Science and Capitalism

Catalog description

We will explore the longstanding relationship between science and commerce from the 17th century to our own asking when the modern notion of science as a disinterested pursuit of objective truth took root. We will also explore how knowledge of the natural world has been shaped by personal, financial, and other kinds of self-interest in a number of diverse contexts ranging from Galileo’s invention of the telescope in Renaissance Italy to to the patenting of genetically engineered organisms in today's world, paying special attention to the diverse mechanisms that have been devised to guard against fraud and disinformation.