GEN 003 P2 REVIEWER

Lesson 7: Science In Daily Life

SCIENCE
➢ It is a set of complex theories and ideas based on observing, testing, analyzing and then presenting phenomena.

BRANCHES OF SCIENCE
a. Biology
b. Chemistry
c. Geology
d. Physics

SCIENTIFIC METHOD
➢ Scientist have developed several techniques to achieve this. The general process that has been formulated is
known as the scientific method.
➢ The logical process adopted by scientists to develop knowledge of nature and present it as acceptable fact.
➢ This method is based on gathering empirical data through observation and experimentation and the formulation
and testing of hypotheses.
➢ The scientific method consists of the following eight elements.

STEPS IN SCIENTIFIC METHOD

1. Make an Observation
➢ You can’t study what you don’t know is there. This is why scientists are so curious—they’re always looking for
patterns, trends, questions, and problems that we don’t understand.
2. Ask a Question
➢ Once a scientist finds an interesting thing to study, they need to ask a question that hopefully they can answer.
3. Do Background Research
➢ To find out the answer to your question, you need to know what potential answers are. That’s where background
research comes in, remembering that not everything you read online is true. Use reliable sources, like Google
Scholar…and untamed science.com!
4. Form a Hypothesis
➢ A hypothesis is a statement of what you think the answer to your question is. It’s different from the question you
formed because it’s answering the question you developed with a specific prediction that you’ll go on to test. A
good hypothesis should be falsifiable, meaning that it’s possible to prove it wrong.
5. Conduct an Experiment
➢ How do you find an answer to your hypothesis? You conduct an experiment to test it! Depending on what a
scientist is studying, an experiment can be very quick or take years—some experiments have even been going on
for hundreds of years!
➢ Designing a good experiment is a whole industry that some scientists spend their whole careers working on. But
any good science experiment must always serve its one main function: to prove or disprove a hypothesis.
6. Analyze Results and Draw a Conclusion
➢ This is what we’ve all been waiting for—what is the answer to the question? In this step, scientists take a step
back, look at the data, and decide whether to accept or reject the hypothesis. Sometimes the conclusion is pretty
straightforward, but scientists always do statistical tests just to make sure they’re reading the results correctly.
7. Report Your Results
➢ You’ve just tested an important piece of information. It’s something that nobody else in the world knows. What
good is that knowledge if you keep it to yourself? The final step of the scientific process is to report your results.
 Scientists generally report their results in scientific journals, where each report has been checked over and
verified by other scientists in a process called peer review.

LESSON 8: Science, Technology and the Human Condition

The Human Condition Before Common Era

▪ Our early ancestors’ primal need to survive paved way for the invention of several developments.
▪ Gifted with brains more advanced than other creatures, humans are able to utilize abundant materials for their
own ease and comfort. As it is difficult to pinpoint the particular period where technology is said to have started,
one can say that at the very least, the motivation to make things easier has been around since humans are.
▪ Homo erectus have been using fire to cook, through chipping one flint over the other to produce a spark, all the
while without realizing the laws of friction and heat.
▪ Tools from stones and flints marked the era of Stone Age, during the advent of our very own Homo sapiens, and
humans began to sharpen stones as one would a knife; an example of this is the simple machine called wedge.

The Human Condition in the Common Era

▪ Position-wise, the humans of today are much better off compared to humans several centuries
ago. Advancements in medicine, technology, health and education ushered in humanity’s best yet, and show no
sign of stopping.
▪ The following are some of the notable COMPARISONS then and now:
1. Mortality Rate
▪ Due to technology, lesser women and children die during birth, assuring robust population and strong
workforce.
▪ Medical care for premature infants allows them to survive and develop normally, while proper maternal care
ensures that mothers can fully recover and remain empowered.
2. Average Lifespan
▪ Aside from the reason that people engage less in combat and are less likely to die in treatable diseases now as
opposed to then, science is able to prolong lives by enhancing living status and discovering different remedies to
most diseases.
▪ Distribution of medicines is also made easier and faster.
3. Literacy Rate
▪ Access to education provided to more individuals generally creates a more informed public that could determine
a more just society.
4. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
▪ Although not an indicator of an average person’s lifestyle in a certain country, it is often used to determine the
value of the country’s goods and services produced within the territory given a certain time period.
▪ Higher country income is brought upon by high productivity, often an indicator of presence of technology.

The Essence of technology

▪ Humanity has indeed come a long way from our primitive ways, and as a general rule, it is said that we are more
“developed” than we were before. Modern humans are reliant on technology in their search for the GOOD LIFE.
Man is constantly in pursuit of the good life. Every person has his perspective when it comes to what comprises
the good life. Science and technology has been, for the most part, at the forefront of man’s attempts at finding
this happiness. The only question at the end of the day is whether science and technology are taking the right
path toward attaining what it really means to live a good life.

LESSON 9: Science, Technology and Nichomachean Ethics

 Nichomachean Ethics
➢ a book written by Aristotle named for Nicomachus, which in keeping with the Greek practice of boys
being named after their grandfathers, was the name of both Aristotle's father and his son.
➢ In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the following eleven (11) virtues:
1) Courage – the midpoint between cowardice and recklessness. The courageous person is aware of the danger but
goes in any way.
2) Temperance – the virtue between overindulgence and insensitivity. Aristotle would view the person who never
drinks just as harshly as the one who drinks too much.
3) Generosity – the virtue of charity, this is the golden mean between miserliness and giving more than you can
afford.
4) Magnificence – the virtue of living extravagantly. It rests between stinginess and vulgarity. Aristotle sees no
reason to be ascetic but also warns against being flashy.
5) Magnanimity – the virtue relating to pride, it is the midpoint between not giving yourself enough credit and
having delusions of grandeur. It is a given that you also have to act on this sense of self-worth and strive for
greatness.
6) Right ambition – a disposition to aim at the intermediate between empty vanity and undue humility.
7) Patience – this is the virtue that controls your temper. The patient person must neither get too angry nor fail to
get angry when they should.
8) Truthfulness – the virtue of honesty. Aristotle places it between the vices of habitual lying and being tactless or
boastful.
9) Wittiness – at the midpoint between buffoonery and boorishness, this is the virtue of a good sense of humor.
10) Friendliness – while being friendly might not seem like a moral virtue, Aristotle claims friendship is a vital part of
a life well lived. This virtue lies between not being friendly at all and being too friendly towards too many
people.
11) Virtue - the virtue of dealing fairly with others. It lies between selfishness and selflessness. This virtue can also
be applied in different situations and has a whole chapter dedicated to the various forms it can take.

LESSON 11: When Technology and Humanity Cross

Some facts about Filipinos and their use of gadgets and the internet:
➢ Mobile phone subscription is at 119 million.
➢ Filipinos spend approximately 3.2 hours on mobile and 5.2 hours on desktop daily.
➢ Currently, the Philippines has one of the highest digital populations in the world.
➢ There are now 47 million active Facebook accounts in the Philippines.
➢ The Philippines is the fastest-growing application market in Southeast Asia.

Ethical/Moral Dilemmas Faced by These Technological Advancements:

✓ Children become lazy and unhealthy.
✓ Alienation, because people no longer take time to get out of their houses and mingle with other people.
✓ People have the tendency to be unaware of the time because they are so engrossed with the use of
technological device. In fact, if they get disturbed, there is a great chance that they will get mad or annoyed.
✓ Children who are not capable yet of rationally deciding for themselves what is right or wrong, are freely exposed
to different things on television, mobile phones, laptops, or computers. Because of the availability and easy
access to the internet, they can just easily search the web and go to different websites without restrictions.

Possible Trends when Technology and Humanity Cross

a) Augmenting humans with technology
➢ Examples: Holographic displays, Bioacoustics sensing
b) Machines replacing humans
➢ Autonomous vehicle, virtual assistant
c) Humans and machines working alongside each other
➢ Smartwatches, virtual assistant, 3D bioprinting

LESSON 12: History of Information Age

Information Age
➢ is defined as a “period starting in the last quarter of the 20th century when information became effortlessly
accessible through publications and through the management of information by computers and computer
networks”.
➢ The means of conveying symbolic information (e.g., writing, math, other codes) among humans has evolved with
increasing speed.
➢ The Information Age is also called the Digital Age and the New Media Age because it was associated with the
development of computers.

Theory of Information Age

➢ Proposed by James R. Messenger in 1982, “the Information Age is a true new age based upon the
interconnection of computers via telecommunications, with these information systems operating on
both a real-time and as-needed basis. Furthermore, the primary factors driving this new age forward are
convenience and user-friendliness which, in turn, will create user dependence.”

BEFORE
➢ During Galileo’s and Newton’s time, people were viewed as complicated mechanical machines
➢ Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell
➢ Screw and bolt in the Industrial era
➢ Majority of labor force was into manufacturing of goods

AFTER
➢ Today, the human mind is pictured as a complicated computer
➢ Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
➢ Microchip (inventors were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000)
➢ Majority are engaged in supply of services
LESSON 13: Issues in STS: Information Age-Automation

Information Age-Automation
❑ Highly modernized, automated, data-driven and technologically advanced – these best describe our
society nowadays, as evidenced by how information can be transferred or shared QUICKLY.
❑ The different areas of society have been influenced tremendously such as communications, economics,
industry, health and the environment.
❑ Despite our gains due to the growing development of information technology, the rapid upgrade of
information also has disadvantages.
❑ As man evolved, information and its dissemination has also evolved in many ways. Eventually, we no
longer kept them to ourselves; instead, we share them and manage them in different means.
❑ Information got ahead of us. It started to grow at a rate we were unprepared to handle

ADVANTAGES
➢ commonly attributed to automation include higher production rates and increased productivity, more
efficient use of materials, better product quality, improved safety, shorter workweeks for labor, and
reduced factory lead times.
➢ Higher output and increased productivity have been two of the biggest reasons in justifying the use of
automation.
➢ Despite the claims of high quality from good workmanship by humans, automated systems typically
perform the manufacturing process with less variability than human workers, resulting in greater control
and consistency of product quality. Also, increased process control makes more efficient use of materials,
resulting in less scrap.

DISADVANTAGES
➢ A main DISADVANTAGE often associated with automation, worker displacement.
➢ Despite the social benefits that might result from retraining displaced workers for other jobs, in almost
all cases the worker whose job has been taken over by a machine undergoes a period of emotional
stress.
➢ In addition to displacement from work, the worker may be displaced geographically. In order to find
other work, an individual may have to relocate, which is another source of stress.
➢ Other disadvantages of automated equipment include the high capital expenditure required to invest in
automation (an automated system can cost millions of dollars to design, fabricate, and install), a higher
level of maintenance needed than with a manually operated machine, and a generally lower degree of
flexibility in terms of the possible products as compared with a manual system (even flexible automation
is less flexible than humans, the most versatile machines of all).

Automation
➢ the technique, method or system of operating or controlling a process by highly automatic means, as by
electronic devices.

POSITIVE IMPACTS OF AUTOMATION IN THE SOCIETY

1. higher production rates and increased productivity
2. more efficient use of materials
3. better product quality
4. improved safety
5. shorter workweeks for labor
 6. reduced factory lead times
7. Consistency
8. Saves time
9. No labor issues

NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF AUTOMATION IN THE SOCIETY

1. worker displacement resulting in emotional stress
2. high capital expenditure required to invest in automation
3. a higher level of maintenance needed than with a manually operated machine
4. a generally lower degree of flexibility
5. can become redundant
6. could introduce new safety hazards
7. Still requires human intervention