Update: COR 210: Scientific Revolutions

Here’s a quick update on the course design for COR 210: Scientific Revolutions:

All of the 2nd year Core courses have now been approved by both the Core Division and the Curriculum Committee. This means they are ready to be presented to the Faculty Senate in March – so if anyone has any questions or concerns about those courses, please let us hear from you.

The driving idea behind this course is to help students recognize that earlier ways of knowing and of thinking were not “stupid” or simply false, but that they actually made sense for various reasons to those people at those times. What influences – beliefs and attitudes – made this accepted knowledge in the past? The course is an exploration of ways of knowing and of thinking critically and creatively within specific cultures, societies and belief systems. This should help students see what they might be missing when they do their own critical and creative thinking.

The specific content Scientific Revolutions course will focus on three different aspects of the development of the sciences in the West:

Scientific Literacy: This course will be an introduction to some of the most fundamental ideas that make the sciences what they are today. The proposals require that the course works with materials from physics, chemistry and biology. This should also include some consideration of the interconnection of mathematics and the physical sciences.

Philosophy of Science: Students will also reflect on what the natural sciences are as way of knowing. They should come to a deeper and more critical understanding of the strengths and limitations of scientific knowledge. Students should have a chance to think about how major revolutions in scientific ideas happen, and what social and cultural influences foster or undermine the practice of science. They need to think about how theoretical concepts and constructions are not simply descriptions of facts, but involve a certain type of critical and creative thinking.

Historical and Cultural Background: COR 210 and the cohort course, COR 220: Aesthetic Expressions, should make students familiar with the historical and cultural background of major scientific revolutions. The selection of particular scientific revolutions will be guided by this historical and cultural coverage. Studying Copernicus and Galileo should provide a perspective on the Reformation; studying Newton or Lavoisier will connect with the English and French revolutions. There is no specific European history course in the Core, so we are relying on the 2nd year courses to provide that context and background.

With these major goals in mind, the next step is to develop specific course modules, identify required and optional readings, and instructional methods. We have thought about chronological and biographical approaches. Currently, a topical approach seems most promising. Consider the following course five week modules:

I: The Solar System (Copernicus/Galileo/Newton; Renaissance & Reformation, Physics)
II: Matter and Light (Newton, Lavoisier ; English and French Revolutions, Chemistry & Atomic Theory)
III: Life (Darwin; 19th c. ; Biology)

Each module will include a structure of how people thought before the revolution, the major new ideas, and some discussion of their aftermath. A useful approach to each module might involve considering first the previous beliefs and ideas, then to focus on the new framework and consider how it came to replace the old system. Finally, there would be some time to look forward to see how that particular revolution formed the foundations of contemporary ideas.

For example, in the “Life” module students would learn how people understood the nature of life and the order of species prior to Darwin, then they might read some texts from Darwin’s Origins of Species and perhaps some texts by opposing theories such as Lamarck’s. In considering the social and historical background, it might be possible to use some readings from Darwin’s Voyage of Beagle to introduce material about the expansion of the British Empire. Also, evolutionary theory provides a good opportunity to discuss reductionism and show how biological processes might ultimately be reduced to chemistry. Classes might also examine the way that evolutionary and genetic theories were put to work in service of ideologies of race or the practice of eugenics. There should be ample opportunity for faculty to individualize this material by drawing on literature, philosophy, sociology, economics to show how this scientific revolution made its mark across Western history and culture. Ultimately, class sections should consider how evolutionary theory sets the groundwork for later developments in genetics and molecular biology.

Texts:

(A) Some reading should involve original scientific works such as:

Galileo, Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.
Newton, selections from Principia or Optics.
Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle and Origin of Species.

These texts should be easily available either individually or perhaps in the form of selections in a reader. There are many useful and inexpensive readers, for example, that include useful (and short) selections from Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton. There are abundant editions of Darwin’s work.

(B) Philosophy of Science readings:

We are also looking for readings that introduce some very basic issues in the philosophy of science. Some have mentioned Kuhn’s Structures of Scientific Revolutions, but we are hoping to use only some shorter selections from a text like that in a volume that includes other accessible materials that talk about science and pseudo-science, reductionism, creativity and scientific method, etc. There are many Philosophy of Science readers but these tend to be too advanced for our needs. It might be possible to include a few choice selections in a larger 2nd year philosophy reader.

(C) History of Science overviews:

Some readings should focus on providing an overview of these scientific revolutions:

Steve Shapin, The Scientific Revolution.
Margaret Jacob, The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution.
Morris Kline, Mathematics and the Physical World.

(D) Books that support the entire 3rd semester or the entire 2nd year:

Another type of reading will go beyond the limits of this particular class and address broad themes of the entire semester or the entire 2nd year. We would like to find an engaging history of Europe that considers broad cultural developments from the Renaissance & Reformation up to the 19th century. Such a book (or books) might provide important background for this class as well as all of the other 2nd year courses.


Help!:

Finally – a call for help! Now is the time to think about what you would like to include in this course and what readings or content you think needs to be addressed in these 2nd year classes as defined by the course proposals. This material obviously goes beyond any of our individual areas of expertise, so we need to work together and get our best ideas in circulation. We will be pursuing people, particularly Core faculty, individually but we really do want to hear from anyone who has something to contribute.

Thanks,

Your CDT.