REVIEWER

1. GECSTS MODULE 1
Science, Technology and Society (STS) is an interdisciplinary
course that engages the students to confront the realities
brought about by science and technology in society that are
integral to human development.
CHAPTER 1
HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS IN THE COURSE OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
PREHISTORIC MAN:
 NOMADIC
 HUNTER-GATHERERS
CONCERNED WITH:
 SURVIVAL
 TRAVELLING/DIRECTION TO HUNT FOR FOOD AND LOOK
FOR SHELTERS
PREHISTORIC ERA
DIVITED INTO:
 STONE AGE- used stones called paleoliths, eoliths &
microliths to create tools and weapons.
 METAL AGE- used discovered metals to create tools and
weapons
1. STONE AGE
 OLD STONE AGE OR PALEOLITHIC
- hand axe
- scraper
- chopper
- grinder
- hummer
- Arrow eads
- flakes
- burins
 MIDDLE STONE AGE OR MESOLITHIC
- bones and ivory used
- blade
- core
- knives
- chisels
- triangle
- burin
- dagger
- points
 NEW STONE AGE OR NEOLITHIC
- polished axe
- blades
- arrowheads
- ring stone
- stickle
- plough
- harpoon
- muller
2. METAL AGE
 COPPER AGE
 BRONZE AGE
 IRON AGE
PRE-COLOMBIAN PERIOD
- known as Meso-America
- civilization
 MAYAN
 AZTEC
 INCA
 OLMEC
PRE-MAGELLANIC PERIOD
 Negrito, Aeta, Ati
 Other ethnic groups in:
 LUZON- Igorot, Ivatan, Ibanag, Ilongot, etc.
 VISAYAS- Mangyan, Palawano, Molbog, etc.
 MINDANAO- Lumad, Manobo, T’boli, B’laan, etc.
ANCIENT TIMES
-people were concerned with:
 TRANSPORTATION
 NAVIGATION
 COMMUNICATION
 RECORD KEEPING
 MASS PRODUCTION
 SECURITY & PROTECTION
 Health, Aesthetics and Architecture
BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION
 Emerged near Tigris and Euprhates rivers
 Great builders, engineers and architects
FAMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS
 Hanging Gardens of babylon built by King
Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife Queen Amytis
MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATIOS
 Sumeria, Assyria, Persia emerging between Euphrates and
Tigris rivers
 Known for their high degree of cooperation and desire for
great things
FAMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS:
 Cuneiform, Uruk City, the Great Ziggurat of Ur, Irrigation
and dikes, sailboats, wheel, Plow and roads.
INDIAN CIVILIZATION
 Known as indus Valley and Harappan Civilization near
Ganges and Indus rivers
 Known for their religious, philosophical and selfless beliefs:
land of sages, seers, scholars and scientist.
Famous Contributions:
 Hindu Numerals, Zero, Binary Numbers, Decimal Systems
CHINESE CIVILIZATIONS
 Oldest ciivilization in Asia; also known as Middle Kingdom
emerged near Yang Tze and Huang Ho (yellow river) rivers
 Known fortheir silk trade
FAMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS:
 Silk, Tea production, Great wall of China, Gunpowder
ROMAN CIVILIZATION
 Strongest political and social entity in the west
 Cradle of politics and governance; looked up to by other
civilization as model in legislation and codified laws
FAMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS:
 Newspaper, Bound Books or Codex, Roman Architecture,
Roman Numerals

2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
 - Papyrus codex written in greek
- Contains alchemist text
- consist of 10 leaves, 30 x 34
- 20 pages, contain 16 writings
- each page has 28-47 lines
- contains 111 recipes
GALILEO (1564-1642)
 Italian scientist, Chief founder of Modern Science
 Condemned by Catholic Church for his view of the
cosmos.
MODULE 3
PRE-COLONIAL
 STONE AGE
INVENTIONS (40,000-3,000 B.C)- they made simple tools and
weapons on stone flakes and later developed method of sawing
and polishing stones.
- producing adzes ornaments of seashells and pottery
flourished for the next 2,000 years.
- they imported Chinese porcelain, bronze, iron and gold metal
tools and ornament.
 IRON AGE
- lasted from 3rd
century B.C to 11th
century A.D.
- filipinos engaged in extraction, smelting and refining of iron
from ores.
- the importion of cast from sarawak and later from china.
 COMMON ERA
- 10th
century to 15th
century A.D.
- already engaged and activities related to science
- medicine, alphabet, system of writing, no calendar but by
period of moon.
COLONIAL
 During the Spanish Regime (15565-1898)
- the real sociedad economica de los amigos del pais de filipinas
(governonr Jose Basco Y Vargas)
- in 1780 encourage research in agriculture
- society promoted cultivation of Indigo, cotton, cinnamon, and
silk industry.
- the royal and pontificial university of Santo Tomas remained
as the highest institution of learning.
- run by Dominicans, it was established as a college in 1611 by
Fray Miguel De Benavides.
- 1789, Manila was opened to Asian shipping.(china, Vietnam,
Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo)
- 18th
century, The faculty of Jurisprudence and Canonical Law
wasestablished.
- 1871 school of medicine and pharmacy were opened
(1871--1886).
- 1876 the university granted the Bachelor’s degree in
pharmacy to its first six graduates in the school of Pharmacy.
- Leon Ma. Guerrerro (father of the Philippine Pharmacy)
- Nautical School created on January 1, 1820 which offered 4 yr
course (for pilot merchant marine)
- 1839, a school of commercial accounting and a school of
french and English language were established.
- 1883 the colonial authorities issued a royal decree designed
to reform the royal existing educational system in the country
- 1869, opening the Suez Canal. Resulted from increased
commerce between the Philippines enable the Filipino students
to go to Europe for professional advanced studies in 1814.
 AMERICAN REGIME
- introduced a system of secularized public-school education as
soon as civil governments was set up.
- January 21, 1901, The Philippine Commission which acted as
the Executive and Legislative Body for the Philippines until
1907.
- Promolugated act no. 74 created a department of public
instruction in the Philippines. It provide free primary schools
with English as the medium of instructions.
- 1905, Philippine medical school was established later became
University of the Philippines.
- 1903, the Philippine commission passed an act to finance the
sending or students of high school age to United States.
- 1921, rockefeller foundation provided for 6 fellowships for
qualified Filipinos in universities in the united states and
Europe.
- 1925, survey of the educational system of the island was
authorized survey of the educational system of the island
headed by PAUL MONROE
- 1935, The Philippine Commonwealth was inaugurated and
ushered in a period of transition to political independence.
 JAPANESE OCCUPATION
- Philippine became an independent state
POST COLONIAL
- COMMONWEALTH (1935-1946)
- President: Manuel L. Quezon, Jose P. Laurel &Sergio Osmena
(2nd
republic)
- Third Republic 1946-1965 (Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino,
Ramon Magsaysay, Carlos P. Garcia, Diosdado Macapagal
MODULE 4
HUMAN FLOURISHING- Is defined as an effort to achieve
self-actualization within the context of a larger community of
individuals, each with the right to pursue his or her own such
efforts.
 Positively related to a rational man’s attempt to
externalize his value and actualize his internal views of
how things ought to be in the outside world.
 Practical reason can be used to choose, create and
integrate all the values and virtues that comprise personal
flourishing.
EASTERN
 Community- centered
 Individual sacrifice for society’s sake
 Confucian, Bushido
 Literature, Sciences and the arts for a greater cause
WESTERN
 Individual
 As an end
 Aristotelian view
 Eudaimonia as the ultimate good

3. Aristotle
- there is an end of all the actions thet we desire for itself.
- known Eudaimonia, flourishing or hapiness
- Eudaimonia is a property of one’s life when considered as a
whole.
- Flourishing is the highest good of human endeavors and that
toward which all actions aim.
- virtues are the means to values which enables us to achieve
human flourishing and happiness.
- The constituents virtues such as rationality, independence,
integrity, justice and honesty.
- science stems from objectivity by a rigid method; reason and
empiricism
- Techne- art, craft, craftmanship
- Alethia- truth
- Poieses- to make, to create
- is the collection of techniques, skills methods, and processes
used in the production of goods or services or in the
accomplishments of objectives, such as scientific investigation.
THE QUESTION CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY- HEIDEGGER,
MARTIN
- is not an instrument
- not a human activity
- the highest danger
- applying scientific knowledge to find answers and fix
problems
- is using fewer resources to manufacture goods more
efficiently
- is hiring workers from all over the world to manufacture
goods.
“THE ESSECE OF TECHNOLOGY IS BY MEANS ANYTHING
TECHNOLOGCAL”
-MARTIN HEIDEGGER
PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT HUMAN FLOURISHING
JASON HICKEL “we can end poverty by changing the rules of
the global economy”
 Aim of sustainable development is to balanced our
economic, environmental and social needs, allowing
prosperity for now and future generations.
 A global study at the university of Leeds “radical
changes are needed if all people are to live well within the
limits of the planet,” said Dr. Julia Steinberger, another of
the study’s co-authors. “these include moving beyond the
pursuit of economic growth in wealthy nations, shifting
rapidly from fossils fuels to renewable energy, and
significantly reducing inequality.”
 Standardized unit (resource use, waste, and emission)3.4
earth for the average person in the average high–income
country (Global Footprint Network)
-
overshooting our planet’s biocapacity by about 50%/year.
- Our planet only has sufficient resources for each of us to
consume 1.8 “global hectares” annually
SANER MEASURE FOR HUMAN PROGRESS
- Does not rely on endlessly increasing extraction and
consumption (Stiglitz and Sen 2011; Fioramonti 2013)
- The imperative for GDP growth places human and natural
system under enormous pressure.
- GPI as a measure of progress starts with GDP and then adds
positive factors such as household and volunteer work,
subtracts negatives such as pollution, resource depletion, and
crime, and adjusts for inequality.
- Getting rid of the GDP growth imperative would release the
pressure that caused so much human suffering
- Focusing on GPI (or any alternative measure) would
incentivize policies that facilitate good outcomes while
diminishing bad ones.
ALLEVIATING WORLD SUFFERING
-
1. international debt system,
2. structural adjustments
3. lack of democracy in global governance
4. unfair trade regimes
5. poor wages
6. tax evasion
-
7. land grabs
8. climate change
- Making global economy fairer for the world’s Majority
- Actively shrink our ecological footprint to fit wIthin the
planet’s boundaries
- Reducing the material over-consumption of the richer
countries while improving human development in the poorer
ones.
What do you call the “tale of catching up”?
The dominant story that is handed down to us from
technocrats and the media is that global poverty is rapidly
decreasing, thanks to free-market globalization. But this
narrative relies on a very low poverty line. If we look at more
accurate poverty lines, it’s clear that the reality is more
complex. The number of people living on less than $5 per day
(2005 PPP), the minimum necessary for good nutrition and
normal human life expectancy, has increased dramatically since
the 1980s, particularly during the era of structural adjustment.
It is estimated that 4.2 billion people live with less than this
amount; it is nearly 60% of the world’s population. This is a
blistering indictment of our global economy, and it suggests
that our usual approach to development has basically failed.
Why are poor countries poor? Why massive poverty still exists
in a world of plenty?
We tend to imagine that the poverty of poor countries has to
do with their internal domestic problems – maybe it’s
corruption, or weak institutions. Of course, that has something
to do with it. But we too often ignore the much more
significant external forces that perpetuate poverty. Take the
debt system, for example. Poor countries have to bend to the
wishes of creditors and investors, who prohibit the use of
tariffs, subsidies, capital controls and regulations – key tools
that Western countries used to build their own economies. At
the World Bank and IMF, horrible imbalances in voting power
mean that a handful of rich nations get to dictate
macroeconomic policy across much of the global South. At the
World Trade Organization, bargaining power is determined by
market size, so rich countries get to push through policies that
primarily benefit themselves.
We like to think that rich donor countries are helping poor
countries up the development ladder. But the opposite is true:
as Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang has put it, rich
countries are kicking away the very ladder that they used to
climb to the top.
In The Divide, you write that poor countries are effectively
developing rich countries, can you explain how?
In 2017 Global Financial Integrity published new data looking at
all the money that flows between the global North and the
global South. They found that the South receives about $1.3
trillion per year from the North, in the form of aid, FDI,
remittances, everything. But at the same time $3.3 trillion flows
the other way, in the form of interest on debt, repatriated
profits by multinational companies, and – most importantly –
illicit financial flows. So, the South is a net creditor to the North:
poor countries are developing rich countries, not the other way

4. around. Conclusion: for every $1 of aid that the South receives,
they lose $24 in net outflows. The aid narrative has it exactly
backward.
What evolutions do you recommend to promote a more equal
exchange?
It is delusional to believe that aid is a meaningful solution to
the problem of global poverty and inequality. These are
political problems, and demand political solutions. We need to
shift from a paradigm of charity to a paradigm of justice to end
poverty. We need to find ways to make the global economy
fundamentally fairer for the world’s majority.
What does that look like? Well, for one, it’s time to cancel
unpayable debts, and liberate poor countries from the policy
diktats of creditors. We need to democratize the institutions of
global economic governance – the World Bank, the IMF and the
WTO – to ensure that poor countries get a fair say in the
policies that affect them. We need to allow poor countries to
use tariffs, subsidies, and capital controls, without rich
countries responding to these measures with crushing
sanctions. We need to reform the TRIPS agreement so that
poor countries can access the technologies and medicines they
need at affordable prices. And we need to end tax evasion by
closing down the tax havens – most of which are controlled by
the governments of rich countries.
In The Divide I explore a number of other exciting solutions,
including how we might implement a global minimum wage,
and even a universal basic income extended to all humans on
the planet.
What should be the role of development agencies?
It’s clear that development agencies need to shift their focus
beyond aid to tackle the structural determinants of global
poverty and inequality. And they need to find ways to create a
new and more meaningful public narrative. Instead of
representing poverty as a problem that’s out there,
unconnected to the rich world, we need to help people
understand that it is a problem that is perpetuated in large part
by the rules of the global economic system, and that we can
and should work together to change those rules.
According to you, GDP growth cannot be equivalent anymore
to human progress. Can you explain? What means degrowth ?
The obvious problem with GDP is that it includes no cost
accounting. If you chop down a forest and sell the timber, GDP
goes up, but it says nothing about the cost of losing the forest
as a sink for carbon, or a home for endangered species, or a
future resource. In fact, even the economists who first
designed the GDP metric warned that it should never be used
as a measure of progress. And yet that’s exactly what we do
today. We are desperately in need of a saner metric. One of the
most popular alternatives is the Genuine Progress Indicator
(GPI). It starts with GDP and then subtracts social and
ecological negatives from it. If our politicians were set the task
of pursuing something like GPI instead of GDP, then they would
be incentivized to improve social goods while minimizing
ecological bads. That’s the shift we need to make, and urgently.
Is it possible to eradicate poverty while we have already
overpassed the ecological limits of our planet?
Yes, it is possible to end poverty! We already know that it is
possible to achieve high levels of human development with
relatively low ecological impact, because some countries have
already done it, like Costa Rica and Cuba. We can hold such
countries up as models for other developing countries to
emulate. When it comes to sustainable development, poor
countries are the “easy” part. It is rich countries that are the
hard part.
I explain myself. On a global scale, we are already overshooting
a number of key planetary boundaries. Importantly, the vast
majority of this overshoot is being driven by excess
consumption in rich countries. If we are to prevent ecological
collapse, then rich countries will need to dramatically reduce
their ecological footprint. Is it possible to make such reductions
while at the same time pursuing GDP growth? The answer –
according to all available studies – is no. That means that rich
countries need to shift to a completely different economic
model – one that, instead of relying on endless growth, enables
human flourishing in the absence of growth.
This completely changes the development narrative, from a
focus on the failures of poor countries to a focus on the violent
excesses of rich countries. It is rich countries that are the real
development challenge of the 21st century. If we don’t arrest
our trajectory toward ecological breakdown, we will be headed
toward mass human suffering, and the gains against poverty
that have been accomplished over the past few decades will be
reversed.
How to build an alternative to the endless growth model?
We need to realize that our world is an abundant place, with
more than enough for everyone. The problem is that it is very
unevenly distributed. The first step, then, is to share what we
already have more fairly, so that we don’t need to plunder the
earth for more. We can end poverty right now, without any
additional aggregate global growth, simply by changing the
rules of the global economy so that poor countries capture a
fairer share of global income.
The second step is for rich nations to shift toward a
post-growth economic model. There are lots of ways we can
move in this direction. For instance, a shorter working week
would allow us to scale down socially unnecessary economic
activity (marketing, derivatives, single-use products) without
causing unemployment to rise. A universal basic income would
allow people to walk away from what David Graeber calls
bullshit jobs, which have little or even negative social value.
Decommoditizing key social goods like healthcare, education
and perhaps even housing would allow people to access the
resources they need to live well without endlessly increasing
their incomes to do so.
There are dozens of exciting ideas out there that it’s time to
start experimenting. It’s time to evolve beyond capitalism
toward something better: something more caring, more
intimate, more beautiful and more ecological.
The opinions expressed on this website are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of
their institutions or of AFD.