LECTURE NOTES ON INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

What are Science, Technology and society, and why should people want to study
and learn it? Why should students, teachers, researchers and other professionals have
interest in the subject? Primarily, we need some background and understanding of the
significance of science and technology in the living past and their importance in the
modern world (Mosteiro,2004)
DEFINITIONS OF SCIENCE.
1.SCIENCE IS A PROCESS
a.Concerned with discovering relationships between observable
 phenomena in terms of theories.
 b.Systematized theoretical inquiries
c.It seeks for truth about nature.
d.It is determined by observation, hypothesis, measurement, analysis and
experimentation
e.It is the description and explanation of the development of knowledge
f.It is the study of the beginning and end of everything that exist.
g.Conceptualization of new ideas, from the abstract to the particular.
h.Kind of human cultural activity.
2.SCIENCE IS A PRODUCT
a.Systematized, organized body of knowledge based on facts or truths
observations.
 b.A set of logical and empirical methods which provide for the
systematic observation of empirical phenomena.
c.Source of cognitive authority.
d.Concerned with verifiable concepts
e.A product of the mind
f.It is the variety of knowledge, people, skills, organizations, facilities,
techniques, physical resources, methods and technologies that taken
together and in relation with one another.
The Nature of Science
Prof. Pacifico U. Payawal
“Science is the interpretation of nature and man is the interpreter.”(G. Gore 1878)
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“Nature, with all her irregularities, might have been just as real even if there were no
men to observe and to study her. But there could have been no science without human
beings or beings like them. It is the spirit of man brooding over the stream of natural
events that has given birth to science.” (A Wolf 1925).
2
“Science is the attempts to make the chaotic diversity of our sense experience
correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.” (A. Einstein 1940)
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What is Science?
According to the definitions given by gore, Wolf, and Einstein, the
subject matter of science is nature. Every physical entity in the extra terrestrial and
terrestrial environment is a component of nature. The galaxies, the stars in the galaxy,
the planets and their moons, the asteroids and the comets, the air, water, and soil; the
plants and the animals, they are physical entities of Mother Nature. We are conscious
of  natureʼs reality because of the stimuli emanating from these entities which our
sense perceived.
 Nature is very complex. The multitudes of entities comprising nature, and their
complex interactions, make nature innately complex. Therefore, the totality of stimuli
emanating from her is intuitively chaotic. Science represents the attempt of man to put
order to this chaotic perception of nature. Thus, Albert Einstein
3
defined science as “Manʼs attempts to make the chaotic diversity of his sense
experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.” And indeed, as G.
Gore
1
wrote,” Science is the interpretation of nature and man is the interpreter.” And as A.
Wolf 
2
opined
,
” It is the spirit of man brooding over the stream of natural events that has given birth
to science,” Clearly, science is the product of human curiosity.
Why are we curious?
It is almost an instinct for us humans to try to understand what our 
senses perceived because of our highly developed mental skills. These are the mental
skills to observe, infer, measure, classify, experiment, and to communicate. Through the
ages, our ancestors learned to use these skills in a methodical manner to investigate
the ‘how,ʼ the ‘why,ʼ and the ‘whenʼ of natural events. This methodical manner to our
mental skills to satisfy human curiosity is the scientific method.
Using the scientific method, generation after generation pf scientist gradually
discovered the natural laws that govern natural processes. As each generation
described with an ever increasing accuracy the events and circumstances that prevail
in nature, what was once perceived as chaotic becomes rational, and man saw the unity
in the diversity of nature.
In other word, the scientific endeavors spanning several generations yielded a number
of natural laws. These laws reduce natural events in nature to orderly predictable
events.
What sets the limitation of science?
Science is a product of the human senses and the
human mind and that is why there could be no science in the absence of an intelligent
being like a human or any other intelligent creature like him. And therein lies the
limitation of science; the limitation of the human senses and the limitation of the human
mind. We can not investigate what our senses cannot perceive, and we can not explain
beyond what our human mind can understand. As a matter of fact, the optical and the
electron microscope, the optical and radio telescopes, and all the other new scientific
instruments are but the result of our attempts to extend our sense of perception.
 How does science operate?
Science is a self correcting and self-generating human
activity. Using the scientific method, each generation of scientist develop explanations
of natural phenomena but at the same time, within the same generation, there are
scientists who question the validity of the proposed explanations. And within the same
generation,
there are scientists who arrive at some new observations which lead to the
identification of new and heretofore undescribed phenomena. In this manner science is
self-correcting and self-generating, it is never stagnant.
 How does the Scientific Method operate?
The scientific method is a mental process
which serves as the “tool” of scientist with which new discoveries are made Although
the scientific method is traditionally characterized as a rigid mental process consisting
of (a) observation, (b) problem identification, (c) hypothesis formulation, and (d)
drawing of conclusions as to the possible validity if the prediction, scientists are not in
general agreement as to exactly what constitutes scientific procedure.
In reality, this rigid process called the scientific method did prove useful in some
 particular instances, like in biology where the problem is amenable to experimental
manipulation. But in some other cases, the problem may not be amenable to controlled
manipulation, like in the geological process of volcanic eruption and mountain building.
Under such unmanageable events, the traditional scientific procedure is unrealistic.
What seems to be common to all scientific investigations is that scientific procedure
involves postulating and testing hypothesis. The testing part may or may not strictly
involve experimentation but accurate observations. In other words, not all scientists
necessarily conduct experiments to prove hypotheses.
In the development and proving of hypotheses, scientists use inductive and deductive
logic, but they do not tend to think exclusively in one way or the other at different
times.
In practice, they use the interplay of inductive and deductive logic. Inductive logic
 proceeds from the specifies and arrives at a generalization. On the contrary, deductive
proceeds from the general to the specific. To be sure, the following examples are in
order.
Inductive logic involves arriving at a probable conclusion based on several samplings.
Suppose that a person tasted a green mango and found it sour and slightly tangy to the
taste buds. Then he subsequently tasted 24 other mangoes and found the same result.
Based on the these 25 samplings, he may then conclude that all green mangoes are
sour and tangy to the taste. Inductive logic thus proceeds from several specific
observations to a generalization. Most of the major theories are arrived at I this manner.
For example, the Cell Theory, the Theory of Biological Evolution by Natural Selection,
and the theory of plate tectonics, all these are generalizations arrived at by inductive
reasoning.
Deductive logic proceeds from a generalization to specifics. For example, after testing
25 green mangoes and finding them sour and tangy, one may hypothesize that the next
mango he will taste will be sour and tangy. This kind of reasoning is used to formulate a
new hypothesis after a generalization. For example, the generalization that all green
mangoes are sour and tangy was arrived at after 25 green mangoes. From this
generalization, the scientists may further formulate a new hypothesis using deductive
logic. If 25 green mangoes are sour and tangy, then the next green mango I will taste
should be sour and tangy. If indeed the mango tasted sour and tangy, then the validity
of the original generalization has gained greater probability (or credibility). Thus, the
scientific procedure; or science progress by the interplay of inductive and deductive
reasoning.
It should be pointed out however that inductive generalization never attain absolute
certainty. They only attain higher degrees of probability. For example, the probability
that all green mangoes are sour and tangy based on 25 samples has a lower degree
of certainty than if the sample size is increased to 20 mangoes. But even if the sample
size is increased tom 1000 green mangoes, still there is no absolute certainty that all
green mangoes are sour and tangy. The number of green mangoes is infinite and no
one can be absolutely certain the next green mango to be tasted will not be sweet.
Thus science can only seek for the most probable truth and never for the absolute
truth. A.W. Ghent developed a conceptual scheme to illustrate the role of inductive and
deductive logic in the conduct of scientific investigation.
The scheme shows that scientific procedure begins with an educated guesswork about
the probable explanation to a perceived problem. The guesswork is an educated guess
based on previously known facts related to the problem. The scientists then make a
prediction based on the guesswork; this is the hypothesis. Thus, hypothesis
formulation involves deductive reasoning and goes this way,ʼ If(an assumption is made
based on the guesswork), then (the prediction that is expected if the assumption is
valid). The prediction is actually the anticipated event to happen if the assumption is
correct.
Experiments or factual observations are then made to prove the validity of the
hypothesis.
Usually, the result of the experiment/observations may overlap only slightly with those
predicted by the hypothesis. Nevertheless, the result allows the investigator to arrive