SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
HUMAN HISTORY AND THE EMERGENCE AND
DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE
Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030)
1. No poverty
2. Zero Hunger
3. Good health and well-being
4. Quality education
5. Gender equality
6. Clean water and sanitation
7. Affordable and clean energy
8. Decent work and economic growth
9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure
10. Reduced inequalities
11. Sustainable cities and communities
12. Responsible consumption and production
13. Climate action
14. Life below water
15. Life on land
16. Peace, justice, and strong institutions
17. Partnerships for the goals
Additional theories that could intervene in the
attainment of these goals:
1. Social Darwinism
- Survival of the fittest
- Herbert Spencer
- An application of the theory of natural
selection to social, political, and
economic issues.
- The idea: the white European race was
superior to others, and therefore,
destined to rule over them.
- Darwin’s theory of natural selection: in
nature, the strong survive and those best
suited to survive (adaptation) will out-live
the weak.
- Social Darwinism: those with strength
(economic, physical, technological)
flourish and those without are destined
for extinction
2. Social Exchange Theory
- A psychological theory that attempts to
explain the social factors that influence
how individuals interact within a
reciprocal relationship.
- The basic formula for predicting behavior
- Cost-Benefit Analysis
Science Philosophical Problems
● Ethical
● Epistemological- sense experience vs reason
● Metaphysical- laws, causation, explanation
The Ancient Ages
● began at the end of the Iron Age, that is
prehistory, at it starts with the appearance of
writing around four thousand years before Christ
and ends with the fall of the Western Roman
Empire around 500 years after Christ. During this
period the first civilizations arose and developed.
Middle Ages
● Term for Western Europe during the postclassical
era
● Began with the fall of Rome and ended in the
1400s
● Also called the Dark Ages
● Historians once called the early middle ages the
dark ages because they focused on the problems
of the time: lack of central government,
widespread disease (plague), long religious war,
little access to education, and lack of
technological or cultural development
The Renaissance
● It is a period from the 14th to the 17th century,
considered the bridge between the middle ages
and modern history.
● It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the
Late Medieval period and the later spread to the
rest of Europe.
Philosophy
● Philosophy is a way of thinking about the world,
the universe and society. It works by asking very
basic questions about the nature of human
thought, the nature of the universe and the
connections between them. The ideas in
philosophy are often general and abstract.
Philosophy vs Science
● Difference: the way they work and treat
knowledge
● Science is concerned with natural phenomena,
while philosophy attempts to understand the
nature of man, existence, and the relationship
that exists between the two concepts, meanwhile,
science is only concerned with the latter.
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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

● The criteria of “falsifiability” is a philosophical theories in the history and philosophy of

construct create dby philosophers of science in science into a whole new context.
➔ Coined the term “paradigm”
hopes of solidifying what constitutes the
“scientific method”.
Normal science vs Revolutionary science
● Natural scientists- study the physical world
- It is in this period of revolutionary science that
● Social scientists- study human behavior
theories are checked, previously held formulas
are re-analyzed and possible refutations are
METHODS OF SCIENCE
generated, for a new paradigm or paradigm shift
● Science is based on facts
to occur.
**Solving problem is scientific progress
Inductivism
- It proposes and rests on a common
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
understanding of the laws of the universe; there
● Knowledge is an end toward which both strive.
are laws of nature, uniformities that govern these
● Their difference is the type of knowledge that they
laws.
seek.
- Facts are observable, and that theories should be
● Science seeks knowledge of facts while
derived from these facts by observation.
philosophy seeks ultimate knowledge
(observation is using the senses, seeing is
believing)
- Observable facts are objective.

Hypothetico-deductivism
● Rejects context of discovery
● Hypothetico-deductivism asserts that “facts” are
not always observable. (facts have come to
scientists not by observation but rather by
accident, through dreams, visions and
preexisting theories)
● Rejects the notion that facts are neutral and
objective.
● Theories are confirmed, not proven, yet every
instance that lends support corroborates the
theory.

Falsificationism
● Also rejects the context of discovery
● Confirmation of hypothesis is not enough (no
specific confirmations will make nay hypothesis
true)
● A body of science must be falsifiable
● The notion of scientific progress for the
falsificationist rests on the premise that scientific
theories are tentative.

Conjecture and Refutation

● Science must continue to progress through an
open quest to put existing theories to the test,
allowing preconceived notions of “facts,”
whatever they may be, up to scientific criticism
and refutation.
➔ Thomas Kuhn famously published The
Structures of Scientific Revolutions in
1962, a publication that brought previous