The Faces of Science

Overview

Modern science is the most remarkable enterprise in existence. It is a huge, world-wide endeavor, comprising hundreds of thousands of researchers in universities, industry and government, and it uses enormous resources. It continuously transforms not only our understanding of the world but also our very material existence. Yet this enterprise itself is rarely examined.

This cluster will expose students to some of the most significant aspects of the scientific enterprise. We will study the fundamental philosophical foundations of science — what makes science, science. We will explore how the scientific enterprise came to be what it is through the study of its recent history; and we shall examine the particular ethical problems facing science and scientists, the interdependence of science and society and, in many ways, the human side of the scientific endeavor. Students will gain an appreciation of the unique role of science in human thought and society. They will also understand the influence of individuals most important in the development and continuation of the scientific revolution

Courses

Seminar: Philosophy 99FCS The Faces of Science: Philosophy, Religion & Science

Andrew Janiak, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy

What is science? What are the boundaries between science and philosophy, or science and religion? The answers to these questions have shifted dramatically over time. During the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century, science, religion and philosophy were intertwined in surprising ways — many figures in the scientific revolution took their philosophical and religious views to be crucial for their scientific work. In the twenty-first century, the boundaries between philosophy and science, and science and religion, continue to shift. Must science and religion compete with one another in their views of the universe? Is philosophy an essential part of science, or a mere appendage? We will study these questions by reading seminal works from three centuries of scientific development.
[ - ] Hide course description

Seminar: Chemistry 93FCS Ethical Issues in Modern Science

David N. Beratan, R. J. Reynolds Professor and Chair, Department of Chemistry

The aim of this course it to explore the continuum of ethical issues facing practicing scientists. Issues of outright fraud (Hwang and Schön), medical ethics (stem cells research, genomics, drug development and testing), intellectual property (who owns the genome?), science funding (big and small science, funding mechanisms), peer review, and gender and race in science (Wen Ho Lee, Women’s Initiative at Duke) will all be explored. Topics will be drawn mainly from newspapers, magazines, funding agency web sites, and book chapters. The course will center on issues of the last 20 years, emphasizing the most current events. An exciting aspect of this course will arise from the opportunity to draw links with the other courses which will deal with broader issues in the philosophy and history of science. One guest speaker per month will discuss topics such as: intellectual property law, science and the media, science policy, and bioethics.
[ - ] Hide course description

Seminar: History 89FCS The Emergence of Modern Science, 1700 - 1905

Seymour H. Mauskopf, Professor, Department of History

In this course, we study the development of science in the period of its most critical transformation, 1700 – 1905. At the start of the period, Newton was still active; the final date marks the “miracle year” of Albert Einstein. Physics assumed its modern form in the intervening years. Modern chemistry also emerged, marked particularly by the Chemical Revolution of the eighteenth century and the development of the Chemical Atomic Theory in the nineteenth century. Biology was transformed into both a sophisticated laboratory science and, with Darwinian evolution, into a powerful theoretical one by which change in organisms over time could be analyzed and explained.

In these same centuries, science became a professionalized enterprise. Scientific specialties proliferated, professional and national scientific societies were organized and institutions for scientific education and research came into being. Large-scale science-based industrial research also began in this period. All of these developments took place against the backdrop of an industrializing world that was also undergoing profound and often violent social and political changes, changes that would irrevocably alter the fabric of all human society and in which science played increasingly important roles.
[ - ] Hide course description

Seminar: Chemistry 93FCS The Drama of Science

Richard A. Palmer, Professor, Department of Chemistry

In this course we explore how the dramatic form has been used to portray the principles, history, ethical conflicts and controversies that have characterized the scientific enterprise and its practitioners, from the earliest days of modern science to the present. The plays are selected both for their pertinence to important issues as well as their dramatic quality. The selection of plays varies from year to year from older science themed plays, newer just-published plays, and plays still in development. The issues explored in the selection of plays include: intellectual property rights, proper attribution and credit, the responsibility of the scientist to society, the state’s control of scientific discovery, the relation of scientific and artistic creativity and the conflict between science and religion.
[ - ] Hide course description

Focus 99 Special Topics in Focus: The Faces of Science

Richard A. Palmer, Professor, Department of Chemistry

What is the essence of the scientific method? Does it have universal tenets? How does the scientific method “play out” in the physical sciences, mathematics, the biological sciences, the social sciences, and medicine? How are hypotheses, laws and theories developed and related, what constitutes inference and proof in different disciplines? What is testability? What are the boundaries of science? What are examples of “pseudo science” and how firm are these judgments?

Alternating with meetings devoted to open discussions of these questions will be meetings to which we will invite leading representatives of the academic and commercial scientific communities to speak briefly about their own disciplines in relation to these questions and then enter into discussion with the students.
[ - ] Hide course description