HIST / PHIL 3328 – Spring 2022 Syllabus

Professor Matthew J. Brown

Course Modality and Expectations

Per the order of President Benson, the first three weeks of class will be in an online, synchronous modality, with meetings during our scheduled class time (via Discord). I will run these meetings as a close approximation of a discussion-oriented in-person classroom.

Students unable to participate synchronously due to illness will have access to pre-recorded lecture material, asynchronous discussion via Perusall assignments, and virtual appointments with the professor. Grades will not be penalized for lack of attendance. Class sessions will not be recorded and made available for non-attending students.

Course Description

Science plays an influential role in our society. As a social institution, it commands respect and social influence, as well as major sums of funding. Science, which we might construe broadly to include engineering and medical research, produces results that are greatly sought after, for both good and ill. The adjective “scientific” garners almost immediate respectability to whatever it is applied, and, in some arenas, it is a prerequisite for being taken seriously. At the same time, science sometimes generates major social controversies. To many it also bespeaks alienation, abstraction, recklessness, and a void of meaning. Some even deride science as mere ideology and power-mongering, as sexist, racist, or elitist.

Science, as a human and social phenomenon, is open to interpretation and critique; as a result, it stands in need of explanation, elaboration, justification, evaluation, limitation, or change. History and philosophy of science attempt to understand how and why science works, to explain its successes and uncover its failures, to interpret its results, and to discover, what, if any, are its limits; in other words, to think critically about science. Historians and philosophers of science also try to situate science in the broader scheme of human activities, culture, and social institutions, as well as its interplay with cognitive, social, political, and moral values.

In this course we will explore classic and contemporary works in the fields of history and philosophy of science. We will investigate the nature of the scientific process and the scientific method, and explore how science changes. We will try to understand the interplay between science and values, and issues concerning the role of science in policy and personal decision making. These are not merely abstract or academic concerns, but ones of great social relevance. To show this relevance, we will explore many applications of these ideas that touch on the current COVID-19 global pandemic, from understanding the origins of epidemiology, to the philosophical issues connected with medical research, disease screening, and vaccinations.

Student Learning Objectives

Students will demonstrate knowledge of the key works, historical methods, and the philosophical frameworks and debates that constitute history and philosophy of science and medicine (HPS).
Students will demonstrate critical thinking about the nature and social role of science and medicine.
Students will demonstrate close reading skills through engaging key texts in HPS.
Students will demonstrate effective written and oral communication skills in articulating philosophical arguments and historical interpretations.
Students will develop skills of collaboration and communication with peers in pursuit of research and analysis.
Students will apply their knowledge of HPS to relevant contemporary issues.

Class Schedule by Week

Introduction; What is HPS?
Empiricism, Logic, and the Scientific Process
- Godfrey-Smith, “Empiricism”; Godfrey-Smith, “Evidence and Induction”
Popper’s Falsificationism
- Godfrey-Smith, “Popper”; Popper, “Science: Conjectures and Refutations” (selections)
Kuhn on Scientific Paradigms and Revolutions
- Kuhn, “The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research”; Kuhn, “The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions”; Godfrey-Smith, “Kuhn’s Revolution”
Feyerabend, Galileo, and the Scientific Method
- Feyerabend, Against Method Introduction, Ch 1-4; Ch 5-7
Feyerabend, Galileo, the Case Against Method, and Incommensurability
- Feyerabend, Against Method Ch 8-11; Ch 13-15, Appendix 1
Lakatos on Mathematical Knowledge
- Lakatos, “Proofs and Refutations part I”
Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism
- Godfrey-Smith, “Scientific Realism”; Laudan, “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”; Hacking, “Experiments and Scientific Realism”
Spring Break
Scientific Racism
- Smedley, “Science and the Idea of Race: A Brief History”; Gould, “Morton’s Ranking of Races by Cranial Capacity”
Values in Science I: Inference & Risk
- Okruhlik, “Gender and the Biological Sciences”; Douglas, “Inductive Risk and Values in Science”
Values and Disease Screening
- Kourany & Fernández-Pinto, “A Role for Science in Public Policy? The Obstacles, Illustrated by the Case of Breast Cancer Screening Policy”; Plutynski, “Safe or Sorry? Cancer Screening and Inductive Risk”
Vaccines and Public Trust in Science
- Goldenberg, “Public Misunderstanding of Science?”; Allchin, “Who Speaks for Science?”
Evidence in Medicine
- Solomon, “Evidence-Based Medicine in Epistemological Context”; Stegenga, “Drug Regulation and the Inductive Risk Calculus”; Bluhm, “Inductive Risk and the Role of Values in Clinical Trials”
Values in Science II: Concepts & Claims
- Dupre, “Fact and Value”; Alexandrova, “Can the Science of Well-Being Be Objective”
Race in Medical Research
- Andreasen, “The Concept of Race in Medicine”; Ioannidis et al., “Recalibrating the Use of Race in Medical Research”

Requirements and Grades

Main Graded Assignments

Perusall Reading and Annotation
Participation Points
Book or Journal Review
Final Project (Podcast Assignment or Take-Home Essay Exam)

Grading Princples

Individual assignments in this course will largely be graded on a binary, “satisfactory/credit” or “unsatisfactory/no credit” basis. There will be no partial credit. Your final grade for the course will be decided by the number and type of assignments you choose to, and are able to successfully complete, rather than on a weighted average of your qualitative performance on each individual item. While this approach, known as “specifications grading,” may be unfamiliar, it has a variety of proven advantages.

Why Specifications Grading?

This course uses a form of grading based called “specifications grading” developed by Linda B. Nilson. It is a framework that offers you greater flexibility and autonomy, while asking you to take responsibility for directing your own learning. Specifications grading is based in the principles of adult learning theory, which hold that you will learn more effectively, feel more engaged, and derive greater satisfaction from your work in a flexible yet challenging learning environment. This grading system makes grading fairer and more transparent; assignments clearly articulate what is required to succeed, without hidden requirements or arbitrariness in assigning scores.

High expectations are important for student success; stressing about grades tends to interfere with learning. Each individual assignment comes with relatively high expectations — “satisfactory” grades are more closely associated with competence or mastery that mere completion. Participation points require not only proof-of-life, but genuinely engaged, thoughtful contributions; satisfactory assignments require you to hit every one of the stated specifications. On the other hand, the sort of fine distinctions between an A, A-, B+ or 98, 96, 89 are not relevant.

This structure gives you the freedom to take some risks, to take control of what you’re learning, and this can lead to better outcomes and a more satisfying learning experience. This is not a structure that rewards you for trying to please the instructor; it removes some of the incentives to “play it safe,” and allows you to earn full points even when you’re being creative, within the requirements of the assignment. On the other hand, if what you want out of this class is more modest — to pass this class while you deal with something more stressful or more central to your personal goals — this structure allows you to make that decision, and makes it transparent what amount of work is necessary to do that. Even if you’re aiming for an A, in some categories there may be more opportunities than you need to reach that level.

Grading Tiers

Assignment / Grade	A	B	C	D
Perusall assignments (# S)	22	17	12	7
Participation points (#)	10	8	5	0
Book or Journal Review (score)	S	U	0	0
Final Project (one or the other)
– Podcast Assignment (score / 5)	5	3	2	1
– Take-Home Essay Exam (score / 5)	5	4	3	2

The final project assignments will have rubrics with 6 components; each element is scored satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

Tokens

Some flexibility is added to the course via the “token” system. You each begin the semester with 2 tokens. At the end of the semester, tokens can be spent in the following way:

Free participation points
Free Perusall credit
For 2 tokens, rewrite unsatisfactory Book/Journal Review (written portion, individually)
For 4 tokens, 1 free point on final project.
5 tokens convert to a + grade.

Tokens can be earned in the following ways:

Exemplary performance on review or final project
1 token per 2 excess Participation points above grade level
1 token per 2 excess Perusall assignments above grade level

You do not need to keep track of your tokens; they will be assigned automatically in whatever way gives you the highest possible grade for the class.

Examples:

A. You have 14 satisfactory Perusall assignments, 11 participation points, a satisfactory journal review, and 4 points on your final project. Your extra participation points above the 8 required for a B earn you a token, for a total of 3 tokens. You use these tokens for credit on three additional Perusall assignments, giving you the minimum needed to meet the specifications for a B.

B. Your written book review was unsatisfactory; you did not feel you understood the assignment, and what you produced missed the mark in several respects. Based on the feedback, you feel like you really grasp the idea now. You spend 2 tokens in order to submit a revised review. You will go into the end of semester calculations without any free tokens, though you may still earn them in the ways listed above.

Assignment Descriptions

Perusall Reading and Annotation

All readings will be posted via Perusall, typically one or two readings per week. To get credit, you will need to make at least 4 annotations on each reading, make high-quality annotations, and respond to your peers’ annotations. It helps if you go through each reading more than once.

Your annotations should focus on four types of thoughts about the reading: (a) drawing attention to passages you find particularly valuable, insightful, or thought-provoking, and explaining why; (b) explaining what is strong/weak about the arguments in the reading; (c) asking significant questions about the reading aimed at gaining deeper understanding; (d) drawing connections to other ideas and other readings.

Perusall grades your annotations and questions automatically using an algorithm that holistically considers their quantity, quality, relevance, and engagement, and gives you credit for the assignment if your contributions meet a certain threshold. It tends to give a low score for comments that are too brief, that are too broad or vague or unrelated to the text, to mere expressions of confusion rather than thoughtful attempts to wrangle with the meaning of the text. Thoughtful, detailed, relevant, and insightful comments and questions get full credit. It also gives you credit for time spent actively reading, for interacting with the annotations of other students, and for receiving comments and upvotes on your own annotations. I will periodically spot-check the work of the algorithm, but I find that it very rarely fails to give credit where credit is due. If you read the entire assignment, write at least 4 detailed, thoughtful annotations about the text, and engage with a few of the annotations of your peers, you will receive full credit. If you try to figure out what the minimal effort required is, you’re likely not to get credit.

To see the breakdown that determines whether you received credit for a particular assignment, go back to the assignment in Perusall, and then click “My scores” in the upper-left of the page. Then, click on that particular assignment’s score in the score column to see the break-down.

Book / Journal Reviews

Working together in groups of 2-3, you will write a 2-3 page review of a work of scholarship in HPS, either an important book or a recent journal article, and make a 10-15 minute class presentation on it. You must pick either a book from a provided list or a paper from the most recent issue (or the issue just before that) of one of the journals on [a list of major science studies journals](). 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 it by presenting a supporting argument, raising an objection, or posing a serious and specific interpretive difficulty with it.

You must have your article approved by the instructor ahead of time, and you must make an appointment to discuss your presentation outline the week before your presentation.

Final Project Option 1: Podcast Assignment

You will synthesize the ideas and arguments you are learning in the class by crafting a 7-10 minute audio or video podcast episode about a particular issue in the history and philosophy of science. In the course of this assignment, you will produce an elevator pitch, a script outline, an audio draft, and a “published” podcast.

In this assignment, you are making an argument, not summarizing what others have written. You will need to provide specific evidence in support of a main idea / claim. You will also exercise organizational, written, oral, and nonverbal communication skills in the process.

You may work on this project on your own or in groups of 2 or 3 people. If you do a group project, everyone will receive the same grade.

Final Project Option 2: Take-Home Essay Exam

In lieu of the podcast assignment, you make choose to take an essay exam. When classes end, you will be provided with one or more essay questions / prompts that ask you to synthesize ideas and arguments from the course and craft an argument for a specific claim. You will have approximately one week to complete the exam. Questions will not be provided ahead of time. You will work on this exam on your own; you will not discuss the questions or share notes. These essays will not require outside research. Grading rubrics will be provided in advance.

Class Participation Points

Your class participation grade will be based on points for the following activities:

Participation in class discussions (1 point per class) for high-quality contributions

Discuss material in class discussion text chat channel on Discord (1 point per week) asynchronous version of class discussion

Contribute to collaborative note-taking (1 point per week) Each week there will be a shared note-taking space, where you can earn points for contributing to the note-taking about the class discussion and for cleaning up the notes into a clear and readable document for other students. A good option for those who have trouble speaking on their feet.

Note that typically you can only earn one category of point per week of class, though for particularly high-quality participation on two axes, you might earn two points in the same week.

Matthew J. Brown's Courses

History and Philosophy of Science – Spring 2022