazard and risk assessment, and researches for disaster risk
management, as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Agenda 10 focuses on the linkages and networks being pursued by the
Department in terms of S&T collaboration. In 2017, the Department took part in 24
bilateral engagements and participated in a number of activities which involved 14
international organizations.
Agenda 11 (Enhance effectiveness of STI governance) provides the policy
framework that governs the implementation of the programs, projects and activities of
the Department in contribution to national development and progress. Taking off from
the National 0+10 Socioeconomic Agenda and Philippine Development Plan, the
Department crafted the Science for the People 11-point Agenda, Harmonized R&D
Agenda, and Regional Offices Strategy Map.
In Focus: Batangas State University KIST Park
Batangas State University made history as it officially launched the country’s first
Knowledge, Innovation and Science Technology (KIST) Park on July 20, 2020. This
milestone placed Batangas State University at the forefront of national development.
BatStateU KIST Park was designated as a Special Economic Zone under Presidential
Proclamation No. 947, s. 2020. The theme of the launching event was “Towards a New
Frontier of Knowledge-building and Innovation in Science and Technology.”
BatStateU headed by Dr. Tirso A. Ronquillo became a key partner of the
government in fostering industry-academe linkages, knowledge and technology
transfer, and promoting the commercialization of innovations. The KIST Park will serve
as a catalyst for industrial productivity and increased economic growth in
CaLaBaRZon. This manifestation of the strong collaboration between government,
industry and academe is central to inclusive innovation strategy.
BatStateU KIST Park is now open and spearheads a long-term vision for “state
universities and colleges in the country to expand their programs for industry,
academe, market synergy, technopreneurship, [innovation-based] business incubation
and acceleration, and knowledge co-creation in science and technology.”
(http://batstateukistpark.com.ph/#/main/home)
Question: Which of the 11-point Agenda relates to the launching and operation of
BatStateU KIST Park? Expound your answer.
51
B. Major Development Programs and Personalities in Science and
Technology in the Philippines
Major Development Programs in Science and Technology
The Science for Change Program (S4CP) was created by the Department of
Science and Technology (DOST) to accelerate STI in the country in order to keep up with
the developments in our time wherein technology and innovation are game changers.
Through the Science for Change Program (S4CP), the DOST can significantly accelerate
STI in the country and create a massive
S4CP focuses on Accelerated R&D Program for Capacity Building of R&D
Institutions and Industrial Competitiveness which is composed of four (4) programs
namely: (1) Niche Centers in the Regions for R&D (NICER) Program, (2) R&D Leadership
(RDLead) Program, (3) Collaborative R&D to Leverage PH Economy (CRADLE) for RDIs
and Industry Program, (4) Business Innovation through S&T (BIST) for Industry Program.
The NICER Program capacitates Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the
regions to make significant improvement in regional research by integrating its
development needs with the existing R&D capabilities and resources. It provides
institutional grants for HEIs in the regions for R&D capacity building to improve their S&T
infrastructure. The NICER Program was established in consultation with the academe
and industry;; and endorsed by the Regional Development Council (RDC). Hence, a
NICER is a unique center for collaborative R&D to address specific S&T needs of local
communities and industries, thereby accelerating regional development. It caters to the
specific needs of the Regions, which include upgrading, development, and acquisition of
R&D equipment to undertake collaborative R&D activities. Currently, there are 18 existing
NICERs across 14 regions for a total funding of P641M.
The R&D Leadership Program complements the establishment of R&D Centers
thru the NICER Program. RDLead provides the mechanism to bring in experts and highly
skilled professionals with strong leadership, management and innovative policy-making
proficiencies to be in charge of strengthening the research capabilities of the HEIs,
National Government Agencies (NGAs) and Research Development Institutions (RDIs)
in the regions. Together, the RDLead and NICER Programs will capacitate HEIs to help
improve and hasten the use of research results that will contribute to the socio-economic
development of the country and help address pressing challenges. The NRCP is the
implementing agency for this program.
The Collaborative Research and Development to Leverage Philippine Economy
(CRADLE) Program is specifically designed to foster collaboration between academe and
local companies to improve competitiveness and catalyze innovation. It aims to improve
the country’s innovation ecosystem by facilitating the smooth transition of new
technologies from universities and research and development institutes (RDI) to
industries - from lab to market. The framework of CRADLE is a trihelix partnership
52
between the government, the industry and the academe wherein the government finances
the collaboration of the private company and the partner university or RDI. The Program
aims to address a problem of a Filipino company using R&D to develop innovative
solutions. To date, the DOST has already provided almost Php 125 M of funding to 29
academe-industry collaborations all over the country.
The Business Innovation through S&T (BIST) for Industry Program aims to level-
up the innovation capacity of the Philippine Industrial Sector through R&D by helping
private companies and industries acquire novel and strategic technologies, such as state-
of-the-art equipment and machinery, technology licenses and patent rights among others.
The program will cover up to 70% of the total eligible cost of the needed technology at
zero percent interest. To date, the BIST Program has approved one project from an herbal
company, Herbanext Laboratories Inc., providing a total financial assistance of
Php11.7M.
A Steering committee for CRADLE and BIST Programs was created through the
DOST Special Order No. 0276 which was approved on 02 April 2018. The Steering
Committee is headed by Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, Undersecretary for R&D, and
the members include the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Federation of
Philippine Industries (FPI), Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI),
Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and
Development (PCAARRD), Philippine Council for Health Research and Development
(PCHRD) and Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology
Research and Development (PCIEERD)
The committee performs the following functions: (1) Review/formulate policies
relating to the implementation of CRADLE and BIST Program;; (2) Provide advice and
guidance in the management and administration of the projects;; and (3) Other functions
necessary for the successful implementation of CRADLE and BIST Programs. Since the
implementation of the S4CP in 2017, the DOST has spent a total of Php 407,585,946.60
to the four programs.
53
Personalities in Science and Technology in the Philippines
Aisa Mijeno
The idea behind the SALt lamp is the chemical conversion of energy. It utilizes the
scientific process behind the Galvanic cell, but instead of electrolytes, the SALt lamp uses
saline solution, making it harmless and non-toxic. Compared with kerosene lamp, the
SALt lamp is also a lot safer since it does not have components and compounds that may
spark fire. Moreover, it does not emit toxic gases and leaves minimal carbon footprint.
Because of its inspiring vision and ground-breaking innovation, the SALt lamp has
received various awards and recognition from organizations in the Philippines, Singapore,
Japan, and South Korea. SALt have won several awards including KOTRA Top 5 Best
Global Startup at Startup Nations Summit 2014, People's Choice at Startup Nations
Summit 2014 and recognized by the ASEAN Corporate Sustainability Summit and
Awards 2015 giving them the SME Sustainability Commitment Category.
One of Mijano’s career highlights was when she was invited as an APEC CEO
Summit panel member together with ex-President Barack Obama and Alibaba CEO Jack
Ma. Looking forward, she wishes to distribute more lanterns to communities across the
Philippines and possibly throughout South East Asia.
54
Ramon C. Barba
Barba also developed a tissue culture procedure for the banana plant and sugar
cane which enabled production of large quantities of planting materials that were robust
and disease-free. With his research team, Barba devised micro propagation protocols for
more than 40 important species of fruit crops, ornamental plants, plantation crops,
aquarium plants, and forest trees. In 2013, Ramon C. Barba was conferred the rank and
title of National Scientist in the Philippines for his distinguished achievements in the field
of plant physiology.
55
actively involved in. When she was not busy treating and taking care of children, she did
some pioneering work on infectious diseases in Philippine communities and authored the
Textbook of Pediatrics, as well as hundreds of articles and medical reports on diseases
such as dengue, polio and measles.
During her lifetime, del Mundo won numerous awards and recognition for her
outstanding work. Among these was the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service,
which she received in 1977. She became the Philippines’ first female National Scientist
in 1980, in recognition of her work in Pediatrics. The rank of National Scientist is awarded
to science practitioners with “distinguished individual or collaborative achievement in
science and technology.” In 2010, del Mundo was awarded the Order of Lakandula, rank
of Bayani, as a Filipina who lived a life “worthy of emulation.” Posthumously, she was
conferred the Grand Collar of the Order of the Golden Heart Award in 2011, by President
Benigno Aquino III.
Maria Y. Orosa
Advances in modern Filipino food
technology owe a great deal to the creative
researches and salutary inventiveness of a
woman chemist and pharmacist from
Batangas – Maria Y. Orosa. The now-
commercially available thirst quencher, the
calamansi juice, is just one of the popular
native food products in whose preparation and
preservation she had a hand. She produced
the “calamansi nip,” the desiccated and
powdered form of the fruit which could be
made into juice. The most notable of her food
inventions, is “Soyalac,” a powdered
preparation of soya-beans, which helped save
the lives of thousands of Filipinos, Americans, https://food52.com/blog/24700-maria-
and other nationals who ever held prisoners in orosa-profile
different Japanese concentration camps
during World War II. It became known to them as the “magic food.”
She is also credited with the making of the banana ketchup;; wines from native
fruits, like casuy and guava;; vinegar from pineapples;; banana starch;; soyamilk;; banana
flour;; cassava flour;; jelly from guava, santol, mango, and other fruits, as well as the
invention of rice cookies, known as ricebran or darak, which is effective in the treatment
of patients with beri-beri. Aside from making food preparations, Miss Orosa taught
Filipinos how to preserve such native delicacies as the adobo, dinuguan, kilawen and
escabeche. Together with her associates in the Bureau of Plant Industry, she invented
“Oroval” and “Clarosa.”
In 1923, she helped organize the food preservation division under the Bureau of
Science. On June 3, 1927, she became the acting division head. Orosa also tried her
hand in improving household wares. She invented the “Orosa Palayok Oven” for cooking
various dishes. In 1928, the government, recognizing her dynamism and strong
leadership, sent her to various countries as a state scholar to specialize in food
56
processing and canning. To perpetuate her memory, the government has named after
her a street stretching from T.M. Kalaw to Padre Faura in Ermita, Manila, as well as a
building in the Bureau of Plants and Industry. She was one of the 19 scientists who were
conferred awards on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Institute of Science and
Technology. On November 29, 1983, the National Historical Institute installed a marker
in her honor at the Bureau of Plant Industry in San Andres, Manila.
Angel Alcala
He is a Filipino scientist whose
biological contributions to the
environment and ecosystems have made
him a hero for natural sciences. During his
30 years of experience as a biologist,
Alcala made major contributions to
marine biology research efforts in the
Philippines and authored over 160
scientific papers as well as books. Alcala
was the first Filipino scientist to engage in
comprehensive studies concerning
Philippine reptiles and amphibians and
minor studies on mammals and birds.
From the 400 already known species of http://heroes.aseanbiodiversity.org/2017/09/
07/asean-biodiversity-hero-dr-angel-c-
reptiles and amphibians, 50 more species alcala-philippines/
were identified due to his efforts. Because
of his work, conservation programs in the
Philippines are now well established.
Alcala also made a highly valuable and groundbreaking contribution to marine
ecosystems when he established the first artificial reef around the coastline of the
Philippines, greatly boosting the ecosystem's health and viability.
. In 1994, he was given the Field Museum Founders’ Council Award of Merit for
contributions to environmental biology. He is a recipient of the Magsaysay Award for
Public Service. In September 2011 he received the Gregorio Y. Zara Award for Basic
Science from the Philippine Association for the Advancement of Science Inc. In 2014, he
was proclaimed National Scientist by President Benigno S. Aquino III through Presidential
Decree 782 on June 6, 2014.
57
Activity: Small Group Activity
Work with your three (3) classmates and discuss your answers to the following
questions.
1. What are the best and the most useful inventions in the 20th and 21st centuries?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
2. What do you think is the worst invention of mankind?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
__________________________________
3. What kinds of things do inventors need to think about before they try to build
something? Why?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
4. Can you name some inventions you are looking forward to?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
5. What would you invent if you are a scientist?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
.
C. Science Education in the Philippines
The role and goal of science in education should always be the same. Since
science is considered both knowledge and method, operating independent of time and
place, the benefits of science anywhere can only be the same. The value of science lies
not only in the knowledge that it imparts and bequeaths to the learner but also in its
58
methods and techniques that inculcate in the learner’s scientific habits, skills, and
attitudes. Science, even as it is considered a body of knowledge, it is also taken as
methodology. It has given a tangible method and system to what would otherwise be by
chance and accident. From the utilization of scientific methods and techniques, one is
able to very possibly explain the past and predict what the future holds.
The general benefits of science have greatly challenged education of the
Philippines. While the country might have been a beneficiary of the methods of science
even before the program of formal education, it was during the American period that
brought about a most significant and essential change in the nature of education. There
has been a corresponding increase in knowledge and understanding of natural and social
phenomena covered by all the disciplines of science available now. It is this education
that has been largely credited for the development of science in the Philippines.
Early Efforts to Improve Science Education
As early as the decade of the 1950s, scientists were concerned with the state of
science education in the schools. Leading scientists made Philippine authorities aware
that the teaching of science from grade school level to college levels in both public and
private schools was very inadequate. The inadequacies and weaknesses of science
teaching were recognized as those relating to undertrained teachers, the inadequate
science curriculum in schools and colleges, the minimum allotted to science, the lack of
books, equipment and teaching aids. In 1957, the Philippine government made the
teaching of science compulsory in all elementary and secondary schools. A National
Committee for Science Education was set up in 1958 to formulate objectives for the
teaching of science education at all levels and to recommend steps that would upgrade
the teaching of science. The committee identified the areas to which improvement efforts
were needed such as integration of science with classroom instruction, acquisition of
more science equipment and tools, coordination of efforts with other agencies,
negotiations for a science institute for teachers, national science talent search and
fellowships, higher salaries of science and mathematics teachers and promotion of
science teachers competence.
The BSCS Adaptation Project
In1959, biological sciences curriculum study (BSCS) project was launched by
American Institute of Biological Science, university of Colorado in order to improve biology
education in secondary schools. A steering committee of biological scientists, teachers
and educators was constituted. The project was financed by National Science
Foundation, USA.
The BSCS project was started to design high school biology course with the
objectives to: provide recent and latest knowledge in biological sciences;; develop
understanding of the conceptual structure of biological sciences;; develop skills and
processes of biology among the students;; create an opportunity to use inquiry approach
in teaching and learning of biology;; prepare rich supplementary or support materials to
enrich learning experiences in biological sciences and present current status of biological
sciences
59
The organization of the BSCS project necessitated because of the inadequacies
and defects felt in the ongoing or conventional biological sciences teaching. Defects were
observed in conventional biological science teaching such as inclusion of dead or useless
contents in syllabus, little practical work, no correlation of biological sciences and physical
science, lack of integrated approach and no proper consideration of psychological
aspects of teaching learning.
The Science Education Project
These were the total efforts of SEP TO improve science education in the
Philippines. First, the dissemination of improved curricula, teaching techniques and
approaches in science and mathematics on basic levels of education through the
introduction of new curriculum and the application of new teaching techniques and
approaches by the returned Master of Arts in Teaching trainees and the teachers that
they teach. On the other hand, these institutions disseminated many of the curriculum
materials by the UP Science Education Center. Second, quality science and math
education programs in the recipient-sponsor institutions through new and/or improved
course offerings and a generally improved teacher education program.
Activity:
Answer the following questions:
1. What are the current trends in Science Education in the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) results?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
________________________________
2. What are the science-related issues and problems in the Philippines?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
________________________________
3. How do new information technologies change the science education process?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_____________________________
60
PART II
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND THE HUMAN CONDITION
Introduction
Society applauds the recent advancements of scientific technology in fields
such as medicine, energy, and communication. While humankind profits in many ways
from this technology, a few voices are heard cautioning society to consider the
implications of this developments.
This section provides students deeper appreciation of man’s existence and
his purpose in a world of technology. It also discusses the concept of a good life and
how it can be attained. Moreover, it also focuses on the ethical and moral dilemma
brought about by the emergence of the robotic industry.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this section, the students are expected to:
1. Examine the human condition to deeply reflect and express philosophical
ramifications that are meaningful to the student as a part of society.
2. Critique human flourishing vis-a vis the progress of Science and Technology
to define the meaning of the good life.
3. Examine shared concerns that make up the good life in order to come up
with innovative and creative solutions to the contemporary issues guided by
ethical standards
4. Examine human rights in order to uphold such rights in technological
dilemnas.
CHAPTER 4 The Human Person Flourishing in terms of
Science and Technology
A. Technology as a Way of Revealing
A German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote an essay entitled “The Question
Concerning Technology” which addresses modern technology and its essence as an
instrumental way of revealing the world. He goes beyond the traditional view of
technology as machines and technical procedures. Moreover, he tries to think through
the essence of technology as a way in which humans encounter entities such as nature,
self, and, indeed, everything. That is to say, that modern technology is conceived as
means to achieve ends. As instrumental, the essence of technology concerns causality.
A deeper look into causality reveals that the end is the beginning;; a cause is that to which
something is indebted and the purpose for which an instrument is designed is the primary
cause of its coming into being.
Heidegger’s understanding of technology was based on its essence. First, the
essence of technology is not something we make;; it is a mode of being, or of revealing.
This means that technological things have their own novel kind of presence, endurance,
and connections among parts and wholes. They have their own way of presenting
themselves and the world in which they operate. The essence of technology is, for
Heidegger, not the best or most characteristic instance of technology, nor is it a nebulous
generality, a form or idea. Rather, to consider technology essentially is to see it as an
event to which we belong: the structuring, ordering, and “requisitioning” of everything
around us, and of ourselves. The second point is that technology even holds sway over
beings that we do not normally think of as technological, such as gods and history. Third,
the essence of technology as Heidegger discusses it is primarily a matter of modern and
industrial technology. He is less concerned with the ancient and old tools and techniques
that antedate modernity;; the essence of technology is revealed in factories and industrial
processes, not in hammers and plows. And fourth, for Heidegger, technology is not simply
the practical application of natural science. Instead, modern natural science can
understand nature in the characteristically scientific manner only because nature has
already, in advance, come to light as a set of calculable, orderable forces — that is to
say, technologically.
According to him there are two characteristics of modern technology as a revealing
process. First, the mode of revealing of modern technology is a challenging. Things are
revealed or brought forth by challenging or demanding them. It is putting to nature the
unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored. The mining
technology today is a good example for this mode of revealing things. Tracks of land
reveal as something challenged because man sees them as objects where coal and ore
can be demanded. Man sees them as source of energy. These energies can be stored
so that man can summon them at his bidding. Shortly, nature reveals itself in modern
technology as things of manipulation, as things that yield energy whenever man demands
them to do so. “Challenging” as a mode of revealing nature could be sharply contrasted
“Physis” which is the arising of something from itself, a bringing-forth or poieses. A flower
62
blossoming or fading in the changes of the season is an example of this form of revealing.
The revelation has its own autonomy and, at best, man can only witness. This is a natural
way of revealing.
The mode of revealing in modern technology brought about new world ordering.
This kind of ordering is best described as “artificial” in contrast to “natural ordering. It sees
nature as an object of manipulation and not anymore as an autonomous reality
demanding respect and admiration. The network of things is now reduced into the network
of manipulation. The second characteristic of modern technology as a revealing process
is that the challenging that brings forth the energy of nature is an “expediting”. In the
modern use of word, expediting means to hasten the movement of something. However,
in its original sense, expediting is also a process of revealing inasmuch as it “unlocks”
and “exposes” something. But what is exposed is still directed towards something else,
i.e. toward the maximum yield at the minimum expense. In short, things that are revealed
in an expedited manner are brought forth as resources that must be used efficiently. In
mining for example, man digs coal not simply to know what coals are. Yes, man “exposes”
these coals but not simply to know them. They uncover them because he wants to use
them. Coals are mined from track loads of land so as to use their energy. This is the
characteristic of the things revealed in modern technology. They are there “for”
something.
Heidegger uses a technical word to name the things that are revealed in modern
technology as “standing in reserve”. Things as standing in reserve are not “objects”.
Objects on the other hand, are things that “stand against us” as things with autonomy.
They are revealed mainly in human thinking and do not allow further manipulations.
Things as standing in reserve, on the other hand, are called to come forth in challenging
and expediting. They are reduced into the objectlessness of modern technology. Nothing
anymore “stands against us” as objects of autonomy and wonder. Everything is regressed
into an interlocking of things that yield what man wants whenever he demands them to
do so. Even nature is now revealed as standing in reserve and not anymore objects of
autonomy.
Unlike the modern technologies, the old technology still respects nature as an
object of autonomy. The modern and the old technologies are of different modes of
revealing, the former artificial and the latter natural. Take for example, the contrast
between how the modern technology of the hydropower plant and the old technology of
a wooden bridge reveal the presence of a river. However, the hydropower plant reveals
the river that supplies it energy simply as another thing standing in reserve. It is a source
of energy which completes the interlocking of things in the system of hydropower
generation. The river is not anymore seen as an object with autonomy but an object on
call to be used. Conversely, the technology of building a wooden bridge reveals the river
not as a key link in completing the bridge.it rather respects it as a part of nature, a
“landscape” using Heidegger’s own term, that is somewhat permanent and stand against
us as another entity. We move “around” it so to say and we only see what we can do to
overcome its dominating presence, in other words, we do not manipulate it, but rather,
we act according to its rules.
63
For Heidegger enframing is the “essence” of modern technology. Enframing simply
means putting into the frame of modern technology everything in nature. This “frame” of
modern technology is the network or interlocking things standing in reserve. It is the world
centered on man’s caprices and demands. It is a world of manipulation and
demystification. In here nothing is mysterious anymore. This is what Heidegger was afraid
of, that the process of truth will revert back into the realm of erring. It must be remembered
that for truth to be, it must retain its sense of mystery. Truth is for the most part untruth.
To disregard this essentially limited process of revelation is also to disregard the entirety
of its essence. We cannot have absolute knowledge of reality, more so, we cannot have
full dominion over it. As they say, we are only “guardians” of creation. To disregard this
nature of reality is also putting ourselves into the brink of danger.
Because of man’s arrogance, nature is in the verge of destruction. He thinks he
knows how nature works and tends to hasten or “expedite” its processes. He demands
too much from it and in turn disrupts its natural flow. Nature is beyond our control. Its truth
is beyond our grips. For all we know, it is the one that controls us. If we ever try to
dominate it, nature will surely revolt against us in a very humbling manner.
Activity: Question for Reflection
Is there something unusual about the pace and nature of technological change today?
Should we be more worried about the world we are creating?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
B. Human Flourishing
Human flourishing is said to be the best translation for the Greek word Eudaimonia,
which for both Plato and Aristotle, means not only good fortune and material prosperity
but a situation achieved through virtue, knowledge and excellence. Learning to be human
is central to Confucian humanism and its “creative transformation” of the self through an
“ever-expanding network of relationships encompassing the family, community, nation,
world and beyond. It is thus inseparable from self-awareness and self-cultivation, and this
“self” far from being an isolated individual, is experientially and practically a center of
relationships.
64
The affirmation that human flourishing implies development of the individual in his
intellectual, affective, moral and spiritual dimensions obviously needs elaboration. Plato
in the Republic, contends that the soul, or mind, has three motivating parts: rational,
spirited or emotional and appetitive. Each of these have their own desired ends, and
Eudomenia or human flourishing requires an ordering of this tripartite structure of the
soul: the rational and spirited parts. Virtue ensues. In the same vein, Aristotle, in the
Nicomachean Ethics, states that Eudaimonia is constituted not by honor, or wealth
power, but by rational activity in accordance with excellence in the virtues of character
including courage, honesty, pride, friendliness and wittiness, the intellectual virtues
notably rationality and judgment, as well as mutually beneficial friendships and scientific
knowledge, particularly of things that are fundamental and unchanging.
According to Aristotle, all humans seek to flourish. It’s the proper and desired end
of all of our actions. Flourishing, however, is a functional definition. To understand
something’s function, you have to understand its nature. In Aristotle’s schema, there are
four aspects of human nature: physical, emotional, social and rational. As physical beings,
we require nourishment, exercise, rest and all the other things that it takes to keep our
bodies functioning properly. As emotional beings, we have wants, desires, urges and
reactions. We perceive something in the world that we want and we have the power of
volition to get it;; likewise, we have the power to avoid the things we don’t want. For
humans, these wants can get pretty complex, but at rock bottom we all have emotional
needs and wants that spring from rather basic sources. As social beings, we must live
and function in particular societies. Our social nature stacks on top of our emotional
nature, such that we have wants and needs that we would not have were we not social
creatures. As rational beings, we are creative, expressive, knowledge-seeking and able
to obey reason. We might not always obey reason and we may sometimes not want to
exercise our minds, but a large part of our existence relate to our being rational animals.
An individual cannot truly flourish if he is not flourishing in one of the four aspects of
human nature.
Human flourishing also known as personal flourishing involves the rational use of
one’s individual potentialities, including talents, abilities and virtues in the pursuit of his
freely and rationally chosen values and goals. An action is considered to be proper if it
leads to the flourishing of the person performing the action. Human flourishing is, at the
same time, a moral accomplishment and a fulfillment of human capacities, and it is one
through being the other. Self-actualization is moral growth and vice-versa.
Not an abstraction, human flourishing is real and highly personal by nature,
consists in the fulfillment of both a man’s human nature and unique potentialities, and is
concerned with choices and actions that necessarily deal with the particular and the
contingent. One man’s self –realization is not the same as another’s. What is called for in
terms of concrete actions such as choice of career, education, friends, home and others,
varies from person to person. Human flourishing becomes an actuality when one uses
his practical reason to consider his unique needs, circumstances and capabilities, and so
on, to determine which concrete instantiations of human values and virtues will comprise
65
his well-being. The idea of human flourishing is inclusive and can encompass a wide
variety of constitutive ends such as knowledge, the development of character traits,
productive work, religious pursuits, community building, love, charitable activities,
allegiance to persons and causes, self-efficacy, material well-being, pleasurable
sensations, etc.
To flourish, a man must pursue goals that are both rational for him individually and
also as a human being. Whereas the former will vary depending upon one’s particular
circumstances, the latter are common to man’s distinctive nature – man has the unique
capacity to live rationally. The use of reason is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition
for human flourishing. Living rationally ( i.e., consciously ) means dealing with the world
conceptually. Living consciously implies respect for the facts of reality. The principle of
living consciously is not affected by the degree of one’s intelligence not the extent of one’s
knowledge;; rather, it is the acceptance of use of one’s reason in the recognition and
perception of reality and in his choice of values and actions to the best of his ability,
whatever that ability may be. To pursue rational goals through rational means is the only
way to cope successfully with reality and achieve one’s goals. Although rationality is not
always rewarded, the fact remains that it is through the use of one’s mind that a man not
only discovers the values required for personal flourishing, he attains them. Values can
be achieved in reality if a man recognizes and adheres to the reality of his unique personal
endowments and contingent circumstances. Human flourishing is positively related to a
rational man’s attempts to externalize his values and actualize his internal views of how
things ought to be in the outside world. Practical reason can be used to choose, create,
and integrate all the values and virtues that comprise personal flourishing.
Activity: Film Viewing
Watch the movie clip (You tube) The Magician’s Twin: CS Lewis and the Case
against Scientism. Answer the following questions:
1. What is scientism according to the magician’s twin?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
________________________________
2. Why did CS Lewis think that modern science is far more dangerous than
magic?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
________________________________
66
3. How can you prevent good from being twisted into evil ends? How can you
prevent science from becoming scientism? Share and explain your answer.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
________________________________
4. Do you agree or disagree with the different quotes cited in the movie? Explain
your answer.
• Only science can save us from natural catastrophe – John Gray
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
_____________________________
• Forget faith, only science can save us – Melanie Gosling
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
_____________________________
Activity: Questions for Reflection
1. Does the idea of human flourishing reflect in progress and
development?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
__
67
2. As you look at your daily life and in the past years, what are the
aspects of your life that have been the most rewarding and enriching? When
was the happiest?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
__
68
CHAPTER 5
The Good Life
A. What is a Good Life?
This is one of the oldest philosophical questions. It has been posed in different
ways—How should one live? What does it mean to “live well”?—but these are really just
the same question. After all, everyone wants to live well, and no one wants “the bad life.”
But the question isn’t as simple as it sounds. Philosophers specialize in unpacking hidden
complexities, and the concept of the good life is one of those that needs quite a bit of
unpacking.
One basic way we use the word “good” is to express moral approval. So when we
say someone is living well or that they have lived a good life, we may simply mean that
they are a good person, someone who is courageous, honest, trustworthy, kind, selfless,
generous, helpful, loyal, principled, and so on. They possess and practice many of the
most important virtues. And they don’t spend all their time merely pursuing their own
pleasure;; they devote a certain amount of time to activities that benefit others, perhaps
through their engagement with family and friends, or through their work, or through
various voluntary activities. This moral conception of the good life has had plenty of
champions. Socrates and Plato both gave absolute priority to being a virtuous person
over all other supposedly good things such as pleasure, wealth, or power.
In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, Socrates takes this position to an extreme. He argues
that it is much better to suffer wrong than to do it;; that a good man who has his eyes
gouged out and is tortured to death is more fortunate than a corrupt person who has used
wealth and power dishonorably. In his masterpiece, the Republic, Plato develops this
argument in greater detail. The morally good person, he claims, enjoys a sort of inner
harmony, whereas the wicked person, no matter how rich and powerful he may be or how
many pleasure he enjoys, is disharmonious, fundamentally at odds with himself and the
world.
It is worth noting, though, that in both the Gorgias and the Republic, Plato bolsters
his argument with a speculative account of an afterlife in which virtuous people are
rewarded and wicked people are punished. Many religions also conceive of the good life
in moral terms as a life lived according to God’s laws. A person who lives this way—
obeying the commandments and performing the proper rituals—is pious. And in most
religions, such piety will be rewarded. Obviously, many people do not receive their reward
in this life. But devout believers are confident that their piety will not be in vain. Christian
martyrs went singing to their deaths confident that they would soon be in heaven. Hindus
expect that the law of karma will ensure that their good deeds and intentions will be
rewarded, while evil actions and desires will be punished, either in this life or in future
lives.
69
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was one of the first to declare, bluntly,
that what makes life worth living is that we can experience pleasure. Pleasure is
enjoyable, it’s fun, it’s...well...pleasant! The view that pleasure is the good, or, to put I
another way, that pleasure is what makes life worth living, is known as hedonism. The
word “hedonist,” when applied to a person, has slightly negative connotations. It suggests
that they are devoted to what some have called the “lower” pleasures such as sex, food,
drink, and sensual indulgence in general.
Epicurus was thought by some of his contemporaries to be advocating and
practicing this sort of lifestyle, and even today an “epicure” is someone who is especially
appreciative of food and drink. But this is a misrepresentation of Epicureanism. Epicurus
certainly praised all kinds of pleasures. The good life has to be virtuous. Although
Epicurus disagreed with Plato about the value of pleasure, he fully agreed with him on
this point.
Today, this hedonistic conception of the good life is arguably dominant in Western
culture. Even in everyday speech, if we say someone is “living the good life,” we probably
mean that they enjoying lots of recreational pleasures: good food, good wine, skiing,
scuba diving, lounging by the pool in the sun with a cocktail and a beautiful partner.
What is key to this hedonistic conception of the good life is that it emphasizes
subjective experiences. On this view, to describe a person as “happy” means that they
“feel good,” and a happy life is one that contains many “feel good” experiences.
If Socrates emphasizes virtue and Epicurus emphasizes pleasure, another great
Greek thinker, Aristotle, views the good life in a more comprehensive way. According to
Aristotle, we all want to be happy. We value many things because they are a means to
other things. For instance, we value money because it enables us to buy things we want;;
we value leisure because it gives us time to pursue our interests. But happiness is
something we value not as a means to some other end but for its own sake. It has intrinsic
value rather than instrumental value.
So for Aristotle, the good life is a happy life. But what does that mean? Today,
many people automatically think of happiness in subjectivist terms: To them, a person is
happy if they are enjoying a positive state of mind, and their life is happy if this is true for
them most of the time.
Aristotle agrees with Socrates that to live the good life one must be a morally good
person. He also agrees with Epicurus that a happy life will involve many and varied
pleasurable experiences. We can’t really say someone is living the good life if they are
often miserable or constantly suffering.
Michael Soupios and Panos Mourdoukoutas wrote a book entitled The Ten Golden
Rules on Living a Good Life where they extracted “ancient wisdom from the Greek
philosophers on living the good life” and mapped it into modern times. Here is a summary
of what they wrote, extracted from a Forbes article written by Dr. Mourdoukoutas:
70
1. Examine life, engage life with a vengeance;; always search for new pleasures
and new destinies to reach with your mind.
2. Worry only about the things that are in your control, the things that can be
influenced and changed by your actions, not about the things that are beyond your
capacity to direct or alter.
3. Treasure Friendship, the reciprocal attachment that fills the need for affiliation.
Friendship cannot be acquired in the market place, but must be nurtured and treasured
in relations imbued with trust and amity.
4. Experience True Pleasure. Avoid shallow and transient pleasures. Keep your
life simple. Seek calming pleasures that contribute to peace of mind. True pleasure is
disciplined and restrained.
5. Master Yourself. Resist any external force that might delimit thought and action;;
stop deceiving yourself, believing only what is personally useful and convenient;; complete
liberty necessitates a struggle within, a battle to subdue negative psychological and
spiritual forces that preclude a healthy existence;; self-mastery requires ruthless candor.
6. Avoid Excess. Live life in harmony and balance. Avoid excesses. Even good
things, pursued or attained without moderation, can become a source of misery and
suffering.
7. Be a Responsible Human Being. Approach yourself with honesty and
thoroughness;; maintain a kind of spiritual hygiene;; stop the blame-shifting for your errors
and shortcomings.
8. Don’t Be a Prosperous Fool. Prosperity by itself is not a cure-all against an ill-
led life and may be a source of dangerous foolishness. Money is a necessary but not a
sufficient condition for the good life, for happiness and wisdom.
9. Don’t Do Evil to Others. Evildoing is a dangerous habit, a kind of reflex too
quickly resorted to and too easily justified that has a lasting and damaging effect upon the
quest for the good life. Harming others claims two victims—the receiver of the harm, and
the victimizer, the one who does harm.
10. Kindness towards others tends to be rewarded. Kindness to others is a good
habit that supports and reinforces the quest for the good life. Helping others bestows a
sense of satisfaction that has two beneficiaries—the beneficiary, the receiver of the help,
and the benefactor, the one who provides the help.
71
Activity: Questions for Reflection
1. In your opinion, what constitutes a good life?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
2. What does Aristotle say about the good life? Does it still stand in the contemporary
world?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
3. How is the process in science and technology a movement towards the good life?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
A. What is Human Existence?
72
Plato’s reputation comes from his idealism of believing in the existence of
universalis. His Theory of Forms proposes that universals do not physically exist, like
objects, but as heavenly forms. In the dialogue of Republic, the character of Socrates
describes the Form of the Good. His theory on justice in the soul relates to the idea of
happiness relevant to the question of the meaning of life. In Platonism, the meaning of
life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the Idea of the Good, from which
all good and just things derive utility and value.
B. What is a Public Good?
73
Activity: Film Viewing
Watch the documentary “That Sugar Film” directed by Damon Gameau (
http://thatsugarfilm.com/ ). Do the following tasks:
1. Discuss your initial reaction to the film.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
________________________________
2. Did you find the information offered up in the film to be shocking, or
were you aware of the role sugar plays in contemporary life?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
________________________________
3. What is your relationship to sugar? Do you know how much sugar
do you consume on a daily basis? Do you consider yourself to be a
healthy eater?
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
4. Why do you believe Americans have such a disproportionately
unbalanced relationship to sugar, as compared to the rest of
the world? What is it about American culture/life that feeds the
unhealthy overconsumption of the sweet stuff?
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
74
5. Discuss the notion that “sugar is the new tobacco.” Do you believe
sugar should be taxed, as cigarettes and other nicotine products are
today?
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
75
CHAPTER 6
When Technology and Humanity Cross
A. The Ethical Dilemmas of Robotics
The rapid advancements in technology that the world has witnessed over the past
century have made a reality of many of mankind’s wildest dreams. From being able to
cross the earth, air, and sea at extreme speeds to being able to send and receive
information instantly via the Internet, the technological advancements in recent years
have become cornerstones of modern society. One dream that is still yet to be perfectly
fulfilled by advancements in technology is the development of human-like and self-aware
robots, often referred to as androids. While robotic technology has come a long way since
its initial attempts, the robot which is largely indistinguishable from a human is still far from
a reality. However, as technology continues to develop and evolve exponentially, many
people believe it is only a matter of time. If and when truly "living" robots were to come
about, one can foresee a slew of ethical dilemmas developing.
A complete consensus on the definition of the word “robot” has yet to be reached.
However, it is commonly accepted that robots contain some combination of the following
attributes such as mobility, intelligent behavior, sense and manipulation of environment.
The term “robot” truly extends to more than just androids. The commonly accepted first
use of the word was in 1920 in the form of a play written by Karel Capek. The play was
entitled R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) and involves the development of artificial
people. These people are referred to as robots and while they are given the ability to
think, they are designed to be happy as servants. The use of the word “robot” in Capek's
play comes from the Slavic languages‟ word for “work,” which is robota.
While the word “robot” was not used until 1920, the idea of mechanical humans
has been around as far back as Greek mythology. One example that closely relates to
the servant robots seen in Capek's play is the servants of the Greek god Hephaestus, the
god of fire and the forge. It is recorded that Hephaestus had built robots out of gold which
were “his helpers, including a complete set of life-size golden handmaidens who helped
around the house”. Another example of robots in Greek mythology comes from the stories
of Pygmalion, who is said to have crafted a statue of Galatea that would come to life.
Beyond the ancient myths which speak of humanoid robots, one of the milestones
in the design and development of such robots came with the discovery of Leonardo Da
Vinci's journals which contained detailed plans for the construction of a humanoid robot.
Inspired by the ancient myths, the robot was designed in the form of an armored knight
and was to possess the ability to sit up, wave its arms, move its head, and open its mouth.
The journals in which the plans were found date back to 1495. It is unknown if this robot
was ever built by Da Vinci, but merely conceiving it was a milestone in the timeline of
robotic history. The Modern State of Robots From Da Vinci to the current day the
development of humanoid robots has continued to approach the goal of a robot that is
indistinguishable from a human. However, despite the massive recent advancements in
technology and even the exponential growth of computing power of the past decades,
this dream is still far from a reality.
76
In a comprehensive article in the New York Times, Robin Marantz Henig discusses
her experiences with what are often labeled “social robots.” These robots are by no means
what the servant robots of Greek mythology have led many people to hope for;; rather
they are infant versions, at best, of the long-hoped-for androids. Henig said these
machines are not the docile companions of the collective dreams, robots designed to
flawlessly serve dinners, fold clothes and do the dull or dangerous jobs that human do
not want to do. Nor are they the villains of the collective nightmares, poised for robotic
rebellion against humans whose machine creations have become smarter than the
humans themselves. They are, instead, hunks of metal tethered to computers, which
need their human designers to get them going and to smooth the hiccups along the way.
Despite the disappointment that many people feel when they are given the chance
to interact with the latest robots, some major players in the robotic industry are quite
optimistic. Rodney Brooks is an expert in robotics and artificial intelligence. In an article
written in 2008, Brooks explains that it is no longer a question of whether human-level
artificial intelligence will be developed, but rather how and when. While it is true that
androids are not the only robots which have a great impact on man’s lives, their
development introduces a set of unique ethical issues which industrial robots do not
evoke. Working under the assumption that it is only a matter of time until androids are an
everyday reality, it is proper to begin thinking about what these ethical issues are and
how they may be dealt with in the coming years. The overarching question that results is
what exactly these robots are. Are they simply piles of electronics running advanced
algorithms, or are they a new form of life? What Is Life? The question of what constitutes
life is one on which the world may never come to a consensus.
From the ancient philosophers to the common man on the street, it seems that
everyone has an opinion on what a living organism consists of. One of the more prevailing
views throughout history has been that of Aristotle. The basic tenets of Aristotle’s view
are that an organism has both “matter” and “form.” This differs from the philosophical
position known as materialism, which has become popular in modern times and finds its
roots among the ancient Indians. Materialism does not entertain any notion of organisms
having a “form” or “soul”;; rather, organisms are made simply of various types of “matter.”
These two views are at odds with one another and the philosophical position society
adopts will inevitably have a huge impact on how humans interact with robots. Aristotle
The view articulated by Aristotle and his modern-day followers describes life in terms of
unity, a composite of both “matter” and “form.” One type of “matter” which Aristotle speaks
of could be biological material such as what plants, animals, and humans consist of.
Another type of “matter” could also be the mechanical and electronic components which
make up modern-day robots. Clearly it is not the “matter” alone which distinguishes
whether an object is a living organism, for if it were, Aristotle‟s view would differ little from
materialism. The distinguishing characteristic of Aristotle is his inclusion of “form.” The
term simply means whatever it is that makes a human a human, a plant a plant, and an
animal an animal. Each of these have a specific “form” which is not the same as its
“matter,” but is a functioning unity which is essential to each living organism in order for
it to be just that, living. The word used to describe the “form” of a living organism is
“psyche” or “soul.”
77
Unlike Aristotle's philosophical view, which was embraced by various religions,
perhaps most notably by the Roman Catholic Church and more specifically by St. Thomas
Aquinas, materialism often finds itself at odds with most religious views in the world.
Catholicism being a prime example of this, one will not find a favorable description of
materialism when looking at the opening lines of its definition in the Catholic
Encyclopedia. The encyclopedia's entry begins by defining materialism as “a
philosophical system which regards matter as the only reality in the world, which
undertakes to explain every event in the universe as resulting from the conditions and
activity of matter, and which thus denies the existence of God and the soul.” Why does it
matter that materialism is at odds with Catholicism and most other religions? More
specifically, what does this have to do with robots and androids? It is relevant because if
materialism is correct, then humans should have the power to develop new forms of life.
If it is true that everything in the universe is simply material and the result of material
interactions, then nothing should be stopping us from creating androids and recognizing
them as just as valid a life form as humans.
The decision of what level of life robots are to be considered is an essential one.
In 1942 Isaac 7 Asimov introduced to the world of science fiction what are known as the
Three Laws of Robotics, which were published in his short story “Runaround.” The laws
Asimov formulated are: First, a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm. Second, a robot must obey any orders given to it
by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Third, a
robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the
First or Second Law. While these laws are part of science fiction history, the current state
of robotic technology demands that they be considered in a new light. As with many ideas
once confined to the world of science fiction, Asimov‟s laws are now able to make the
transition into reality. At first glance these three laws seem to be an excellent way to
ensure the safe development of this supposed new life form. However, Asimov‟s laws
presuppose that human life is of greater value than that of the androids being developed.
If we work under the assumption that androids should be considered just below humans,
Asimov‟s laws may hold true. But what if we hold to the conclusion materialism reaches,
that androids should be placed at or above the level of humans? If this is the case,
Asimov‟s laws will not be able to be applied. The main reason is that we could not see
androids as equal forms of life and implement Asimov‟s laws, which place androids in
direct submission to humans. How can it be that an android should give its life for a human
if an android has a right to life equal to that of a human? Imagine an army made up of
both androids and humans. Should the android always give its life to save a human‟s life?
Would human soldiers be willing to die for an android? As much as people may believe
in materialism and come to conclusions that robots will one day be a life form equal to
humans, I find it hard to believe that many people would actually die for a robot. Robot
Code of Ethics While it remains true that robotics technology is not at a place where
ethical codes for robots are necessary, it is not stopping some countries from being
proactive and taking the beginning steps in the development of a robot code of ethics.
South Korea is considered one of the most high-tech countries in the world and
they are leading the way in the development of such a code. Known officially as the Robot
78
Ethics Charter, it is being drawn up “to prevent human abuse of robots—and vice versa”.
The main focus of the charter is said to be on the social problems the mass integration of
robots into society is bound to create. In particular it aims to define how people are to
properly interact with robots, in Stefan Lovgren‟s words, “human control over robots and
humans becoming addicted to robot interaction”. Beyond the social problems robots may
bring with them, there also is an array of legal issues, the primary one in the charter being
what and how information is collected and distributed by robots. To many it seems as
though South Korea‟s Robot Ethics Charter is the beginning of a modern-day
implementation of Asimov‟s Three Laws of Robotics. However, many robot designers
such as Mark Tilden think this is all a bit premature. Tilden claims that we are simply not
at a point where robots can be given morals and compares it to “teaching an ant to yodel”.
Tilden goes on to claim that when we do reach that point, the interactions will be less than
pleasant, stating that “as many of Asimov's stories show, the conundrums robots and
humans would face would result in more tragedy than utility”. Despite Tilden‟s and others‟
pessimistic view of what the future holds for the human-robot relationship, technology will
slow down for no one. It is only a matter of time before other countries will follow in South
Korea’s footsteps and create their own code of ethics for robots and their interactions with
humans.
B. Human, Morals and Machines
Technology has begun to change our species’long-standing experiences with
nature. Now,we have technological nature—technologies that in various ways mediate,
augment, or simulate the natural world. Entire television networks, such as the Discovery
Channel and Animal Planet, provide us with mediated digital experiences of nature: the
lion’s hunt, the Monarch’s migration, or a climb high into the Himalayan peaks. Video
games, like Zoo Tycoon, engage children with animal life. Zoos themselves are bringing
technologies, such as webcams into their exhibits so that we can, for example, watch
animals from the leisure of our home or a cafe. Inexpensive robot pets have been big
sellers in the Wal-Marts and Targets of the world. Sony’s higher-end robot dog AIBO sold
well. Real people now spend substantial time in virtual environments (e.g., Second Life).
In terms of the physical and psychological wellbeing of our species, does it matter that
we are replacing actual nature with technological nature? To support our provisional
answer that it does matter, we draw on evolutionary and cross-cultural developmental
accounts of the human relation with the natural world and then consider some recent
psychological research on the effects of technological nature.
Scientists are already beginning to think seriously about the new ethical problems
posed by current developments in robotics. Experts in South Korea were drawing up an
ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa. A group of leading
roboticists called the Chapter 2 81 European Robotics Network (Euron) has even started
lobbying governments for legislation. At the top of their list of concerns is safety. Robots
were once confined to specialist applications in industry and the military, where users
received extensive training on their use, but they are increasingly being used by ordinary
people. Robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers are already in many homes, and
robotic toys are increasingly popular with children. As these robots become more
79
intelligent, it will become harder to decide who is responsible if they injure someone. Is
the designer to blame, or the user, or the robot itself? The ethical or moral sense for
machines canbe built on a utilitarian base. There are special cases that will require
modifications of the core rules that are based on the circumstances of their use. Doctors,
for example, don not euthanize patients to spread the wealth of their organs, even if it
means that there is a net positive with regard to survivors. They have to conform to a
separate code of ethics designed around the needs of patients and their rights that
restricts their actions. The same holds for lawyers, religious leaders, and military
personnel who establish special relationships with individuals who are protected by
specific ethical codes. The simple utilitarian model will certainly have overlays depending
on the role that these robots play. They will act in accord with whatever moral or ethical
code we provide them and the value determinations that we set. They will run the numbers
and do the right thing. In emergency situations, our autonomous cars will sacrifice the few
to protect the many. When faced with dilemmas, they will seek the best outcomes
independent of whether they themselves are comfortable with the actions. So, as with all
other aspects of machine intelligence, it is crucial that these systems are able to explain
their moral decisions to us. They will need to be able to reach into their silicon souls and
explain the reasoning that supports their actions. We need them to be able to explain
themselves in all aspects of their reasoning and actions. Their moral reasoning will be
subject to the same explanatory requirements that we would demand of explaining any
action they take.
Today’s emerging technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), augmented and
virtual reality, home robots, and cloud computing, to name only a few of the sophisticated
technologies in development today, are capturing the imaginations of many. The
advanced capabilities of today’s emerging technologies are driving many academics,
entrepreneurs, and enterprises to envision futures in which their impacts on society will
be nothing short of transformative. Whether these emerging technologies will realize
these ambitious possibilities is uncertain. What is certain is that they will intersect and
interact with powerful demographic, economic, and cultural forces to upend the conditions
of everyday life.
The article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carrs discusses the effects
that the Internet may be having on our ability to focus, the difference in knowledge that
we now have, and our reliance on the Internet. The points that are made throughout Carrs’
article are very thought-provoking, but his sources make them seem invaluable. Carr
discusses the effects that the Internet has on our minds. He feels that the Internet is bad
for the brain. Nicholas Carr writes that he spends much of his leisure time from the Net.
Carr feels like he cannot concentrate on the long passages of reading because his brain
is used to the fast millisecond flow of the Net. “For more than a decade now, I’ve been
spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing.” The supporting idea is that his mind
now “expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it--in a swiftly moving
streams of particles.” His brain wants to think as fast as the Internet goes. In summary,
the article is split into two pieces. The first is Nicholas Carr’s longing for his brain to be
one with the Internet, a man-made machine. The second part of the article is Google’s
standpoint on how our brains should be replaced by artificial intelligence.
80
C. Why the Future Does Not Need Us?
With the accelerating improvements of technology, computer scientists succeed in
developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings. In that
case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines,
and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines
might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else
human control over the machines might be retained.
If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we cannot make
any conjectures about the results because it is impossible to guess how such machines
might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of
the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to
hand over all the power to the machines. But human race would voluntarily turn power
over to the machines or the machines would willfully seize power. Human race might
easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would
have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions.
As society and the problems that it faces become more and more complex and
machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their
decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than
man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary
to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of
making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People
will not be able to just turn the machines off because they will be so dependent on them
that turning them off would amount to suicide.
On the other hand, it is possible that human control over the machines may be
retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines
of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of
machines will be in the hands of the tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two differences.
Because of improved techniques the elite will have a greater control over the masses and
because human work will no longer be necessary, the masses will be superfluous, a
useless burden on the system. If the elite are ruthless, they may simply decide to
exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or any
other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of
humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consist of soft-
hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the
human race. They will see to it that everyone’s physical needs are satisfied, that all
children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a
wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied
undergoes “treatment” to cure his “problem.” Life will be so purposeless that people will
have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the
power process or make them “sublimate” their drive for power into some harmless hobby.
These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most
certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.
81
Theodore Kaczynskian American domestic terrorist,also known as the
Unabomber, killed three people during a nationwide bombing campaign targeting those
involved with modern technology and wounded many others. One of his bombs gravely
injured David Gelernter, one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists. His
actions were murderous and criminally insane, but his vision describes unintended
consequences, a well-known problem with the design and use of technology, and one
that is clearly related to Murphy’s law–“Anything that can go wrong, will.” Our overuse of
antibiotics has led to what may be the biggest such problem so far: the emergence of
antibiotic-resistant and much more dangerous bacteria. Similar things happened when
attempts to eliminate malarial mosquitoes using DDT caused them to acquire DDT
resistance;; malarial parasites, likewise, acquired multi-drug-resistant genes.
The cause of many such surprises seems clear: The systems involved are
complex, involving interaction among and feedback between many parts. Any changes
to such a system will cascade in ways that are difficult to predict;; this is especially true
when human actions are involved. Biological species almost never survive encounters
with superior competitors. Ten million years ago, South and North America were
separated by a sunken Panama isthmus. South America, like Australia today, was
populated by marsupial mammals, including pouched equivalents of rats, deers, and
tigers. When the isthmus connecting North and South America rose, it took only a few
thousand years for the northern placental species, with slightly more effective
metabolisms and reproductive and nervous systems, to displace and eliminate almost all
the southern marsupials.
In a completely free marketplace, superior robots would surely affect humans as
North American placentals affected South American marsupials (and as humans have
affected countless species). Robotic industries would compete vigorously among
themselves for matter, energy, and space, incidentally driving their price beyond human
reach. Unable to afford the necessities of life, biological humans would be squeezed out
of existence.
A textbook on dystopia and Moravec discuss how our main job in the 21st century
will be “ensuring continued cooperation from the robot industries” by passing laws
decreeing that they be “nice,” and describing how seriously dangerous a human can be
once transformed into an unbounded superintelligent robot. Moravec’s view is that the
robots will eventually succeed us that humans clearly face extinction.
Accustomed to living with almost routine scientific breakthroughs, we have yet to
come to terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies–robotics,
genetic engineering, and nanotechnology–pose a threat different from the technologies
that have come before. Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share
a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once–
but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control. For instance, the sending
and receiving of messages through computer networking creates the opportunity for out-
of-control replication. But while replication in a computer or a computer network can be a
nuisance, at worst it disables a machine or takes down a network or network service.
82
Uncontrolled self-replication in these newer technologies runs a much greater risk: a risk
of substantial damage in the physical world. Each of these technologies also offers untold
promise: The vision of near immortality that Kurzweil sees in his robot dreams drives us
forward;; genetic engineering may soon provide treatments, if not outright cures, for most
diseases;; and nanotechnology and nanomedicine can address more ills. Together, they
could significantly extend our average life span and improve the quality of our lives. With
each of these technologies, a sequence of small, individually sensible advances leads to
an accumulation of great power and, concomitantly, great danger. What was different in
the 20th century? Certainly, the technologies underlying the weapons of mass destruction
(WMD)–nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC)–were powerful, and the weapons an
enormous threat. But building nuclear weapons required, at least for a time, access to
both rare– indeed, effectively unavailable–raw materials and highly protected information;;
biological and chemical weapons programs also tended to require large-scale activities.
The 21st-century technologies–genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR)–are so
powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most
dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of
individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials.
Knowledge alone will enable their use;; thus, we have the possibility not just of weapons
of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this
destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication. Failing to understand
the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and
innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists;; we have long
been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science’s quest, not
stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take
on a life of its own. Because of the recent rapid and radical progress in molecular
electronics–where individual atoms and molecules replace lithographically drawn
transistors–and related nanoscale technologies, we should be able to meet or exceed the
Moore’s law rate of progress for another 30 years. By 2030, we are likely to be able to
build machines, in quantity, a million times as powerful as the personal computers of
today. As this enormous computing power is combined with the manipulative advances
of the physical sciences and the new, deep understandings in genetics, enormous
transformative power is being unleashed. These combinations open up the opportunity to
completely redesign the world, for better or worse: The replicating and evolving processes
that have been confined to the natural world are about to become realms of human
endeavor. Given the incredible power of these new technologies, should we not be asking
how we can best coexist with them? And if our own extinction is a likely, or even possible,
outcome of our technological development, should we not proceed with great caution?
How soon could such an intelligent robot be built? The coming advances in computing
power seem to make it possible by 2030. Once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small
step to a robot species–to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself.
Genetic engineering promises to revolutionize agriculture by increasing crop yields while
reducing the use of pesticides;; to create tens of thousands of novel species of bacteria,
plants, viruses, and animals;; to replace reproduction, or supplement it, with cloning;; to
create cures for many diseases, increasing our life span and our quality of life;; and much,
much more. We now know with certainty that these profound changes in the biological
sciences are imminent and will challenge all our notions of what life is. Technologies,
83
such as human cloning, have in particular raised our awareness of the profound ethical
and moral issues we face. If, for example, we were to reengineer ourselves into several
separate and unequal species using the power of genetic engineering, then we would
threaten the notion of equality that is the very cornerstone of our democracy. Awareness
of the dangers inherent in genetic engineering is beginning to grow, as reflected in the
Lovins’ editorial. The general public is aware of, and uneasy about, genetically modified
foods, and seems to be rejecting the notion that such foods should be permitted to be
unlabeled. But genetic engineering technology is already very far along. As the Lovins’
note, the USDA has already approved about 50 genetically engineered crops for unlimited
release;; more than half of the world’s soybeans and a third of its corn now contain genes
spliced in from some other forms of life. Unfortunately, as with nuclear technology, it is
far easier to create destructive uses for nanotechnology than constructive ones.
Nanotechnology has clear military and terrorist uses, and you need not be suicidal to
release a massively destructive nanotechnological device–such devices can be built to
be selectively destructive, affecting, for example, only a certain geographical area or a
group of people who are genetically distinct. The effort to build the first atomic bomb was
led by the brilliant physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was not naturally
interested in politics but became painfully aware of what he perceived as the grave threat
to Western civilization from the Third Reich, a threat surely grave because of the
possibility that Hitler might obtain nuclear weapons. Energized by this concern, he
brought his strong intellect, passion for physics, and charismatic leadership skills to Los
Alamos and led a rapid and successful effort by an incredible collection of great minds to
quickly invent the bomb. Physicists proceeded with the preparation of the first atomic test
called Trinity despite a large number of possible dangers. They were initially worried,
based on a calculation by Edward Teller, that an atomic explosion might set fire to the
atmosphere. A revised calculation reduced the danger of destroying the world to a three-
ina-million chance. Oppenheimer, though, was sufficiently concerned about the result of
Trinity that he arranged for a possible evacuation of the southwest part of the state of
New Mexico. There was the clear danger of starting a nuclear arms race. Within a month
of that first, successful test, two atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some
scientists had suggested that the bomb simply be demonstrated rather than dropped on
Japanese cities–saying that this would greatly improve the chances for arms control after
the war–but to no avail. With the tragedy of Pearl Harbor still fresh in Americans’ minds,
it would have been very difficult for President Truman to order a demonstration of the
weapons rather than use them as he did–the desire to quickly end the war and save the
lives that would have been lost in any invasion of Japan was very strong. The overriding
truth was probably very simple: As the physicist Freeman Dyson later said, “The reason
that it was dropped was just that nobody had the courage or the foresight to say no.” It is
important to realize how shocked the physicists were in the aftermath of the bombing of
Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. They described a series of waves of emotion: first, a sense
of fulfillment that the bomb worked, then horror at all the people that had been killed, and
then a convincing feeling that on no account should another bomb be dropped. Another
bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki, only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. In
November 1945, three months after the atomic bombings, Oppenheimer stood firmly
behind the scientific attitude, saying, “It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe
that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of
84
intrinsic value to humanity, and that you are using it to help in the spread of knowledge
and are willing to take the consequences.” In our time, how much danger do we face not
just from nuclear weapons but from all of these technologies? How high are the extinction
risks? The philosopher John Leslie has studied this question and concluded that the risk
of human extinction is at least 30 percent while Ray Kurzweil believes we have a better
than even chance of making it through, with the caveat that he has always been accused
of being an optimist. Not only are these estimates not encouraging, but they do not include
the probability of many horrid outcomes that lie short of extinction. Faced with such
assessments, some serious people are already suggesting that we simply move beyond
the Earth as quickly as possible. We would colonize the galaxy using von Neumann
probes, which hop from star system to star system, replicating as they go. This step will
almost certainly be necessary billion years from now (or sooner if our solar system is
disastrously impacted by the impending collision of our galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy
within the next three billion years), but if we take Kurzweil and Moravec at their word, it
might be necessary by the middle of this century. What are the moral implications here?
If we must move beyond Earth this quickly for the species to survive, who accepts the
responsibility for the fate of those who are left behind? And even if we scatter to the stars,
is it not likely that we may take our problems with us or find, later, that they have followed
us? The fate of our species on earth and our fate in the galaxy seem inextricably linked.
Another idea is to erect a series of shields to defend against each of the dangerous
technologies. The Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed by the Reagan administration,
was anattempt to design such a shield against the threat of a nuclear attack from the
Soviet Union. But as Arthur C. Clarke, who was privy to discussions about the project,
observed: “Though it might be possible, at vast expense, to construct local defense
systems that would only let through a few percent of ballistic missiles, the much-touted
idea of a national umbrella was nonsense.” Luis Alvarez, the greatest experimental
physicist, remarked that the advocates of such schemes were very bright guys with no
common sense. Similar difficulties apply to the construction of shields against robotics
and genetic engineering. These technologies are too powerful to be shielded against in
the time frame of interest;; even if it were possible to implement defensive shields, the
side effects of their development would be at least as dangerous as the technologies we
are trying to protect against. These possibilities are all, thus, either undesirable or
unachievable or both. The only realistic alternative to limit the development of the
technologies that are too dangerous is by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of
knowledge. We have been seeking knowledge since ancient times. Aristotle opened his
Metaphysics with the simple statement: “All men by nature desire to know.” We have, as
a bedrock value in our society, long agreed on the value of open access to information
and recognize the problems that arise with attempts to restrict access to and development
of knowledge. In recent times, we have come to revere scientific knowledge. It was
Nietzsche who warned us, at the end of the 19th century, not only that God is dead but
that “faith in science, which after all exists undeniably, cannot owe its origin to a calculus
of utility;; it must have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility and dangerousness
of the ‘will to truth,’ of ‘truth at any price’ is proved to it constantly.” It is this further danger
that we now fully face the consequences of our truth-seeking. The truth that science seeks
can certainly be considered a dangerous substitute for God if it is likely to lead to our
extinction. Our Western notion of happiness seems to come from the Greeks, who defined
85
it as “the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope.”
Clearly, we need to find meaningful challenges and sufficient scope in our lives if we are
to be happy in whatever is to come. We must find alternative outlets for our creative
forces, beyond the culture of perpetual economic growth;; this growth has largely been a
blessing for several hundred years, but it has not brought us unalloyed happiness, and
we must now choose between the pursuit of unrestricted and undirected growth through
science and technology and the clear accompanying dangers
Activity: Film Viewing
Watch the movie “Artificial Intelligence” also known as “A.I.” by Steven
Spielberg. Answer the following questions.
1. At the beginning of the movie, Professor Hobby states that “to create an artificial
being has been the dream of man since the birth of science.” There’s probably an
element of truth to this. Why do we have this fascination?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________
2. One of the scientists at Cybertronics asks, “If a robot could genuinely love a
person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that mecha in return?”
Professor Hobby responds, “In the beginning, didn’t God create Adam to love
him?” What is implied by Professor Hobby’s answer?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_________
86
3. Consider some of the imagery the Flesh Fair: motorcycles, cowboy hats, heavy
metal music, flannel shirts. What statement does this make about the kind of
humans that opposed robots?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________
4. The owner of the Flesh Fair states that child mechas like David, were built to
disarm humans by playing on human emotions. Nevertheless, the human
spectators feel sympathy with David, particularly because he pleads for his life.
What abilities would a robot have to exhibit before we would consider it an equal
with humans?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
____
5. Gigolo Joe tells David that his mother does not love him, but only loves what he
does for her. Is it plausible to think that a normal human could love a robot as
though it were a real human?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
87
PART III.
SPECIFIC ISSUES IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
Introduction
This section provides overview on how writing evolved through time and internet
came into being. Discussion on how information became accessible and inexpensive thru
the discovery of printing press by Johannes Gutenburg is also presented on this part.
Emphasis is given on the influence of social media to people’s lives.
Further, this section of the module discusses different issues that concern society’s
health and well-being. Basic concepts and ideas on biodiversity, climate change, use of
gene therapy and nanotechnology are also presented here.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this section, the students are expected to:
1. illustrate how information age and social media have made an impact to our lives.
2. explain the interrelatedness of society, environment, and health.
3. discuss the costs and benefits (both potential and realized) of nanotechnology to
society.
4. describe gene therapy, its various forms and potential benefits and detriments to
global health.
5. identify the causes of climate change and discuss how to apply concepts of STS in
this specific environmental issue.
Chapter 7
The Information Age
The Information Age began around the 1970s and still going on today. It is also
known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age. This era brought about a
time period in which people could access information and knowledge easily.
Pre-Gutenberg Period
During the Middle Ages in Europe, most people lived in small, isolated villages. If
people travelled at all, they typically ventured only a few miles from where they were born.
For most people, the only source of both religious and worldly information was the village
Catholic priest in the pulpit. News passed from one person to another, often in the form
of rumor.
Written documents were rare and often doubted by the common people as
forgeries. What counted in important matters was oral testimony based on oaths taken in
the name of God to tell the truth.
Almost no one could read or write the language they spoke. Those few who were
literate usually went on to master Latin, the universal language of scholarship, the law,
and the Roman Catholic Church. Books, all hand-copied, were rare, expensive, and
almost always in Latin. They were so valuable that universities chained them to reading
tables. Most people passed their lifetime without ever gazing at a book, a calendar, a
map, or written work of any sort.
Memory and memorization ruled daily life and learning. Poets, actors and story
tellers relied on rhyming lines to remember vast amounts of material. Craftsmen
memorized the secrets of their trades to pass on orally to apprentices. Mechanics kept
their accounts in their heads. Even scholars literate in Latin used memory devices to
remember what they had learned. One device involved visualizing a building with various
rooms and architectural features, each representing different store of knowledge. A
university scholar imagined walking through this virtual building along a certain pathway
to recall the contents of entire books for his lectures.
Scribes, often monks living in monasteries, each labored for up to a year to copy
a single book, usually in Latin. The scribes copied books on processed calfskin called
velum and later on paper. Specialists or the scribes themselves “illuminated’ (painted0
large capital letters and the margins of many books with colorful designs were very costly.
Before the discovery of printing press, books in Europe were typically handwritten
manuscripts while paper money, playing cards, posters, and the like were block-printed
from hand-carved wooden blocks, inked and transferred to paper. This earlier method of
reproduction was expensive and time consuming.
89
Gutenberg Revolution
Johannes Gutenberg turned the printing world upside down and brought on a new
era of print with his revolutionary innovation of movable type in 1445. Movable type
printing used metal stamps of single letters that could be arranged into words, sentences
and pages of text. Using a large manually operated, the stamps would be arranged to
read a page of text so that when covered with ink, it would print out a page of text. Before
Gutenberg, all texts had been printed with woodblocks or fixed text stamps, both of which
were complex and time-consuming processes. Movable type kept the metal stamp letters
separate, which allowed printers to reuse the letters quickly on succeeding pages. As a
result, more pages could be efficiently printed in a shorter amount of time with much less
effort. From here, the opportunity to share ideas and knowledge brought on a new era of
change and enlightenment never seen before.
Gutenberg’s amazing invention made books the internet of the time. The printing
press made it possible to produce books much more quickly and cheaper than ever
before. By 1463, printed Bibles cost one-tenth of hand-copied Bibles. The demand for
books exploded. By 1500, Europe had more than 1,000 printers and 7,000 books in print.
Like the internet, books spread new ideas quickly and sped up the process of
change. For example, as a young sailor in Genoa, Christopher Columbus read Marco
Polo’s famous Travels, in which he described his journeys to China. Columbus was
thrilled by Polo’s descriptions. Books also planted the seeds of democracy and human
rights in the next generation of thinkers. Newspapers and pamphlets generated
information and ideas even faster.
The impact of the printing press is, almost, impossible to really quantify. On the
surface it allowed for the much more rapid spread of accurate information but, more
elusively, it had an enormous impact on the nations and population in Europe at large.
Literacy began to rise as well as the types of information people could be exposed to.
When Europe was recovering from the devastating impact of the Black Death, the
impact of printing press decimated the population and had led to the decline in the rise of
the church, the rise of the money economy, and subsequent birth of the Renaissance.
As it became easier to produce books and pamphlets, information started to
spread. Previously, only religious leaders and royalty had access to books, and few
people were literate. The printing Renaissance opened the realm of learning and reading
to the local populations as schools were built and books about education were written
and print published. The printing press had dramatic effects on European civilization and
its more immediate effect was to spread information quickly and accurately and this
gradually helped to create a much wider literate reading public.
The arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass
communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively
unrestricted circulation of information and revolutionary ideas transcended borders,
90
captured the masses in the Reformation, and threatened the power of political and
religious authorities;; the sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite
on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the
increasing cultural self-awareness of its people led to the rise of proto-nationalism,
accelerated by the flowering of the European vernacular languages to the detriment of
Latin’s status as lingua franca.
The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of
scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through widely disseminated
scholarly journals, helping to bring on the scientific revolution. Because of the printing
press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who
had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of information. Before,
the author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly
identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of
the author has been entirely lost.
Printed Materials as Agents of Change
Gutenberg’s movable type printing press was a disruptive innovation in more ways than
one. In addition to making printed materials more accessible, it allowed for the spread of
knowledge both within elite communities, like the Catholic Church and the scientific
community, and also to the rest of the general population. It brought about new
innovations and ideas that lead to changes in power and standards in both religious and
scientific areas of European culture. These included a shift in religious power from the
church authority to the general population, standardization of scientific reporting, and an
influx of new scientific discoveries. Although it may seem like the printing press affected
the European science and religious community differently, the changes between the two
are actually intricately intertwined. Both scientific and religious works were subject to a
language change from Latin to vernacular languages. All of these changes were possible
because of the printing press. Even more, it allowed for greater accessibility and spread
of all kinds of knowledge throughout a wider population never before seen, bringing about
several new social dynamics that will lead to several social revolutions.
Post-Gutenberg Period
The impact of the Gutenberg printing press was immeasurable. It caused nothing
less than a dramatic social and cultural revolution. The sudden widespread dissemination
of printed works – books, tracts, posters and papers – gave direct rise to the European
Renaissance.
While Gutenberg’s famous Bible was printed in Latin, his invention of the movable
type press meant that Protestant tracts and the arguments between Martin Luther and
the Catholic Church which led to the Reformation could be widely disseminated.
91
The Reformation that began in Germany in the early 16th century, led to the Bible
being printed in the languages common to people. Gutenberg’s invention led inevitably to
the Protestant revolution, the Age of Enlightenment, the development of Modern Science
and Universal Education. In other words, everything that has led to human progress and
the advancement of the modern world.
At present, people are beginning to look for secure and accurate and believable
news portals but, the traditional trusted publishing outlets have less public beliefs as many
people believe governments are manipulating them. The local press are in sharp
circulation decline, and the online advertising businesses have moved to Google and
Facebook and others. The result has caused newspaper closures and large-scale
downsizings and redundancies. Many people now prefer to believe people from their
social environment, instead of turning to “the media”. The collateral damage caused by
the digitization is increasing amounts of information and currently this is not going to stop.
The emergence of the internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s was initially
hailed by many as ushering in new democratic age, driven by much greater access to
information. In reality, while the internet had a dramatic impact, the revolutionary shifts
predicted did not occur. This is because, in its earliest days, the World Wide Web still
conformed to the Gutenberg principle. Building a website, accessing server space and
publishing information required both money and technical expertise and was therefore
still the preserve of institutions rather than individuals. The reality of much greater access
to information was not matched by a greater ability to publish it.
92
Paradoxes of Technology
New technologies allow us to be connected to and reachable by
everyone. However, as a result, our privacy is threatened and
Empowerment vs Enslavement technology starts controlling us. Whether we want or not, we feel
socially obliged to take phone calls, answer emails, and send
responses to messages on Facebook.
New gadgets such as cell phones allow us to do many things on our
own. However, this situation creates dependency, as we can’t go even
Independent vs Dependence
one day without our phones and we feel helpless when the Internet is
down.
Technology resolves some problems but also introduces new ones,
Fulfills needs vs Creates needs e.g. we need devices with longer battery life, we need antivirus
software to be safe, we need to learn new skills, etc.
We can get any information we want and reach anyone we want with
Competence vs Incompetence the help of new technologies. However, we lose our ability to
remember phone numbers and our ability to articulate thoughts.
When we are engaged in an activity that involves the use of new
technology, we need to disengage from whatever we are doing. We
Engaging vs Disengaging
directly interact with our family and loved ones less frequently because
we tend to engage more in new portable technology tools.
New technologies blur the line between what is public and what is
Public vs Private private. People may talk on the phone or message someone among a
circle of acquaintances, which may be disturbing.
We tend to think new communication technologies make our lives
better. However, the more we communicate, the more trivial our
Illusion vs Disillusion
conversations become. In other words, more communication does not
always equal better communication.
Source: Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa and Karl R. Lang as cited by Acar, 2014
Speed of access also limited the ability of the internet to be a channel for all forms
of media, restricting its use to text based and transactional forms. As a result, much of
the initial investment in the web went into servicing and creating institutional opportunities,
with e-commerce emerging as the major new web-based phenomena.
This changed with two developments. First, the spread of broadband internet
access made it possible to easily both upload and download all forms of media: video,
images and audio as well as just text and transactions. Second, tools emerged which
made it simple for people to publish or spread information. Blogging was the first example,
followed by social networking and distribution and sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr.
93
There has been a third trend which is gathering significance, based around
attaching relevance and content to all of the otherwise random pieces of information now
being published. This concerns practices such as tagging, rating and commenting, as well
as services such as social bookmarking and news-sharing sites which allow individuals
to store and share information. This trend is responsible for creating forms of collective
intelligence and what has been called ‘crowd wisdom’ and is probably the most important
area to watch going forwards because of its ability to allow individuals to create the trust
and connections necessary to transact and communicate amongst themselves without
any institutionalized intervention.
Activity I. Activity Report: A day without Technology
1. Identify and interview 3 persons with the following description.
a. an elderly who is not using cellphone and other gadgets
b. a teenager who is into different social media platforms
c. a professional who is busy with his/her career
2. Prepare guide questions and ask them how they live a day
a. with/without technology.
b. when there is no internet connection.
c. when there is power interruption.
3. Synthesize their responses and make your own reflection. Prepare a written
report.
Activity II. Fake Spotted!
Read news articles and reports from the internet. Identify specific issue that
surfaced on different social media platforms which later found out as fake news. Discuss
with the class the importance of verifying reliable and accurate information.
Discussion Guide
1. How does “fake news” come to exist and spread so rapidly? Why do you think this
happens?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
94
2. How is “fake news” harmful?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
3. What are the long and short term effects and consequences of being a consumer of
“fake news”?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
4. How social media affect your personal life?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
5. How social media affect the society as a whole?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
95
Chapter 8
Biodiversity and Healthy Society
What is Biodiversity?
Biological diversity or biodiversity is the variety of life, and refers collectively to
variation at all levels of biological organization. The term biodiversity refers to the full
abundance or variety of life – plant, animal and microbial. This variety of life occurs at all
levels of ecological organization, but biodiversity generally refers to genetic, species and
ecosystem diversity. This is the diversity of life upon which the health of the environment
depends. Genetic, species and ecosystem diversity are convenient terms but because
the universe is a continuum, some practical difficulties exist in precisely defining each of
them.
Biodiversity and Healthy Society
Biodiversity is the foundation of human health. By securing the life-sustaining
goods and services which biodiversity provides to us, the conservation and sustainable
use of biodiversity can provide significant benefits for human health. In contrast, the
continuing loss of biodiversity on a global scale represents a direct threat to our health
and well-being. Without a global environment that is healthy and capable of supporting a
diversity of life, no human population can exist.
96
• Biodiversity provides important resources for traditional and modern medicine
• Biodiversity plays a role in the regulation and control of infectious diseases
Biodiversity loss and ecosystem change can increase the risk of emergence
or spread of infectious diseases in animals, plants and humans, including
economically important livestock diseases, zoonotic outbreaks and global
pandemics. In recent years outbreaks of SARS, Ebola, Marburg, Hantavirus
pulmonary syndrome, avian influenza and malaria have been attributed to human
impacts on biodiversity, the wildlife trade or unsustainable land use change.
Without a greater understanding of disease ecology, there is also a risk that
programmes to tackle infectious diseases may impact negatively on biodiversity,
through use of biocides and other chemicals and wildlife culls.
• Biodiversity has social, cultural and spiritual importance within communities
Ecosystem change can result in disconnection of populations from open
spaces or the wider countryside, with negative implications for physical and mental
well-being and loss of “sense of place”. This has been linked to an increased
prevalence of ‘disease of affluence’ (diabetes, obesity, cardio-pulmonary illness)
and psychological disorders in many communities. Conversely, access to
‘greenspace’ (natural and artificial) are associated with better health outcomes,
shorter hospital visits and reduced convalescence time for patients than purely
urban environments. An awareness of environmental values and respect for other
species has been associated with reduced propensity towards anti-social behavior
in children and young adults.
• Habitat loss
Humans rely on technology to modify their environment and make it habitable.
Other species cannot do this. Elimination of their habitat—whether it is a forest,
coral reef, grassland, or flowing river—will kill the individuals in the species.
Remove the entire habitat and the species will become extinct, unless they are
among the few species that do well in human-built environments.
97
• Overharvesting
Overhunting, overfishing and over-harvesting contribute greatly to the loss of
biodiversity, killing off numerous species over the past several hundred years.
Poaching and other forms of hunting for profit increase the risk of extinction;; the
extinction of an apex predator — or, a predator at the top of a food chain — can
result in catastrophic consequences for ecosystems.
• Invasive species
• Climate change
98
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
Biotechnology is a set of techniques that involves the use of biological processes
and living organisms for industry, agricultural or other activities. Its purpose is to modify
the natural and biological processes of living organisms without necessarily altering the
genes or genetic construct of the living organisms. It has four major industrial processes
based on biological systems, namely cell and tissue culture, fermentation, enzyme
technology, and genetic engineering – also referred to as modern technology.
Genetic engineering or recombinant DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) technology
differs from other forms of biotechnology as it allows the isolation and transfer of genes
coding specific characteristics between living organisms to produce a new living organism
that expresses the desired characteristics of both organisms. Genetically modified
organisms or GMOs is the common term used for genetically engineered organisms.
For thousands of years, humans have been using traditional modification methods
like selective breeding and cross-breeding to breed plants and animals with more
desirable traits. Most of the foods today were created through traditional breeding
methods. But changing plants and animals through traditional breeding can take a long
time, and it is difficult to make very specific changes. After scientists developed genetic
engineering, they were able to make similar changes in a more specific way and in a
shorter amount of time. (https://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/science-
and-history-gmos-and-other-food-modification-processes)
Intended Uses of GMOs
Used as specific models for many different human diseases, including multiple
Biomedical infectious diseases, such as HIV, immune system defects, blood and metabolic
disorders, muscular dystrophy, cancer immunotherapies among others.
Engineering of animals used for food. Examples include, chickens producing
only female offspring for egg laying, cows producing only male offspring for
better meat yield, pigs who can be fattened with less food, cashmere goats for
Farm/Food Animals
producing more meat from greater muscle mass and longer hair for wool yield;;
and efforts to facilitate greater stocking density, such as cattle without horns
and animals with greater resistance to disease.
Genetic engineering provides a quicker and more precise way to achieve the
same goal in one generation. Genetically modified crops offer improved
Agriculture
yields, enhanced nutritional value, longer shelf life, and resistance to drought,
frost, or insect pests. Examples of GM crops include corn varieties containing
a gene for a bacterial pesticide that kills larval pests, and soybeans with an
inserted gene that renders them resistant to weed-killers.
99
Source: Bailey, 2019
“GMO” (genetically modified organism) has become the common term consumers and
popular media use to describe foods that have been created through genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering is a process that involves:
Some Genetically Modified Organisms developed in the Philippines
o Longer-lasting papayas
o Protein enriched copra meal (PECM) as feed protein for tilapia, milkfish and
shrimp aquaculture
Primarily used as animal feed, copra meal is an important feed resource in the
Philippines. In 2014, the Philippines produced about 750,000 metric tons of copra meal
as coconut by-product. About 60% of this was locally utilized mainly as animal feed. There
are, however, several concerns on the use of soybean meals as feeding ingredient. This
100
includes its fluctuating market price, its being expensive import commodity, its erratic
supply, and the fact that it even competes for human food.
To address the issue on high cost of soybean importation and to ensure the quality
of animal feeds, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources
Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-
PCARRD) supported research and development (R&D) programs on feed resources
under its Industry Strategic Science and Technology (S&T) Program (ISP).
One of the program’s accomplishments is the use of formulated feeds for swine,
poultry and aquatic animals with Protein Enriched Copra Meal (PECM) that was
developed by the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the
University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB-BIOTECH). Through solid-state
fermentation technology, the PECM is enriched with microorganisms that increase the
protein content of copra meal to about 36 to 44% crude protein content, comparable to
the 46% of soybean meal. A group of researchers from the Institute of Aquaculture,
College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences of the University of the Philippines Visayas
studied the possibility of substituting 50% soybean meal, as a major feed protein source,
with PECM.
Protein enriched copra meal (PECM) used for tilapia, Milkfish and tilapia when fed with commercial feed and
milkfish, and shrimp aquaculture (photo courtesy of UP PECM (photo courtesy of UP Visayas, Miagao, Iloilo)
Visayas, Miagao, Iloilo)
The Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB) of the University of the Philippines Los Banos
(UPLB) has developed tomato breeding line resistant to tomato leaf curl virus (ToLCV) in
the hope of reviving tomato’s robust production in the country.
101
https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph
The two-year project was completed by a team composed mainly of local scientist
at the IPB-UPLB with financial support from the Department of Agriculture Biotech
Program. The research team developed the candidate ToLCV-resistant lines from the
local tomato varieties by interbreeding local varieties with ToLCV-resistant tomato lines
acquired from the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) – The
World Vegetable Center.
ToLCV-resistance in the donor parental lines, hybrids and the derived lines from
the initial hybrids was verified by exposing the plants to the ToLCV-Laguna isolate and
by marker-assisted selection (MAS). MAS can predict even at early seedling stage
whether a plant will grow to express a trait of interest based on the mere presence or
absence of gene markers. Gene markers are short unique DNA sequences located near
the DNA sequence of the gene responsible for a desired physical characteristic/trait in
each generation of plants produced. In this case, markers for genes responsible for the
resistance to ToLCV confirmed successful transfer of the resistance gene in the genetic
make-up of the developed tomato lines. Lines rated as highly resistant due to absence or
very minimal observed symptoms of infection and detected for presence of ToLCV
resistance genes through gene markers were considered candidate ToLCV resistant
breeding materials.
Tomato was the leading vegetable crop in the country in terms of area planted until
1990. The peak of decline in the area of production in 1997 was primarily due to pests
and diseases as well as unfavorable climatic conditions especially during off-season
months. Virus diseases, including ToLCV, are considered the most damaging to tomato
production worldwide causing 50-100% yield loss. Use of chemicals to stop the vector
insect proved to be costly and does not warrant sustainable protection. Moreover, the
strategy can be hazardous both to human health and environment. The use of resistant
varieties offers the most effective and practical strategy to overcome the disease. While
breeding initiatives to virus resistant varieties have been going on, the lack of varieties
with durable resistance against multiple virus diseases remains a concern to farmers. At
present, there are no commercial varieties grown in the Philippines with durable
resistance to major virus diseases such as ToLCV. Use of the promising resistant
breeding materials may improve production yield and income of more than 18,000 tomato
growers.
102
Bt corn
Bt corn in the Philippines was engineered to be specifically resistant to the Asian
corn borer (ACB), Ostrinia furnacalis (Guenee), the most devastating corn pests in the
industry. It was introduced as a “practical and ecologically sustainable solution” for poor
corn farmers, a major bullet to combat poverty and improve livelihood.
https://www.sunstar.com
Adoption rate of biotech maize in 2015 is at 63 percent. In the period 2003 to 2015, there
were 13 years of consecutive growth in hectarage of Bt corn, except for 2015 due to
drought.
Potential benefits of GM crops
1. Better nutritional qualities---rice with provitamin A and iron;; corn with high lysine and
tryptophan;; vegetables with higher ~-carotene and lycopene;; legumes with higher
sulfur containing amino acids: sweet potato with higher protein content.
2. Engineering pest or disease resistance in important crops such as rice and corn,
various vegetables. sweet potato and others especially those important for
developing countries.
3. Edible vaccines ---aimed at providing low cost immunization strategy for developing
countries;; banana with antigen of causal organism of diarrhea is now at clinical trial
stage. Vaccine corn for gastroenteritis in hogs, hepatitis B in humans, etc.
4. Antibodies engineered and produced in plants---expressed antibodies in potato,
tobacco and rapeseed were stable and active;; need to increase expression level.
5. Crops which can extract and detoxify pollutants from the environment such as heavy
metals---this research is hampered by the lack of basic knowledge on the molecular
mechanism involved in the uptake and storage of inorganics in plants.
6. Crops which produce less toxic residues such as corn with low phytate, 15 Phytate
103
complexes phosphorus and thus the latter becomes unavailable and cannot released
by nonruminants. A large amount of phosphate is excreted and contributes to water
pollution.
7. Production of alternative polymers which can replace o substitute plastics and other
petrochemical products in plants and thus are renewable and biodegradable.
Risk Related to the Use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
Genetic Contamination/Interbreeding. Introduced GMOs may interbreed with the wild-
type or sexually compatible relatives. The novel trait may disappear in wild types unless
it confers a selective advantage to the recipient. However, tolerance abilities of wild types
may also develop, thus altering the native species’ ecological relationship and behavior.
Competition with Natural Species. Faster growth of GMOs can enable them to have a
competitive advantage over the native organisms. This may allow them become invasive,
to spread into new habitats, and cause ecological and economic damage.
Increased Selection Pressure on Target and Non-target Organisms. Pressure may
increase on target and non-target species to adapt to the introduced changes as if to a
geological change or a natural selection pressure causing them to evolve distinct resistant
populations.
Ecosystem Impacts. The effects of changes in a single species may extend well beyond
to the ecosystem. Single impacts are always joined by the risk of ecosystem damage and
destruction.
Impossibility of Follow-up. Once the GMOs have been introduced into the environment
and some problems arise, it is impossible to eliminate them. Many of these risks are
identical to those incurred with regards to the introduction of naturally or conventionally
bred species. But still this does not suggest that GMOs are safe or beneficial, nor that
they should be less scrutinized.
Horizontal Transfer of Recombinant Genes to other Microorganisms. One risk of
particular concern relating to GMOs is the risk of horizontal gene transfer (HGT). HGT is
the acquisition of foreign genes (via transformation, transduction, and conjugation) by
organisms in a variety of environmental situations. It occurs especially in response to
changing environments and provides organisms, especially prokaryotes, with access to
genes other than those that can be inherited. HGT of an introduced gene from a GMO
may confer a novel trait in another organism, which could be a source of potential harm
to the health of people or the environment.
Loss of Management Control Measures. Regulatory approvals for field trials of GMOs
often require measures to limit and control the release in space and time. With the spread
of the introduced gene(s) to another species by HGT, a new GMO is created. This new
GMO may give rise to adverse effects which are not controlled by management measures
imposed by the original license or permit.
104
Long-term Effects. Sometimes the impact of HGT may be more severe in the long term.
Even under relatively strong selection pressure, it may take thousands of generations for
a recipient organism to become the dominant form in the population. In addition, other
factors such as timing of appropriate biotic or abiotic environmental conditions and
additional changes in the recipient organism could delay adverse effects.
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2011/369573/
Antibiotic Resistance and Horizontal Gene Transfer. Most of the first generation of
GM crops have antibiotic resistance gene as selectable marker. It has been hypothesized
that such antibiotic resistance genes could lead to the innovation of oral doses of the
antibiotic, or that these genes could be transferred to pathogenic microorganism in the
gut or the soil which will render them resistant to such antibiotics.
GMOs and Biodiversity
The impact of GMOs on biodiversity is widely debated. Pro-GMO researchers
maintain that if crops are genetically modified for pest resistance, farmers can reduce
their reliance on insecticides, so that local fauna, such as birds, rodents, and insects, can
flourish in the area. Secondary pests that would have been eliminated through
widespread insecticide application are not suppressed by the scaled-back insecticide use
permitted GMOs. Because these secondary pests remain, other small predator – the birds
and rodents that feed on the secondary pests-remain viable. In addition, the development
of drought-resistant or flood-resistant crops allows arid or flood-prone land to be used for
growing crops. This means that less high-biodiversity terrain needs to be converted for
farming.
On the other side of the debate, GMO skeptics have argued that up to 75% of plant
genetic diversity has been lost since farmers switched to uniform GM crop varieties. In
this view, less popular, non-GM seed varieties are being neglected. Moreover, widely
used GM crop varieties can spread to neighboring fields and eventually mix in with non-
GM crops. A farmer who wishes to continue using a non-GM seed variety, or who desires
to maintain the organic status of his crops, must adopt potentially expensive measures to
protect his crops from contamination or cross-pollination with his neighbor’s GM crops. It
has also been argued that the over-popularity of certain GM crops may lead to greater
susceptibility to pests and disease. Pests may evolve to target the monoculture of popular
and overused crop varieties. Moreover, it has been argued that the evolution of
glyphosate-resistant weeds has required farmers to make ever greater use of glyphosate,
the toxicity of which poses dangers for human health.
It has been hypothesized that GM crops can harm insect species that are not pests.
Insects that feed on GM crops will carry GM pollen, which may prove toxic in the long
term and result in depletion or even extinction of insect populations. The genetic integrity
of any plant or insect that lives in close proximity to GM crops can be compromised
because gene transfer from one organism to another can occur, and such genes may
105
pose unanticipated risks. GM traits have been found transferred to insects, water life and
soil.
Activity 1: Article Review
1. Read the Adrian Dubock’s “The Politics of Golden Rice” available online at
http://www.goldenrice.org/PDFs/Dubock-Politics_of_GR-2014.pdf.
2. Answer the following questions:
a. What is the article all about?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
b. What is Cartagena Protocol? Why it is said that the foundation of its opposition
to GMO crops was initially considered “rock”, but actually “sands”?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
c. What are the points mentioned by the author why golden rice was politicized?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
d. What are your thoughts about the article? Do you agree or disagree that
“politics” somehow impede the development of GMO-crop technology?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
e. Do you agree to its conclusion that society incurs pain, environmental damage
and deaths due to the delays in advancement in agricultural science caused
by national and international regulations?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
106
Activity 2. Reflective Essay
Look at the picture below. Make a 300-word essay about in relation to the ideas
presented to you during the discussion. Provide a title for your essay.
Environment
Health
Society
107
Chapter 9
The Nano World
What is Nanotechnology?
Nano is a prefix used in the metric scale to represent one billionth. A nanometer (nm) is
one billionth of a meter. Nano comes from the Greek word for dwarf, so in combination
with technology, it becomes dwarf technology. Technology applies science and materials
for human uses, and nanotechnology applies science and materials at the nanoscale.
People refer to nanotechnology as “tiny tech” or “nanotech”. It represents the scaling
down of technology to a new scale, generally agreed to be in the range of 1 to 100 nm.
One of the main reasons for the explosion of interest in nanotechnology is the unique
properties and behavior of matter at the nanoscale. When particles are synthesized at the
nanoscale, their properties change. For one thing, nanoparticles have much more surface
area compared to their weight than larger particles. This single property means that much
less material can be used for application, allowing us to save natural resources, energy
and money, provided that it does not cost more to produce. Using less material in products
can offer both economic and environmental benefits.
Working with matter on such a small scale represents a revolution in technology because,
at this scale, materials reveal uniquely novel physical, chemical, and biological (including
toxicological) properties when compared to their bulk counterpart. It is akin to discovering
a world of new materials emerging out of existing materials.
Applications of Nanotechnology in All Fields of Science
The early 2000’s saw the beginning of commercial applications of nanotechnology,
although these were limited to bulk applications of nanomaterial rather than the
transformative applications envisioned by the field. With thousands of researchers across
the globe focusing on the applications of nanomaterials and the mushrooming of many
industries, it is now difficult to say who did what first. The realization by scientists and
industrialists of the ability of the materials to dramatically change their properties as
nanoscale has opened up the possibility of making new devices, instruments and
consumer goods, etc, to function in a much better way than was possible earlier. Rapid
progress in the synthesis and understanding of nanomaterials in just a few years has led
to their entry into the world in a big way. Various fields in which nanomaterials have
already entered or about to enter can be overviewed.
108
Application of Nanotechnology in all fields of Science
Single electron transistor (SET), spin valves and magnetic tunnel junctions (MT)s are
based on nanotechnology. Spin valve-type devices are already being used in personal
computers to “read discs,” which has enabled the increase of data storage capacity of
hard discs.
Electronics
Flat-panel television or computer monitors are products of nanotechnology. Even the
coatings used on screens of TVs or monitors can be made of nanoparticles, which have
better properties in terms of color quality and resolution than microparticle coatings.
Some metal hydride nanoparticles like nickel hydrides or high surface area, ultra-
lightweight materials like aerogels are found to be better options than the conventional
materials in improved batteries. Carbon nanomaterial (CNM) has been used in
Energy
improving the efficacy of lithium secondary batteries, supercapacitors and in hydrogen
storage.
Efficient production of nanomaterials following the low temperature synthesis route
would help to reduce industrial pollution. Use of nanomaterials as hydrogen storage or
efficient oil filters may reduce pollution from vehicles. Efficient nanomaterials are
lightweight and needed only in small quantities. This may help reduce the price of many
products, making them commonly affordable.
Environment
Some of the nanoparticle-based sensors are much more novel and sensitive
compounds to those being used. Nanomaterials-based sensors would be smart
sensors, i.e., they will be able to detect and rectify problems. Such sensors are being
developed for water purification systems, detection of toxic ions, metal ions, pesticides,
etc., and their remediation on a larger scale.
Nanosensors will help in assessing emissions from the vehicle and help in controlling
pollutants.
Car paints/coatings using nanoparticle are being used to provide smooth, thin attractive
coatings that are scratch resistant, can repel dirt and are anti-reflective. Biocide paints
and anti-fogging coatings are even being developed.
“Self-cleaning” glass for windows is being fabricated by dissolving a small amount of
titania (TiO2) nanoparticles while manufacturing it and melting it together with other
ingredients like silica (SiO2), CaO, Ba2O3, etc. Titania is able to dissociate organic dust
Automobiles in the presence of UV light available in sunlight. Once dissociated, it may fall down or
simply evaporate.
To combat population caused by vehicles, use of efficient nanomaterial catalysts is one
solution that can convert harmful emissions into less harmful gases.
To overcome the pollution problem, cars using hydrogen as fuel are being marketed.
Hydrogen gas is normally stored in a metal cylinder under high pressure not only can
add weight to the vehicle but is also dangerous. To overcome this problem, storing
hydrogen in “nanocylinders” of carbon nanotubes is being tried.
Application in combating plant diseases:
Agriculture and Food
• Controlled delivery of functional molecules
Nanoparticles used as Trojan horse for delivery of active ingredients.
109
• As a diagnostic tool for disease detection
For detection purpose, both nanoparticles and quantum dots (QDs) have
emerged as pivotal tools for detection of biological markers. Nanotechnology
can play important role in treatment by diagnosing a disease at its very early
stage.
Application of Nanotechnology in all fields of Science
Semiconductors and magnetic nanostructures have found maximum use in industries
pertaining to semiconductor fabrication, electronics and nanostructure-based electro-
optical devices. Based on the nanomagnetic properties of nanostructure, photoinduced
magnetism, spintronics, nanomagnetic probes, electronic magneto-transport and
micromagnetic modeling are being developed by various industries. Nanosensors and
actuators for various applications are one of the major activities of nano-based
industries. Another area being concentrated on by industries is molecular electronics,
Industries
such as for liquid crystal displays.
Industries are involved in developing and producing nanomaterials to obtain nano-
bioproducts for bone substitutes and dentistry;; antimicrobial applications in various
products;; food and cosmetic applications;; applications in textiles, paints, catalysis,
lubricants, fuel cells and batteries;; all of which are part of major industrial production.
Special threads and dyes used in the textile industry are products of nanotechnology.
These clothes do not require ironing or frequent cleaning. Use of silver (Ag)
nanoparticles in washing machines remove the germs from clothes while washing.
Masks made of fabrics coated with nanoparticles for protection against microbes are
Textiles already on the market. There are piezoelectric fibers that could allow clothing to
generate electricity through normal conditions. Fabrics composed of proteins are
capable of stretching as much as 1500 percent from their original size and can be used
form-fitting clothing.
Nanoliposomes are used as vesicular delivery systems. Liposomes are concentric
bilayer vesicles. The first liposomal cosmetic was the anti-aging cream “Capture”
manufactured by Dior.
Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) are nm-sized particles with a solid lipid matrix. SLNs are
Cosmetics
tested in perfume formulations. Chanel’s Allure perfume was incorporated into SLNs
and nanoemulsions.
Dendrimers were used in a formula patented by L’Oreal that forms a thin film when
deposited on a substrate. They are used in mascara and nail polish.
Nanoporous aerogel insulator is excellent for insulating walls.
Flame-retardant furniture coatings are on the market which are synthesized carbon
nanofibers.
Domestic Appliances Fishing rods are made stronger and lighter using silica nanoparticles to fill spaces
between carbon fibers.
Antimicrobial titanium oxide nanoparticles are used in various applications as part of a
film that uses energy in light to kill bacteria on surfaces by photocatalytic activity.
Nanomedicine researchers are looking at ways that nanotechnology can improve
vaccines, including vaccine delivery without the use of needles. Researchers also are
Diagnostics and working to create a universal vaccine scaffold for the annual flu vaccine that would cover
Therapeutics more strains and require fewer resources to develop each year.
110
Commercial applications have adapted gold nanoparticles as probes for the detection
of targeted sequences of nucleic acids, and gold nanoparticles are being clinically
investigated as potential treatments for cancer and other diseases.
Nanotechnology is being studied for both the diagnosis and treatment of
atherosclerosis. In one technique, researchers created a nanoparticle that mimics the
body’s “good” cholesterol, known as HDL (high-density lipoprotein), which helps to
shrink plaque.
Source: Sharon, 2019
Environmental Aspects of Nanotechnology
Many applications of nanotechnology benefits the environment, for example,
treating drinking water, eliminating toxic chemicals, increasing water and energy
efficiency, and harnessing cleaner energy technologies. How can the applications of
nanoscience affect the environment? It is not clear today what the potential impacts are
from nanoscale materials in the air, water and soil. For example, it is not known to what
extent nanomaterials might enter the food supply and become part of human diet, or
whether and how they can affect forests, coral reefs, or air quality
Will there be a nano-environmental legacy? Are nanomaterials already entering
the environment in ways that will allow them to persist and enter or upset the food chain?
Will nanomaterials follow the path of other legacy pollutants, such as lead? How will this
be determined if data are not being collected? One could argue that the amounts will be
small, and in the near future, it is true that there are few applications of nanotechnology
likely to allow free nanoparticles to enter the environment in significant amounts.
However, as more and more applications adopt nanotechnology, the production, uses,
and releases of nanoparticles will dramatically increase.
By way of example, in a hospital environment, it is very important to keep surfaces
sanitary and free from contamination, and many cleaning equipment or washing floors
and surfaces to help prevent the spread of germs. Using a product containing a
nanomaterial as a disinfectant might mean it would be sprayed, wiped, poured into
buckets and on floors, and washed down drains. An obvious question arises: Where could
the nanomaterial end up? Anytime, chemicals are washed away with water or flushed
down the drain, they are released into the environment. From drain pipes, the materials
enter the groundwater and eventually can move to the nearest river and streams, of
course, these may affect drinking water sources and oceans.
Triclosan, commonly found in antimicrobial soaps and cleaning products, is among
many consumer-used chemicals found in the river and drinking water sources. Some
population of bacteria routinely exposed to substances designed to eradicate them (e.g.
pesticides and medical antibiotics) are now found in the environment and have become
resistant to antibiotics used in agriculture and to treat human diseases. Antimicrobial
resistance is a big problem because bacteria are no longer susceptible to the treatments
developed to kill them, and outbreaks can occur that cannot be managed.
111
Nanotechnology in the Philippines
In 2011, the government announced a 10-year strategic plan/road map for the
development of the R&D strategy of nanotechnology covering at least six industrial
sectors – the semiconductor, information technology, energy, agriculture, medicine, and
environmental protection. Nanotechnology has been identified as one of the priority areas
of research identified by the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council
for Advanced Science and Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCASTRD).
PCASTRD’s mandate is to develop, integrate, and coordinate national research. Flagship
projects include chemical sensors and biosensors based on nanostructured solar energy
devices. PCASTRD also provides funds for scholarships and research fellowships.
PCASTRD has also proposed to include nanotechnology as part of all science and
engineering degrees.
In the area of agriculture, funded nano projects include rapid and early pest and
pathogen detection;; precision agriculture – monitoring of agricultural growth parameters;;
and post-harvest quality monitoring, nano-sized feedstock, nano-sized
fertilizers/nutrients, and pesticides. Research into nanocomposite films and membranes
aims to extend the shelf-life of fresh and processed produce, aid the clarification of juices,
and improve whey protein production. Projects concerning nanotechnology for water
purification and environmental remediation are also being funded. Seedgrowth, a plant
supplement consisting of nano-sized fruit extracts and microorganisms, was developed
in the Philippines and apparently reduces the need for chemical fertilizers and increases
crop yield. Scientists from DOST have also developed a low-cost water purification
system in the form of a ceramic filter coated with silver nanoparticles. There appears to
be no nano specific regulation in the Philippines.
Risks
Historical evidence supported by scientific findings show that all new technologies
come with risks to human health and the environment, and nanotechnology is no
exception. The increasing number of engineered nanomaterials and nanoproducts gives
rise to increasing breadth and extent of the potential risks posed to human health and the
environment. For example, engineered nanomaterials are of similar size range as
exhaustion particles from engines combustion, and certain carbon nanotubes are in many
ways similar to asbestos fibers, substances that are known to cause adverse effects to
human health, namely, cancer and asbestosis.
Genetics/Medicine/Healthcare
Artifacts based on nanotechnology incorporate genetic material or have genetic
modification or repair as an objective.
If the artifact incorporates some kind of computing and sensing element, say for
the controlled delivery of a drug, additional risks arise for the patient if these
elements should malfunction.
112
Invasion of privacy and of the human body through the planting and implanting of
computing-cum-communication devices without the knowledge of those affected
has been done.
The security and safety of a person is a problematic issue, since it will be difficult
initially to detect the presence of nanosize artifacts that are capable of breaching
security and harming the individual. In warfare, controlled distribution of biological
and nerve agents may become feasible.
Materials/Composites
The general problem with composite materials is that they are more difficult to
recycle and consume more energy during recycling than pure materials.
Wide-scale introduction of composite materials can increase environmental
problems.
In the manufacturing area, many processes will need to be redesigned to
embody new principles, particularly relating to containment of active or waste
products.
Nanotechnology and Education
Education and training in nanotechnology require special laboratory facilities that
can be quite expensive. The cost of creating and maintaining nanotechnology facilities is
a major challenge for educational institutions. But by using innovative approaches such
as inter-university collaboration, academia-industry partnerships, and Web-based remote
access to nanofabrication facilities, educational institutions can overcome innovative
nanotechnology researches.
To address these demands of the global marketplace, a skilled workforce is
required that can move from industry to industry without retraining. The new workforce
will consist of researchers, technicians, and educators. To develop this workforce, new
interdisciplinary educational programs need to be developed and revised.
Economic and political implications of potential technology
These issues include the economic value of a new materials and new industries
created through nanotechnology, as well as economic dislocations caused by shifts in
investment and the decline of industries and companies tied to displaced technologies.
Other implications might include increased lifespans made possible through nano-based
medicines or diagnostic techniques, leading to greater numbers of active senior citizens
seeking employment and active participation in the political process.
Nanotechnology and Employment
113
The question of impacts on employment has not yet entered into the research
agenda on the social implications of nanotechnology. Even though there are currently
relatively few products, industries, and workers involved in nanotechnology compared to
other industries, it appears clear that this technology is high tech and highly sophisticated,
which deepens the trend to reducing workforces and automating the processes of
production and services – a trend which began with the microelectric revolution and
resulted in a dramatic reduction of employment in many sectors of the economy.
Nanotechnology products that are already on the market allow us to identify three
common characteristics: the products have multiple functions that previously required
more than one product (multifunctional), the products remain useful longer, and the
products use fewer raw materials. Some products combine two or three of these
characteristics. Taken together, this means that manufacturing these products will lead
to decreased demand for workers. In addition, these innovations reduce the demand for
traditional products that compete them.
Social, Ethical, Legal and Cultural Implications
The list of social, ethical, legal and cultural implications includes such issues as
privacy, avoiding a ‘nano-divide’, unintended consequences, university/industry
relationships and potential conflicts of interest, research ethics, and so on. It is widely
acknowledged that, precisely because the applications of nanotechnology are not yet
clear, neither are the ethical issues clear. And yet, many argue, the nano community must
begin to address these issues now, before they overwhelm nanotechnology and derail
potential benefits.
114
Activity 1. Answer the following questions.
1. Compare the benefits and disadvantages of nanotechnology.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. Do research on different nanotechnology products. Identify 5 examples and choose
one that surprised and fascinated you the most.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
3. State in your own words why nanotechnology research and development of
application are important.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
4. Using the internet or other sources, research alternative definitions of nanotechnology
and environment. How could these differences in definitions change the conversation or
perception about the interaction of nanotechnology and the environment?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
5. What can be done to reduce uncertainty in developing new nanotechnology product?
What are some of the ethical implications that should be considered?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
115
Activity 2. Mind Map
Summarize your learnings of new ideas about nanotechnology and information presented
in this topic by completing the following flowchart.
116
Chapter 10. Gene Therapy
The genes in the body’s cells play an important role in your health – indeed, a
defective gene or genes can make someone sick. Recognizing this, scientists have been
working for decades on ways to modify genes or replace faulty genes with healthy one to
treat, cure or prevent a disease or medical condition.
Cells are the basic building blocks of all living things. The human body is composed
of trillions of them. Within our cells there are thousands of genes that provide the
information for the production of specific proteins and enzymes that make muscles,
bones, and blood, which in turn support most of our body’s functions, such as digestion,
making energy and growing.
Sometimes the whole or part of a gene is defective or missing from birth, or a gene
can change or mutate during adult life. Any of these variations can disrupt how proteins
are made, which can contribute to health problems or diseases.
In gene therapy, scientist can do one of several things depending on the problem
that is present. They can replace a gene that causes a medical problem with one that
doesn’t, add genes to help the body to fight or treat disease, or turn off genes that are
causing problems. In order to insert new genes directly into cells, scientists use a vehicle
called a “vector” which is genetically engineered to deliver the gene. Viruses, for example,
have a natural ability to deliver genetic material into cells, and therefore, can be used as
vectors. Before a virus can be used to carry therapeutic genes into human cells, however,
is modified to remove its ability to cause an infectious disease. Gene therapy can be used
to modify cells inside or outside the body. When it’s done inside the body, a doctor will
inject the vector carrying the gene directly into the part of the body that has defective
cells.
In gene therapy that is used to modify cells outside the body, blood, bone marrow,
or another tissue can be taken from the patient, and specific types of cells can be
separated out in the lab. The vector containing the desired gene is introduced into these
cells. The cells are left to multiply in the laboratory and then injected back into the patient
where they continue to multiply and eventually produce the desired effect.
Approaches to Gene Therapy
1. Gene Modification
Researchers have used the following methods to modify defective genes:
117
• Modifier gene therapy: Restoring natural function to a defective gene through
selective reverse mutation.
• Adjustment of the expression of a specific gene.
118
destructive embryonic research because it violates respect for the value of the embryo as
the very beginnings of a possible human life? This, at bottom, is the ethical problem
generated by destructive embryo research.
Activity. Video Presentation
A. Transplant Cells not Organs
1. Watch TED Talk featuring Susan Lim entitled “Transplant Cells not Organs”. It is
available online at https://www.ted.com.
2. Answer the following questions:
a. What is the main topic of the Dr. Lim’s speech?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
b. What do you think prompted scientists like Susan Lim to inject changes that
lead to development of medical practice?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
c. In your opinion, how far should science go to save lives?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
B. The Next Species of Human
1. Watch TED Talk featuring Juan Enriquez entitled “The Next Species of Human”. It is
available online at https://www.ted.com.
2. Answer the following questions:
a. What are the three trends that have taken place for the last 25 years?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
119
b. Identify three instances mentioned by Enriquez in his speech related to
evolution.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
c. Do you believe that we will evolve into Homo evolutis?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
d. What ideas did u get from the speech? Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
120
Chapter 11
Climate Change, Energy Crisis and Environmental Awareness
What is climate change and what are the causes?
Climate change is a broad range of global phenomena created predominantly by
burning fossil fuels, which add heat-trapping gases to Earth’s atmosphere. These
phenomena include the increased temperature trends described by global warming, but
also encompass changes such as sea level rise;; ice mass loss;; shifts in flower/plant
blooming;; and extreme weather events.
Causes
On Earth, human activities are changing the natural greenhouse. Over the last
century the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of
atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). This happens because the coal or oil burning process
combines carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO2. To a lesser extent, the clearing of
land for agriculture, industry, and other human activities has increased concentrations of
greenhouse gases.
o Greenhouse gas emissions
Evidence that CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming is very robust.
Scientists have known since the early 1800s that greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere trap heat. Global CO2 emissions from human activity have increased
by over 400% since 1960. As a result, the concentration of CO2 in the air has
reached more than 400 parts per million by volume (ppm), compared to about 280
ppm in 1750 (around the start of the Industrial Revolution).
o Earth’s natural climate cycle
Over the last 800,000 years, there have been natural cycles in the Earth’s climate,
between ice ages and warmer interglacial periods. After the last ice age 20,000
years ago, average global temperature rose by about 3°C to 8°C, over a period of
about 10, 000 years.
o Solar influences
The sun is the primary source of Earth’s heat, so relatively small changes in solar
output can affect our climate. Satellite observations since the late 1970s have
shown a slight decrease in the sun’s total energy output. However, instead of
cooling, the Earth has warmed over this period.
Also, warming from the sun would heat all of the atmosphere, including the lowest
few kilometers (the troposphere) and the layer above (the stratosphere).
Observations show that the stratosphere is in fact cooling while the troposphere
warms. This is consistent with greenhouse gas heating and not solar heating.
121
Impacts
Climate change could affect our society through impacts on a number of different
social, cultural, and natural resources. Some groups of people will likely face greater
challenges than others. Climate change my especially impact people who live in areas
that are vulnerable to coastal storms, drought, and sea level rise or people who live in
poverty, older adults, and immigrant communities. Similarly, some types of professions
and industries may face considerable challenges from climate change. Professions that
are closely linked to weather, such as outdoor tourism, commerce, and agriculture, will
likely be especially affected.
Impacts on Vulnerability and Equity
1. Geographic Location
• Population in coastal areas are more sensitive to storms, drought, air pollution and
heat waves.
• Population in mountainous areas will likely face water shortages and increased
wildfires in the future.
• Arctic residents will likely experience problems caused by thawing permafrost
3. Indigenous people
• Climate change will make it harder for tribes to access safe and nutritious food,
including traditional foods important to many tribes’ cultural practices. Many tribes
already lack access to safe drinking water and wastewater treatment in their
communities. Climate change is expected to increase health risks associated with
water quality problems like contamination and may reduce availability of water,
particularly during droughts. By affecting the environment and natural resources
of tribal communities, climate change also threatens the cultural identities of
indigenous people. As plants and animals used in traditional practices or sacred
122
ceremonies become less available, tribal culture and ways of life can be greatly
affected.
4. Urban People
• City residents and urban infrastructure have distinct sensitivities to climate change
impacts. For example, heat waves may be amplified in cities because cities absorb
more heat during the day than suburban and rural areas. Cities are more densely
populated than suburban or rural areas. As a result, increases in heat waves,
drought, or violent storms in cities would affect a larger number of people than in
suburban or rural areas. Higher temperatures and more extreme events will likely
affect the cost of energy, air and water quality, and human comfort and health in
cities. City dwellers may also be particularly susceptible to vulnerabilities in aging
infrastructure. This includes drainage and sewer systems, flood and storm
protection assets, transportation systems, and power supply during periods of
peak demand, which typically occur during summer heat waves.
In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)
was adopted as the basis for a global response to the problem. The Philippines signed
the UNFCCC on 12 June 1992 and ratified the international treaty on 2 August 1994.
Presently, the Convention enjoys near universal membership with 194 Country Parties.
Recognizing that the climate system is a shared resource which is greatly affected
by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, the UNFCC has set out an overall
123
framework for intergovernmental efforts to consider what can be done to reduce global
warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. Its ultimate
objective is to stabilize greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will
prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
Countries are actively discussing and negotiating ways to deal with the climate
change problem within the UNFCCC using two central approaches. The first task is to
address the root cause by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The
means to achieve this are very contentious, as it will require radical changes in the way
many societies are organized, especially in respect to fossil fuel use, industry operations,
land use, and development. Within the climate change arena, the reduction of
greenhouse gas is called mitigation.
The second task in responding to climate change is to manage its impacts. Future
impacts on the environment and society are now inevitable, owing to the amount of
greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere from past decades of industrial and other
human activities, and to the added amounts from continued emissions over the next few
decades until such time as mitigation policies and actions become effective. Taking steps
to cope with the changed climate conditions both in terms of reducing adverse impacts
and taking advantage of potential benefits is called adaptation.
124
Activity 1: Photo Essay
Select any photo depicting the struggles of Filipino people due to the impacts of climate change.
Write a reflective essay about it. Follow the format provided below. Provide a title for your photo
essay.
125
Activity 2. Action Plan
Prepare an action plan to address specific environmental problem in your community.
Use the format below.
Background:
(Provide here brief information regarding your community and an
existing problem which may be related to climate change).
Objectives Activities Time Frame Persons Involved Success
Indicators
Note:
1. Identify the coverage of the plan (e.g. 1, 2 or 3 years)
2. Suggested activities should consider your course/area of specialization and the degree you are
pursuing.
126
References:
Acar, Adam. “Culture and Social Media: An Elementary Textbook”. Cambridge Scholars
Publishing. 12 Back Chapman Street, New Castle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK, 2014
Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Members of the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences on the Occasion of their Plenary Session and Statement by the PAS
Extra Series 36 Vatican City, 2010 pp. 12
Albright, W. F. (2014). Ancient Middle East. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia
Britannica Inc. Date accessed: July 25, 2020. URL:
https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Middle-East
Ayala, F. (n.d.) The Darwinian Evolution. Counter Balance. URL:
https://counterbalance.org/evolution/revo-frame.html
Azoulay, David, Senjen, Rye, Foladori, Guillermo. “Social and Environmental Implications
of Nanotechnology Development in Asia-Pacific”. September 2013
Bill, Joy. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us?” https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/
January 4, 2000
Bote, Lia Angela. “Dr. Angel C. Alcala: A Pinoy Pioneer in Marine Biodiversity and Reef
Conservation”. https://www.flipscience.ph/news/features-news/features/national-
scientist-angel-alcala/ March 27, 2019.
BRIA 243b Gutenberg and the Printing Revolution in Europe, Bills of Rights in Action.
Constitutional Rights Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-
action/bria-24-3-b-gutenberg-and-the-printing-revolution-in-europe, July 22, 2020.
Carr, Nicholas. ”Is Google Making US Stupid?” Retrieved from
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Is-Google-Making-Us-Stupid-by-Nicholas-
P3CZREFYTJ August 3. 2020.
Caoili, Olivia C. (1983). A history of higher education in science and technology in the
Philippines. Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review 47 (January-December):
302-3.
Ching, Leonard. “Asia’s Rising Scientist: Scientists: Aisa Mijeno”.
https://www.asianscientist.com/asias-rising-scientists-aisa-mijeno May 6, 2015.
127
Cohabinitative Co-operation of Health and Biodiversity. Retrieved from
https://www.cbd.int/doc/health/cohab-policy-brief1-en.pdf. Japan, 2010.
Copernican Revolution. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Copernican-Revolution
Cybersecurity Intelligence. Social Media is the New Gutenberg.
https://www.cybersecurityintelligence.com/blog/social-media-is-the-new-gutenberg-
4280.html.
DOST: Advancing science, technology agenda best option for PHL growth. 27 February
2018 URL: http://www.region2.dost.gov.ph/index.php/292-dost-advancing-science-
technology-agenda-best-option-for-phl-growth
Emeagwali, G. T. (n.d.). History of Science in Non-Western Tradition: Africa. History of
Science Society. Retrieved July 25, 2020, from
https://hssonline.org/resources/teaching/teaching_nonwestern/teaching_nonwestern_afr
ica/
Francisco, Mikael Anelo. “5Phenomenal Facts about Dr. Fe del Mundo”
https://www.flipscience.ph/technology/5-phenomenal-facts-about-dr-fe-del-
mundo/November 27, 2018
From Gutenberg to the Internet. Retrieved from
https://clic.cengage.com/uploads/257973c20cbe13051c53b02b93fa0ed7_1_7060.pdf,
July 23, 2020.
Gaston, K.J. and Spicer, J.I. (2004) Biodiversity: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell,
Hoboken.
Giges, Nancy. “Johannes Gutenberg.”. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Retrieved at https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/johannes-gutenberg. July
26, 2020
Gripaldo, R. M.. (2007). The Concept of the Public Good: A View from a Filipino
Philosopher. Φιλοσοφια: International Journal of Philosophy, 36(2). Retrieved from
http://ejournals.ph/form/cite.php?id=4340
Hassan, Ahmad Y (1996). "Factors Behind the Decline of Islamic Science After the
Sixteenth Century". In Sharifah Shifa Al-Attas (ed.). Islam and the Challenge of Modernity,
Proceedings of the Inaugural Symposium on Islam and the Challenge of Modernity:
Historical and Contemporary Contexts, Kuala Lumpur, 1–5 August 1994. International
128
Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC). pp. 351–99. Archived from the
original on 2 April 2015.
Hernandez, Dolores F. (1996). History and Philosophy of Science Education: Quezon
City: Institute of Science and Mathematics Education Development, University of the
Philippines.
History.com editors. Enlightenment. URL: https://www.history.com/topics/british-
history/enlightenment
Ho, Rodney J.Y., Gibaldi, Milo, and Ho, Rodney J.Y., Biotechnology and
Biopharmaceuticals: Transforming Proteins and Genes into Drugs. Gene and Cell
Therapy. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. 2013.
King, David A. (1983). "The Astronomy of the Mamluks". Isis. 74 (4): 531–
55. doi:10.1086/353360.
Lewenstein, Bruce V. “What Counts as a ‘Social and Ethical Issue’ in Nanotechnology?
Retrieved at http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/11-1/lewenstein.pdf on August 9, 2020.
Littlejohn, Amanda. Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press: Social and Cultural
Impact. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/humanities/Johannes-Gutenberg-and-the-
Printing-Press-Revolution, September 4, 2019.
Malmström, V. H. and P. E. Dunn (1979) Pre-Columbian magnetic sculptures in western
Guatemala. Time Magazine 3 September 1979.
Mandapat, Louie, Carl. “DOST Science Change Program”. https://dost.gov.ph/9-
programs-and-projects. May 5, 2017
Martyn Shuttleworth, Lyndsay T Wilson (Oct 24, 2008). What Is A Paradigm?. Retrieved
Jul 29, 2020 URL: Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/what-is-a-paradigm
129
McCarthy, D. (2019). The American Conservative URL:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-intellectual-revolution-that-made-
the-modern-western-world/
McDaniel, Richelle. “The Spread of Knowledge via Print.” Disrupting Society from Tablet
to Tablet. 2015. CC BY-NC.
McFadden, Christopher. “The Invention and History of the Printing Press”.
https://interestingengineering.com/the-invention-and-history-of-the-printing-press.
September 12, 2018.
Modern Biotechnology and Philippine Agriculture. NAST Monograph Series No. 1. The
National Academy of Science and Technology, 2001.
Mourdoukoutas, Panos. “The Ten Golden Rules on Living the Good Life.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2012/01/14/the-ten-golden-rules-on-
living-the-good-life/#5eee0e7033fc
Orton, John W. (2009). Semiconductors and the Information Revolution: Magic Crystals
that made IT Happen. Academic Press. pp. 103–5. ISBN 978-0-08-096390-7.
Pioneering Food Technologist and Inventor: Maria Y. Orosa Retrieved from
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.504.4716&rep=rep1&type=pdf
July 28, 2020
Rickard, Maurice. Key Ethical Issues in Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Retrieved from
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_L
ibrary/Publications_Archive/CIB/cib0203/03cib05
Rosch, A. (2014). The Progress of Science – Past, Present and Future. Humanities. 3 pp.
442 – 516. doi: 10.3390/h3040442
Science and technology in Medieval Islam. History of Science Museum. August 5, 2020.
Sharon, Madhuri. “History of Nanotechnology From Prehistoric to Modern Times”.
Scrivener Publishing LLC. Wiley Global Headquarters 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ
07030, USA
The Printing Revolution. OER Services. Retrieved from
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/the-printing-
revolution/, July 27, 2020.
The Science and Impacts of Climate Change. Committee on Climate Change. Retrieved
at https://www.theccc.org.uk/the-science-of-climate-change/climate-variations-natural-
and-human-factors/, August 9, 2020.
130
Threats to Biodiversity, Environmental Biology. Retrieved from
https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/envirobiology/chapter/21-2-threats-to-biodiversity/,
June 30, 2020.
Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-521-52994-8) pp 303.
Tomczak (2004). Science in pre-Columbian America. The South Pacific URL:
https://www.mt-
oceanography.info/science+society/lecture18.html#:~:text=In%20Meso%2DAmerica%2
0the%20Maya,rubber%20and%20the%20corbelled%20arch.
131