I expect I'll use the history of science syllabus eventually, but in case it can be helpful to anyone else planning a similar course (or anyone in the public interested in good reading on these topics), I thought I would post the syllabus here.
Since this was to be the first time I've taught this particular course, it's a very straight-forward and standard structure: a midterm, paper, and final exam. In a future where I have someone to help with grading, I would love to add another paper (or two) early in the semester, to give students early and frequent feedback, and possibly smaller research-skill-building extra credit assignments as well. An example might be a 'scavenger hunt' for a small list of books and articles that aren't all immediately available in the library, and coordinate with a librarian to ensure the students have guidance on how to acquire them.
I'm especially interested in getting students engaged with a few themes and questions, including:
- What is science?: Seeing the many different things that have been called 'science,' how the 'scientific method' described a huge array of techniques, and through this, seeing that we really can (and should) see this big cultural thing called science as something we can't explain away as natural or obvious
- What are the ties between science and technology?
- What does it mean to say that science is social, human institution? I'm not interested in 'debunking' or putting down science, though sometimes I get students who are very enthusiastic about science and get anxious when we suggest its values aren't often its realities. I am interested in making it clear that the social dimension is fundamental and not something to regret or be overcome. Science is what scientists do.
- More concretely, the role of war and national security in shaping science is a recurring theme.
This syllabus emphasizes the 20th century, partly because it's my area of greatest expertise, partly because students often see the connections to the present more readily for the more recent past. In some ways it's better to cover more ground, in others it's better to give more detail about a few topics. I've seen courses like this that went to an extreme of just covering a few episodes in close details (Newton, Darwin, and the Manhattan Project, in that case). I've seen others that try for broader coverage. I think this is a reasonable balance.
Finally, I'm interested in keeping the course as cheap as possible for students. The book I've assigned are available for a total of $57 used from Amazon as of this writing, and possible cheaper with a more thorough search using bookfinder.com and other sources. I think that's reasonable, but it's something to consider. You might be able to get away with something a little cheaper.
Anyway, here's the syllabus:
_______________________________________________________________
History 382 – History
of Science/Technology since Newton
Spring 2016 | 3 credits
Instructor:
Douglas
Michael O'Reagan
douglas.oreagan@wsu.edu
Office
hours: Mondays 12-1pm, CIC 125K; or
by appointment, including via
Skype/Google Hangouts/email
This course addresses how science, technology, and society
have mutually influenced one another from the time of Isaac Newton (the 17th
century) through the present. Beginning with the natural philosophy of the
Early Modern era, which was the pursuit of a small number of elite Europeans,
we will move through science's expansion into a global enterprise under
American leadership. Major themes of the course will include the relationship
between religion and science; the changing nature of the 'scientist,' as that
title came into existence and then came to mean different things; the inherent
politics of new technologies; and how national security and state spending have
been fundamental in making science what it is today, in terms of both
organization and content.
Course Goals:
This course is designed around WSU's Seven Learning Goals,
especially:
Critical and creative thinking
·
Integrate
and synthesize knowledge from multiple sources.
·
Assess
the accuracy and validity of findings and conclusions.
·
Understand
how one thinks, reasons, and makes value judgments, including ethical and
aesthetical judgments.
·
Understand
diverse viewpoints, including different philosophical and cultural
perspectives.
·
Combine
and synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways.
Scientific Literacy
- Identify scientific issues
underlying global, national, local and personal decisions and communicate positions
that are scientifically and technologically informed.
- Recognize the societal benefits and
risks associated with scientific and technological advances.
Information Literacy
- Determine the extent and type of
information needed.
- Implement well-designed search
strategies.
- Access information effectively and
efficiently from multiple sources.
- Assess credibility and
applicability of information sources.
- Use information to accomplish a
specific purpose.
- Access and use information
ethically and legally.
Course Requirements:
Weekly reading: Each week, you will be
expected to read about 80-100 pages of material. It is crucial that you finish these readings by Friday of each week.
Most Fridays will consists of in-class discussion of the readings, and these
discussions will weigh heavily in your class participation grade.
Weekly Discussion Questions: Based off
of the readings, you will have to submit three discussion questions to
Blackboard by Thursday night at 11:59pm. We will discuss what kinds of questions
are most effective. Questions with factual answers (e.g. "What element did
Lavoisier discover?") are NOT good questions. Questions that inspire
debate and discussion (e.g. "Should we consider Lavoisier or Priestley the
discoverer of Oxygen?") are much better.
Midterm/final exams: Exams
will consist of two sections. In the first section, you will be given a number
of key terms or names, and your job will be to define and explain the
significance of several of the options, within about 3-5 sentences each. The
second section will be a longer essay, drawing on lectures, readings, and
discussions.
Research paper: Students
will write a 6-8 page paper (double-spaced, 1" margins, 12-point font) on
a topic of their choosing, selected in consultation with the instructor.
Due dates: Topic and suggested sources: March 28
Final
paper: April 29
Lateness policy: All assignments must be turned in by 12pm on their
due-date. Any assignments submitted late will lose 2/3 of a grade per day (for
example, a B+ becomes a B-, or a B becomes a C+). In exceptional, rare circumstances, you can pre-arrange an extension with me.
Grading:
Class Participation (40%) – Includes
doing readings before class
Midterm exam (15%)
Research paper (20%)
Final exam
(25%)
Required Texts:
We will be using the following books in this class. I
include the specific pages for you to judge whether it is best to buy a copy or
attempt to check a copy out of the library.
·
Peter J. Bowler,
Evolution: The History of an Idea, revised
(or 25th anniv.) edition. (p. 1-26,
96-223, 274-324)
·
Kate Brown, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities,
and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (p.1-74, 165-188,
271-281, 287-296, 313-318, 331-338)
·
Thomas Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm,
1870-1970. (p. 1-137, 184-248, 353-443)
·
Jeffrey P. Moran, The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents. (p. 1-72)
·
Audra Wolfe, Competing
with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America.
(entire book)
Course Readings:
All course readings should be available to you via the
library, and for convenience I will copy many of them to Blackboard for the
semester.
|
Week
|
Date
|
Topic
|
|
|
1
|
11-Jan
|
Intro: What is science?
|
|
|
13-Jan
|
Scientific Revolution? Newton, Leibniz, and
national science
|
|
|
|
15-Jan
|
Reading:
·
Kuhn – The Essential Tension excerpt, p.
x-xiii. (on Blackboard)
·
Andrew Cunningham,
"Getting the Game Right: Some Plain Words on the Identity and Invention
of Science," Studies in the
History and Philosophy of Science Vol. 19, No. 3 (1988), p.365-389. (on
Blackboard)
·
Shapin, "The Man
of Science," ch. 6 of the Cambridge
History of Science, vol. 3, p.179-191 (on Blackboard)
·
Schiebinger,
"Women of Natural Knowledge," ch. 7 of the Cambridge History of Science Vol. 3, p.192-205 (on Blackboard)
o
You don't need to read
every word of this one, or to understand everything he's writing about. Just
skim through it, looking at what kinds of things he's discussing, his writing
style, and how he argues his case. Question to focus on: In what ways does
this seem like what we might expect from a scientific article today?
|
|
|
|
2
|
18-Jan
|
No
Class (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)
|
|
|
20-Jan
|
Enlightenment, the Church, and Science
|
|
|
|
22-Jan
|
Reading
·
Reill, "The Legacy of the
'Scientific Revolution': Science and the Enlightenment," ch. 2 of the Cambridge History of Science Vol. 4,
p.23-43. (on Blackboard)
·
Brooke, "Science
and Religion," ch. 4 of the Cambridge
History of Science Vol. 4, p.741-761 (on Blackboard)
·
Read the Wikipedia
entry on the Encyclopédie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die), then browse through at least 5-6 articles from it (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/).
|
|
|
|
3
|
25-Jan
|
Chemical Revolution
|
|
|
27-Jan
|
Empire and science; a growing world
|
|
|
|
29-Jan
|
Reading
·
John
G. McEvoy, “Continuity and Discontinuity in the Chemical Revolution,” Osiris
4 (1988), 195-213. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/301749)
·
McClellan,
"Scientific Institutions and the Organization of Science," ch. 4 of
the Cambridge History of Science Vol.
4, p.87-106 (on Blackboard)
·
Hughes,
American Genesis p.1-52
o
This
reading is a little out of place, so don't get too confused as to why it's
assigned here. We need to read it so we can read more of Hughes later and
have a sense of what he's discussing.
|
|
|
|
4
|
1-Feb
|
Models of Education: Universities in America
and Germany
|
|
|
3-Feb
|
Age of the Earth; 19th century
science
|
|
|
|
5-Feb
|
Reading
·
"Darwin:
The Voyage of the Beagle," BBC's In
Our Time podcast (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gbf2g)
|
|
|
|
5
|
8-Feb
|
Darwin
|
|
|
10-Feb
|
Social Darwinism
|
|
|
|
12-Feb
|
Reading
·
Bowler, Evolution 177-223, 274-324
|
|
|
|
6
|
15-Feb
|
No
Class (Presidents' Day)
|
|
|
17-Feb
|
Industry and Inventors
|
|
|
|
19-Feb
|
Reading
·
Hughes, American Genesis p. 53-95, 184-248
|
|
|
|
7
|
22-Feb
|
Review
|
|
|
24-Feb
|
MIDTERM
|
|
|
|
26-Feb
|
Interlude: Philosophy of Science
Recommended Reading:
·
Frank
Pajares, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: A Synopsis from the
original" (http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/kuhnsyn.html)
·
"Karl Popper,"
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sections
2 (Backdrop), 3 (Demarcation), 4 (Human Knowledge), 9 (Critical Evaluation)
·
"Lorraine
Daston," Episode 2 of How to Think
About Science podcast (http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2009/01/02/how-to-think-about-science-part-1---24-listen/#episode2)
|
|
|
|
8
|
Feb-29
|
Eugenics, New Biology, Germ Theory
|
|
|
2-Mar
|
Scopes Trial, Religion and Science redux
|
|
|
|
4-Mar
|
Reading
|
|
|
|
9
|
7-Mar
|
Modern Physics and Einstein
|
|
|
9-Mar
|
Social Science, Public Health, Vaccines/flu
|
|
|
|
11-Mar
|
Reading:
Recommended:
·
Cathryn
Carson, History of Modern Physics (HIST
181B) lectures https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/history-181b-spring-2008-modern/id461116019?mt=10
|
|
|
|
10
|
14-Mar
|
SPRING BREAK
Get
started on next week's reading! It's a little longer than usual
|
|
|
16-Mar
|
|||
|
18-Mar
|
|||
|
11
|
21-Mar
|
Chemists' War (WWI)
|
|
|
23-Mar
|
Physicists' War (WWII)
|
|
|
|
25-Mar
|
Reading:
·
Hughes, American Genesis p. 96-137, 353-443
·
Crawford, Sime, and Walker, "A Nobel Tale
of Postwar Injustice," Physics
Today (on Blackboard)
|
|
|
|
12
|
28-Mar
|
Science and Diplomacy
PAPER
TOPICS DUE
|
|
|
30-Mar
|
Big Science and the Postwar State
|
|
|
|
1-Apr
|
Reading:
·
Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets p.1-88
|
|
|
|
13
|
4-Apr
|
Soviet Science; Science in the 'Third World'
|
|
|
6-Apr
|
Space Race
|
|
|
|
8-Apr
|
Reading:
·
Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets p.89-140
·
Doel, "Evaluating
Soviet Lunar Science in Cold War America," Osiris Vol. 7, (1992), p.238-264 (on Blackboard)
|
|
|
|
14
|
11-Apr
|
Nuclear Fear / Plutopia
|
|
|
13-Apr
|
Resistance: Environmentalism and Beyond
|
|
|
|
15-Apr
|
Reading:
·
Brown, Plutopia p.1-74 (origins of Hanford),
165-188 (disasters)
|
|
|
|
15
|
18-Apr
|
Global Warming, Anti-nuclear movements, and
Expertise
|
|
|
20-Apr
|
History of Computing, History of Information
|
|
|
|
22-Apr
|
Reading
·
Matthew
Wisnioski, "Inside 'The System': Engineers,
scientists, and the boundaries of social protest in the long 1960s." History and Technology 19 (2003):
313-333. (on Blackboard)
|
|
|
|
16
|
25-Apr
|
Current Issues: Intellectual Property
Law/Policy
|
|
|
27-Apr
|
Current Issues: [To Be Determined by Class]
|
|
|
|
29-Apr
|
Wrap-up
and Review
PAPERS DUE
|
|
|
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