UTLS 3030 – PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS
UCCSTeach
Professor Raphael Sassower, Philosophy
Wednesday 4:45 – 7:20
This course covers the philosophy, sociology, methodology, economics, politics, and morality of
science with special reference to mathematics. There is an emphasis on the main strands of
criticism leveled against the scientific community in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Three major events of that century will be under consideration: the positivist movement between
the two world wars, the aftermath of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
and the genocide perpetrated by fascist regimes before and during World War II. Framing the
development of technoscience (to be carefully defined throughout the course) in the past century
in terms of its horrors and failings helps appreciate its promises and successes (in medicine,
agriculture, and communication). This framing also suggests an examination that goes beyond
methodological concerns to social, political, and moral ones, such that “science” is understood in
terms of the “scientific community.” This understanding would ensure more critical debates over
climate change, for example, or the potential of the Internet in the Digital Age.
Since this course is designed for future high-school teachers in science and mathematics, the
course is divided into two parts at the end of which there will be a full session on application in
the classroom (lesson plans, class exercises, and pedagogical tools). The Master Teacher will be
the main source of contact for these meetings.
BOOKS:
Please pay close attention to weekly discussions and the authors that are relevant to them. Feel
free to buy books, download articles, and make extensive use of the library and the Internet.
REQUIREMENTS:
1. Ten Reading summaries (10x4%) due each week of lectures
40%
One-page long, summary of any topic for the readings of the week
2. Two Lesson-Plan Projects (2x20%) due October 24 and December 12
40%
Specific instructions to be given by JD first day of class
3. One Paper; due November 21
20%
The paper is 4-8 pages long. Topic of your choice: pose a controversial question and
contextualize it historically (1/4); summarize the arguments for (1/4); summarize the arguments
against the issue (1/4), and your own opinion (1/4). Refer to at least five of the texts in the
bibliography.
OFFICE HOURS:
Columbine Hall 2031; email: rsassowe@uccs.edu; jdalee@uccs.edu
By appointment with either instructors
This syllabus is subject to changes.
SYLLABUS:
August 22: Introduction: what UCCS Teach courses are about; the structure of the course (JD);
Library research (Beth Kumar, room #237)
August 29: Introduction: from science to the scientific community, from science and
technology to technoscience; from the Scientific Revolutions to the Information Age to Digital
Culture (RS)
PART I:
September 5 & 12: History of Science: basic time-line of the scientific revolutions (16th-18th
centuries), historiography, cumulative view (“standing on the shoulders of giants”), paradigm
shifts and scientific revolutions, postmodernist displacement, success and failure, inclusion and
exclusion in the canon (RS)
September 19 & 26: History of Mathematics: from India and Greece through the Arab World to
Europe; Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry; proofs and refutations, Algebra, probability and
statistics, Bell Curves, applied mathematics today (RS + Prof. Gene Abrams, Mathematics,
UCCS, on the 19th)
October 3 & 10: Methodology of Science: from superstition and speculation to empirical
observations and testing, from induction to hypothetico-deduction, confirmation and
falsification, paradigm shifts, incommensurability, revolution vs. piecemeal engineering, critical
rationalism, genius vs. collaboration, modernism vs. postmodernism (RS)
October 17 & 24: Master Teaching Class: applications to High-School teaching; lesson
plans (JD)
PART II:
October 31: Natural, Social, and Organic Science: blurring the demarcation between the
sciences themselves and the humanities, differences and common elements in understanding the
nature of the inquiry, reductionism, the motivation to make a distinction or a hierarchy of the
science, from Comte to C.P. Snow (RS)
November 7: Sociology of Science: the shift from Science to the scientific community, the
extent to which social factors influence and even determine the ways in which scientific facts are
collected and reported, social networks, influencing research, the Internet (RS)
November 14: Politics, Economics, Legality, Morality, and Religion: the context within which
the scientific community operates, voting and election statistics, financial incentives for the study
of certain areas and the rewards for discovery, the ways in which decision about Big Science
projects are funded by government agencies, intellectual property and patents, ethical features
related to the scientific research, Venture Capital and Angels, the separation and potential
connection between science and religion (RS)
November 21: Critiques of Science: Marxism, feminism, Critical rationalism, postmodernism,
power-relations and the costs associated with technoscience, the IQ controversy, public vs.
private beneficiaries of scientific research and data collection (RS)
November 28: Thanksgiving—no class
December 5 & 12: Master Teaching Class: applications to High-School teaching; Lesson
Plans (JD)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
(corresponding to course materials)
Introduction
R. Ackermann, The Philosophy of Science (1970), A. C. Benjamin, An Introduction into the
Philosophy of Science (1937), m. Biagioli (ed.), The Science Studies Reader (1999), B. Brody
and N. Capaldi (eds.), Science (1968), A. Chalmers, What is this thing called Science? (1972),
F. Ferre, Philosophy of Technology (1988), R. Harre, The Philosophies of Science (1972), E.
Hung, The Nature of Science (1997), J. Kourany, Scientific Knowledge (1998), M. Matthews
(ed.), The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy (1989), F. Mosedale (ed.), Philosophy an
Science (1979), P. Nidditch (ed.), The Philosophy of Science (1968), F. Suppe (ed.), The
Structure of Scientific Theories (1977), S. Toulmin, The Philosophy of Science (1953), M.
Wartofsky, Conceptual Foundations of Scientific Thought (1968), A. N. Whitehead, Science and
the Modern World (1925).
History of Science & Mathematics
J. Agassi, Towards an Historiography of Science (1963), J. Al-Khalili, The House of Wisdom
(2011), F. Bacon, The New Organon (1620/1985), H. Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science
(1957/65), I. B. Cohen, Revolution in Science (1985), C. Darwin, The Origins of Species (1859),
R. Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637), A. Einstein, Relativity (1916), L. Fleck, Genesis and
Development of a Scientific Fact (1935/79), Galen, Three Treatises on the Nature of Science
(200/1985), G. Galilei, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (1638/1954), C. Gillispie, The
Edge of Objectivity (1960), I. Hart, Makers of Science (1923), S. Hawking, A Brief History of
Time (1988), H. Helmholtz, Treatise on Physiological Optics (1909/62), J. Herschel, A
Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830/1987), G. Holton, Thematic
Origins of Scientific Thought (1973), T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962/70),
D. Lindberg (ed.), Science in the Middle Ages (1978), D. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from AlKindi to Kepler (1976), J. Maxwell, Matter and Motion (1877/1991), R. Phelps and J. Stein, The
German Scientific Heritage (1962), I. Rabi, Science (1970), N. Reingold, Science in Nineteenthcentury America (1964), W. Whewell, Selected Writings on the History of Science (1857/1984),
W. Wightman, The Growth of Scientific Ideas (1953)
Methodology of Science
J. Agassi, Science in Flux (1975), A. Ayer (ed.). Logical Positivism (1959), H. Brown,
Observation & Objectivity (1987), M. Bunge, Intuition and Science (1962), B. Caldwell, Beyond
Positivism(1982), D. Campbell, Methodology and Epistemology for Social Science (1988), a.
Chalmers, Science and its Fabrication (1990), A. Comte, Introduction to Positive Philosophy
(1842/1988), D. Faust, The Limits of Scientific Reasoning (1984), J. Fetzer (ed.), Foundations of
Philosophy of Science (1993), P. Feyerabend, Against Method (1975), N. Goodman, Fact,
Fiction, and Forecast (1979), N. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery (1958), C. Joad, A Critique of
Logical Positivism (1950), A. Kantorovich, Scientific Discovery (1993), M. Laplace, A
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1796/1951), I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism
and the Growth of Knowledge (1970), L. Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990), N. Malcolm,
Knowledge and Certainty (1963), B. Mackenzie, Behaviourism and the Limits of Scientific
Method (1977), J. S. Mill, Philosophy of Scientific Method (1844/1950), E. Nagel, The Structure
of Science (1961), C. Peirce, Selected Writings (1958), K. Popper, The Logic of Scientific
Discovery (1934/59), K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (1962), S. Ross, The Scientific
Process (1971), I. Scheffler, Science and Subjectivity (1982), J. Watkins, Science and Scepticism
(1984), W. Whewell, Theory of Scientific Method (1840/1989)
Natural, Social, and Organic Science
M. Foucault, The Order of Things (1966/70), J. Gleick, Chaos (1987), F. Hayek, The CounterRevolution of Science (1952), S. Kellert et. Al. (eds.), Scientific Pluralism (2006), L. Laudan,
Science and Values (1984), R. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology (1991), B. Malinowski, A
Scientific Theory of Culture (1944/60), E. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (1982), E.
Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (1988), O. Neurath et. Al. (eds.), Foundations of the
Unity of Science (1938-1970), D. Phillips, Holistic Thought in Social Science (1976), D.
Polkinghorne, Methodology for the Human Sciences (1983)
Sociology of Science
J. Agassi, Science and Society (1981), J. Ben-David, The Scientist’s Role in Society (1971), H. T.
Engelhardt and A. Caplan (eds.), Scientific Controversies (1987), S. Fuller, Social Epistemology
(1988), P. Galison, How Experiments End (1987), A. Koch, Knowledge and Social Construction
(2005), B. Latour, Science in Action (1987), B. Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory Life (1979),
H. Longino, Science as Social Knowledge (1990), R. Merton, The Sociology of Science (1973),
O. Neurath, Empiricism and Sociology (1929/1973), M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (1958), A.
Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (1992), G. Rdnitzky and W. Bartley (eds.),
Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (1987), C. P. Snow,
The Two Cultures (1959/63), I. Sperber, Fashions in Science (1990), S. Woolgar, Science (1988)
Politics, Economics, Legality, Morality, and Religion
G. Annas and S. Elias (eds.), Gene Mapping (1992), G. Annas and M. Grodin, The Nazi Doctors
and the Nuremberg Code (1992), S. Aronowitz, Science as Power (1988), P. Durbin, Social
Responsibility in Science, Technology, and Medicine (1992), J. Grove, In Defense of Science
(1989), A. Irwin, Citizen Science (1995), A. Iannone (ed.), Contemporary Moral Controversies
in Technology (1987), H. Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility (1984), H. Marcuse, OneDimensional Man (1964), D. Noble, The Religion of Technology (1997), J. Needham (ed.),
Science, Religion & Reality (1955), J. Rouse, Knowledge and Power (1987), R. Sassower,
Technoscientific Angst (1997), K. Sharpe, Science of God (2006), P. Stephan and S. Levin,
Striking the Mother Lode in Science (1992), J. Wang, American Science in an Age of Anxiety
(1999)
Critiques of Science
J. Agassi and I. Jarvie (eds.), Rationality: The Critical View (1987), R. Appignanesi,
Postmodernism and Big Science (2001), J. Ellul, The Technological Society (1954/64), P. Gross
and N. Levitt, Higher Superstition (1994), D. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (1991), S.
Harding (ed.), Feminism & Methodology (1987), G. Holton and R. Morison (eds.), Limits of
Scientific Inquiry (1978), D. Huff, How to Lie with Statistics (1954), K. Hubner , Critique of
Scientific Reason (1978/83), R. Home (ed.), Science Under Scrutiny (1983), E. F. Keller,
Reflections on Gender and Science (1985), J-F Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1979/84), T.
Rothman, Science a la Mode (1989), T. Roszak, The Gendered Atom (1999), A. Ross (ed.),
Science Wars (1996), B. H. Smith, Scandalous Knowledge (2005)
Grading Scale:
A 100 – 95
B- 83 – 80
D 69 – 60
A- 94 – 90
C+ 79 – 77
F
59 – 0
B+ 89 – 87
C 76 – 74
B 86 – 84
C- 73 – 70
Students with Disabilities:
If you are a student with a disability and believe you will need accommodations for this class, it
is your responsibility to contact and register with the Disability Services Office, and provide
them with documentation of your disability, so they can determine what accommodations are
appropriate for your situation. To avoid any delay in the receipt of accommodations, you should
contact the Disability Services Office as soon as possible. Please note that accommodations are
not retroactive, and that disability accommodations cannot provided until an accommodation
letter has been given to me. Please contact Disability Services for more information about
receiving accommodations at Main Hall room 105, 719-255-3354 or dservice@uccs.edu. Ida
Dilwood, Director.
Academic Honesty and Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is a serious academic offense and will be grounds for failing a student from the
course, as well as additional academic sanctions as defined in the Academic Honor Code.
Plagiarism, the “use of distinctive ideas or words belonging to another person, without
adequately acknowledging that person’s contribution” ranges from the improper use of such
sources as internet materials to improper use of classmates’ notes. It is the students’
responsibility to become familiar with the various definitions and penalties for plagiarism. The
webpage of the Department of History at UCCS includes detailed information on what
constitutes and how to avoid plagiarism: http://web.uccs.edu/history/toolbox/plagiarism.htm
The Administrative Policy Statement for the University of Colorado System can be accessed on
line at http://www.cusys.edu/~policies/Academic/misconduct.html.
Military Deployment and Military Service:
In order to assist students who are called to active duty the Campus has compiled a set of
guidelines that include information on withdrawing from courses. General information can be
accessed at: http://www.uccs.edu/~deploy
In part, that information states that “in order to withdraw from the course, students called to
active military duty will need to obtain the proper withdrawal form from the Admissions and
Records office, their academic dean’s office or the Student Success Help Center. Information
about withdrawing and refund deadlines can be found in the schedule of courses. Completed
forms need to be returned to the Admissions and Records office. If students are receiving
veterans benefits or financial aid, each of those offices will need to approve the form. In
addition, the form needs to be approved by the Bursar’s Office located in Main Hall on the
second floor. Students will be provided a copy of the drop form to retain for their records. The
date the form is receipted by Admissions and Records will determine the amount of any refund.”
Disruptive Students
For information on the Student Code of Conduct or the Disruptive Behavior Policy go to the
Office of Judicial Affairs Website: http://www.uccs.edu/~oja/
Campus Emergency Response Team
UCCS Chief of Police: Jim Spice, phone: 255-3111, e-mail: jspice@uccs.edu
Director of University Counseling Center: Benek Altayli, phone: 255-3265, e-mail:
zaltayli@uccs.edu (regarding harm to self or others)
Director of Judicial Affairs: Steve Linhart, phone: 255-4443, e-mail: slinhart@uccs.edu
Standards Covered:
Colorado Teacher Quality Standards
Quality Standard I: Element a-c, e-f
Quality Standard II: Element b
Quality Standard III: Element a, g
Quality Standard IV: Element c
Quality Standard V: Element d
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards addressed in this course:
3.1, 4.3, 7.2, 7.3, 8.2, 8.4, 10.6, 11.8, 12.5, 13.4, 14.8, 5.4, 16.3
National Science Teacher Association Standards addressed in this course:
2a-c, 3a, 4a-b, 5a-b & e-f, 6a-b,