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=**The Cultures of Scientific Revolutions**= Fall 2009
 * Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute**
 * IHSS 1978**

Meeting Times: M, R 10-12 Place: Sage 2701

Prof. Michael Fortun Sage 5112 X6598 Office Hours: M, R 9-10; also by appointment. fortum@rpi.edu


 * Course Goals and Content**

How is science different from or similar to other human endeavors? What kind of truths does science produce, and how? How does a science change and develop? What kind of a person is a scientist? How does science interact with other parts of our culture, like politics, literature, and religion?

Our goal is to develop an understanding of science as a human activity, in a dynamic give-and-take with the rest of the culture, through a collaborative exploration of some of its most dramatic and important “revolutions”: the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-18th centuries, the demise of determinism and absolute space-time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Manhattan Project and the re-organization of American science after World War II, and the development of Darwinian evolutionary theory and its lasting social impacts. By the end of this course, students should be able to


 * Describe the historical events comprising some of the major revolutions in scientific thought, practice, and culture
 * Critically evaluate the claims made by historians, philosophers, and other analysts (including scientists themselves) about what science is, how and why it changes, and how it relates to other areas of culture
 * Be able to appreciate and question not only how science affects culture, but how culture affects the practice and theories of science.


 * Academic Dishonesty Policy**

You should read the Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities so that you understand all the acts that constitute a violation of the Institute’s academic dishonesty policy. Plagiarism is the most frequent violation, sometimes because students are unfamiliar with what constitutes plagiarism. You should read the brief but thorough description found at Indiana University's plagiarism page ([|http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html]).

I have a policy of zero tolerance for plagiarism or any other act of academic dishonesty. If you commit any such act, you will – at minimum – receive an F for that assignment and be subject to RPI’s judicial process. Failure of the entire course is also within my rights as instructor.


 * Texts**

There are no required texts to purchase for this class. Almost all of the readings are on web sites, or articles that can be downloaded from journals. I recommend that you print out assigned articles so that you can highlight, make notes, etc., while some of the web sites may simply be explored and read on-line; in any case, you will need to refer to specific evidence, arguments, and other features of the assigned readings in your written work for the course (see below).


 * Course Requirements and Grading**

An important part of scientific culture today is an “open source ethos:” in short, that knowledge can be (and should be) collectively and openly produced and evaluated, through experimental sharing of new technologies and the distributed exploration of a data-space. This course will follow that model as much as possible, based on a Wiki as our experimental technology.

Our Wiki is being hosted here: http://CSR2009.wikispaces.com/. At minimum it will serve as a place for posting your writings and assignments, reading and evaluating your work collectively, and as a starting point for class discussions. At best, it can become a lively forum, and a growing set of resources useful to anyone interested in sciences and their cultures. Here are the assignments, how they will be graded, and how they will be weighted toward your final grade:


 * (Almost) Weekly responses (30% of final grade)**

You will COMPOSE a brief response to one or more of the readings assigned for that week, and make it part of the Wiki BY MIDNIGHT WEDNESDAY. We will discuss the criteria for these responses in more detail in class, but in general your post should be some combination of: a good summary of what you’ve read; use quotes from the reading to flesh out particular arguments you want to make, build on, or take issue with; raise questions for discussion; and generally begin to make some critical evaluations about the author and her/his/its claims. These wiki posts will be evaluated as follows 0: no response; thoughtless; careless in substance or grammar; nonspecific blather ungrounded in the reading; unsubstantiated assertions; adds nothing to my knowledge 1: not bad, but not particularly great either; not much beyond the obvious; thrown together, disjointed, or otherwise UNcomposed 2: decent summary; raises good questions or makes good points; addresses specific arguments, themes, or claims; containing mainly working sentences and paragraphs; backs up arguments with evidence; etc. 3: excellent summary and critical analysis; judicious use of quoted material; thoughtful questions and arguments; makes connections to other materials, discussions, themes, or web sites; shows historical understanding; etc.

Here's an emerging list of "exemplary posts": Exemplary Post 1 Exemplary Post 2 Exemplary Post 3

You need to write ten posts, so while you do not need to write a response every week, you will be accumulating points toward this portion of your grade. Once that week's midnight Wednesday deadline has passed, so has your chance to write a response (i.e., you cannot write multiple responses in the remaining weeks). For this portion of your grade you can earn up to a total possible 10 weeks X 3 = 30 points.

28-30 points = A (4.0) 25-27 points = A- (3.67) 22-24 points = B+ (3.33) 19-21 points = B (3.0) 17-18 points = B- (2.67) 15-16 points = C (2.0) <15 points = D

You're expected to be an active participant in class discussions. Writing your wiki responses to the readings will help you clarify your thoughts, opinions, and, most importantly, your questions -- all of which you are expected to share so that we can learn together. So in addition to writing a response to the readings that week, you should also try to read as many of your colleagues' posts as you can before class on Thursday; adding thoughtful comments under the "Discussion" tab to someone's post is encouraged, and is also a good way to offset any shyness that might make you less likely to speak in class.
 * Class participation (15% of final grade)**


 * Book review (25% of final grade)**

You will choose a book by a scientist, historian, philosopher, or anthropologist of science from a list that I will distribute early in the semester, read it, and write a review to be posted on the Wiki. ONLY BOOKS ON THIS LIST ARE ELIGIBLE FOR REVIEW. The book review need not overlap with the Wiki page you will be producing (see next assignment), but it can certinly contribute to it. I STRONGLY suggest you post a draft of your review by the Thanksgiving break; the final review MUST be posted by the last Monday of class.

Here's a sample book review from a previous year that gives a good sense of what your target is.

More detailed criteria on the assignment and grading will be distributed later in the semester.


 * Wiki page on "What is //this// science? What is //this// scientific revolution?" (first draft 10%, final draft 20% of final grade; total 30% of final grade)**

You will create your own Wiki page that uses course readings, videos, the book you select for review, and any other resources you like to develop your own definition of what science is, and how a particular species of it has changed under particular historical circumstances. We will discuss this project as the course progresses, but you will be seeing many examples in our reading that should give you some good ideas of what’s expected. Collaborative or group projects will be encouraged should they emerge.

This assignment will also be graded on a straight scale of A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, etc. More detailed criteria on the assignment and grading will be distributed later in the semester.

First cut exemplary essays: Derek Belanger What is Science? Dan M Rough Draft Karina Week 3, Posting Question Greg Silva - What is Science - A First Stab

__

Topics, readings, and assignments by week:


 * 1. What We Think We Know About Science**

Aug 31 Introductions

Sep 3 [|Terry Halwes, Dispelling Some Common Myths of Science] [|Terry Halwes, The Myth of the Magical Scientific Method] [|Terry Halwes, The Terrible Truth About Truth]
 * READ**:

GOING FURTHER: [|The Nature of Reality: Three Positions]


 * 2. Other Times, Other Worlds**

Sep 7 No class – Labor Day

Sep 10 Back in the Time

[|Robert Hatch, “Pre-Classical and Classical Science”] [|Michael Fowler's Page on Early Greek Science] [|Michael Fowler’s Page on Aristotle] [|Counting in Babylon] @http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhazen
 * READ**:

GOING FURTHER: [|Background on Aristotle] [|SimPtolemy]


 * 3. Galileo, Courtier**

Sep 14 [|Giordano Bruno, the Forgotten Philosopher] The [|dedication] and the [|first few pages] of Galileo's Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences. Michael Fowler on [|The Life of Galileo] and [|Galileo and the Telescope]
 * READ**:

GOING FURTHER: [|The Galileo Project] [|Medicean Skies] exhibition organized by the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza of Florence [|Jesuits and the Sciences] Selection from Copernicus' [|De revolutionibus], 1543 []

Sep 17 [|Galileo's Indictment and Abjuration, 1633]
 * READ**: [|Galileo's 1615 letter to Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany]

GOING FURTHER: [|Court Scientists: the Art of Experimentation in the Galilean Accademia del Cimento]
 * ASSIGNMENT DUE**: FIRST SWIPE AT "What is //this// science?" (The philosopher's question.) And starting to move toward: what is its relationship to previous "sciences"? What social purposes did it serve? In what institutions was it conducted? What was its relationship to technology?" About 1000-2000 words.


 * 4. If There Was a Scientific Revolution, What and When Was It?**

Sep 21 [|Robert Hatch, "The Scientific Revolution: Definition, Concept, History"] [|A good political history of 17th Century England] Michael Hunter, [|Robert Boyle, An Introduction] [|James R. Jacob and Margaret C. Jacob, “The Anglican Origins of Modern Science: The Metaphysical Foundations of the Whig Constitution”]
 * READ**:

GOING FURTHER: [|Blaise Pascal, Pensee 199] [|The Alchemy Website] [|Lucia K.B. Hall, Alchemy and Science] [|About Margaret Cavendish] [|Francis Bacon, selections from the First Book of Aphorisms] [|The Microscope]

Sep 24 [|William R. Newman, Technology and Alchemical Debate in the Late Middle Ages], ISIS 80(3):423-445 [|Newton and Alchemy] [|Newton's "Theory of Everything"]
 * READ**: [|Biography of Newton]

GOING FURTHER: [|Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687)] [|Newton's Observations on Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John]


 * 5.** **When Time and Space (and Humans) Became Inhuman**

Sep 28 Greg Myers, "Nineteenth Century Popularizations of Thermodynamics and the Rhetorics of Social Prophecy," //Victorian Studies// Autumn 1985 []
 * READ**:

Oct 1 [|American Museum of Natural History's exhibit on Darwin] [|Chapter 1 of James Secord's Victorian Sensation] []
 * READ**:[]


 * 6. From Creationism...**

Oct 5
 * READ**: [|The Scopes Trial: An Introduction]

Oct 8 [|For NIH Chief, Issues of Identity and Culture]


 * 7.****...to Intelligent Design**

Oct 13 NOTE TUESDAY MEETING Some pieces from [|Ken Miller's page] GOING FURTHER: [|Bruce Weber's Incredible and Exhaustive List of Resources on evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design]
 * READ**: [|Kenneth Miller, "Finding Darwin's God"]

Oct 15


 * 8.****Picasso and Einstein Walk Into a Bar…**

Oct 19 [|David Cassidy on the photoelectric affect] [|Gerald Holton, "Einstein's Third Paradise] [|Time magazine, Person of the Century] [|Michael Fowler on the photoelectric effect]
 * READ**:

GOING FURTHER: [|American Institute of Physics, Albert Einstein: Image and Impact] [|Albert Einstein Reference Archive] [|Relativity Theory, by Albert Einstein]

Oct. 22 [|A conversation with Peter Galison] [|Excerpt from Pinch and Collins, The Golem]
 * READ**: [|Peter Galison, "Einstein's Time"]

(Oct 23 Last day to drop a class)


 * 9.** **Gone Quantum: Chance and Indeterminism**

Oct 26 EXPLORE: [|Max-Planck-Society] [|Copenhagen Interpretation, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
 * READ**: [|Cathryn Carson, “The Origins of the Quantum Theory”]

Oct 29
 * READ**: [|Niels Bohr, "Discussion with Albert Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics"]


 * 10. The Big One**

Nov 2 Total War [|Einstein-Freud correspondence, 1931-32] [|Einstein as Public Figure]

[|Einstein as Public Figure 2] [|Einstein as Public Figure 3]

Nov 5 The Day Before Trinity

[|Frisch-Peierls memo, 1940] [|"Tube Alloys" deal, 1944]
 * READ**:[|Einstein's letter to Roosevelt, 1939]

GOING FURTHER: [|Atomic Archive]


 * 11. The Big One (cont.)**

Nov 9 [|Interim Committee Report, June 1944] [|Szilard to Teller, 1945] [|Teller to Szilard, 1945] [|Szilard petition, 1945] [|Franck Report, 1945]
 * READ**: [|Niels Bohr memo to Roosevelt, 1944]

Nov 12 [|President's statement on H-bomb, 1950] GOING FURTHER: [|Hans Bethe, comments on the history of the H-bomb]
 * READ**:[|General Advisory Committee report on H-bomb, 1949]


 * 12.** **Scientists, Wars, and States**

Nov 16 [|Summary of "In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer"] [|Eisenhower's Farewell Speech, 1961] "Ike's Other Warning"
 * READ**: [|Oppenheimer's Farewell Speech, Los Alamos, 1945]

GOING FURTHER: [|A Changed World] Thom Shanker, "Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows,"The New York Times, September 6, 2009.

Nov 19 What Happens in Copenhagen Stays in Copenhagen [|Finn Aaserud, "Introductory Comments" to Bohr-Heisenberg letters] CLICK "DOCUMENTS" AT BOTTOM OF PAGE AND **READ** AT LEAST SEVERAL LETTERS
 * READ**: [|James Glanz, "New Twist on Physicist's Role in Nazi Bomb"]

THANKSGIVING BREAK


 * 13. Revolutions Revolutionized**

Nov 30
 * READ**:

[|Malcolm Forster's Guide to Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]

GOING FURTHER: [|Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (excerpt)] GOING FURTHER: [|Ludwik Fleck (Polish Philosophy Page)] FOLLOW THE LINKS!!!!

Dec 3 AAA

14. **Your Genes or Your Brains** Dec 7 [|"Getting It Less Wrong"] [|Mind, Brain, and Adaptation] [|The Discovery of the Neuron]

Dec 10

BOOK REVIEW POSTED

Dec 11

WHAT IS THIS SCIENCE? REVISION posted