SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY

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