STS Midterm Reviewer Module 1 PDF

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Science, Technology, and Society Module 1A – Introduction to Science, Technology, and Society Science, Technology, and Society • • •

“Science Technology Studies” Considers how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation and vice versa Drawn from variety of disciplines such as: Anthropology, History and Sociology, Political Science

❖ Society’s culture and values shape the technology. How we behave will determine what kind of technology we will develop. ❖ Science and Technology help shape the values and culture of the society. Our behavior is dictated by what we have or what is available to us. STS have Varied Areas of Interest A) Sustainability – Energy and Environment - Global Warming and CO2 Emission Control

- Strategies for Efficient and Renewable Energy Use

- Long term Energy Paths B) Life Sciences: - Ethical Aspects of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

- Translation of Science to the Marketplace: The Development of Medicine for Global Health

- New Applications of Genomics to Agriculture C) IT’s Impact on Human Society: - Interoperatibility (the ability of computer systems or software to exchange and make use of information.)

- Digital Archiving - Security / Privacy

D) Capacity Building: - Science Education and Communication

- Intellectual Property Rights

- University Reform E) Science and Technology for Human Security: - Infectious Diseases

- Science and Technology against Natural Disaster

- Science and Technology to Reduce the Vulnerability of Critical Infrastructures F) New Frontiers Opened by Science and Technology: - New Frontiers Opened by IT (Information and Communication Technology)

- New Frontiers Opened by NT (Nanotechnology) - New Frontiers Opened by Manufacturing

Science is… •

Natural knowledge

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Natural philosophy

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Natural history Systematic inquiry into nature A human cultural activity A total societal enterprise

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With vast social consequences Organized, well-founded knowledge of nature and human nature “The cutting edge of ignorance”

In general: • • • • •

Science is an organized, hierarchical activity that investigates nature and human nature by experiment and observation. Its goals are explanation, understanding, prediction, and control. It tests its theories by logical, mathematical, and technological means. Science is shaped by social forces and historical change. While seeking objectivity, science also shapes culture.

Technology • • •

The scientific study of the practical or industrial arts. Techne (art, craft, skill) Logos (word)

Module 1B – Historical Antecedents in which Social Considerations Changed the Course of Science and Technology In the World: Ancient, Middle, and Modern Ages

The First Inklings of Science (Ancient Times to 600 BC) EGYPTIANS • • • • • • • •

Egyptian Medicine – Trial and Error Egyptian Doctors use moldy bread to cover an open wound to heal it quickly and cleanly Explanation: Certain bread molds produce Penicillin, a chemical that kills germs that infect wounds Egyptian Doctors feed patients with Poppy seeds that relieves pain Explanation: Poppy seeds contain Morphine and Codeine (excellent pain-relieving drugs still used today) Egyptian medicine – most respected form of medicine in the known world Papyrus (~3000 BC) – Ancient form of paper, made from a plant of the same name Egyptians, Sumerians, and other races wrote on tablets or smooth rocks before papyrus was invented

Other Cultures: • •

Mesopotamians – made pottery, first known use of Potter’s Wheel Chinese (1000 BC) – use compass on their travels

True Science Begins to Emerge (600 BC – 500 AD) GREEKS • •

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First true historians (acc. to historians) Thales → Studied heavens and tried to develop a unifying theme that would explain the movement of the heavenly bodies → Correctly predicted the “short-term disappearance of the sun” aka “Solar Eclipse” → Solar Eclipse – an event in which the moon moves between the earth and the sun, mostly blocking the sun from view Anaximander → Probably a pupil of Thales → Much more interested in the study of life → First scientist who tried to explain the origin of humans without a reference to a Creator → Believed that all life began in the sea, and at one time, humans were actually some sort of fish → His idea was later revived by other scientists, most notably Charles Darwin, and is today called evolution Anaximenes → Probably an associate of Anaximander → Believed that air was the most basic substance in nature → Believed that all things were constructed of air → Thought that when air is thinned out, it grows warm and becomes fire; When air is thickened, it condenses into liquid or solid matter (which are wrong) → His attempts to explain things in nature as being made of a single substance led to one of the most important scientific ideas introduced by the Greeks: the concept of atoms. Leucippus → Historians believed that he built his concepts on Anaximenes’s

→ Proposed that all matter is composed of little units called “atoms” → Father of Atomic Theory → Democritus → Believed that all matter was similar to sand → “little individual particles” aka “atoms” Three Notable Greek Scientists 1. Aristotle → Father of Life Sciences → The first to make a large-scale attempt at the classification of animals and plants → Believed that certain living organisms spontaneously formed from non-living substances → Spontaneous Generation – states that organisms came from non-living things 2. Archimedes → Best known for his work in fluids → First to show how you could predict whether an object would float in a liquid or not ❖ Reasons why The Progress of Science Stalls for a While (500 AD – 1000 AD) o Historians referred this period as the Dark Ages because compared to the previous period in history as well as the next period in history, little was learned. o Another lesson we can learn from the history of science: Scientific progress depends not only in scientists, but it also depends on government and culture 1) Romans actively discouraged science and concentrated on inventions → Roman Empire had a great deal of influence throughout the world → Alchemy – one of the best examples of what passed as science during this time → Many people had observed the fact that when you mix certain substances together, they change into other substances → Alchemists did things by trial and error → They never tried to use their observations to draw conclusions about how the natural world works 2) Later, the Roman Empire began to crumble caused trade and communications to become more difficult → Trade and large-scale communication become harder, so scientists can’t easily exchange ideas o o o o o

During this period, Arabs and Chinese were involved in making detailed and precise studies of the heavens than those of the Greek scientists who came before them. For example, Chinese records from 1054 AD include detailed observations of a phenomenon that Chinese scientists called a “a guest star” in the heavens. Modern scientists used those observations to determine that the Chinese had seen a supernova. Modern scientists were able to look at the same part of the night sky, and found a cloud of dust and gas, called nebula. Based on these facts, modern scientists now believe that one way a nebula forms is by the explosion of a star.

3. Robert Grosseteste → A bishop in the Roam Catholic Church in the early 1200s AD → He taught that the purpose of inquiry was not to come up with great inventions, but instead to learn the reasons behind the facts → He wanted to explain why things happened that way they did → Often called as the Father of the Scientific Method

The Renaissance: The “Golden” Age of Science (1500 AD – 1660 AD) Nicolaus Copernicus → Believed that Ptolemy’s view of the universe (Geocentric Model of the Universe) was wrong → Heliocentric Model of the Universe – Sun is at the center of everything; Planets revolves around it → Sometimes his model is called as the Copernican System in honor of him Andreas Vesalius → A Doctor who published a book in 1543 about all the details of the human body → It contained incredibly detailed and amazingly accurate illustrations of the organs, muscles, and skeleton of the human body, and it revolutionized how medicine was taught. Blaise Pascal → Spent enormous amount of time studying the air and liquids → Demonstrated that the air we breathe exerts pressure on everything, an effect we call atmospheric pressure today → In his studies of fluids, he demonstrated a law that we now call Pascal’s Law; the science behind this law allowed us to develop hydraulic lifts, like the lift a mechanic uses to raise a car so he can get underneath it.

The Era of Newton (1660 AD – 1735 AD) Isaac Newton → Wrote most of his revolutionary scientific work in a three-volume set we call “Principia” → 1st Vol. – Three Laws of Motion → Proposed that a scientific law was useless if it could not be used to develop mathematical equation that would describe some aspect of nature → 2nd Vol. – Universal Law of Gravitation → He built this on the work of Pascal and added many details to the understanding of the motion of liquids → The term “Universal” has a specific meaning here. Scientists in Newton’s day thought that the reason an object falls when dropped was due to one physical process, while the reason the planets moved in the sky was due to a completely different process. Newton showed that this was not the case. → 3rd Vol. – Gravity → Used detailed experiments and observations to show that gravity was the cause of both effects (3 Laws of Motion & Universal Law of Gravitation) → The same gravity that attracts objects to the earth (making them fall) also keeps the planets in their orbits around the sun → The 3rd Vol. of the Principia was the final death blow to the geocentric view of the heavens Robert Boyle → → → →

Founder of Modern Chemistry A Contemporary Newton Did many experiments with gases, formulating laws that are still used today in Chemistry Last words to the Royal Society (a group of scientists in England): “Remember to give glory to the One who authored nature”

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (loo’ en hook) → Not educated as a scientist → Revolutionized the study of life by building the first microscope → His microscope allowed him to see a world that had been invisible up to this point, which enabled him to discover many tiny (microscopic) life forms, including bacteria

The “Enlightenment” and the Industrial Revolution (1735 AD – 1820 AD) ❖ Realized that all scientists make mistakes, and therefore everyone’s work must be examined critically ❖ Science began relying on experiments and data ❖ Up to this period, the production of almost anything was done mostly by hand. Increased scientific knowledge, led to the invention of many devices that turned hours of manual labor into just a few minutes of work ❖ And so, this period was called Industrial Revolution Carolus Linnaeus → In 1735, published a book in which he tried to classify all living creatures that had been studied → We still give living organisms their scientific names according to the rules set down by his book Antoine Laurent Lavoisier → → → →

The first to analyze chemical reactions in a systematic way First to realize that matter cannot be created or destroyed – it can only change forms This is known as the Law of Mass Convention First to properly explain combustion, which is the process of burning

John Dalton → Most important work: Atomic Theory (built on the work of Democritus & others) → Although a few of his ideas were wrong, most of them were right → Considered the founder of modern atomic theory

The Rest of the Nineteenth Century (1820 AD – 1900 AD) ❖ In the wake of Industrial Revolution, people realized that the inventions that made their lives better were at least partially the result of scientific knowledge ❖ As a result, there was a support for science, which translated into better facilities and a better way of life for scientists. That translated into great advances

Louis Pasteur → Was finally able to destroy the idea of spontaneous generation through an experiment where beef broth was sterilized through boiling into two flasks, one that was exposed to air and another that was protected from it. → Made great advances in the study of bacteria and other living organisms → He developed a process called pasteurization, which he originally used to keep wine from souring → This process is now applied to milk, which is the origin of the term “pasteurized milk”

Gregor Mendel → An Augustinian Monk → A devout Christian, who devoted much of his life to the study of reproduction → The entire field of modern genetic, which studies how traits are passed on from parent to offspring, is based on his work Michael Faraday → → → → →

His experiments and ideas about electricity earned him a title of “The Electrical Giant” Many of the terms used in the study of electricity today are terms that were first used by Faraday Believed that electricity and magnetism were actually a result of a single process He believed that whatever made electricity run through wires also made magnets stick to certain metals Although he could not offer evidence, he believed in it fervently

James Clerk Maxwell → Believed that nature was all interconnected at a fundamental level, because he thought that all nature derived its characteristics from God → Earned the title of the Founder of Modern Physics because he was able to develop mathematical equations that showed Faraday was right, that electricity and magnetism are both different aspects of the same phenomenon, now called electromagnetism James Joule → Building on the work of Lavoisier, he determined that, like matter, energy cannot be created nor destroyed – it can only change forms → This is now known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, and it is the guiding principle in the study of energy

Modern Science (1900 AD to Present) Max Planck → To explain certain experiments that could not be explained in terms of Newton’s laws, Planck proposed an idea: Much like matter exists in tiny packets called atoms, energy exists in tiny packets, which he called “quanta”. → This idea was revolutionary. After all, Newton and the scientists who built on his work believed that you could give any amount of energy to an object. → If you want to throw a baseball, you can throw it at any speed you desire, as long as you are strong enough. This is not what Planck proposed. → He proposed that energy comes in tiny packets. You can give one packet of energy to an object, or you can give two packets of energy to an object. You cannot, however, give an object any amount of energy in between one and two packets. → Produced a lot of evidence for his idea, and after a long while, it became accepted by the scientific community. Eventually, an entirely new way of looking at energy and matter, called quantum mechanics, was formed as a result of Planck’s idea. Albert Einstein → Used Planck’s idea of energy quanta to explain a problem that had perplexed scientists for years. → This problem, called the “photoelectric effect” could not be explained by Newton’s laws of motion, but could be easily explained by assuming that Planck was right about energy quanta.

→ Even though Planck produced evidence for his proposition, and even though Einstein was able to explain a supposedly “unexplainable” problem using the idea of energy quanta, scientists did not want to believe that Planck was right. → After all, Newton’s laws had been so successful at explaining so much of physics that scientists did not want to believe there was something wrong with them. As time went on, however, more and more evidence rolled in that showed Planck was right. Niels Bohr → Developed a picture of the atom, which we call the Bohr Model → This picture of the atom was based on solid mathematics, and it required the assumption that energy comes in small packets. → Using the Bohr Model, many of the mysteries of the atom were revealed. In the end, the weight of the evidence overwhelmed the scientific community’s devotion to Newton’s laws, and quantum mechanics became the new guiding principle in science.

❖ It is important to note that quantum mechanics does not really contradict Newton’s laws. Newton’s laws are still considered valid today. ❖ When the objects you study are large, Newton’s laws are valid, because they are equivalent to the laws of quantum mechanics. ❖ However, as the size of the object decreases, there are differences between the laws of quantum mechanics and Newton’s laws. In those cases, the laws of quantum mechanics are correct....