STS Courses for Winter 08
STS Courses for Winter 08:
Methods in Science, Technology & Medicine Studies (STS 20) - Choy
Visualization in Science: A Critical Introduction (STS 109 / ANT 109) - Dumit
Gender & Science (STS 150) - Crawford
Philosophy (PHI 31). Appraising Scientific Reasoning - Griesemer
Philosophy of Biological Sciences - Millstein
Problems In Normative Ethics (PHI 115) - Millstein
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Professor Timothy Choy
4 Units TR 310-430P GIEDT 1007
GE credit: SciEng or SocSci, Wrt
Do you wonder about environmental problems, the ethical implications of genomics, the relationship between friendship and messaging, what makes a garden beautiful, the wonders of insects, the accuracy of DNA tests in courtrooms, what brain scans tell us about ourselves, or any other relationship between humans and nature or humans and machines. If so, then you've taken that first step in thinking critically about the technoscientific worlds we live in.
This course offers a theoretical and practical introduction to the methods anthropologists, philosophers, sociologists, and historians use to analyze the past, present, and future worlds of technoscience. There are countless ways to do this --literary and visual representations, analysis of scientific rhetoric, anthropological immersion, philosophical scrutiny, sociological analysis, and more. We can't do all of them every quarter, but this class will give you a wide sampling. Each week, we'll take on a different method, both theoretically and practically, and we'll explore what that method helps us to learn. Readings, whether conceptual or exemplary of a certain technique, will be challenging, but we'll work through them collaboratively. In addition to reading, students will have weekly assignments that help put the week's methods into practice. Class sessions will be discussion based, centering both on the readings and what students learn from doing the practica, and students will have opportunities to bring their own expertises and technocultures into the process. By the end of the term, we'll have a collective quiver full of tools for thinking critically about and analyzing science and technology, an ability to think recognize the benefits and limits of different techniques, and a greater understanding of some the implications of living in a scientifically and technologically mediated world.
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Visualization in Science: A Critical Introduction (STS 109 / ANT 109)
Professor Joseph Dumit
4 Units TR 0140-0300P, YOUNG 192
What makes scientific visualizations so powerful and persuasive? How can we critically assess the potentials and limits of different ones? Using techniques from STS, Anthropology, Art Theory, and core discussions in science and engineering, students learn to become better producers and analysts of visualizations. Students will be able to work on projects involving ethnography in labs, interviewing scientists, and producing their own visualizations.
Summary of Course Contents:
1. Studying Visualizations: Issues and Methods
2. Social Interaction Interfaces: Seeing the Internet
3. Social Competition: Gaming and Finance
4. Diagrams and Flowcharts before Computers
5. Datasets and Knowledge: Informatics
6. Medical Imaging and the Body
7. Seeing Structures: Molecular Modeling
8. Arguing about World Data: GIS and Climate Change
9. Judging Images: Courts and Visualization
10. Living with Images: Decision-making and Subjectivity
Extra credit includes designing a 3D walkthrough or game environment to help people navigate Social Sciences and Humanities building (aka Deathstar).
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Gender & Science (STS 150)
Lecturer: Cassandra Crawford, PhD
TR 1030-1150A, Olson 101
GE credit: SocSci, Div, Wrt.
This course will provide a feminist science and technology studies (STS) analysis of the nature and practices of science, making explicit the social, political, economic, and cultural effects of the production of scientific knowledge. Challenging the asserted objectivity of scientific practice, the course reveals the gendered prejudices of the modern life and biomedical sciences. We will begin by examining the role of women in science as both the authors and objects of scientific knowledge. Then, we critique scientific androcentrism, considering the ways in which science shapes what is "known" about gender, as well as how gender shapes the making of science. Finally, we draw on feminist methodologies and epistemology to critically examine scientific knowledge production and expose the gendered praxis of science, all the while asking what forms "alternative" sciences might take.
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Philosophy (PHI) 31. Appraising Scientific Reasoning (4)
Professor James Griesemer
Lecture: MWF 0900-0950A WELLMN 119
Lecture--3 hours; discussion--1 hour. Introduction to scientific hypotheses and the kinds of reasoning used to justify such hypotheses. Emphasis on adequate justification, criteria, and strategies for distinguishing scientific from pseudoscientific theories. Concrete historical and contemporary cases. GE credit: ArtHum or SciEng.
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Professor Roberta Millstein
MWF 1000-1050A WELLMN
This class will consider foundational conceptual and epistemological issues in biology such as: the concept of “fitness,” the units of selection debate, adaptationism as a research program, women in the evolutionary process, evolutionary psychology, the question of whether there are any biological laws, reductionism, the concept of “species,” the debate over whether race is a social construction or biological reality.
The goals of this course are: 1) to introduce you to some of the major issues within the philosophy of biology; 2) to encourage you to critically examine your own beliefs as well as the beliefs of others; 3) to provide the opportunity to discuss, both in class and in a more sustainarguments concerning important issues in the philosophy of biology.
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Philosophy (PHI) 115 Problems In Normative Ethics (4 units)
Professor Roberta Millstein
MWF 0110-0200P WELLMN
Many people are concerned about a variety of environmental issues, from pollution to global warming to the extinction of species. They say that we “should” do something about those issues. But what ethical assumptions underlie that “should”? Is it a concern for human well-being? For animals? For all life? Or, even more broadly, for ecosystems? In other words, which things count morally? The answers matter not only because we need to justify our actions, but because different answers may imply different courses of action. In this class, we will explore the various answers that can and have been given to this question, and see how well these answers hold up when applied to contemporary environmental case studies.
The goals of this course are: 1) to introduce you to some of the major issues within environmental ethics; 2) to encourage you to critically examine your own beliefs as well as the beliefs of others; 3) to provide the opportunity to discuss, both in class and in a more sustained written form, your ideas and arguments concerning important issues in environmental ethics.
Call for Nominations for the 2008 Diana Forsythe Prize