First-Year Research Seminar: The Matter of Fact

Catalog description

We are living in a moment of extreme distrust of scientific evidence ? climate change denialists and anti-vaxxers being only two prominent examples. What is a fact? How do scientists determine what counts as legitimate evidence, proof, or a convincing demonstration? How does the nature of evidence change across different domains of knowledge? Drawing upon historical, anthropological, and sociological literature, in this course we will examine how scientific knowledge and expertise is legitimized within domains such as biotechnology, mathematics, public health, and environmental science. In the first unit we will analyze a range of mathematical proofs, from diagrams to computers to large-scale collaborations. We will investigate the ways standards of rigor are established within a community of practitioners and how they evolve over time. The second unit focuses on the history of public scientific controversies. Examples include evolution and intelligent design, links between cigarettes and cancer, and anthropogenic climate change. Students will focus on how scientists reach consensus when faced with contrasting evidence, as well as how proof is presented by the popular press and in non-scientific domains. The third unit interrogates the nature of scientific evidence in courtrooms. Throughout the course, students will be introduced to key themes in the history of science, such as trust, expertise and policy, and rigor versus intuition. By the end of the term, students will be prepared to think critically about competing claims and evidence, understand how controversy and consensus function socially, and be able to analyze and interpret scientific rhetorical strategies.