Great Issues in Science
Daniel Steffenson

HSP 123H - CRN 4303 & 4304 Spring 2004
Lecture M W F at 1:10 - 2:00 pm Palenske 109
Lab: W at 2:10 - 5:00 pm Palenske 109

This course fulfills the Scientific Analysis Mode.

The course will provide 1 unit of credit for the Scientific Analysis Mode and also count as a science course for the distribution requirement.

This is a new course, so it has not yet been fully planned. There will be a weekly laboratory which will run between 2 and 5, but some weeks the 2-3 slot may be used for discussion if the labs are shorter.

Lecture: This part of the course will focus on the methods scientists use to answer questions. Just like science it will start with the ancient Greeks. Part of the focus will be the tension between the Greek science of the Atomists and Aristotle and the scientific revolution in the 17th century. The latter will be represented by Galileo. There will be a section that focuses on the logic and philosophy of science, but not nearly as extensive as in the modeling class. There will be a section on the change from the deterministic view provided by 19th century physics and chemistry to the probablilistic world view following the quantum revolution of the early 20th century. The last section will focus on what science can or cannot contribute to a variety of questions. Readings will possibly include:
Jurassic Park or some science novel by Michael Crichton
Lucretius: The Nature of Things, F.O. Copley translation
Galileo, Bertolt Brecht
Galileo=s Daughter, Dava Sobel
What is This Thing Called Science, A. F. Chalmers
Schroedinger=s Cat,
Unweaving the Rainbow, Richard Dawkins
Rocks of Ages, Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, Stephan Jay Gould
Cat=s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut (I can=t teach Great Issues without this book).

Laboratory: This will start with some experiments suggested by the Greeks and/or Galileo. It will include determining the relative speeds of falling bodies and the purity of notes produced by a plucked string. There will by some experiments to try the scientific method focusing on the qualitative analysis of mixtures of a few inorganic cations. There will be some Adiscovery labs@ where the experimenter discovers some interesting relationships in the lab and then designs his or her own experiments to study these relationships further.

Evaluation will likely be divided 50/50 between lecture and lab. For the lecture there will be two or three 5-6 page papers plus a final project. The final project is likely to be the selection of a science book at Borders to be read, followed by an oral presentation of the book to the class. For the lab, there will be a notebook and some discussion questions to be answered at the end of each set of experiments.