Honors 1070 - Biology for Today - Fall 2001

"Biology Through Books"

Supported by a grant from VITAL - the Villanova Institute for Teaching and Learning (2001)

"The life-enhancing potential of science and technology cannot be realized unless the public in general comes to understand science, mathematics and technology and to acquire scientific habits of mind... [Such an achievement] can help people in every walk of life to deal sensibly with problems that often involve evidence, quantitative considerations, logical arguments, and uncertainty...."

-- Science for All Americans, AAAS, 1990

Science literacy is a national goal articulated by the recommendations of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Council on Science in Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990). The teaching of science to liberal arts students can be seen as one very important component of the national effort to achieve science literacy. Honors 1070 will emphasize the scientific investigative process and will use non-textbook resources to teach fundamentals in modern biology to liberal arts students. It will emphasize several themes, including: the process of scientific discovery as human endeavor, how science is presented in the media, and most importantly, how the generation of new data can radically change our view of how the natural world works. The course will be anchored by a recent scholarly, but accessible work, Science as a Way of Knowing (Harvard University Press), which will be used to introduce basic topics. The class will read selections from several genres (non-fiction narratives, biographies and autobiographies, book reviews, essays and interviews, articles from the reputable media, as well as primary and secondary scientific literature), which effectively and accurately describe, analyze and/or reflect on major developments in fundamental areas of modern biology (specifically Genetics, Development, Evolution, and Conservation Biology).

------------------------

READINGS AND RESOURCES (A Sample)

History of Biology/Fundamentals of Biology

Moore, J.A. 1993. Science as a Way of Knowing. Cambridge; Harvard Univeristy Press.

Perceptions of Scientists

Haynes, R.D. 1994. From Faust to Strangelove - Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Doing Science

Feynman, R.P. 1999. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out - The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman. Cambridge, MA: Helix Books/Perseus Books.

Chang, L. (ed.) Scientists at Work - Profiles of Today's Groundbreaking Scientists from Science Times (The New York Times). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Watson, J. The Double Helix. Norton Critical Edition

Environment and Conservation Biology

Souder, W. A Plague of Frogs. Hyperion Press