University of Massachusetts at Boston
Graduate College of Education
Critical and Creative Thinking Program

Biology in Society: Critical Thinking

CCT 645
Spring 2003 Syllabus

Instructor: Peter Taylor, Critical & Creative Thinking Program
Email: peter.taylor@umb.edu
Phone: 617-287-7636
Office: Wheatley 2nd flr 143.09 (near Counseling & School Psychology)
Class time: Monday 7-9.30pm in McC-4-603
Office/phone call hours: Monday 1.30-3.30pm or by arrangement
Email office hours: Monday & Thursday 7.30-9am. (Emails sent to instructor in this window will be answered right away; emails at other times may take longer to respond to.)
Course Website: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/645-03.html
General email: Emails sent to cct645@yahoogroups.com go to everyone in the course.
E-clippings: Clippings from the internet sent to cct645clips@yahoogroups.com will be archived for all to read at www.yahoogroups.com/group/cct645clips

CATALOG DESCRIPTION

Current and historical cases are used to examine the political, ethical, and other social dimensions of the life sciences. Close examination of developments in the life sciences can lead to questions about the social influences shaping scientists' work or its application. This, in turn, can lead to new questions and alternative approaches for educators, biologists, health professionals, and concerned citizens.

LONGER COURSE DESCRIPTION

Critical thinking about the diverse influences shaping the life sciences. Topics include evolution and natural selection; heredity, development and genetic determinism; biotechnology and reproductive interventions. We interpret episodes in science, past and present, in light of scientists' historical location, economic and political interests, use of language, and ideas about causality and responsibility. You address the course material on a number of levels: as an opportunity to learn the science and interpretive approaches; as models for your own teaching; and as a basis for discussions about practices and philosophies of education, construed broadly as a project of stimulating greater citizen involvement in scientific debates.

SECTIONS TO FOLLOW IN SYLLABUS:

Additional material downloadable from or linked to the course website includes:

PREREQUISITES: CrCrTh601 and 602, or permission of instructor

TEXTS

A set of primary readings will be available for personal photocopying by week 4.
Books and additional readings listed in the schedule of classes are available on reserve. (Arrange time in your schedule to read or photocopy relevant selections in the Healey Library.)

REQUIREMENTS:

More detail about the assignments and expectations is provided in the Notes on Teaching/Learning Interactions and Rubric handouts, and will be supplemented when needed by handouts and emails.

Written assignments and presentations (2/3 of grade)

A. Project: A research paper or set of lesson plans that draws on the course themes and activities for critical thinking about developments in the life sciences in their social context. A sequence of 5 assignments is required--initial description, notes on research and planning, work-in-progress presentation, complete draft report, and final (1500-2500 words) report.
B1. PBL briefing presented in class and handouts (2 assignments).
B2. Three mini-essays that weave the course material--readings, activities, homework tasks--into your own thinking.

Participation and contribution to the class process (1/3 of grade)

C. Prepared participation and attendance at class meetings (=13 items)
D. Personal/Professional Development (PD) Workbook submitted for perusal in conference before week 6 (with worksheet in week 6) & at the end. (=2 items)
E. Minimum of two in-office or phone conferences on your assignments and project, by weeks 6 and 10 (=2 items)
F. Peer commentary on another student's draft report (with copy submitted to PT or included in PD workbook)
G. Assignment Check-list maintained by student and submitted week 12
H. Process Review on the development of your work, included with your PD Workbook at end-of-semester perusal

TOPICS AT A GLANCE

ACCOMMODATIONS: Sections 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 offer guidelines for curriculum modifications and adaptations for students with documented disabilities. If applicable, students may obtain adaptation recommendations from the Ross Center (287-7430). The student must present these recommendations to each professor within a reasonable period, preferably by the end of the Drop/Add period.

Students are advised to retain a copy of this syllabus in personal files for use when applying for certification, licensure, or transfer credit.
This syllabus is subject to change, but workload expectations will not be increased after the semester starts. (Version 27 January 03)

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

**Detailed instructions for preparing for PBL unit and other classes will be distributed through handouts (also posted on the course website) and emails**

Class 1 (1/27) Introductions

Introduction to: Course description; Case study activities (activity); Personal and professional development (PD) workbook (activity); Fellow students and their concerns; Group work; Problem-based learning unit (classes 2-4)

Case: Pollitt, Katha. "When is a mother not a mother?"
Additional reading, Yoxen, 1-17.
Homework tasks include: Prepare for Problem-based learning unit (handout), mini-essay 1, review the syllabus and overview, get set-up to use the internet and computers, begin your PD workbook, sign up for first conference, etc. (see handout).

Class 2 (2/3) Problem-based learning unit, week 1 -- "Guidance needed -- quickly!" (a case of embryo mix up)

(handout on preparation), (worksheet)
*A* Asmt due: Mini-essay 1

Class 3 (2/10) Problem-based learning unit, week 2


No class, Monday February 17th.

Class 4 (2/24) Problem-based learning unit, week 3: Briefings

*A* Asmts due: Present briefing & submit related handouts

Class 5 (3/3) Biological origin stories and their structure

Case: How did we get here?--Origin stories
Readings: Martin, "The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance," Lewin, "The storytellers."
Homework before class: Examine biology texts for the gender bias claimed by Martin and others
(handout on preparation)
Activities:
Mini-lecture: The structure of Genesis, chapter 1, and/or Hrdy, "An Initial Inequality."
Science as story-telling -- Small group and whole-class discussion of readings

Additional readings: Landau, "Human Evolution as Narrative," Beldecos, et al. "The importance of feminist critique," Fausto-Sterling, "Society writes biology," "Life in XY Corral"

*A* Asmt due: Mini-essay 2
Homework: Exercise towards an initial formulation of your course project.
Worksheet on PD workbook and research organization (as part of participation item on PD workbooks)

Class 6 (3/10) Interpreting ideas about nature as ideas about society, which involves exposing what is only implicit, what is not literally stated

Reading: Williams, "Ideas of nature"
(handout on preparation)
Activities:
Interpreting images of society and nature in the West since the middle ages (slide show)
Reconstruction of Williams' historical account
Additional reading: Berger, "Why look at animals," Worster, chaps. 1 & 2.

*A* Asmt due: Initial description of proposed project
*A* First conference mut be completed before class 6 to discuss the course thus far, your mini-essays, initial ideas for projects, and your PD workbook
*A* Schedule second conference before class 10 to discuss progress on your projects and incorporation of heuristics from the course

No class, Monday March 17th.

Class 7 (3/24) Multiple layers of a scientific theory (argument, analogy, metaphor, and defences)

Case: How did Darwin try to convince people of Natural selection as the mechanism of evolution? --
Reading: Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Introduction & Chaps. 1, 3, part of 4.
(handout on preparation)
Activity:
Close reading and reconstruction of Darwin's exposition of his theory of natural selection.

Additional readings: Lakoff and Johnson. "Concepts We Live By." (on metaphors), Moore, "Socializing Darwin," Rudge, "Does being wrong," Taylor, "Natural Selection: A heavy hand."

*A* Asmt due: Mini-essay 3

Class 8 (3/31) Styles of causal explanation & their relation to ideas about politics/social action

Case: What causes a disease?--the consequences of hereditarianism in the case of pellagra
Reading: Chase, "False Correlations = Real Deaths."
(handout on preparation)
Activity:
Take the roles of Goldberger and Davenport to convince others to act on your scientific account
Interpreting parent-offspring height patterns
Additional reading (after class): Harkness, "Vivisectors and vivishooters." (Pellagra and human experimentation)

*A* Asmt due: Notes on research and planning for your project

Class 9 (4/7) Social negotiations around genetic screening

Cases: Listening to multiple voices/constituencies in the implementation of new reproductive technologies -- the case of amniocentesis
PKU: Substituting a genetic condition for chronic illness and second-generation effects
Readings: Rapp, "Moral pioneers," Paul, "The history of newborn phenylketonuria screening"
(handout on preparation)
Activity:
Designing a forum to help supplement advances in genetic screening with communities developing a) greater tolerance for normal variation; b) social measures to care for people suffering from abnormal variation; and/or c) multiple voices/constituencies/ethical positions around gene-based medicine.
Additional reading: Yoxen, 157-173

Class 10 (4/14) Work-in-progress Presentations on Student Projects

with peer/instructor evaluations
(handout on preparation)
[If link gives an error, the report is not yet posted]
Frank Fallon (fallonfrank@msn.com ) Ethics, medicine
Donna Glynn (dglynn97@aol.com ) Science story writing in a standards based curriculum
Meghann McNiff (meghann.mcniff@hanscom.af.mil ) Hormones in Society
Matthew Puma (mopuma@charter.net ) Sociobiology and minds
Charly Rauscher (charles_rauscher@dfci.harvard.edu ) Genetic testing and prostate cancer
Jean Rene (jrelem1@yahoo.com ) Dialetical method and nature
Maryann Scheufele (anzascheuf@aol.com ) Whole grains and biotechnology
Davis Sweet (sweetd@sprynet.com ) Darwinian evolution and intelligent design
Jenne Todd (jennetodd@earthlink.net ) Bats to Humans: Mammall evolution

*A* Asmt due: Work-in-progress Presentation on Project

No class, Monday 4/21

Class 11 (4/28) Intersecting processes -- Complexities of environment and development in the age of DNA

Readings: Taylor, "Genes, gestation, and life experience," American Psychological Association, "New model of IQ development
(handout on preparation)
Activity:
Diagramming intersecting processes (to analyze change as something produced by intersecting economic, political, linguistic, and scientific processes operating at different scales)
Additional readings: Taylor, "Distributed agency," Underhill, "Life shaped," Freese et al., "Rebel without a cause"

*A* Asmt due: Complete Draft of Project Report (2 copies and by email attachment or on disk)

Class 12 (5/5) Metaphors of control and co-ordination in development

Readings: Gilbert, "Animal development," "Cellular politics"
(handout on preparation)
Activity:
Game of Life and analogies with Development (in computer lab, McC 2-608)
Inventing alternative metaphors of control and co-ordination
Additional readings: Goodwin, How the Leopard Changed its Spots, Oyama, "Boundary issues," Sapp, "Struggle for Authority"

*A* Assignment Check-list maintained by student

Class 13 (5/12) Taking Stock of Course: Where have we come and where do we go from here?

Readings: Taylor, "We know more"
(handout on preparation)
Activities:
Mini-lecture about fostering critical thinking about science-in-society
Review of Personal & Professional development Plans
GCOE and narrative Course evaluations

*A* Asmt due: Final version of Project Report
*A* Bring PD workbook for perusal, to be picked up before grades are submitted, from Department of Curriculum & Instruction office, W-2-093
*A* Asmt due: Process Review

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(Additional readings may be suggested for deeper consideration of the issues raised in both biomedical sciences and in interpretation, critical thinking, and ethical and political analysis)

American Psychological Association (2001). "New model of IQ development accounts for ways that even small environmental changes can have a big impact, while still crediting the influence of genes." www.apa.org/releases/iqmodel.html(Apr. 15).

Beldecos, A., et al. (1989). "The importance of feminist critique for contemporary cell biology." Feminism and science. ed. N. Tuana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 172-187.

Berger, J. (1980). "Why Look at Animals?," in About Looking. New York: Pantheon Books, 1-26.

Chase, A. (1977). "False Correlations = Real Deaths," in The Legacy of Malthus. NY: Knopf, 201-225.

Darwin, C. 1859 [1964]). Introduction & Chapters 1, 3, part of 4. In On the Origin of Species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1-43, 60-96.

Elbow, P. (1981). Writing with Power. New York: Oxford University Press, chapters 2, 3, 13

Fausto-Sterling, A. (1987). "Society writes biology/ biology constructs gender." Daedalus 116(4): 61-76.

Fausto-Sterling, A. (1989). "Life in the XY Corral." Women's Studies Int. Forum 12: 319-326 only.

Freese, J., B. Powell and L. C. Steelman (1999). "Rebel without a cause or effect; Birth order and social attitudes." American Sociological Review 64: 207-231.

Gilbert, S. F. (1988). "Cellular Politics." In The American Development of Biology, ed. R. Rainger, K. Benson, and J. Maienschein. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 311-345.

Gilbert, S. F. (1995) "An introduction to animal development." in Developmental Biology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 1-34

Goodwin, B. (1994). How the Leopard Changed Its Spots. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, vii-xiii,18-41,77-114,169-181,238-243.

Harkness, J. M. (1994). "Vivisectors and vivishooters: Experimentation on American prisoners in the early decades of the twentieth century," ms.

Hrdy, S. B. (1981). "An Initial Inequality," in The Woman That Never Evolved. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 20-23.

Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. (1980). "Concepts We Live By." In Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 3-6, 87-105, & 156-158.

Landau, M. (1984). "Human Evolution as Narrative." American Scientist 72 (May-June): 262-268.

Lewin, R. (1987). "The storytellers," in Bones of contention: Controversies in the search for human origins. New York, Simon & Schuster, 30-46

Martin, E. (1991). "The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles," Signs 16(3): 485-501.

Moore, J. (1986). "Socializing Darwinism: Historiography and the Fortunes of a Phrase," in L. Levidow (Ed.), Science as Politics. London, Free Association Books, 39-80.

Oyama, S. (2001). "Boundary Issues: Insides and Outsides in Developmental Explanation." Indiana University Seminar on Science, Language and Culture(Nov. 17).

Paul, D. (1997). "Appendix 5. The history of newborn phenylketonuria screening in the U.S.," in N. A. Holtzman and M. S. Watson (Eds.), Promoting Safe and Effective Genetic Testing in the United States. Washington, DC: NIH-DOE Working Group on the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Human Genome Research, 137-159.

Pollitt, K. (1990). "When is a mother not a mother?" The Nation, 31 Dec., 840-6.

Rapp, R. "Moral Pioneers: Women, Men & Fetuses." Women & Health 13 (1/2, 1988): 101-116.

Rudge, D. W. (2000). "Does being wrong make Kettlewell wrong for science teaching?" Journal of Biology Education 35(1): 5-12.

Sapp, J. (1983). "The Struggle for Authority in the Field of Heredity." Journal of the History of Biology 16 (3): 311-318, 327-342.

Taylor, P. J. (1998). "Natural Selection: A heavy hand in biological and social thought." Science as Culture 7(1): 5-32.

Taylor, P. J. (2001). "Distributed agency within intersecting ecological, social, and scientific processes," in S. Oyama, P. Griffiths and R. Gray (Eds.), Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 313-332.

Taylor, P. J. (2002). "Genes, gestation, and life experience: Complexities of environment and development in the age of DNA." ms.

Taylor, P. J. (2002). "We know more than we are, at first, prepared to acknowledge: Journeying to develop critical thinking." Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice. under review.

Underhill, W. (1999). "Shaped by life in the womb." Newsweek(Sep. 27): 51-57.

Williams, R. (1980). "Ideas of Nature," in Problems in Materialism and Culture. London, Verso, 67-85.

Worster, D. (1985). Nature's Economy, Cambridge U. P., chapters 1 & 2.

Yoxen, E. (1986). Unnatural Selection? London: Heinemann, 1-17, 157-173.