HISTORICAL

ANTECEDEN
T
Professor Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins
University - explains that historians of science
aim to get a true and accurate depiction of
science in the past. Including the (evolution),
(genesis), and the (context).
Place of
By doing so, historians of science achieve the
the History
following applications: of Science
in STS
1. Getting a better idea of science in the
past gives us a better picture of science
nowadays which, in turn, encourages
interest in the subject.
2. Studying the subject tells us more about
how our ancestors were involved in the
same processes of discovery about how
the world works.

3. Discussing the history of science

benefits students as it dispels the false
notion that getting into science requires
being a genius.

4. Providing access to the development of

science across time encourages more
people to go into science.
Historical Antecedent

Antecedent – define as precursor to

the unfolding or existence of
something.

Historical Antecedent - defined as

the previous state of science and
technology before something more
Two ways of defining historical
antecedent:

First, antecedents can refer to the older and tangible

counterparts of a more advanced, more efficient, and
more useful tool, device, or technology.

Second, antecedents can also refer to the prevailing and

non-tangible societal conditions, which required scientists
to think of inventing new tools, devices, and technologies
or improving existing ones in order to better the ever-
growing challenges at the time.
EXAMPLE:

Historical development of BITCOIN.

a digital or virtual cryptocurrency invented in 2009,

which uses peer-to-peer technology and strong
cryptography to facilitate online transactions and
secure online payments. A bitcoin is essentially a
computer file stored in a digital wallet application on
people's smartphone or computer.

It can be sent to your or another person's digital

wallet. These transactions are recorded in a public
list called the “blockchain“. As a medium of
exchange, one tangible antecedent of the bitcoin is
our traditional currencies and monetary units, such
as copper coins and paper money.
Non-tangible antecedent, several events
shaped the need for the creation of the
bitcoin. One such event that many refer to in
the historical development of bitcoin is the
2008 Financial Crisis, which culminated with
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s declaration
of bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. It
was the worst economic disaster since the
Great Depression from 1929 to 1939.

Creation of the 1st Bitcoin came after the

crisis as a strategy to users to take control of
their money instead of trusting the financial
system. That is vulnerable to collapse, worst
is making people lose their hard-earned
money and investments in an instant.
Tangible and Non-Tangible definitions able to
understand the evolution and genesis of science and
technology and the social, political, economic and
cultural contexts that shaped them.
Ancient Age
- Our ancestors relied on
protoscience, which was an era
when the scientific method was
just unfolding.

- knowledge and understanding

about how world works was
handed down through
generations using oral tradition.
Ancient Age

- Difficult period in the development

of science since early humans were
focused on survival
 - Sumerians ( 5000 – 4000 B.C. )

Mesopotamia ( 3500 – 500 B.C. )

Ancient Indus (3300 -1900 B.C. )

Civilization Ancient Egypt ( 3150 – 31 B.C.)
s Ancient Greece ( 2700 – 479
B.C)
Ancient China (2100- 221 B.C)
Ancient Rome (550 B.C – 465
A.D)
Ancient Age
Inventions
- Ancient Wheel :
* animals were mode of
transportation before the
invention of wheel.
* no exact date wheel is
invented
* general agreement
ancient wheel grew out from a
mechanical device called
Ancient Age Inventions
• Potter’s Wheel – a heavy flat disk made of
hardened clay which was spun horizontally
on an axis.
• invented by Sumerians shortly after 3500
B.C credited to invented the ancient wheel
since no other civilization used a similar
device.
• 1000 to 1500 years later reinvented the
purpose of potter’s wheel to carts.
 Ancient Age
Inventions
- Paper :
* around 3000 B.C
ancient Egyptians began
writing on papyrus. Made
from papyrus plant grew
near the Nile River .
( lightweight, strong,
durable, and portable).
*before writing done
Ancient Age
Inventions
- Shadoof or Shaduf :

* Egyptians early tool

invented to irrigate land.
Used by Egyptians who lived
in the Nile River .
* Irrigation is essential
for farming.
Ancient Age
Inventions
- Antikythera mechanism:
* Greeks had already
invented the ancient worlds
analog computer, similar to a
mantle clock, discovered in
1902 in the waters of
Antikythera Greece.
* oldest known antecedents
of modern clockwork invented
by Greek scientist between 250-
Ancient Age
Inventions
- Aeolipile :
* known as Hero’s engine,
precursor of the steam engine.

* Hero of Alexandria is
credited for the demonstration
of aeolipile in first century A.D.
Middle Age

- Development of proper science,

through the rise of scientific
thinking and the scientific method
Middle Age

Alternate terms “ Medieval Period and

Dark Ages.
Divided into three subperiods:
* Early Middle Ages ( 467-1000 A.D.),
* High Middle Ages ( 1000 – 1250 A.D.),

* Late Middle Ages ( 1250 – 1500 A.D.)

 After collapse of the Roman Empire,
society became more concerned
with peace keeping and empire
building.

Early Middle “true Dark Ages”

Ages ( 467-
1000 A.D.)

Devoid of any contribution to

scientific advancement is incorrect.
 Little evidence “ medieval
thinkers and great minds were
trying to find answers about
Early Middle nature of the universe.
Ages ( 467-
1000 A.D.) * Saint Bede’s “Saxon Era”
using astronomical
observations to determine the
beginning of Easter in
England.
Early Middle Ages
( 467-1000 A.D.)
- Bi Sheng (990-1051 A.D) Chinese
man invented the movable type
printing towards the end of the Early
Middle Ages during Song Dynasty.
- Monks in both the West and East most
concerned about scholastic
endeavors on the Bible and
Buddhism.
 Yi Xing ( 725 A.D.) Asia, a
Early Buddhist monk invented the
Middle worlds first mechanical clock.

Ages
Romans and Greeks introduced
( 467-1000 mathematical functions thru
mathematics and geometry as
A.D.) scientific disciplines.
 Europeans slowly began to crawl
out of the “Dark Ages” after more
than 5 centuries of constant
warfare.

High Middle Time of prolonged war between

Christians and Muslims between
Ages ( 1000 Spain and the East.
– 1250 A.D)
Trade flourished as it became a
standard for merchants and
mercenaries.
High Middle Ages ( 1000 –
1250 A.D)
- Stadium generale ( medieval
universities )
* University of Bologna (founded in
1088)
* University of Oxford ( 1167)
* University of Cambridge ( 1209)
* University of Paris ( 1215)
These were hosted by many High Middle
High Middle Ages ( 1000 –
1250 A.D) Aquinas led the transition from
- Thomas
Platonic reasoning to Aristotelian
empiricism.
- Robert Grosseteste lobbied for the
dualistic scientific method.

Great minds behind scientific method

Roger Bacon, Aristotle, Avicenna, Galileo,
 High Middle Ages
( 1000 – 1250 A.D)
- Middle Age China 1092 (350 years
after the first mechanical clock
was invented)
* Su Song (cosmic empire)
developed a more sophisticated
version of mechanical clock.

- Navigational compasses : more

sophisticated version invented
between 2nd century B.C and 1st
century A.D used in Chinese ships
High Middle Ages
( 1000 – 1250 A.D)
- Navigational compasses

later used in Feng shui to decide

on building layouts. Compass
were very efficient that Arabs
who were trading in China
learned about technology and
brought it to Europe for
replication and further
Late Middle Ages ( 1250 –
1500
- End ofA.D)
the Middle Ages (delivered the
world from Medieval society into modern
one.)
- Begun in the mid – 13th century and ended
in the 14th century.
- Down of social order triggered by a series
of Famines and Plagues swept Europe
Great Famine ( 1315 – 1317)
Black Death ( 1346 – 1353)
Late Middle Ages ( 1250 –
1500 A.D)
- Cataclysmic Events (14 century)

Hundred Years War ( 1337 – 1453)

Peasants’ Revolt (1381)
Joan of Arc at the stake (1431)
Constantinople to the Turks (1453)
Late Middle Ages ( 1250 –
1500 A.D)
14 th
Century
- English Franciscan friar William of
Ockham
Proposed the idea of parsimony based on
his work on logic studies known as “
Ockham’s Razor”.
- Ockham’s Razor
Is still used in modern science to choose
Late Middle Ages ( 1250 –
1500 A.D)
14 th
- Jean Century
Buridan
a French philosopher established the
antecedents of Newtonian Physics (inertia)
challenging Aristotelian physics and
developing the “theory of impetus”

Mathematical Formula = weight x

 Late -Thomas Bradwardine
Middle English physicist
Ages differentiated kinematics
( 1250 – and proposed the mean
1500 A.D) speed theorem ,
14th Century demonstrated through
the Law of Falling Bodies.
 Nicholas d’Oresme (Livre du ciel et
du monde )

Late Middle Discussed a theory about a

Ages ( 1250 heliocentric universe, first to argue
– 1500 A.D) Earth rotate on it’s axis rather than
the entire sphere of stars.
14th Century

argued this two centuries before

Nicolaus Copernicus.
 many Christians scholastics
became more open to factor out
Late Middle divine intervention in their
attempts to explain natural
Ages ( 1250 phenomena.
– 1500 A.D)
14th Century period were scholars sought
simpler and natural causes to
events rather than dismissing
them as divine providence,
Middle
Age
Invention
s
HEAVY PLOUGH
Itmakes possible to harness the clay
soil despite of being heavy due to this
invention.
Thomas Bernebeck a professor in
University of Southern Denmark
describe the impact of heavy plough
resulted to rapid economic prosperity.
 GUNPOWDER (850
-
A.D)
Chinese Alchemist
accidentally invented black
powder or gunpowder.
- suggest that it was an
unintended by-product of
their attempts to invent the
ELIXIR of LIFE.
- called as “huoyao” or
translated as “fire potion”
 1st version of
paper money is
traced back to bank notes
the Chinese in would begin to
the 7th century be used in
A.D. Europe.

Paper 13th 17th

7 th
century century
Money

Mongols
attempted to
introduce paper
money into
Middle Eastern
Mechanic
al Clock

Development of
Mechanical Clocks
would be able to
accurately keep track
of time for the first
time on Middle Ages.
Spinning Wheel
- A machine used for
transforming fiber into
thread or yarn eventually
woven into cloth on a loom.
- No consensus could be
made about the origin.
- Theorized that Indians
invented the Spinning
Wheel between 6th and
11th century A.D.
Modern Age
Modern Age
Is the postmedieval era beginning
in the 1500s to present.
steady population increase
worldwide, technological
innovations, urbanization, scientific
discoveries and globalization.
 Subperiods:

Modern Age Early Modern

Period
Late Modern Period
Modern Age
Subperiods:

Early Modern Period

Late Modern Period
Early Modern
Period
 Foundation of the Great
Divergence.
west overcame pre-modern
growth and unprecedented levels of
wealth and power in the 19th century.
Early Modern
Period
Johannes Gutenberg

- invented movable type

printing press.
Early Modern
Period
14th – 16th century

- Renaissance
- educational reforms
16th century

- Protestant reformation
Early Modern
Period
 older methods of science (replaced
by empiricism and modern science
through the 16th and 17th century
scientific revolutions.
Late Modern
Period
 beginning sometime in 1750 to 1815.

huge political, social, and economic

changes
 massive changes brought by the
combined and complex effects of First
Industrial Revolution (1750), American
Revolution (1776), and French
Revolution.
Late Modern
Period
First Industrial Revolution

far reaching consequences as

it altered not only the ways goods
were produced.
Late Modern
Period
First Industrial Revolution

far reaching consequences as

it altered not only the ways goods
were produced.
Late Modern
Period
Invention of the internal combustion
engine, steam-powered ships, and
railways.
Manufacturing took the economic
spotlight
Factory work became a popular
model of mass production
Late Modern
Period
Schools were designed to follow the
template of a factory in which
students were treated as raw
materials to be transformed into
products to meet the demand of
modern life.
Late
Modern
Period
 Consumer goods
became a go to
options of people
who, in the midst of
personal and societal
economic growth,
could no longer
produce their own
food, clothing, and
supplies.
Late Modern
Period
 French and American
Revolutions paved the way for
national sovereignty and
representative democracy which
replaced monarchy.
Late Modern
Period
 18th century revolution

period of greater secularism

and gave birth to democracy as
product of individual rights and
progress.
Late Modern
Period
 Contemporary Period

- more and more people preferred

living in the city received education, read
books and newspapers, participated in
politics, spent on consumer goods, and
embraced the identity of citizenship in an
industrialized nation.
Late Modern
Period
 Urbanization and mass media.
Modern Age Inventions
Compound Microscope
Hans and Zacharias Janssen a Dutch
spectacle is credited with the invention of
the first compound microscope in 1950.

* capable of magnifying objects three

times their size up fully closed to 10
times extended to maximum.
Telescope
Technological invention in the study of astronomy built by Galileo
Galilie, it can magnify object 20 times than the Dutch perspective
glasses.
First observed presence of craters and mountains on the moon.
Jacquard Loom
- built by Joseph Marie Jacquard, French weaver
most critical drivers of the revolution .
- important antecedent of modern computer technology, demonstrated the use of punched cards
to instruct a machine to carry out complex task
Engine- Powered Airplane

- built by Orville and Wilbur Wright

( December 17, 1903) at Kitty Hawk North Carolina.

- referred to as aeroplanes.
Television

- built by Scottish
engineer John Logie
Baird.
Revolutions in
the History of
Science