Course Information -> Overview
Physics/Humanities/History 361
Science and Culture
Professors: Bothun and Nicols
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Course Structure and Information
This course will focus on the historical development of science in the
context of embedded culture and how that affects or creates the ability
for knowledge to be transmitted from one generation to the next.
Fundamental to this approach is examining the cultural conditions
that must exist before scientific theory is accepted.
We will concentrate
on a few important historical periods to identify and assess various scientific
ideas within those periods in the context of both social and technological
settings. Throughout, we will attempt to trace the origin, transmission and
refinement of scientific ideas from their early inception to their modern
manifestation.
This is an interdisicplinary course designed to enhance both the science
and cultural literacy of the students. We intend to present science as
an empirical process driven by observations and curiousity that represents
an ongoing humanistic endeavor to understand the world. Along the way
we will continually confront the paradox that, at any given time, every
culture believes that they know the "truth" and therefore are not particularly
receptive to new ideas.
This course has three main goals:
 To get students to understand that science is
a process deeply embedded in culture and language
To get students to realize that "scientific
knowledge" is largely acquired via a combination of accidental discovery
and an open mind.
To get students to understand the collective set
of human and cultural biases that impeded the acquisition and
transmission of knowledge from one generation to another.
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Course Mechanics: |
This course is being held in a wireless laptop classroom. From time
to time, students will be doing various exercises on the laptops that
are related to the course themes and content. Some of these will
involve virtual experiments that simulate some of the famous experiments
of the past. Collaborative software exists in this space so that
students can run experiments and publish there results. We will not
be doing this every class period but there will be 5-6 times throughout
the term where this facility is extensively used.
 In addition to the laptops, we will also be making
use of the Personal Response System in
this class to assess student attitudes, misconceptions, and understanding of key
concepts. When you see the big cardbox up front for a lecture, please
retrieve a transmitter. Return it to the box after class ends.
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Grading Policy
Your grade will be based on this approximately criteria:
- Individual assignments: 45%
- The Final Exam: 40%
- In class participation: 15%
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