CHAPTER 2

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND

SOCIETY: WORLD HISTORY
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Science and Technology in Different Periods
1. Ancient Period (ca. 3,000 B.C. - 500A.D.)
2. Medieval Period (ca. 500 - 1,500)
3. Renaissance Period (14th - 17th Century)
4. Industrial Revolution (18th Century)
5. In 19th Century
6. In 20th Century Ancient Egyptian Architectural Technology.
Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=history+of+science/britanica

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. One could write a history of

science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority
about what could not be done and could never happen.” – Robert Heinlein
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:
1. explain the historical timeline of science and technology;
2. analyze the difference between the different periods involved in the development
of Science and Technology; and
3. synthesize and create their own definition of Science and Technology based on
the discussion on this unit.

INTRODUCTION
Science and technology is evident since the beginning of time. New knowledge
made it possible to create new things that would help people improve their everyday living.
Development in the field of science has helped humans to have a better life while
advancement in technology made the lives of the people much easier by developing new
machines that helped their way of living effortless.
In combination, science and technology transforms the lives of humans. It helps
provide growth in the field of medicine, transportation, engineering and even
entertainment that until today people are benefiting from.
The development of science and technology has gone so far, tracing how it all
began would give us a better idea on how it has developed since then and what are the

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significant changes that has happened throughout time. By looking back at the history of
science and technology, we will be able to determine its progression

CONTENT
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN DIFFERENT PERIODS
The next discussions will reveal the different evidences on how the development
of science and technology has been part of the early days of humankind.

Ancient Period (ca. 3,500 B.C. - 500 A.D.)

Accumulation of knowledge and passing it from generation to generation has
begun when the modern humans evolved from their hominid ancestors. They used stones
as tools, and then learned how to shape stones to make more efficient tools. As the tools
improved, so people were able to use them to fashion weapons and other artifacts from
bone, antler, and wood. They also learned how to capture fire from natural sources such
as wild fires, and later to make fire for themselves by using the heat generated by friction
or sparks from stones, or by concentrating the sun's heat.
Here are some of the developments in science and technology during the ancient
period (Goddard, 2010):

EUROPE
ca 750,000 Fire is used by Homo erectus.
ca 45,000 Stone-headed spears are used in Europe.
ca 20,000 The wooden bow and arrow are used in Spain and Saharan Africa. People in
Southern Europe use sewing needles made from bone.
ca 2000 The Minoans build palaces in Crete.
ca 1000 Ironworking is introduced in Greece.
ca 1000 Etruscan craftsmen make false teeth from gold.

THE AMERICAS
ca 8,500 North Americans make stone arrowheads.
ca 8,000 The Folsom people living on eastern side of the Poe's Mountains develop
sophisticated tools.
ca 6000 Pottery is made in South America.
ca 2500 People in the Arctic makes flirt tools.
ca 1750 Peruvians build a long canal to irrigate their cops.
ca 1200 Fishermen in Peru makes rafts and boats from reeds
ca 1200 Olmec sculptors carve figurines and giant human heads.

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ASIA AND OCEANIA
ca 11,000 The earliest-known day pots are made in Japan.
ca 5200 People in Iran make wine.
ca 4000 Bronze is first made in Thailand.
ca 3500 The plow is invented in both China and Mesopotamia.
ca 3000 Boats in China are equipped with anchors.
ca 2950 A lunar calendar is developed in China.
ca 2500 Clay pipes are used as drains in Pakistan.
ca 2500 Chinese doctors begin using acupuncture.
ca 2296 Chinese astronomers record the sighting of a comet.
ca 1361 Chinese astronomers record a solar eclipse.
ca 1000 The Chinese begin writing on bamboo or paper made from bark.
ca 1000 The Hindu calendar of 360 days is introduced in India.
ca 850 The Chinese use natural gas for lighting.

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

ca 1,000,000 Homo erectus uses stone tools.
ca 1,000,000 Homo erectus begins chipping flakes of stones to sharpen for tools.
ca 1,000,000 Homo erectus uses antlers to create tools for cutting and drilling.
ca 15,000 in Africa, bone harpoons (barbed spears) are used for fishing.
ca 10,000 people in Palestine build houses from sun-dried bricks.
ca 7500 Clay tokens are used for record keeping in Mesopotamia.
ca 6000 The world's first known city is built by the people of Catal Huyuk in Anatolia
(modern Turkey).
ca 4236 Ancient Egyptians devise a 365-day calendar.
ca 3500 The wheel is invented in Mesopotamia.
ca 3100 Egyptians begin using hieroglyphics.
ca 3000 The Sumerians introduce a 360-day calendar.
ca 3000 Egyptians dam the Garawi River.
ca 2630 Egyptians begin building pyramids.
ca 2600 Mesopotamians make glass.
ca 2300 Babylonian astronomers study comets.
ca 2300 The earliest known maps are produced in Mesopotamia.
ca 2000 Babylonian mathematicians introduce a positional number system.
ca 2000 Medicine becomes an important science in Syria and Babylon.
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ca 1800 Mesopotamian mathematicians discover the "Pythagorean Theorem".
ca 1750 Babylonian astronomers compile lists of planets and stars.
ca 1550 Egyptians are using about 700 drugs and medications.
ca 1350 The symptoms of leprosy are described in Egyptian text.
ca 1200 The Egyptians dig a canal to join the Nile River to the Red Sea.
ca 1000 The Phoenicians develop an alphabet.
ca 900 Farmers in Mesopotamia use an irrigation system to water crops.

Medieval Period (ca. 500-1500)

The Medieval Period also known as “Dark Ages” is considered to be one of the
creative periods in the history of humans and said to be the start of the first industrial
revolution. The term “Dark Ages” came up because there are few written records
remained from the said era. There are very little evidence that will support that there was
progress in the society during the periods 500 to 1500.
In the years immediately after the fall of Rome, there was a period of readjustment,
where medieval society was more concerned with keeping peace and empire building
than nurturing centers of learning. Despite this, Charlemagne (742-814) a medieval
emperor who ruled Western Europe in 800-814, tried to establish a scholastic tradition.
The later Middle Ages (around 1250-1500 A.D.) saw advancements in the philosophy of
science and the refinement of the scientific method. Far from being a backwards-medieval
society, overshadowed by Islam and Byzantium, scholasticism acted as a nucleus for the
Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
This was the time for discovering great new inventions in science and technology.
There were greater advancement in technology and adaptation of Eastern technologies
in the West, including the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks,
greatly improved water mills, building techniques like the Gothic style, and three-field crop
rotation.
One of the greatest inventions during the Middle Ages was the printing press of
Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1395-1468) in the 15th century. It was Gutenberg who made
printing mechanized. The invention of the printing press itself obviously, owed much to
the medieval paper press, in turn modeled after the ancient wine-and-olive press of the
Mediterranean area. A long handle was used to turn a heavy wooden screw, exerting
downward pressure against the paper, which was laid over the type mounted on a wooden
platen. In its essentials, the wooden press reigned supreme for more than 300 years, with
a hardly varying rate of 250 sheets per hour printed on one side.
Note: A video clip on this topic (will be serving as enrichment item) is available in
the Google classroom.

Renaissance Period (144h-17th Century)

The term Renaissance is used to refer to the period of rebirth as age of preparation
for the 17th century scientific development and achievements. One of the greatest

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achievements in Western Europe during this period was the technology of printing books
and other documents which helped the rapid spread of knowledge and information as well
as the preservation of culture. The technology of the Chinese in preparing printed
materials was followed and used by the Muslims and later introduced in Europe.
Renaissance connects the period of Middle Ages to modern history. It is closely
connected with Italy, where it began in the 14th century, although some European
countries also went into same cultural changes and phenomena.
Many historians prefer to think of the Renaissance as primarily an intellectual and cultural
movement rather than a historical period. Robert Wilde, U.K. based historian born April
30, 1977 said that interpreting the Renaissance as a time period, though convenient for
historians, “masks the long roots of the Renaissance (para.2)”.
According to Wilde in his interview with livescience.com, the demand for perfect
reproductions of texts and the renewed focus on studying them helped trigger one of the
biggest discoveries in the whole of human history: printing with movable type. It allowed
Bibles, secular books, printed music and more to be made in larger amounts and reach
more people. On the other hand, people and a lot of steps were involved. Wood printing
first came to the West from China in 1250-1350, papermaking originated from China has
reached 12th century Spain, and the new printers' ink originated from Flemish oil painting.
In Mainz, Germany, Gutenberg made final steps in wooden press by casting a metal type
and locking into it. The invention spread fast, reaching European countries from 1467-
1483. By 1500, Europe had already produced six million copies of books. Without the
printing press, communications revolution would not happen and it would not transform
the condition of life. The communications revolution greatly made an impact in human
opportunities for enlightenment and pleasure and created unimaginable possibilities for
manipulation and control on the other. The consideration of these contradictory effects
may shield us against a ready acceptance of triumphalist conceptions of the Renaissance
or historical change in general.
Also, Polish mathematician and astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
made one of science's greatest achievement. He presented the theory of heliocentric
where he said that the sun is the center of the solar system instead of the earth. It was a
major breakthrough in the history of science, though the Catholic Church banned
Copernicus' book.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was also a major Renaissance scientist persecuted for
his scientific experiments. Galileo improved the telescope, discovered new celestial
bodies, and found support for a heliocentric solar system. He conducted' motion
experiments on pendulums and falling objects that paved the way for Isaac Newton's
(1643-1727) discoveries about gravity.

Industrial Revolution (18th Century)

People rely on their hands in doing labor works even before the machines have
emerged after a century that significantly increases of production output. The phenomenal
process in the transfer of doing work by human hands and feet to the use of machines
was called The Industrial Revolution.

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 It began in Great Britain and spread across Europe, America, and even Asia from
1760 to 1840. It was a fundamental change in the way goods were produced and altered
the way people lived. The Industrial Revolution was a time of scientific and technological
advancement which spanned the period during late 19th century to early 19th century.
Partly through good fortune and partly through conscious effort, Britain by the early 18th
century came to possess the combination of social needs and social resources that
provided the necessary preconditions for a commercially successful innovation and a
social system capable of sustaining and institutionalizing the processes of rapid
technological change.
One of the major setbacks of the Industrial Revolution was skilled workers were
set aside because operation of new machines were used. The companies also hired
women and children increasingly which cost lower than of the skilled workers.
Manual/physical labor was changed into machine operated devices, even tradesperson
replaced the craftsrmen and the applied scientists replaced the amateur inventors.
Aside from these, three important technologies formed the foundations of the first
Industrial Revolution namely, iron production, steam engine, and textiles.
The steam engine has been around but later on improved by Scottish James Watt
(1736-1819) and other investors after 1778. It was used to run machines and made a
major contribution to the first Industrial Revolution. The steam-powered machine was
improved gradually and was adapted for many uses and the use of more complex
machinery was made possible. The development and refinement of machine tools by
British engineers Henry Maudslay (1771-1831) and Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887)
played a key and crucial part in the later phase of the first Industrial Revolution as machine
tool technology enabled standardized manufacturing machines to be fabricated.
Some of the greatest inventions were introduced by American scientist, such as
during this period was Robert Fulton's (1765-1815) steamboat that used one of Watt's
engines. Thomas Edison (1847-1931) who invented the light bulb. Alexander Graham
Bell (1847-1922) who invented the telephone. English engineer George Stephenson
(1781-1848) developed the first steam-powered locomotive.
Note: A video clip on this topic (will be serving as enrichment item) is also available
in the Google classroom.

In the 19th Century

In the 19th century, witnessed the rise of modern industry, from agriculture to
industrial manufacturing and technology-intensive services. An unending stream of new
products turned out by factories employing radically new technologies, skills, and
organization drove this emerging modern world.
Based on the Gregorian calendar, 19th century lasted from 1801 to 1900. The
invention of useable electricity, steel, and petroleum products led into a second Industrial
Revolution during the 19th century. This century was considered to be the age of machine
tools. Tools were made for tools; machines were made for other parts of another machine.

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During the 19th century, science also made great progress.
• John Dalton (1766-1844) published his atomic theory in 1803. Dalton also studied color
blindness.
• Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) formulated the Periodic Table.
• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) formulated the law of the Conservation of Energy
in 1847. In 1851, he invented the ophthalmoscope. In the late 19th century, physics
made great strides.
• James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) showed that light is an electromagnetic wave in 1873
and was later on proved by Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) in 1888.
• Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) discovered radioactivity in 1896.
• Marie Curie (1867-1934) and Pierre Curie (1859-1906) discovered radium in 1898.
• Joseph Thomson discovered the electron in 1897.

In the 19th century, people mastered electricity.

• Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851) discovered that electric current in a wire caused a
nearby compass needle to move is 1819.

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• Michael Faraday (1791-1867) showed that a magnet can produce electricity and in 1831
he invented the dynamo.
• Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872) invested the electric telegraph is 1937.
In the 19th century, machines in factories were usually operated by steam engines.
At the end of the 19th century, they began to covert to electricity. In the mid-19* century,
railways revolutionized travelling and made travel much faster. Steam locomotives pulled
the carriages.
• Karl Benz (1844-1929) and Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) made the first cars in 1885
and 1836.
Meanwhile, the steamship revolutionized travelling a sea. At 1815, steamships
were crossing the English Channel. Furthermore, took several weeks to cross the Atlantic.
Then in 1838, a steamship called the Sirius made the jobs across the Atlantic in 19 days.
However, steam did not completely replace sail until the end of the 19th century when the
steam turbine was used on ships

In the 20- Century

It is not skeptical that the 20 century is one of the most noticeable in the history of
humans for its incomparable technological advances and scientific discoveries. There
were a lot of new technologies made and science discoveries.
Technology was rapidly developed in the 20 century. With the use of scientific
methods and funding for research, it helped achieve the advancement of modern science
and technology. With the ascension of new technology, it enhanced the communication
and transportation system of humans and brought it closer to people. Military research
and development brought about the rise of electronic computing and jet engines. Radio
and telephony enriched greatly and reached a wider population of users, though near-
universal access was impossible until mobile phones became affordable for the people in
the late 2000s and early 2010s.
The relationship between science and technology has become more problematic
on several levels in the 20th century. In the face of an ever-growing complexity, technology
has become more scientific and the natural sciences more technological, as the social
scientific concept of techno science indicates. At the same time, many technological
innovations since the 1970s have only slowly resulted in job-creating new products.
Some of the greatest technological advancement during this period was the
creation of personal computer. In 1971, Intel developed a microprocessor that made
computer smaller, easier to use, and cheaper which replaced the early computers that
were bulky and had a tube-powered behemoths. Computer has become a dominant tool
in the global economy and as a necessity in many homes that until today we greatly rely
on them. Steve Jobs (1955-2011) and Steve Wozniak (1950) have redefined the meaning
of computer by introducing Apple in 1976. While in connection with the invention of
personal computers, the Internet was also created in 1969 for defense-related research
known as ARPANet or Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. It helped us in
terms of global communication, gathering information through searching, conducting

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business matters and on our everyday affairs through the World Wide Web which was
created in 1989.
Another one is the automobiles or cars, which were considered to be one of the
most revolutionary technological advancements in the century. Exploitation of the said
technology was made possible because of Henry Ford (1863-1947) by devising a system
of mass production for the Model T in 1908. It made cars affordable to people and also
made a dramatic change in the society. Using automobiles as a form of transportation
has connected people together including those in the rural areas to urban centers.
One of the breakthroughs during the century was the invention of Artificial
Intelligence that has the capacity for a computer to perform humanlike intellectual
processes and it was later on developed during the 1940's. Modern A.I. features specially
designed computers that can think" similarly to humans. A.I. is also being used to assist
doctors in making medical diagnoses. While there are no any program or computer
existing today that can match the man's full intellectual capacity.

SUGGESTED READINGS / WEBSITE/ VIDEOS/ FILM CLIPS

i. Bautista, D.H., N.S. Burce, J.M. Dungo, C.S. Garcia, J.B. Imson, R.A. Labog,
F.J.B. Salazar and J.L. Santos (2018). Science Technology and Society.
MaxCor Pub. House, Inc. Quezon City, Philippines
ii. Goddard, J. (2010). Concise history of science and inventions: An illustrated
Timeline. Washington, D.C., USA: National Geographic Society
iii. 123 Help me. (n.d.). History of science and technology. Retrieved from
http://www.123helpme.com/history-of-science-and-technology-
view.asp?id=158842
iv. Moistero, A.P. (2006). Science, technology and society. Quezon City:
Educational Publishing House
v. The scientist-history of
science.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgp_Oh7eifA
vi. Progress in science and technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlwwZZeiz5o

ACTIVITY
In a group of 2-4 people, you are to make an argumentative report based on the
following questions.
1. Does advancement in science and technology only offers positive effect to the
society?
2. Ask someone from your groupmates who disagreed with your opinion in no.1
because he or she might have some reasons, what might his/her reasons be?

3. How will you convince someone who disagreed with your opinion and had his/her
reason(s) in Question no.2?

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4. What would be your evidence to support your opinion in Question no.1 or 3 so
that disagreeing member will turn their side into to agree with your idea?

Send your work to your respective STS Google classrooms. Deadlines will be given
by your instructors.
SCORING RUBRIC FOR ARGUMENTATIVE REPORT
(Adapted from Lin & Mintzes, 2010)
Questions Responses for: Answer Category Scoring
Claims and No answer or invalid warrant 0
Q1 Warrants
Only an acceptable claim and no 1-2
warrant
An acceptable claim and a valid 3
warrant
An acceptable claim and more than 4-5
one valid warrant

(max.=5pts.)
Q2 Counterarguments No answer or invalid warrant 0
(Compare Q1)
One or more valid warrants 1-3

(max.=3pts.)
Q3 Supportive No answer or invalid warrant 0
arguments
Elaborated and valid warrant 1
More than one elaborated and valid 2-3
warrant with rebuttal to the
counterargument (Q2)
More than one rebuttal to 4-5
counterarguments
(max.=5pts.)
Q4 Evidence No evidence or supplementary 0
explanation
Valid evidence 1
More than 1 valid evidences 2
(max. =2 pts)
TOTAL = _/15

GOD BLESS EVERYONE AND KEEP SAFE ALWAYS!

GEC 17 Instructors
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