Saint Louis College

City of San Fernando, La Union

GE 3
SCIENCE,
TECHNOLOG
Y and
GE 3 – SCIENCE,
TECHNOLGYSOCIETY
AND SOCIETY

MODULE 1 HISTORY OF SCIENCE

(Prehistoric to Roman Civilization)

After finishing Modules 1 to 4 you should be able to:

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 You should be able to articulate the impacts of science and technology to society, specifically
the world society and explain how science and technology affect society and the environment and its
role in nation building.
You must be able Imbibe the importance of science and technology in the preservation of the
environment and the development of the world and creatively present the importance and contributions
of science and technology to world society.

ENGAGE: When was the computer invented? Do you know that:

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient hand powered Greek analogue computer which has also been
described as the first example of such device used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar
and astrological purposes decades in advance. THE INVENTOR OF TRIGONOMETRY MAY HAVE ALSO
CREATED THE MECHANISM. Hipparchus is primarily known as an ancient astronomer; he was born in what is
now Turkey around 190 BCE and worked and taught primarily on the island of Rhodes. His works survive almost
entirely through later Greek and Roman authors. Wikipedia

EXPLORE:

A. The Beginning of Science

1. Timeline: Prehistoric

2.5 million years B. C. Homo habilis – used stone tools

500,000 Use of fire – generated by nature
100, 000 Homo sapiens
33, 000 Homo sapiens sapiens – (modern man)

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 Early Hunting and Gathering Tools
An assortment of prehistoric tools provides evidence of the hunting and gathering methods of early peoples. Slabs of bark
were often used to gather nuts and berries and functioned as crude dishes or bowls (top left). Reproductions of fishing
tackle and arrows believed to have been used around 8000 BC are displayed on the lower left. Recovered tools for
digging and cutting (right) are shown with recreated wooden handles. The heads of the adzes are made from flint, as is
the fire-starter shown below them.

Modern and Early Humans

Humans have undergone major anatomical changes over the course of evolution. This illustration depicts
Australopithecus afarensis (center), the earliest of the three species; Homo erectus (left), an intermediate species; and
Homo sapiens sapiens (right), a modern human. H. erectus and modern humans are much taller than A. afarensis and
have flatter faces and much larger brains. Modern humans have a larger brain than H. erectus and an almost flat face
beneath the front of the braincase

Meat Eating Among Early Humans

Early species of the genus Homo may have been the first human ancestors to eat meat on a regular basis. In the lower
foreground of this artist’s rendering, a mother and child share meat from an animal carcass. Rather than hunting prey
themselves, these early humans often may have scavenged the kills of predatory animals, using simple stone tools to cut
up carcasses

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2. Men were bound to attempt to cure themselves and others of ailments, to try to alleviate pain,
restore health, and the world of death.

3. Man could not help but observe the living machinery of the animal organism, whenever a creature
was cut up by butchers.

2. Domestication and Agriculture

One of the most important developments in human cultural behavior occurred when people began to
domesticate (control the breeding of) plants and animals. Domestication and the advent of agriculture
led to the development of dozens of staple crops (foods that form the basis of an entire diet) in
temperate and tropical regions around the world. Almost the entire population of the world today
depends on just four of these major crops: wheat, rice, corn, and potatoes.

Effects of Food Production on Human Society

By harvesting and herding domesticated species, people could store large quantities of plant foods,
such as seeds and tubers, and have a ready supply of meat and milk. These readily available
supplies gave people some long-term food security. In contrast, the foraging lifestyle of earlier human
populations never provided them with a significant store of food. With increased food supplies,
agricultural peoples could settle into villages and have more children. The new reliance on agriculture
and change to settled village life also had some negative effects. As the average diet became more
dependent on large quantities of one or a few staple crops, people became more susceptible to
diseases brought on by a lack of certain nutrients. A settled lifestyle also increased contact among
people and between people and their refuse and waste matter, both of which acted to increase the
incidence and transmission of disease.

People responded to the increasing population density—and a resulting overuse of farming and
grazing lands—in several ways. Some people moved to settle entirely new regions. Others devised
ways of producing food in larger quantities and more quickly. The simplest way was to expand onto
new fields for planting and new pastures to support growing herds of livestock. Many populations also
developed systems of irrigation and fertilization that allowed them to reuse cropland and to produce
greater amounts of food on existing fields.

B. The Rise of Civilizations

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 Cradle of Civilization
Known as the “cradle of civilization,” Mesopotamia served as the site for some of the world’s earliest settlements. Named
after the Greek word meaning “between the rivers,” Mesopotamia occupied the area between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers that now constitutes the greater part of Iraq. The Sumerian civilization, which began in the region in about 3500
BC, built a canal system and the world’s first cities.

1. Sumerian Civilization - The earliest civilization arose over 7,000 years ago in Sumer in what is
now Iraq. Sumer grew powerful and prosperous by 5,000 years ago, when it centered on the city-
state of Ur. The region containing Sumer, known as Mesopotamia, was the same area in which
people had first domesticated animals and plants.

2. Babylonian Civilization - (Babylonian Bābili,”gate of God”; Old Persian Babirush), ancient country
of Mesopotamia, known originally as Sumer and later as Sumer and Akkad, lying between the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, south of modern Baghdād, Iraq. The Babylonians modified and transformed
their Sumerian heritage in accordance with their own culture and ethos. The resulting way of life
proved to be so effective that it underwent relatively little change for some 1200 years. It exerted
influence on all the neighbouring countries, especially the kingdom of Assyria, which adopted
Babylonian culture almost in its entirety. Fortunately, many written documents from this period have
been excavated and made available to scholars. One of the most important is the remarkable
collection of laws often designated as the Code of Hammurabi, which, together with other
documents and letters belonging to different periods, provides a comprehensive picture of Babylonian
social structure and economic organization.

Kingdom of Babylonia
Babylonia was one of the first civilizations in the world. It formed around the region where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
flow in relatively parallel courses toward the Persian Gulf. The region is also part of what is known as the Fertile Crescent,
so named because the people who lived in this crescent-shaped area developed rich, irrigated farmlands.

3. Ionia (The Aegean coast of what is now Turkey)

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 a. 600 BC – Ionian philosophers ignored the supernatural, instead, believed that the affairs of
the universe followed a fixed and unalterable pattern. - assumed the existence of CAUSALITY – idea
of cause and effect
b. Rationalism (use of reason) entered science
c. Alcmaeon ( 6th Century BC) – first man to dissect animals; merely described what he saw;
considered the first student of anatomy and embryology
d. Hippocrates (460-377 BC) – A healthy body was one in which the component parts worked
well and harmoniously, whereas a diseased body was one in which they did not. “On The Sacred
Disease” (about 400 BC), he maintained that it was useless, generally to attribute divine causes to
disease, and that here was no reason to consider the “sacred disease” an exception.

4. Nile Valley of Northeast Africa (Egypt) – Egypt has been a coherent political entity with a
recorded history since about 3200 BC. One of the first civilizations to develop irrigated agriculture,
literacy, urban life, and large-scale political structures arose in the Nile Valley. The annual flood of the
Nile provided for a stable agricultural society; embalmed mummies skilfully; great engineering
knowledge (built Pyramids).

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 Egyptian Pyramids
Located on the west bank of the Nile River on the outskirts of Cairo, the pyramids at Giza, Egypt, rank as some of the
best-known monuments in the world. The ancient Egyptians constructed the pyramids to serve as royal tombs. Built
without the use of cranes, pulleys, or lifting tackle, the massive structures stand as testaments to the engineering skills of
their makers.

Alexandria

Alexandria (Egypt, in the Nile River delta, on a ridge that separates Lake Maryoţ from the
Mediterranean Sea. The city was founded in 332 BC by Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, who
planned it as one of the finest ports of the ancient world. Soon after the city was founded, the
population, consisting chiefly of Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians, numbered 300,000 free citizens,
exclusive of slaves and foreigners. Alexandria was made the capital of Egypt, numerous palaces
were built by the Ptolemies, the Alexandrian Library and Museum were founded, and influential
schools of philosophy, rhetoric, and other branches of ancient learning were established. During the
early 3rd century BC, the Alexandria Library had almost 500,000 volumes, the largest collection of
books in the ancient world. However, the collection was destroyed over several centuries. Under the
Ptolemies, the city became the literary and scientific center of the ancient world.

a. Herophilus (335-280 BC), Alexandrian physician, born in Chalcedon (now Kadiköy, Turkey). He is
known as the father of scientific anatomy because he was the first to base his conclusions on
dissection of the human body. He studied the brain, recognizing it as the center of the nervous
system. He distinguished the motor from the sensory nerves and accurately described the eye, brain,
liver, and pancreas and the salivary and genital organs. He was first to recognize that the arteries
contain blood, not air. His works, which include commentaries on Hippocrates and a treatise on
anatomy, were lost.

b. Erasistratus (304?-250?BC), Greek anatomist, As a young man he became physician at the court
of Seleucus I also known as Nicator (Greek for “the conqueror”), king of Syria from 301 to 280 BC.
Later, Erasistratus founded a school of anatomy in Alexandria. He traced sensory and motor nerves
to the brain, and veins and arteries to the heart. Erasistratus believed that the nerves carry “nervous

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spirit” from the brain, and that the arteries carry “animal spirit” created by the heart out of air from the
lungs. He noted the wrinkled appearance of the brain(convolutions).

5. Indus Valley of South Asia - Indus Valley Civilization (2500?-1700 BC), earliest known
civilization of South Asia, corresponding to the Bronze Age cultures of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia,
and Crete (Kríti). The remains of settlements belonging to this culture have been found throughout
the Indus River valley in Pakistan, westward along the coast to the Iranian border, in India's
northwestern states as far east as New Delhi, and on the Oxus River in northern Afghanistan. The
Indus Valley civilization encompasses one of the largest geographical areas covered by a single
Bronze Age culture.

Indus Valley Civilization

In the Indus valley area now known as Pakistan, an advanced Bronze Age culture rose up about 2500 BC and lasted for
nearly 1000 years. Scholars do not know how it began or whether its people were related to those who now occupy
Southwest Asia. Nomadic tribes called Aryans invaded the Indus River valley, probably from the region north of the
Caspian Sea, in 1500 BC. The Aryan culture became dominant in the area, eclipsing that of its predecessors.

Hindu work of medicine – Ayurveda, a system of traditional medicine that originated in ancient
India before 2500 BC, is still practice as a form of alternative medicine. Susruta Samhita, text that
describes different surgical procedures and other medical procedures famous in ancient India.

In astronomy they developed theories on the configuration of the universe, the spherical self-
supporting earth, and the year of 360 days with 12 equal parts of 30 days each.

In mathematics the people tried to standardized measurement of length to a high degree of

accuracy and designed a ruler, the Mohenjo daro ruler.
Aryabhata introduced trigonometric functions, tables and techniques and algorithms in algebra.
Brahmagupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction, ansd explained the use of zero as
both a placeholder and a decimal digit, along with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system now used
universally throughout the world.
Madhavata is considered as the founder of mathematical analysis.

6. Yellow River Valley of East Asia - During the long Paleolithic period, bands of predatory hunter-
gatherers lived in what is now China. Modern humans may have first appeared in China as far back
as 200,000 years ago.

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Beginning in about 10,000 BC, humans in China began developing agriculture, possibly influenced by
developments in Southeast Asia. By 5000 BC there were Neolithic village settlements in several
regions of China. On the fine, wind-blown loess soils of the north and northwest, the primary crop was
millet, while villages along the lower Yangtze River in Central China were centered on rice production
in paddy fields, supplemented by fish and aquatic plants. Humans in both regions had domesticated
pigs, dogs, and cattle, and by 3000 B sheep had become important in the north and water buffalo in
the south.

Neolithic Jar
This jar from Gansu Province in north central China is dated about 2500 BC.
It is a very early wheel-thrown piece and features geometric designs in black and reddish-brown
on a buff-colored body. This piece may have been used as a burial urn.

Traditional Medicines – they discovered various medical properties and uses of different plants and
animals to cure human illness. The Chinese invented the practice of acupuncture.

In Technology – famous discoveries and inventions were compass, paper making, gunpowder, and
printing tools. They also invented the iron plough, wheelbarrow and propeller among others. The
Chinese use the Lunar calendar.

6. Greece - Athens

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 Greek Cultural Influences
Ancient Greek ideas about art, architecture, drama, philosophy, and government greatly influenced Western civilization.
Among the most influential of Greek cultural achievements is the Parthenon in Athens, an outstanding example of
classical architecture. The Greek teacher and philosopher Socrates affected Western speculative thought and philosophy
with his emphasis on dialogue and rational argument. Greek scientists developed methods of reasoning to demonstrate
mathematic principles. Greek dramas set structural and thematic styles emulated by great Western playwrights such as
William Shakespeare.

Ancient Greece - civilization that thrived around the Mediterranean Sea from the 3rd
millennium to the 1st century BC, known for advances in philosophy, architecture, drama,
government and science. The term “ancient Greece” refers to both where Greeks lived and how
they lived long ago. Geographically, it indicates the heartland of Greek communities on the north
coast and nearby islands of the Mediterranean Sea. Culturally, it refers to the ways ancient Greeks
spoke, worshiped, understood the nature of the physical world, organized their governments, made
their livings, entertained themselves, and related to others who were not Greek.

a. Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher and scientist, who shares with Plato and Socrates the
distinction of being the most famous of ancient philosophers.

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 The School of Athens
The School of Athens (1510-1511) is one of several frescoes that Italian Renaissance artist Raphael painted in the
Vatican Palace’s Stanza della Segnatura. The fresco, which depicts ancient Greek philosophers and scholars, such as
Plato and Aristotle (center), marks the mature style Raphael achieved during his years in Rome (1508-1520). The work is
considered a masterpiece in the use of perspective and in the portrayal of the artistic ideals of the High Renaissance.

A student of ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Aristotle shared his teacher’s reverence for human
knowledge but revised many of Plato’s ideas by emphasizing methods rooted in observation and
experience. Aristotle surveyed and systematized nearly all the extant branches of knowledge and
provided the first ordered accounts of biology, psychology, physics, and literary theory. In addition,
Aristotle invented the field known as formal logic, pioneered zoology, and addressed virtually every
major philosophical problem known during his time. Known to medieval intellectuals as simply “the
Philosopher,” Aristotle is possibly the greatest thinker in Western history, and historically, perhaps the
single greatest influence on Western intellectual development

b. Plato (428-c. 347 BC), Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and influential thinkers in
Western philosophy, was the first to use the term philosophy, which means “love of knowledge.” Born
around 428 BC, Plato investigated a wide range of topics. Chief among his ideas was the theory of
forms, which proposed that objects in the physical world merely resemble perfect forms in the ideal
world, and that only these perfect forms can be the object of true knowledge. The goal of the
philosopher, according to Plato, is to know the perfect forms and to instruct others in that knowledge.

c. Socrates (469-399BC), Greek philosopher and teacher who lived in Athens, Greece, in the 400s
BC. He profoundly altered Western philosophical thought through his influence on his most famous
pupil, Plato, who passed on Socrates’s teachings in his writings known as dialogues. Socrates taught
that every person has full knowledge of ultimate truth contained within the soul and needs only to be
spurred to conscious reflection in order to become aware of it. His criticism of injustice in Athenian
society led to his prosecution and a death sentence for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens.

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d. Euclid (300 BC), Greek mathematician, whose chief work, Elements, is a comprehensive treatise
on mathematics in 13 volumes on such subjects as plane geometry, proportion in general, the
properties of numbers, incommensurable magnitudes, and solid geometry.
The Data, a collection of geometrical theorems; the Phenomena, a description of the heavens; the
Optics; the Division of the Scale, a mathematical discussion of music; and several other books
have long been attributed to Euclid.

e. Pythagoras (582?-500?BC), Greek philosopher and mathematician, whose doctrines strongly

influenced Plato.
Considered the first true mathematician, Pythagoras established a movement in 6th-century BC in
southern Italy that emphasized the study of mathematics as a means to understanding all
relationships in the natural world. The followers of this movement, Pythagoreans, were the first to
teach that the Earth is a sphere revolving around the Sun.
He taught that numbers explained the world and started the study of mathematics in Greece. He was
one of the philosophers who called the universe cosmos, meaning “a beautiful thing,” because it
had order based on scientific rules, not mythology.

f. Leucippus (450?-370? BC), Greek philosopher, probably born in Abdera. Virtually nothing is
known of his life and none of his writings survive. He is, however, credited with founding the atomic
theory of matter, later developed by his pupil, the Greek philosopher Democritus. According to this
theory, all matter is constituted of identical indivisible particles called atoms.

g. Democritus (460?-370? BC), Greek philosopher who developed the atomic theory of the universe
which had been originated by his mentor, the philosopher Leucippus. According to his exposition of
the atomic theory of matter, all things are composed of minute, invisible, indestructible particles of
pure matter (atoma,”indivisibles”), which move about eternally in infinite empty space (kenon,”the
void”).

h. Theophrastus (372?-287 BC), Greek philosopher, He studied in Athens with Aristotle, whose
devoted pupil he became. When Aristotle retired to Chalcis (Khalkís) in 323 BC, Theophrastus
succeeded him as head of the Peripatetic school in the Lyceum. Theophrastus wrote about logic,
politics, poetry, metaphysics, and every other area of study of his time; many of his treatises,
however, are lost. He did much to popularize science. His History of Plants (trans. 1916) and Etiology
of Plants presented the first thorough treatment of the science of botany and remained the definitive
works on the subject through the Middle Ages. He is considered as the founder of Botany.

7. Ancient Rome - the period between the 8th and 1st centuries BC in which Rome grew from a tiny
settlement to an emerging empire while developing from monarchy to a republican form of
government. True Roman originality appears more often in engineering and construction than in the
decorative arts. By 300 BC Appius Claudius Caecus had commissioned work on the paved military
road south to Capua, which became known as the Appian Way.

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He also initiated construction of Rome’s first aqueduct to bring water to the city from nearby hills.
These projects later became the models for hundreds of miles of aqueducts and thousands of miles
of paved highway built throughout Rome’s empire.

In addition, the Romans took the arch from the Etruscans and, on their own, pioneered the use of
concrete covered by brick as the basis for most monumental buildings, including baths,
amphitheaters, aqueducts, and markets.

Arch of Constantine
The Arch of Constantine, Rome, (312-5) was built to commemorate Constantine the Great’s victory over Maxentius,
making Constantine the absolute monarch of the Roman Empire. The arch is actually three arches, with four freestanding
columns and elaborate sculptural ornamentation.

1. Dioscorides, Pedanius (40?-90? AD) Greek physician, born in Anazarbus, in Cilicia (now in
Turkey). He served in the Roman armies of Nero and studied plants for their medicinal properties. He
wrote De Materia Medica (On Medical Matters), the first authoritative and superstition-free text on

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botany and pharmacology. founder of pharmacology – 600 species of plants and paid attention to
their medicinal qualities.

2. Gauis Plinius Secundus/ Pliny (23 – 79 AD)

- Wrote 37 volume encyclopedia in which he summarized all that he could find out on natural history
among ancient the authors. Pliny's great encyclopedia of nature and art in 37 books, the Historia
Naturalis, is the only one of his works that has been preserved. It embraces, as he states in his
dedicatory epistle to the Roman emperor Titus, 20,000 important facts, extracted from about 2000
volumes by 100 authors. The first ten books were published in 77 AD and the remainder after his
death, probably by Pliny the Younger. The encyclopedia concerns astronomy, geography, ethnology,
anthropology, human physiology, zoology, botany, horticulture, medicine and medicaments from plant
and animal substances, mineralogy and metallurgy, and the fine arts, and also contains a valuable
digression on the history of art.

3. Galen (129-199?) The most outstanding physician of antiquity after Hippocrates. His anatomical
studies on animals and observations of how the human body functions dominated medical theory and
practice for 1400 years. Galen dissected many animals, particularly goats, pigs, and monkeys, to
demonstrate how different muscles are controlled at different levels of the spinal cord. He noted the
functions of the kidney and bladder and identified seven pairs of cranial nerves. He also showed that
the brain controls the voice. Galen showed that arteries carry blood, disproving the 400-year-old
belief that arteries carry air.

End of Module 1

The part of the module EXPLAIN: ELABORATE: will be given on the Google Classroom Assignment

The EVALUATION part of the module will be given on the Google Classroom Quiz

Study Module 1 before I give you both.

Mr. Harry B. Andrada

GE 3 Course Facilitator

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