Research Experience for Science Majors

Students enrolled in Research Experience for Science Majors will develop an understanding and appreciation for scientific, societal, economic, political, and ethical dimensions of physics. This will be accomplished through the initial weekly readings and subsequent discussions of overarching publications on the subject of the role of science.

Scientific dimension: we will address the science needed to address the community partner’s need, ways of acquiring the  missing knowledge, ways of presenting the final product that is inline with standard scientific practice (in the reading list see “Error analysis” and “Experimentation”)

Societal implications: too often science is done without any regard to its societal implications (see how scientist are trying to address this in the case of nanotechnology or how it failed in the case of genetically modified foods).

Economic dimension: we will address the issue of patentability, copyrights, and trade secrets by means of.

Political dimension: see the readings from the newsletters from the “Forum on Physics and Society.”

Ethical dimension: the issue of fraud as exemplified by Woo Suk Hwang (stem cell research) or Victor Ninov (claimed to have produced two new elements and falsified data) and the ethics of scientists. The assigned readings (see: “Survival skills” and “Patents”).

Aesthetical dimension: the issue of presentation of scientific results and how this impacts funding and recognition; and the tension often felt between aesthetics and science.