• Lack of public understanding of science
• Talking down to public
• Assumes if they understood the science they will always agree

1. What is a “Civic Scientist?” What are the challenges to developing more civic scientists?(Your answer should define a civic scientist, use examples from class AND GUEST SPEAKERS, and define some challenges to developing more civic scientists).

Civic Scientist: Scientist who appeals to the public by presenting information to the public through schools, churches, or by using the media to get the public interested and aware of issues occurring in the scientific community.

Dr Neal Lane:

Challenges: Social sciences are especially at risk because they doubt their findings, don’t object as much to the mathematicians or physicists because they don’t understand what they are doing. Biomedical sciences are starting to encounter issues because of the ethical issues they might pose.
It takes extra work to simplify complex subjects, don’t have time, being too popular can be bad. “Power, rewards, funding, prestige.”

1. How does Peterson define disciplinary imperialism and what does he find problematic about the scientific disciplines being imperialistic (include the concepts of “lower level disciplines,” “higher levels disciplines” and “scientism” in your answers)

1. What do Evans and Evans (2008) mean when they say that the “epistemological conflict narrative” has dominated studies of science and religion and what (based on their article) have been challenges to the epistemological conflict narrative?

• The “epistemological conflict narrative” assumes religion and science always conflict and that they conflict over competing truth claims about the world.
• Religion is decreasingly concerned with the truth of the natural world is also a normative position of some in the theology and science debates, most notably Gould (1997), who argued that religion and science should be en- gaged in different activities of truth making and meaning making.
• Religion and science rarely conflict
  • Most of the truth claims of religion are not publicly contested by science.
  • There is no research agenda within science to show that human resurrection is impossible, so the incompatibility of truth claims on this topic remains fully hypothetical and thus unlikely to enter the mind of the average religious person.

1. How does the Merton thesis explain the rise of science? (Your answer should include a basic discussion of Puritanism and the relationship of rational calculation to the rise of science)

Dominant cultural values expressed in Puritanism contributed to the rise of science.  Puritanism prioritized values such as diligence in order to achieve salvation (protestant work ethic), as well as empiricism and experimentation.  These cultural values complemented science rather than conflicted with it, as visible in the use of the scientific method.  Religious affiliation can be seen as the independent variable in a sociological study, and the growth of science is the corresponding dependent variable.

1. If we care about equal access to science education, name 2-3 current barriers (as discussed in the course so far) to equal science education access in the US. If, as a nation, we care only about being the world leader in scientific innovation what would be the best strategy to achieve this? Defend your answer using concepts from the course.  (The Program for International Student Assessment, Sept. 14)

Challenges in Access

• Different resources lead to different levels of access
  • Allocation differences in funding
  • Private and Public School Disparities
• Geographic differences in school resources
  • Higher minority concentration in poorer schools (urban areas)
  • Extreme poverty in rural areas
  • Students who need most help get least
• Staffing
  • Shortage of Qualified Teachers
• Poverty
  • Lack of basic resources
  • Free breakfast and exercise increase science performance

Challenges in Urban Schools

• Immigrant students
  • Reduced English proficiency
• High mobility
  • Poorer children are likely to move more
  • Lack of consistent mentors

What can be done if we only care about being the world leader in science?

• Specialized education compared to general education
  • Ex. Vocational and trade schools in Europe where not all 15 year olds study math/science

1. How do Goodstein’s three motives/risk factors for fraud in science relate to the Hwang and Milken examples? (Your answer should list the three motives and whether each could be applied to Hwang and Milken)

1)      Career pressure – Hwang received national praise for first reported success in human somatic cell cloning; subordinates under Hwang also felt pressure and kept fudging data; Millikan took credit for sole authorship of paper on electric charge that would establish his reputation (Goodstein 33)

2)      Replication difficult – somatic cell nuclear transfer is rare/hard to reproduce

3)      Knew or thought they knew the answer – Millikan selected data that met his hypothesis and said the drops reported were the only ones he measured (Goodstein 35)

• Ethics are the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the conduct of members of a profession
  • Types of Ethics:
    • žDescriptive: An empirical investigation of people’s moral beliefs; How individuals understand/describe the moral (matters of right and wrong in different contexts) issues important to them
    • žNormative: Principled or theoretical approaches to morality

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    • Ex: descriptive ethics would be concerned with determining what proportion of people believe that killing is always wrong, while normative ethics is concerned with whether it is correct to hold such a belief.

• Ethical conundrums
  • Embryonic research
  • AIDS research in Africa
  • Consent - Tuskegee syphilis study
  • Genetic research (Evans and Hudson)
  • Research with industry – conflicts of interest