science and technology in the society introduction

8/8/2019 Science and Technology in the Society Introduction

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In the study of Trowbridge and Wandersee, they studied the high school students ability to

distinguish between science and technology. It has been found out that there was a close relationship

between science and technology to majority of high school respondents, however they did not

recognize that either science or technology can stand on its own, neither one or may not be dependent

on the other side.

Just like the students in the study, they were asked the following questions. Would you like to

answer it too? Is the submarine science or technology? Are dead zone science or technology? Are

science and technology related?

Let us define first Science it comes from the Latin word scie which means to know. There are

four ways of knowing science; sensory experience, experts opinion, logic and scientific method

(Fraenkel and Wallen 2001).

o Sensory experience- the information we take in the world through our senses and a means ofobtaining information. The data is raw since it has not been processed yet. This is undependable

and sometimes incomplete.

o Experts opinion- what experts know is still base primarily on what they have learned fromreading and thinking, from listening and observing others and from their own experience.

o Logic- our intellect the capacities we have to reason things allow to use sensory data todevelop new kind of knowledge.

o Scientific method- is the one used by researchers and scientists. This has five distinct methods.Since it is being defined as a systematic body of knowledge based on experimentation, research

and facts. This definitely knows by means of scientific method. This relies on empirical data to support

theoretical ideas.

There are two important rules to follow in the field of Science. The empirical data should be

supported by data. And this data are obtained through the use of five senses. This refers as scientific

observation. And this should be acceptable to other scientists.

The scientific method comprised of the following phrases.

o Make observationso Develop hypothesis from these observation.o Use hypothesis to make predictiono Test by conducting experiments or making further observations.o Develop a theory

Types of Sciences


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o Exact Science Science that deals with quantitatively measureable phenomena of the material

universe.

o Hard science Natural or physical sciences in which aspects of the universe are investigated by

means of hypothesis and experimentation.

o Soft science Specialized disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology or political

science that interpret human behaviour, institutions, society, etc, on the basis of

scientific investigations for which it is difficult to establish strictly measurable

criteria.

o Social science Branches of study that with human and social relations Specialized disciplines include economics, anthropology, political science,

psychology and sociology.

Branches of Science

o Physical Science Physics Chemistry Astronomy

o Earth Sciences Geology Oceanography P

aleontology Meteorology

o Life Sciences Botany Zoology Genetics Medicine

Technology

o From the Greek word techne, meaning art or artifice or craft.o The act of making or crafting.o The branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and

their interrelation with life, society and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as

industrial arts, engineering, applied and pure science.

Classes of Technology


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Science Technology

Natural word Human made world

Understanding Doing

Investigates the reality that is given Creates reality according to a design

Discovery Invention

Value free statement Value ladenPursuit of knowledge and understanding for its

own sake

Creation of artifacts and systems to meet

peoples needs.

Natural World vs. Human World

o Philosopher of science sees an underlying presupposition that technology is a humancreation designed to meet some human needs whereas scientific knowledge exists out

there independent of human course. The word that would really give us a hint is

human creation. Probably the next question I might ask you is dead zone science or

technology? The words that would pose us inkling is dead zone a human creation orexists out there independent of human courses.

Understanding vs. Doing

o Human action has traditionally been divided into two types, making and using werecommonly denoted by the term art.

o Aristotle suggests another possible difference, dividing the arts into those ofcultivation and construction.

o Cultivation is making or using, which helps nature to produce either more quickly ormore perfectly what it could produce itself; examples are the arts of medicine, teaching

and farming.

o Construction constrains nature to produce things is would not other produce, theprimary examples being architecture.

o Can you now think of an example of cultivation (making) and construction (using)?Investigating the reality that is given vs. Creating reality according to a design

o Science aim at enlarging our knowledge through devising better and better theories;technology aims at creating new artifacts theough devising means if increasing

effectiveness.

Discovery vs invention

o Invention is often opposed to discover. Invention is the creation core of Aristotles art ofconstruction, where discovery is the creative core of the arts of cultivation.

Value free statement vs. Value laden


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o A scientific claim is not acceptable simply because it is just useful compared totechnological problem exists only in relation to human goals and social forces.

o A typical technological problem for example might be devising a machine that wouldproduce a consumer product more quickly and within more precise specification.

Relationship between Science and Technology

There is no more common or difficult and perhaps more politically explosive issue in

the entire historiography than its relationship to science.

Technology Science

o Science ideas are easily seen as being developed from technological innovation.Technology as a source idea lies easily at hand.

o That some technological innovations have stimulated efforts to gain scientificunderstanding.

Galvanis serendipitous discovery in the 1780 Theory ofDay and Berzelus Electricity produced

Science Technology

o Only during the latter half the 19th century did science begin to have the substantialinfluence on industry.

Science and Technology goes hand in hand yet Independent

o It was in the scientific revolution that they have intimate relationship. Technology isvery vital to science in terms of measurements, data collection, treatment of samples,

computation, transportation research sites (such as Antarctica, the moon, and the

ocean floor), sample collection, protection from hazardous materials and

communication.

o They were perceived independent of each other. And this was not realized by majorityof the high school students (Trowbridge and Wandersee).

o Technology led science in 1540-1750 (Scientification of Technology and Technologicalsciences).

o There was a growing philosophical separation on Science and Technology becameinstitutionalized in 1750-1940.

o Three important efforts have been made to reserve technology from its supposedsubordinate to science.

Promethian Revolution (thinking hard) Mirror image twins (1971) October (1976)


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o Technology becomes an epistemological mediation of science. It is not just aninstrument to science but an epistemological mediation. An instrument is a means to

use and leave while mediation means permanence.

History of Science and Technology

o The history of science and technology is a field of history which examines how humanitys underscience and technology has changed over the millennia, and how this understanding has allowed

us to generate technologies.

o This field of history also studies the cultural, economic and political impacts of scientificinventions.

Science Technology

Ancient (Primitive) Stone Age

Medieval Bronze Age

Renaissance Iron Age

20th

Century Industrial Revolution

History of Science

Ancient Time (Primitive)

o According to Arnold Thackeray in his survey of the history of science taken as hisprincipal focus the way in which external and cultural values have decisively influenced

historical studies of science in different ways at different times.

o His account moves briskly through the prehistory of the history of science; his surveyproper begins with the nineteenth century.

o As Thackeray sees the history of science, it was the French, in terms of Auguste Comteand his positivist disciples, who supplied the bridge of nineteenth century historians

to the twentieth-century academic profession of the history of science. And the bridge

was the work, for most part, of one man George Sarton.

o Thackeray surveys the work of Sarton, that of the 1930s Marxists, and what the labesThe idealist Program following World War II. In the last category his main focus is the

wok of Alexander Koyre which he says provided the first true paradigm the way of

doing history of science for a generation of scholars in the history of science.

o The history of science is therefore a multifaceted subject. The same implication flowsfrom the role of history of science in articulating, affirming and giving currency to

particular symbolism of man in nature, and in establishing the canons of legitimateknowledge.

o Different groups of practitioners with different values, agenda, assumptions andinterests have been drawn to one another facet of the history at different times.

o Only very recently and partially, has the history of science become the recognizedproperty of a coherent, continuing group that of academic practitioners of the history

of science as an organized discipline.


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o The history of science is the history of mankinds unity, of its sublime purpose, of itsgradual redemption (Sarton, 1927-1948, I, p32)

o Science and Technology in democratic Order incorporated that the notion thatscientists recognize their dependence on particular types of social structure in the

wider community.

o More recently, the espousal of history of science as rational reconstruction was closelylinked to the protection of the universities from student revolt (Lakatos, 1974, p236).

Ancient and Medieval Science

o Enquiries into ancient science are themselves of great antiquity, reflecting the centralityof the classics within the Western tradition until every recent time.

o The scholarship and sophistication that was early lavished on facets of ancient sciencemay be seen in J.S. . . Baillys Histoire de I Astronomie Ancienne (Paris 1775) or in

Delambres later two volume work of the same title, other notable nineteenth century

studies include Lenz (1856, on zoology), Berthelot (1888, on alchemy) and Zeuthen

(1296, on mathematics)

History of Science and Technology

The history of science and technology is a field of history which examines howhumanitys under science and technology has changed over the millennia, and

how this understanding has allowed us to generate technologies.

History of Science

19th

Century Europe

o British The emergence of industrial society brought with its new cognitive forms, social,

social relations, and educational structures. The bed for fresh intellectual

arrangements was felt throughout the West; a pattern of changes may be

traced not only is such central sides as Britain, France, the Low countries, and

Germany, but also in Scandanavia and the United States, and to a lesser extent-

in such industrially peripheral areas Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy, Russia and

Canada. For all these countries the development of novel social and for nature

were part of the process by which modern culture emerged (shills, 1972).

In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, scientific practitioners in the BritishIsles became more self conscious about their status and functions. The British

Association of the Advancement of Science, founded in 1831, gave expressions

to their needs. The associations restrictive and pre-emptive use of the word

science; to describe its carefully circumscribed activities was one signal of the

state of affairs. So too was the coining of the words scientist by William

Whewell in the context of the associations foundation> History was called into

play.


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One of the associations moving spirits composed a classic Victorian biography,in which Isaac Newton was duly shorn of his psychological, theological and

intellectual obsessions in order that he might be presented as the exemplar of

scientific rationality (Breewster, 1831 and 1855)

Other notable developments of the period included Thomas Morells Elementsof the History of Philosophy and Science (London 1827) and the historical

supplements to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

This eventually consisted of a massive quartet of philosophically inclined andsagely optimistic disquisition on the intellectual progress of physical and moral

science, written by members of the flourishing professoriate of Edinburgh

Universities (Stewart et al., 1815-1835).

Glasgow Universitys foundation professor of the discipline of chemistryproduced the first English monograph on the history ofChemistry (Thompson,

1830-1831).

o Germany It was in Germany that works of scholarship in the field were most zealously

nourished in the nineteenth century.

The extensive development of scientific departments in the Germanuniversities; the clear differentiation of disciplines and specialities; the creation

of research institutes each served to foster an interests in the production of

historical works that would explain, elucidate, justify, and guide the

development of scientific understanding.

Another milestone was the foundation of the Deutsche Gessellschaft furGeschichte der Medizin under Naturwissenschaften , in Hamburgin 1901.

Among the classic works that German scholars devoted to the histories ofparticular disciplines were Kopp. 1843-1847 (chemistry); Kobell 1864

(mineralogy); Caarus 1872 (zoology); Sachs, 1875 (botany); Cantor, 1880-1908

(mathematics); Heller, 1882-1884, and Rosenberger, 1882-1890 (physics); and

1899 (geology).

o United States The experiences of industrialism, urbanization and liberal democracy were to

find their expression in the United States.

North America was also to provide a receptive home for modern science and forscholarly custody of its history.

The period from Centennial Exhibition to the First World War saw a greattransition in American culture. In this era the research university emerged,

flourished and came to early maturity. The natural sciences established

themselves as proper components of that university. The Ph. D. Machine, the

research professoriate, the organizational plan of departments and subject

specialties-all found acceptance as cognitive expressions of social realities in the

new, industrialized America.


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Ancient science has often been understood as Greek science. The importance ofBabylonian contributions to the emerging structure of Western science has also

long been recognized. The nineteenth century succession of learned Orientalist

certainly had its effect on George Sarton. His emphasis on the cumulative

character of scientific knowledge, his humanism and his desire for

encyclopaedic history made him aware of and sympathetically disposed to

Islamic, Babylonian, and Eastern contributions (see e.g Sarton, 1927-1948). The

nineteenth century development of Asyriology also made many scholars newly

conscious ofBabylonian science.

Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek contributions have been meticulously exploredby Willy Hartner and OlafPederson and by Otto Neugebeauer and the scholars

associated with his institute at Brown University.

Scientific Revolution

o Sometime during the 16th century, the scientific revolution associated with Copernicus,Galileo (1564-1642) and Isaac Newton (1642-17270 was born. During thus revolution,

scientists adopted a new method of inquiry the experimental advocated by Francis

Bacon; they also took on a new system of principles for understanding nature the

mechanical philosophy, scientists must interpret phenomena in terms of particles of

matter exerting forces of push and pull. Aristotles principles may apply theology and

ethics, but they do not apply to matter.

o By accepting the experimental method as the special method of scientific inquiry,scientists separated the method and results of science from the methods and results of

theological and ethical inquiry. In science the only test of truth is agreement with data,

as opposed to agreement with some authority like Aristotle or theC

atholicC

hurch.o The relationship between science and technology during the Scientific Revolution (from

about 1540 to 1750) were very intimate. the two disciplines shared a common method

the empirical approach of analyzing correlations among data and a common

conception of the nature of their achievements. Most scientists during this period

identified the collection and organization of data as the only legitimate aim of scientific

inquiry. The creation of abstract, all encompassing theories and principles that

described the hidden causes behind the data and that served to explain the data was

not job of a scientist but of a philosopher.

o During this period scientific and technological research produced essentially the sametype of knowledge and scientific truth was equated with utility.

o Francis Bacons words knowledge is power characterized the operative philosophy ofscience and technology during this period. As a result of this philosophy, bacon and

others took a deliberately strong position against the idea of separation and opposition

between technics and science, manual and intellectual work, and mechanical and liberal

arts.


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1750-1940 Periods

o The unity of scientific truth and utility did not last. In early 1700s scientist began shiftingtheir interests from ordinary, everyday objects to more abstract, hidden causes. Atoms,

molecules and gravitational and magnetic forces became the relevant objects of

scientific inquiry.o Once again scientist became oriented toward the formulation of theories only remotely

connected to the data of everyday life.

o Practical issues no longer generated scientific questions, and practical utility was nolonger a measure of scientific value.

o Scientist adopted the philosophical ideals of universal, explanatory principles as theirguiding objectives. It is probably no accident that the philosophy of logical empiricism

was articulated and widely accepted during this period of increasing theoretical activity.

o During the 1750-1940 periods the growing separation of science and technologybecame institutionalized. Two distinct communities emerged; the scientific community

and the technological community. The communities worked and developed in isolationfrom each other, each having his own network of communication between colleagues.

Furthermore, each community generated its own body of relevant knowledge;

technology was not applied science.

o As a consequence, the educational processes of science and technology also wereseparated. Scientists worked primarily at universities, institutions in which research and

education could be combined.

o Technical schools tool over the training of engineers and other technical personnel whowould later be employed in businesses and industry.

o The institutional separation of science and technology may have contributed to thegrowth of science; it allowed scientists to concentrate an increasingly more abstract and

complex without the distracting concerns of applications and possible consequences.

o Although the scientific and technological communities were isolated from each otherduring the 1750-1940 period, as they perhaps are even today, occasional transfers of

knowledge between then did occur.

o Such technologically motivated inventions as the telescope, microscope, and laser havebecome very useful instruments in scientific research.

New Science and Technology

o Some historians and sociologists of science claim that the middle of the twentiethcentury marks the beginning of a new age for science and technology, an age during

which these disciplines will once again be united under the baconian ideal of the untiy

of knowledge and utility. Unlike the first Baconian age (1540-1750) in which technology

led science, this new age will be characterized by the scientification of technology of

science. During this period, scientist and technologically oriented people will work

together in teams to find solutions for every practical problem. New lines of


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communities between the scientific and technological problems and results. Perhaps

any meaning distinction between the two communities will eventually disappear.

o Current trends in science and technology are compatible with the vision of a secondBaconian age. Because scientific theories are becoming more complex and abstract,

more sophisticated machinery is required for testing; as scientists are uncovering new

research areas new instruments and techniques are needed to explore them. At the

same time the science is requiring more technological input, technology is moving more

into the realm of science.

o Complex, abstract technical problems require a period of basic research before they canbe solved. The recent growth patterns of science and technology therefore indicated

that their practices may be converging.

o Because the aim of science and technology seems so different, historian MelvinKrazberg called these combinations of science and technology a marriage of

convenience not a love match.

History of Science

19th

Century Europe

British German United States

Scientific Revolution

Adopted a new method of inquiry. Experimental method advocated by Francis Bacon.

Took on a new system of principles for understanding nature. The mechanical philosophy by Descartes and Galileo.

1750-1940 Periods

Growing separation of science and technology became institutionalized. The scientific community and the technological community emerged.

New Science and Technology

Middle of the 20

th

century marks the beginning of a new age for science andtechnology.

An age during these disciplines will once again be united under the baconianideal of the unity of knowledge and utility.

Characterized by the scientification of technology. New lines of communication between the scientific and technological

communities will open.

science and technology in the society introduction

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