Assignment for History and Philosophy of Science.

You will write a brief paper (1000-1500 words) and make an in-class presentation (10-15 minutes) on a recent work of scholarship in history and philosophy of science. You must pick a book from the list below or a journal article from the most recent issue (or the issue just before that) of one of the journals on the list of major science studies journals below. You should (1) summarize the argument of the work; (2) describe the type of research done to produce the work, its methodology or approach; (3) engage with the work by presenting a supporting argument, raising an objection, or posing a serious and specific interpretive difficulty with it.

For book reviews, you must let the instructor know ahead of time which book you are using. Books not on the list must be specially approved. For articles, you must have your article approved by the instructor. You must meet with the instructor in office hours (or by appt) the week before your presentation.

Specifications

1. Gives an accurate, correctly formatted bibliographic citation of the reviewed source.
2. Summarizes the argument.
3. Describes the methodology, approach, or type of research.
4. Engages with the argument.
5. 1000-1500 words (written) and 10-15 minutes (presentation)

List of Suggested Books

• Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution
• Kuhn, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894–1912
• Kuhn, The Essential Tension
• Chang, Inventing Temperature
• Chang, Is Water H₂O?
• Chang, Realism for Realistic People
• Valles, Philosophy of Population Health
• Jacob Stegenga, Medical Nihilism
• Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender
• Elisabeth Lloyd, The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution
• Maya Goldenberg, Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science
• Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?
• Intemann and de Melo-Martín, The Fight Against Doubt: How to Bridge the Gap Between Scientists and the Public
• Paul Feyerabend, Philosophy of Nature
• Paul Feyerabend, The Tyranny of Science
• Adrian Currie, Rock, Bone, and Ruin
• Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism
• Harry Collins, Are We All Scientific Experts Now?
• Sabrina Leonelli, Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study
• Nancy Cartwright, How the Laws of Physics Lie
• Nancy Cartwright, The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science
• Nancy Cartwright, Nature, the Artful Modeler
• Latour, Science in Action
• Latour and Woolgar, Laboratory Life
• Heather Douglas, Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal
• Heather Douglas, Science, Values, and Democracy
• Janet Kourany, Philosophy of Science after Feminism
• Helen Longino, Science as Social Knowledge
• Helen Longino, The Fate of Knowledge
• Elizabeth Anderson, The Imperative of Integration
• Grinnell, Everyday Practice of Science
• Angela Saini, Superior: The Return of Race Science
• Washington, Medical Apartheid
• Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man
• Harker, Creating Scientific Controversies
• John Forge, The Responsible Scientist
• Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics
• Brooks, Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science
• Joy Lisi Rankin, A People’s History of Computing in the United States
• Reed, From Soul to Mind
• Knorr-Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge
• Knorr-Cetina, Epistemic Cultures
• Elliott, A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science
• Alexandrova, A Philosophy for the Science of Well-Being
• Nagel, The Structure of Science
• Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
• Van Fraasen, The Scientific Image
• Westman, The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order
• Churchland, Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind
• Michael Friedman, The Dynamics of Reason
• Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution
• Peter J. Kuznick, Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America
• Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Earth
• Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future
• Lise Elliott, Pink Brain, Blue Brain
• Donna Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science
• Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking From Women’s Lives
• Sandra Harding, Is Science Multicultural?: Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies
• Sandra Harding, Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research
• Rebecca Jordan-Young, Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences
• Lynn Hankinson Nelson, Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism
• Lynn Hankinson Nelson, Biology and Feminism: A Philosophical Introduction
• Sarah Richardson, Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome
• Londa Schiebinger, Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science
• Gronda, John Dewey’s Philosophy of Science

Other options will be considered but must be approved in advance by the instructor.

List of Approved Journals

Note that you must get the particular article you chose approved by the instructor.

• Philosophy of Science
• British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
• European Journal for Philosophy of Science
• International Studies in the Philosophy of Science
• Journal for General Philosophy of Science
• Synthese
• Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
• Perspectives on Science
• Isis
• Osiris
• British Journal for the History of Science
• Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
• Science & Education
• Science, Technology, & Human Values
• History of the Human Sciences
• Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
• History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
• Biology and Philosophy
• Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology
• Journal of the History of Biology
• Hyle – Philosophy of Chemistry
• Philosophy of the Social Sciences
• Journal of Economic Methodology
• Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
• Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
• Social History of Medicine
• Bulletin of the History of Medicine
• Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
• Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal
• Journal of Philosophy, Science & Law
• HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science