STS & its Significance to Society in the Contemporary World Flashcards
The study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, which affects society.
STS (Science, technology, and society)
They are interested in a variety of problems including the relationship between scientific and technological innovations. And also the directions and risks of science and technology.
STS scholars
- This is concerned with the physical world, and its phenomena and entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation.
- Involves the pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.
Science
- A creation, usage, and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems, or methods of organization, to solve a problem or serve some purpose.
- Also, an advanced tool and system that provides comfort to the users.
Technology
True or False: It is the interaction between science and technology and social-cultural, political, and economic contexts that shape and are shaped by them
True
NOTABLE HUMAN SUCCESSES IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (8)
Wheel
Compass
The Printing Press
The Internal Combustion Engine
Telephone
Penicillin
The Internet
World Wide Web
- 3500 BC
- Idea came to connect a non-moving platform to a rolling cylinder
- Wheeled carts facilitated agriculture and commerce by enabling the transportation of goods, as well as easing the burden of people traveling great distances.
Wheel
- Invented by the Chinese between 9th - 11th century
- It was first made of lodestone (a naturally magnetized iron ore)
- Enabled mariners to navigate safely far from land, increasing sea trade and contributing to “The Age of Discovery”
Compass
- Invented around 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg
- He wasn’t the first to develop the movable type. However, Gutenberg was the first to create a mechanized process that transferred the ink (made from linseed oil & soot) from movable type to paper.
- This increased the speed of making book copies, leading to the rapid dissemination of knowledge for the first time in history
The Printing Press
- 19th century
- These engines make the combustion of fuel release a high-temperature gas, which as it expands, applies force to a piston moving it.
- Combustion engines convert chemical energy into mechanical work
- The engines steered into the Industrial Age, enabling the invention of machines like modern cars and aircraft
The Internal Combustion Engine
- 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell
- Several inventors did pioneering work on electronic voice transmission, the invention quickly took off, and revolutionized global business and communication
Telephone
- 1928 (Scottish scientist: Alexander Fleming)
- Extracted from the fungus Penicillium. He discovered that the mold killed off the bacteria from the Petri dish in his laboratory
- Fights a huge number of bacterial infections without harming the humans themselves.
- Advertised and mass-produced by 1944
Penicillin
- 1960’s
- A global system of interconnected computer networks used by billions of people worldwide
- A team of computer scientists working for the US Defense Department’s ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) built a communications network to connect the computers in the agency, called ARPANET.
- Used a method of data transmission called “packet switching.”
- “Information superhighway”
The Internet
- Tim Berners-Lee
- He had been working on the concept since 1989. Their goal was to combine available technologies and data networks to create a user-friendly system for global communication and information sharing.
- A part of the internet
World Wide Web
These technologies use resources from the environment without causing negative effects to it.
Eco-Friendly Energy Sources
Solar Panels for Electricity
Solar Energy
Heat from the Earth
Geothermal Energy
Windmills as source of energy
Wind Dower
Types of Eco-Friendly Energy Sources
Solar Energy
Geothermal Energy
Wind Dower
DISADVANTAGES TO SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Threats to Human Survival
Ethical Dilemmas
Social and Cultural Conflicts
Disparities in Human Wellbeing
An example of how technology and science is a “Threat to Human Survival”
- The invention of nuclear weapons in 1945. Ex: The nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima caused death of many people
- Product of chemical and biological warfare (bio-warfare): toxic wastes produced by manufacturing companies that threaten human survival and the stability of the environment.
An example of how technology and science is a cause of “Ethical Dilemmas”
- Exploitation of advanced scientific knowledge and technological devices and systems gave rise to situations in which advances seem to have turned against their beneficiaries
- Forests are chopped down, topsoil is washed away, rivers are polluted, and waste is dumped in the oceans
- In our march to progress, we have degraded the natural world
An example of how technology and science is a cause of “Social and Cultural Conflicts”
- Military power is vital for the national security of many governments; superior and highly technical weapons dictated the outcomes of some recent wars.
An example of how technology and science is a cause of “Disparities in Human Wellbeing”
Advanced countries enjoying science and technology-based successes and hold high esteem in contemporary society (economic strength), versus millions of people in less developed countries who have not partaken in these benefits
PREHISTORIC TIMES
Stone Age
BRONZE AGE
IRON AGE
Period during which humans broadly used stone to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface.
This period lasted roughly 3.4 million years.
Bone was used during this period as well, but finds of bone tools are rare compared to the millions of stone tools that have been collected from the surface or excavated.
STONE AGE