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Proposal for an Independent Concentration Program
In the
The Development of Science
Submitted by:
Shoshana Lavinghouse, in her fourth semester
SISD23591
Box 0761
(401) 867-6867
Candidate for Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors
Class of 2006
This is the second submission, and will replace no previously declared program
Faculty Sponsor:
Joan Richards
Professor of History
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Concentration Proposal
I vividly recall an intellectual challenge posed to my classmates and me in high
school. This took us by surprise; the answer appeared obvious, but the obvious answer
was incorrect. The challenge was “define the humanities.” As our school had blocked off
two periods for this subject, one taught by our English teacher and the other by our
history teacher, we responded that the humanities were literature, grammar, and history.
Our puzzled frowns deepened when our teacher encouraged a more complete answer.
Surely we had provided all the components of the field. In fact, we had not. The missing
part, it turned out, was science. Referencing the early modern definition, my teacher
proposed that science, literature, history and philosophy should be defined under the
umbrella term “humanities.”
The connection that I failed to make on that day between science and the
humanities is one that I would like to fully comprehend now, in an institution in which I
have all the tools at my disposal to do so. In particular, I would like to ascertain how
science emerged as a special way of approaching the natural world.
Under the old system, knowledge was largely derived from existing classical and
biblical sources. When the causes of natural phenomena could not be readily established
with human senses, scholars relied on hidden forces attributable to god or an equally
powerful force to explain them. Such explanations satisfied the small scholarly
community of the middle ages, which extended to monks and aristocrats educated in
universities or monastic schools. Both groups shared a reliance on erudition rather than
experience for their knowledge, since honor precluded the elite from involving
themselves with manual labor.
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This did not stop the accumulation of observations that increasingly challenged
preexisting notions. Advances made in navigation and astronomy in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries made scholars more willing to employ new methods to preexisting
problems. The seventeenth century saw the emergence of a movement that relied less on
occult explanations, finding ways to explain all natural phenomena. Led by the synthesis
of Francis Bacon, members of the Royal Society in England presented a socially
verifiable system of establishing truth. Such leaders as Robert Boyle firmly held that to
establish truth, or to create a fact, one must experiment with a hypothesis in the presence
of qualified witnesses. This departed from the old system’s disregard for witnessing; their
standards only desired that the argument make logical sense. However, Boyle would not
have just anyone serve as a qualified witness. Qualified meant trustworthy, and
trustworthy meant gentlemen. Gentleman advantageously bound themselves with a strict
code of honor that would preclude fraud. Furthermore, experiments needed to be
structured such that they could potentially be proven wrong if repeated. In sum, the Royal
Society desired facts to be constructed through falsifiable experiments presented to
qualified witnesses, who could then repeat it and produce the same result.
The Royal Society’s standards appear familiar to the modern reader. Indeed, we
cherish the standard of establishing facts by reproducible and falsifiable experiments. To
fit a less hierarchical society and experiments that increasingly require more time to
produce significant results, the modern age has added a few requirements. The procedure
has brought experiments into private spaces, and emphasized presenting the procedure
and results through indirect mediums, in particular scholarly journals. As a means of
establishing certainty without direct audiences, these journals employ peer review. This
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involves a panel of people reputable for their education and work in the field who critique
articles before the journal publishes them. In a sense this fosters the perspective of
scientists as people separate from society, as their predecessors were. However, education
has replaced social status as the dividing factor between scientists and the rest of society.
As such, scientists have come to rely on outside funding to support their research. The
increased pressure of finding funding underlies the importance of peer review, since
modern scientists largely cannot fund themselves nor fall back on the gentlemanly
standard of the seventeenth century. However, as the recent debate over global warming
has shown, peer review can easily be attacked. Whose money is accepted, and to what
extent that source appears to profit by the results, often produces challenges of biased,
and therefore illegitimate science. When to accept authority thus provides a challenge to
the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate science. The skepticism underlying the
scientific process since it was first extended to the public serves both to buttress and
undermine the method. Despite this, we expect scientific results released to the public
through peer reviewed journals, based on falsifiable and repeatable experiments.
Through my concentration, I will trace the changes in scientific epistemology and
methodology through European history from the end of the middle ages to the present.
My program’s reliance on courses in history and philosophy reflect my general desire to
approach this subject as a historian. However, it is insufficient to simply talk about
science. In a reflection of the modern emphasis on learning through experience, my
studies must also include scientific methodology. I will attain this within the field of
evolutionary and vertebrate biology. In particular, I seek to find the causes and extent of
the removal of theological and mystical elements from biological investigations of life’s
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origins and history. In the process I will investigate the relationship between religion and
philosophy, and the extent to which these fields persist in science.
Evolutionary biology provides a model framework for this study. It reveals the
tensions between a religious and secular mindset, as well as the range of interpretations
that an experiment or a theory can engender. Furthermore, Charles Darwin represents a
noteworthy study in the human effort involved in science. His struggle over whether or
not to publish his theory reveals the larger reluctance of most key figures to radically
depart from accepted norms. In a broader sense, evolution also represents a reflection of
how modern science developed. As a nascent field, evolution had to rely on occult causes
as explanations. The ease of attacking evolution reduced when Mendelian genetics added
a testing means with measurable results within the lifetimes of experimenters. Thus both
the path to the theory’s introduction and its establishment reveal the broader evolution of
science from a field of natural philosophy to the established means of producing data.
The interdisciplinary nature of this course of study precludes my entrance into
established concentration programs at Brown. Should I do so, I would lose out on aspects
of the other programs that I feel would expand my understanding. Science and history
have different methods of investigating the world; the former through an ethos that values
collaborative efforts to establish objectivity and precision, the latter through an ethos that
values scholarship through which individuals seek to explain social phenomena. Gray
areas exist in between the two; and I want to explore them. Historians and philosophers
are the ones who practice this, so I must study them both. Study abroad at a university
with a strong program in the history of science will allow me tap into this international
community. The programs at the University of Melbourne and the University of New
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South Wales fit the bill. In particular I believe the courses on evolution and philosophy of
science will advance my thesis work. Due to the nature of my schedule as outlined in the
following course list, I will be applying for the fall semester of this year. The applications
for both programs are due by March 15, and I expect to hear back from them in late April
or early May. I will notify the committee should I be accepted to and decide to attend one
of these programs.
In sum, through my proposed concentration in the development of science, I will
study biology, history, and philosophy in order to gain an understanding of how certainty
is formed and the ways we delineate the boundaries of science.
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Annotated Course List
Core Classes:
Science:
BI 32- Vertebrate Embryology- This perspective on embryology mixes scientific
methodology and social context. In addition, it will provide perspective on the
creationist-evolutionist debate. It will introduce me to modern methods of scientific
research in contrast with the old, and emphasize advances in technology that permitted
these changes.
BI 48- Evolutionary Biology- Introduces the mainstream view of how nature
operates on organisms. Furthermore, the analysis of the facts through discussion of
scientific papers produces a knowledge of how scientists present their findings to other
scientists in addition to enriching the discussion of the theories and techniques employed.
CG 32- The Biology and Evolution of Language- Through comparisons of the
biology of speech in humans, chimpanzees, and Neanderthals, this course presented
evolution and an insight into the debates among cognitive scientists’ methodology.
Humanities and Social Sciences:
CL 112 sec.2- Myth and the Origins of Science- This course examines the legacy
of ancient scientific thought through the writings of various authors on human and
cosmic origins in literary, philosophical, and scientific texts. I will attain a firmer
foundation in my studies through this investigation of ancient science, scholarly pursuits
that still underlie our modern studies.
EL 190 sec. 7- Twentieth Century Reconceptions of Knowledge and ScienceProvides an expansion of the study of modern science studies by delving into “critiques
of classic and prevailing (rationalist, realist, positivist) ideas of scientific truth, method,
objectivity, and progress and the development of alternative (constructivist, pragmatist,
historicist, sociological) accounts; the dynamics of knowledge; the relation between
scientific and other cultural practices.” Exposure to science writers not covered in UC49
through the work of Fleck, Foucault, Rorty, and Latour.
HI 97 sec.6- Magic, Science and Religion in Early Modern Europe- The course
provides a greater insight into the interrelations of the three terms, particularly in its
approach to the occult activities as legitimate. This introduces the main ideological
differences between modern and early modern thinkers, namely that the increased
availability of facts led the elite to specialize in a way that prevented the existence of
Renaissance men.
HI 118- The Rise of the Scientific Worldview- Provides more foundation work in
the European mindset of the early modern period, this time by focusing on the natural
philosophers that have been attributed with the advances that led to modern science. This
further emphasized the problems of the transmission of ancient learning and which
contributed to the practice of science.
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HI 119- Nineteenth Century Roots of Modern Science- Despite the name, the
course focuses on the period from the enlightenment to Einstein, making two important
contributions to my studies. It provides a connection between my studies of early modern
and modern science, as well as background into the age in which evolutionary theory
grew.
HI 197 sec.34- Knowing and Believing: Galileo-Darwin- The course bridges the
gap between the scientific revolution and the nineteenth century, providing continuity and
the Enlightenment to my studies. In particular, the analysis of the interaction between
religious and scientific outlooks and institutions directly pertains to my studies.
Furthermore, it will help cement my knowledge of the period.
PB160 sec.1- On the Dawn of Modernity- Provides the perspective of Portuguese
exploration as the basis for studying the rise of a scientific, quantitative worldview from
the classical, qualitative worldview in Europe. The course includes an introduction to
Greco-Roman science and a treatment of the relationship between science, technology
and theology in medieval Europe.
PL 21- Science, Perception and Reality- Treats the clash of scientific logic and
commonsense and responses to the problems they raise.
PL175- Epistemology- This course covers the study of thought. Its study of
skepticism, knowledge and its relation to thought, subjectivity and objectivity, and the
epistemology of the social sciences will provide a way of framing my understanding.
Furthermore, this course will incorporate early modern thinkers, which will help me to
cement my understanding of their perspectives and knowledge.
UC 49- Introduction to Science Studies- This course investigates how society
interacts with science. Some of the most salient features are the treatment of words such
as “certainty” and “truth,” as well as the role of scientists in the present.
Related Courses:
BI 20- The Foundations of Living Systems- An overview of most topics in modern
biology, including evolution and sociology was presented in this course. Thus it provides
a stepping stone for my study of biology.
GE 1- The Face of the Earth- The study of geology introduced. This course
further provided a prospective on how and why people believe the earth has changed over
time. In this way the study of the earth mirrors the study of evolution on an inanimate
scale.
EL 119 sec. 2- Science as Writing, Science as Writer- Exploring the production of
science writing, allowing me to focus on how science is communicated.
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HI 197 sec.31- Religion and Secularization in the West- Explores the
transformation of organized religion’s role in Europe and America from the middle ages
to the present. The focus on the relationship between reason and revelation in learned
culture and popular religious practice will provide a basis for understanding the rise of
evolution.
UC 44- Recovering the Past- Inquiry into our basic assumptions of the historical
sciences and the role of science in modern culture.
UC 152- The Shaping of Worldviews- Examines how ideologies and beliefs are
formed. This will allow me to review my knowledge of rationality and philosophy and
test them against the diversity of worldviews.
Course Order:
Fall 2002
CG32- The Biology and Evolution of Language
PB160 sec.1- On the Dawn of Modernity
Spring 2003
BI20-The Foundations of Living Systems
GE1-The Face of the Earth
HI97 sec.6-Magic, Science and Religion in Early Modern Europe
Fall 2003
BI48- Evolutionary Biology
HI118- The Rise of the Scientific Worldview
UC49-Introduction to Science Studies
Spring 2004
BI32- Vertebrate Embryology
EL119 sec.2 Science as Writing, Science as Writer
HI119- Nineteenth Century Roots of Modern Science
CL112 sec. 2- Myths and the Origin of Science
Fall 2004
Likely Study Abroad (final details will be divulged when they become available)
Spring 2005
HI197 sec.34- Knowing and Believing: Galileo-Darwin
PL175- Epistemology
UC44- Recovering the Past
Fall 2005
EL190 sec. 7-Twentieth Century Reconceptions of Knowledge and Science
Thesis writing
Spring 2006
UC152- The Shaping of Worldviews
PL 21- Science, Perception and Reality
HI197 sec.31- Religion and Secularization
Thesis Writing
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Final project
The focus of my concentration has been the evolution of modern science from the
Renaissance to the present, as it transformed from a branch of the humanities to an
autonomous, powerful field. The development of evolutionary theory and the ongoing
debate between evolution and creation covers the themes that arise within my general
study. Evolution’s development as a field of science contains the simultaneous struggle
for legitimacy, certainty and a place with god, thus making it a nice capstone for my
studies.
The movement to explain the history of life on earth as separate from the story
detailed in Genesis flowered at the end of the Enlightenment, following two centuries of
intellectual change in Europe. This change had pulled the practice of natural philosophy
from theology’s handmaiden to a legitimate practice of its own. However, its autonomy
did not mean a loss of religious ties. In fact, not until the Enlightenment would the kind
of skepticism that Descartes had fostered in seeking knowledge translate into a rejection
of god in scientific theory, which quickly became stigmatized.
While total rejection of god hovered at the fringe, men tinkered with how much of
scripture was actually true. The standard story of the Earth’s origins upheld by all “good
Christians” clearly had some faults. The Bible failed to demonstrate the Earth’s age, and
estimates varied. Furthermore, men found bones that belonged to no known creature.
Many claimed that these were the remains from Noah’s flood. However, men like
Erasmus Darwin, Georges Cuvier, and Charles Lyell would take a different approach. By
extending the age of the earth to beyond the history of man, these men introduced the
idea of geologic time, and animals that became extinct and evolved from a common
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ancestor. These early views would appear in Charles Darwin’s more developed concept
of the evolution of species. They would also set the debate for how much of scripture
could be culled out as metaphor, and how much of it was actually true.
One of the many problems with dethroning the Bible was the certainty and
legitimacy vacuum it would leave. If your theory didn’t have god backing it up, what else
could give it the credibility and certainty to be accepted? Natural philosophers had been
working on this problem since the seventeenth century. Their solution made legitimacy
and certainty contingent upon good character in addition to reproducible and falsifiable
experiments.
Given this background, Darwin’s story appears all the more powerful. He
struggled with legitimizing a theory that challenged the prevailing view on the origin of
species, and in his own uncertainty held it down until another man produced the same
theory. He stockpiled evidence in his study of Galapagos finches, domestic pigeons and
other studies, and struggled to present his idea as clearly and fully as possible. He
organizes his work as a large tome, attempting to clearly explain each point of his theory.
When Darwin finally published, the theory of evolution became the counter to the
creation story of Genesis, thereafter the Creation theory. From its founding, the followers
of Creationism have questioned both evolution’s acceptance of god and its legitimacy.
The debate between the two has accentuated Creationism’s nonscientific status from the
evolutionists’ perspective, while Creationists condemn evolution as a threat to a healthy
social environment. My project will reveal how evolutionary arguments against
Creationism microscopically reflect the modern definition of science.
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Bibliography
The Theory
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species- A Facsimile of the First Edition. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
*The original statement of evolutionary theory. A close reading provides a way of
comparing the modern arguments, in addition to ascertaining the accuracy of Creationist
counterarguments.
Freeman, Scott and Hebron, Jon C. Evolutionary Analysis, Third Edition. Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.
*This modern textbook in evolution provides information on current methodology,
with diagrams and case studies.
The Evolution of the Theory
Caudill, Edward. Darwin in the Press: The Evolution of an Idea. Hillsdale, New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates, Inc., 1989.
*As the press is our main means of obtaining and synthesizing information, this
book presents an excellent way of following the evolutionary debate. It presents the story
of evolution to the 1980s, including the rise of Social Darwinism, Creationism, and the
defenses for evolution.
Dobzhansky, Theodosius; Ayala; Stebbins; and Valentine. Evolution. San Francisco: W.
H. Freeman, 1977.
*This book nicely incorporates all the directions that evolution had gone in up to
its publication in 1977. This includes genetics, speciation, the future of evolution as it
relates to mankind, artificial evolutionary control, philosophical issues in studying
science and the evolution of the following: the universe, prokaryotes and singe celled
eukaryotes, metazoa and humans.
Mayr. One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary
Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991.
*Mayr covers the history of evolution from Darwin to the modern day. He begins
with an analysis of how Darwin developed his theory, the situation surrounding its
publication, and its modern refinements. He concludes with his interpretation of where
evolution’s next frontier, which he perceives as the “elucidation of the structure of the
genotype and the role of development.” (157)
Secord, James A. Victorian Sensation : The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and
Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2001.
*This book chronicles the publication and reception of the Vestiges of the Natural
History of Creation, a book that used evolutionary terms to describe the creation of the
universe and human destiny. This is noteworthy, since the book was published in 1844before The Origin of Species. Furthermore, it elicited all of the negative theological
attention that would dog Darwin’s theory; indeed, Darwin read this work while in a
quandary over whether or not to publish his own theory.
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Creationism and God’s Place in Evolution
Numbers, Ronald. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism. New York:
A. A. Knopf, 1992.
As the title implies, Numbers follows the rise of Creationism and presents an
analysis of how the movement challenges scientific certainty.
Osborn, Henry Fairfield. Evolution and Religion in Education. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons 1926.
*In response largely to the Scopes Trial, this compendium of essays on evolution
presents both the case for a coexistence between religion and evolution in addition to
arguments for teaching evolution instead of creationism. Furthermore, he presents key
players in the evolution and creationism from the early nineteenth century until the 1920s.
Paley, William. Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the existence and attributes of the
Deity: Collected From The Appearances of Nature. Charlottesville, Va.: Ibis Pub.,
1986.
*This presents an early argument for intelligent design by an eighteenth century
English theologian. His arguments are revealing enough to be sited by Osborn in
Evolution and Religion in Education.
Modern Synthesis
Dobzhansky, Theodosius. Genetics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1951.
*As originally published in 1942, Dobzhansky presents evolution on the level of
population genetics. This applies genetics to Darwin’s theory, by looking at such topics
as mutation, isolating mechanisms, diversity, heredity and patterns of evolution. The
1951 edition includes a synthesis of evolutionary advances since the original was
published, revealing that a paradigm shift of sorts has occurred in the field that placed
Modern Synthesis as the dominant method of evolutionary analysis.
Mayr, Ernst. Systematics and the Origin of Species, From the Point of View of a
Zoologist. With a new introduction by the author. New York: Dover Publications,
1964.
*Mayr analyzes taxonomy from a systematics (categorizing and theorizing)
perspective in an attempt to bridge the comprehension gap between systematicists and
experimentalists. In doing so, he combines modern systematics with genetics and ecology,
and, to a lesser extent, the other fields of biology. Mayr makes his concern with the
specialization of the field apparent in his introduction, in addition to identifying where his
work remains useful and what parts of it needed correction.
Simpson, George Gaylord. The Major Features of Evolution. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1953.
*Simpson composed this work almost a decade after his ground breaking Tempo
and Mode in Evolution at the behest of his publishers. Indented originally as a revision,
in its final form it buildings upon it with expanded coverage of topics and expanded
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findings, including fossil plants. Both works bring population genetics to paleontology, to
extend evolution back into geologic time.
Science Studies
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed., enlarged. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970.
*Places the history of science as a succession of conceptual and practical shifts
that Kuhn dubs ‘paradigms.’ Much of the methodology included is the basis of
sociological work in science into the present; furthermore, the work brought science
studies to a wider audience.
Merton, Robert K. The Sociology of Science. Norman W. Storer, ed. Chicago: Chicago
Press, 1974.
*Merton provides a sociological perspective on science that introduces the ethos
of science: disinterestedness, universalism, communism, and organized skepticism.
Taken as a whole, this is the 20th century ideal of how science should operate.
For general overview of the development of science in the west:
Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Tradition in
Philosophical, Religious and Institutional Context, 600BC to AD 1450. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Oster, Malcolm, Science in Europe 1500-1800: A Primary Source Reader. New York
Palgrave, 2002 and the companion volume, Science in Europe, 1500-1800: A
Secondary Source Reader.