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STS SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ANS SOCIETY
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UNIT 1. Introduction to Science, Technology and Society
Let’s check your knowledge relative to the lesson. TRUE or FALSE. Write the word true if the statement is correct. Write false if the statement is incorrect.
How well did you do? How do you feel about the test? Did it make you feel confident or insecure? Your feelings will be your guide to go slow or breezw through this module. Here is the answer key and category to your pre-test. A perfect 10 makes you Science Enthusiast. Please continue to study this module as a review. If you go lower than 10, studying this module is a must. 7 - 9 Science Imitator 4 - 6 Science Aspirant 0 - 3 Science Hopeful
**1. False 6. False
This time relate your prior knowledge to the lesson. Read on the story of Galileo as a scientist who faced opposition for his science theories or investigations.
Like almost everyone in sixteenth century Italy, where Galileo was born, Galileo was taught that Earth was the centre of the Universe and that other heavenly bodies were smooth, shining spheres – perfect examples of God’s creation. According to the Church, any other belief would be contrary to what it said in the Bible, and therefore heresy.
the Moon, he observed no smoothness, but what looked like mountains and valleys. By focusing on the boundary between the dark part of the Moon and the area lit by the Sun where shadows were longest, and measuring the shadows there, he could calculate the heights of some of the mountains. He realised that the surface of the Moon was very jagged and rocky. He also thought that the dark, smoother spots on the Moon indicated seas. All these observations went right against current concepts about the Moon – and they supported the forbidden belief that there were other worlds like the Earth, a belief for which Bruno had been convicted and burnt to death. As Galileo improved his telescopes, he was also able to observe Jupiter. He determined that the four ‘stars’ that moved with it could not be fixed stars but were four moons. Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this lesson the students must have,
Acquire New Knowledge This part will present the ideas aligned with the objectives of the lesson. THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD VIEW Scientists share certain basic beliefs and attitudes about what they do and how they view their work. These have to do with the nature of the world and what can be learned about it. The World Is Understandable Science presumes that the things and events in the universe occur in consistent patterns that are comprehensible through careful, systematic study. Scientists believe that through the use of the intellect, and with the aid of instruments that extend the senses, people can discover patterns in all ofnature. Science also assumes that the universe is, as its name implies, a vast single system in which the basic rules are everywhere the same. Knowledge gained from studying one part of the universe is applicable to other parts. For instance, the same principles of motion and gravitation that explain the motion of falling objects on the surface of the earth also explain the motion of the moon and the planets. With some modifications over the years, the same principles of motion have applied to other forces—and to the motion of everything, from the smallest nuclear particles to the most massive stars, from sailboats to space vehicles, from bullets to light rays.
Scientific Ideas Are Subject To Change Science is a process for producing knowledge. The process depends both on making careful observations of phenomena and on inventing theories for making sense out of those observations. Change in knowledge is inevitable because new observations may challenge prevailing theories. No matter how well one theory explains a set of observations, it is possible that another theory may fit just as well or better, or may fit a still wider range of observations. In science, the testing and improving and occasional discarding of theories, whether new or old, go on all the time. Scientists assume that even if there is no way to secure complete and absolute truth, increasingly accurate approximations can be made to account for the world and how it works. Scientific Knowledge Is Durable Although scientists reject the notion of attaining absolute truth and accept some uncertainty as part of nature, most scientific knowledge is durable. The modification of ideas, rather than their outright rejection, is the norm in science, as powerful constructs tend to survive and grow more precise and to become widely accepted. For example, in formulating the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein did not discard the Newtonian laws of motion but rather showed them to be only an
Moreover, the growing ability of scientists to make accurate predictions about natural phenomena provides convincing evidence that we really are gaining in our understanding of how the world works. Continuity and stability are as characteristic of science as change is, and confidence is as prevalent as tentativeness.
Often, however, control of conditions may be impractical (as in studying stars), or unethical (as in studying people), or likely to distort the natural phenomena (as in studying wild animals in captivity). In such cases, observations have to be made over a sufficiently wide range of naturally occurring conditions to infer what the influence of various factors might be. Because of this reliance on evidence, great value is placed on the development of better instruments and techniques of observation, and the findings of any one investigator or group are usually checked by others. Science Is a Blend of Logic and Imagination Although all sorts of imagination and thought may be used in coming up with hypotheses and theories, sooner or later scientific arguments must conform to the principles of logical reasoning— that is, to testing the validity of arguments by applying certain criteria of inference, demonstration, and common sense. Scientists may often disagree about the value of a particular piece of evidence, or about the appropriateness of particular assumptions that are made—and therefore disagree about what conclusions are justified. But they tend to agree about the principles of logical reasoning that connect evidence and assumptions with conclusions. Scientists do not work only with data and well-developed theories. Often, they have only tentative hypotheses about the way things may be. Such hypotheses are widely used in science for choosing what data to pay attention to and what additional data to seek, and for guiding the interpretation of data. In fact, the process of formulating and testing hypotheses is one of the core activities of scientists. To be useful, a hypothesis should suggest what evidence would support it and what evidence would refute it. A hypothesis that cannot in principle be put to the test of evidence may be interesting, but it is not likely to be scientifically useful. The use of logic and the close examination of evidence are necessary but not usually sufficient for the advancement of science. Scientific concepts do not emerge automatically from data or from any amount of analysis alone. Inventing hypotheses or theories to imagine how the world works and then figuring out how they can be put to the test of reality is as creative as writing poetry, composing music, or designing skyscrapers. Sometimes discoveries in science are made unexpectedly, even by accident. But knowledge and creative insight are usually required to recognize the meaning of the unexpected. Aspects of data that have been ignored by one scientist may lead to new discoveries by another.
Science Explains and Predicts Scientists strive to make sense of observations of phenomena by constructing explanations for them that use, or are consistent with, currently accepted scientific principles. Such explanations—theories —may be either sweeping or restricted, but they must be logically sound and incorporate a significant body of scientifically valid observations. The credibility of scientific theories often comes from their ability to show relationships among phenomena that previously seemed unrelated. The theory of moving continents, for example, has grown in credibility as it has shown relationships among such diverse phenomena as earthquakes, volcanoes, the match between types of fossils on different continents, the shapes of continents, and the contours of the ocean floors. The essence of science is validation by observation. But it is not enough for scientific theories to fit only the observations that are already known. Theories should also fit additional observations that were not used in formulating the theories in the first place; that is, theories should have predictive power. Demonstrating the predictive power of a theory does not necessarily require the prediction of events in the future. The predictions may be about evidence from the past that has not yet been found or studied. A theory about the origins of human beings, for example, can be tested by new discoveries of human-like fossil remains. This approach is clearly necessary for reconstructing the events in the history of the earth or of the life forms on it. It is also necessary for the study of processes that usually occur very slowly, such as the building of mountains or the aging of stars. Stars, for example, evolve more slowly than we can usually observe. Theories of the evolution of stars, however, may predict unsuspected relationships between features of starlight that can then be sought in existing collections of data about stars. Scientists Try to Identify and Avoid Bias When faced with a claim that something is true, scientists respond by asking what evidence supports it. But scientific evidence can be biased in how the data are interpreted, in the recording or reporting of the data, or even in the choice of what data to consider in the first place. Scientists' nationality, sex, ethnic origin, age, political convictions, and so on may incline them to look for or emphasize one or another kind of evidence or interpretation. For example, for many years the study of primates— by male scientists—focused on the competitive social behavior of males. Not until female scientists entered the field was the importance of female primates' community-building behavior recognized. Bias attributable to the investigator, the sample, the method, or the instrument may not be completely avoidable in every instance, but scientists want to know the possible sources of bias and how bias is likely to influence evidence. Scientists want, and are expected, to be as alert to
The direction of scientific research is affected by informal influences within the culture of science itself, such as prevailing opinion on what questions are most interesting or what methods of investigation are most likely to be fruitful. Elaborate processes involving scientists themselves have been developed to decide which research proposals receive funding, and committees of scientists regularly review progress in various disciplines to recommend general priorities for funding. Science goes on in many different settings. Scientists are employed by universities, hospitals, business and industry, government, independent research organizations, and scientific associations. They may work alone, in small groups, or as members of large research teams. Their places of work include classrooms, offices, laboratories, and natural field settings from space to the bottom of the sea. Because of the social nature of science, the dissemination of scientific information is crucial to its progress. Some scientists present their findings and theories in papers that are delivered at meetings or published in scientific journals. Those papers enable scientists to inform others about their work, to expose their ideas to criticism by other scientists, and, of course, to stay abreast of scientific developments around the world. The advancement of information science (knowledge of the nature of information and its manipulation) and the development of information technologies (especially computer systems) affect all sciences. Those technologies speed up data collection, compilation, and analysis; make new kinds of analysis practical; and shorten the time between discovery and application. Science Is Organized Into Content Disciplines and Is Conducted in Various Institutions. Organizationally, science can be thought of as the collection of all of the different scientific fields, or from anthropology through zoology, there are dozens of such disciplines. They differ from one another in many ways, including history, phenomena studied, techniques and language used, and kinds of outcomes desired. With respect to purpose and philosophy, however, all are equally scientific and together make up the same scientific endeavour. The advantage of having disciplines is that they provide a conceptual structure for organizing research and research findings. The disadvantage is that their divisions do not necessarily match the way the world works, and they can make communication difficult. In any case, scientific disciplines do not have fixed borders. Physics shades into chemistry, astronomy, and geology, as does chemistry into biology and psychology, and so on. New scientific disciplines (astrophysics and socio-biology, for instance) are continually being formed at the boundaries of others. Some disciplines grow and break into sub disciplines, which then become disciplines in their own right. Universities, industry, and government are also part of the structure of the scientific endeavour. University research usually emphasizes knowledge for its own sake, although much of it is also directed toward practical problems. Universities, of course, are also particularly committed to educating successive generations of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. Industries and businesses usually emphasize research directed to practical ends, but many also sponsor research that has no immediately obvious applications, partly on the premise that it will be applied fruitfully in the long run. The federal government funds much of the research in
universities and in industry but also supports and conducts research in its many national laboratories and research centres. Private foundations, public-interest groups, and state governments also support research. Funding agencies influence the direction of science by virtue of the decisions they make on which research to support. Other deliberate controls on science result from federal (and sometimes local) government regulations on research practices that are deemed to be dangerous and on the treatment of the human and animal subjects used in experiments. There Are Generally Accepted Ethical Principles in the Conduct of Science. Most scientists conduct themselves according to the ethical norms of science. The strongly held traditions of accurate recordkeeping, openness, and replication, buttressed by the critical review of one's work by peers, serve to keep the vast majority of scientists well within the bounds of ethical professional behavior. Sometimes, however, the pressure to get credit for being the first to publish an idea or observation leads some scientists to withhold information or even to falsify their findings. Such a violation of the very nature of science impedes science. When discovered, it is strongly condemned by the scientific community and the agencies that fund research. Another domain of scientific ethics relates to possible harm that could result from scientific experiments. One aspect is the treatment of live experimental subjects. Modern scientific ethics require that due regard must be given to the health, comfort, and well-being of animal subjects. Moreover, research involving human subjects may be conducted only with the informed consent of the subjects, even if this constraint limits some kinds of potentially important research or influences the results. Informed consent entails full disclosure of the risks and intended benefits of the research and the right to refuse to participate. In addition, scientists must not knowingly subject co-workers, students, the neighbourhood, or the community to health or property risks without their knowledge and consent. The ethics of science also relates to the possible harmful effects of applying the results of research. The long-term effects of science may be unpredictable, but some idea of what applications are expected from scientific work can be ascertained by knowing who is interested in funding it. If, for example, the Department of Defense offers contracts for working on a line of theoretical mathematics, mathematicians may infer that it has application to new military technology and therefore would likely be subject to secrecy measures. Military or industrial secrecy is acceptable to some scientists but not to others. Whether a scientist chooses to work on research of great potential risk to humanity, such as nuclear weapons or germ warfare, is considered by many scientists to be a matter of personal ethics, not one of professional ethics. Scientists Participate in Public Affairs both as Specialists and as Citizens Scientists can bring information, insights, and analytical skills to bear on matters of public concern. Often they can help the public and its representatives to understand the likely causes of events (such as natural and technological disasters) and to
Now, let’s check what you have learned. Reflect on the following questions, then answer the following questions logically.
Multiple Choice. Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
