Revolutions in Science: Plato to NATO
An introduction to the formative steps in the scientific tradition as well as philosophical investigations of the nature of science.
Learn more about this courseAn introduction to the formative steps in the scientific tradition as well as philosophical investigations of the nature of science.
Learn more about this courseAn introduction to the formative steps in the scientific tradition as well as philosophical investigations of the nature of science.
Learn more about this courseAn introduction to the study of science as a human activity that both contributes to cultural change and responds to it. A thematic, rather than a chronological survey, the course presents and compares recent and historical issues and events, and brings out some of the complex relations between science (also medicine and technology) and the arts, literature, commerce, religion, philosophy, sports, food, and changing conceptions of gender, race, health, the human body, the human mind, and the order of nature.
Learn more about this courseAn introduction to environmental ethics, addressing questions of animal (and plant) rights, the moral sense of nature, and ecological thinking. Topics include: biocentrism, the land ethic, deep ecology, ecofeminism, the Gaia hypothesis, the politics of greening, the history of environmentalism, and connections to mental health, medicine, and public health.
Learn more about this courseInvestigation of ethical issues that arise in the biological and medical sciences, the impact of these issues on the behavior of scientists during the conduct of scientific research, and on the role of science in discussions about ethics and public policy. Introduction to major ethical theories and critical reasoning in biological and medical ethics.
Learn more about this courseCritical medical humanities offer an interdisciplinary and interprofessional approach to research the psychological and social effects of illness and treatments. The recent prominence of medical humanities in the academia aims at cultivating “medical citizens” in shaping the future medical culture as a democracy, where deep understanding of the less technical or measurable facets of medicine support fairness, individual and social justice, and a clinical rather than a business or sheer scientific framework.
Learn more about this courseIn this course we will examine and discuss questions such as, Why accept any scientific claim? How do scientists produce hypotheses and evaluate them? What kinds of hypotheses are there and what are they good for? How do scientists produce, collect and evaluate empirical data, big or small? Do scientists produce and use only numerical data? How do they present quantitative data visually? Can they reason with pictures as well as with numbers? How do they use data as evidence for hypotheses? Why do scientists care about hypotheses that concern a group of individuals that is larger than the ones we actually observe, test and want to deal with? How can a group of different subjects in a study help establish more general results? Aren’t all individuals different, anyway? What’s so special about hypotheses about causal links? How do experimental designs reflect the causal character of such hypotheses? Are all kinds of experimental designs equally useful? Are there different levels of strength of evidence? What can go wrong?
Learn more about this courseIn this course we will examine and discuss questions such as, Why accept any scientific claim? How do scientists produce hypotheses and evaluate them? What kinds of hypotheses are there and what are they good for? How do scientists produce, collect and evaluate empirical data, big or small? Do scientists produce and use only numerical data? How do they present quantitative data visually? Can they reason with pictures as well as with numbers? How do they use data as evidence for hypotheses? Why do scientists care about hypotheses that concern a group of individuals that is larger than the ones we actually observe, test and want to deal with? How can a group of different subjects in a study help establish more general results? Aren’t all individuals different, anyway? What’s so special about hypotheses about causal links? How do experimental designs reflect the causal character of such hypotheses? Are all kinds of experimental designs equally useful? Are there different levels of strength of evidence? What can go wrong?
Learn more about this courseThis class covers the history of Western medicine from Hippocrates in Ancient Greece to the present. As we are seeing in our own time, medical history shaped human history, often in dramatic ways. We will study changing concepts of disease; past epidemics, including the Black Death, which killed about a third of Europe’s population; efforts to understand human anatomy and physiology; the history of vaccination and the germ theory of disease; the role of medical images in anatomy and pathology. There are no pre-requisites to take this class.
Learn more about this courseThe occult is a theme that is deeply ingrained in the history of Western civilization. From antiquity to the present, segments of our society have laid claim to an esoteric wisdom that could only be revealed to those who were worthy of its exercise. This course will deal with the primary members of the “occult sciences,” alchemy, magic, and astrology, from their roots in antiquity up to the present. We will examine the metamorphosis of the occult sciences over time in order to examine their relationships to one another and to other cultural endeavors.
Learn more about this courseAdvanced undergraduate survey of key figures and pivotal moments in the history of biology that have re-defined its scientific character by either opening new lines of inquiry and explanation, developing new kinds of instruments, practices, and institutions, or changing the social role of the biological scientist.
Learn more about this courseScience is governed by methods: methods for performing experiments, analyzing data, testing hypotheses, and writing scientific papers. This course frames the philosophical and historical debates about scientific methods and introduces the conceptual tools to discuss and reflect on the rules and procedures that make the pursuit of knowledge scientific.
Learn more about this courseThe aim of this course is to understand the origin and character of the twentieth-century philosophy of science by examining the historical development of the subject - in interaction with parallel developments within the sciences themselves from 1800 to the early twentieth century. The main figures to be studied include Hermann von Helmholtz, Ernst Mach, Henri Poincare, Moritz Schlick, and Rudolf Carnap.
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