Astronomy 336                                                                                               Spring 2013

 

 

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

C. P. Snow and The Two Cultures

assigned book, to be read by class on Wednesday, February 6, 2013

 

At 3 pm, we will be joined by Prof. Lawrence Krauss, who lectures on Tuesday night, February 5, 2013, about his new book, which has proven controversial:

Following The New York Times's review,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html?_r=0

 

there were discussions of Krauss's book by philosophers and others, not favorably:

 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/can-physics-and-philosophy-get-along/

 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/stone-links-scientism-and-the-future-of-philosophy/

 

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/no-small-talk-jim-holt-on-why-the-world-exists/

 

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500EFDA1530F933A25755C0A9649D8B63

 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/can-physics-and-philosophy-get-along/

 

 

C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1959, 1993) (Water Street Books)

other books:

Jay A. Labinger and Harry Collins, The One Culture? A conversation about science,  Chicago University Press, 2001, Q175.55 .O54 2001

C. P. Snow, Public Affairs, Scribner's 1972.

in e-reserves:

Leon Botstein comments (2011)

Leavis-Snow Controversy

 Lionel Trilling

 One Culture

  Public Affairs

 Significance of CP

Snow-Leavis Rumpus

Two cultures

 World Ticks

Hubris of the Humanities    Kristof, N.D.

C. P. Snow: Bridging the Two-Cultures Divide    By David P. Barash (NYTimes)

Morse on C.P. Snow    Morse, Joann

Two Cultures or One?: A Second Look at Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution    Westman, Robert

Known World    Pinker, Steven

Swann's Hypothesis    Max, D.T.

"Two Cultures"

Profs Who Don't (Won't) E-Mail    Ellin, A.    Web Link    -

Our Two Cultures    Phillip Griffiths Looks at 'Two Cultures' Today         Web Link    -

Letters; Frames of Mind         pdf

Letter: Frames of Mind         pdf

In Defense of Na•ve Reading    Robert Pippin    Web Link

 

additional topics:

Iraq fraud (see e-reserves for an article in Skeptical Inquirer by jmp)

The New York Times INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE   | January 24, 2010 

British Man Held for Fraud in Iraq Bomb Detectors 

By RIYADH MOHAMMED and ROD NORDLAND 

The owner of a company that supplies questionable bomb detectors to Iraq has been arrested for fraud, and the export of the devices has been banned. 

The New York Times, WORLD   | January 23, 2010 

Iraq MPs Demand Bomb Detector Be Axed After UK Ban 

By REUTERS 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi lawmakers demanded on Saturday that security forces stop using a device used widely for detecting explosives which the British government says does not work. 

 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013, 1:10 pm

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Q173 .G35 1986

see "Hermits and Cranks": Scientific American, March 2002, pp. 36-37.

See www.skeptic.com

Lawrence M. Krauss [Essay in New York Times for April 30, 2002]

Martin Gardner, When You Were A Tadpole And I Was A Fish : And Other Speculations About This And That (2009)

Robert L. Park, Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, Oxford U. Press, Q175.52.U5 P37 2000

Martin Gardner, The Jinn from Hyperspace (chapter in; Prometheus Books, 2007)

Martin Gardner, Did Adam & Eve have navels?: discourses on reflexology, numerology, urine therapy & other dubious subjects, W. W. Norton, 2000, Q173.G34 2000

Martin Gardner, The new age: notes of a fringe watcher, Prometheus Books, 1988, BF1042.G22 1988

Martin Gardner, Weird water & fuzzy logic: more notes of a fringe watcher, Prometheus Books, 1996, AC8.G335 1996

Michael Shermer, The Borderlands of Science (New York: Oxford University Press)

Joe Schwarcz, That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles: 62 All-New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life (ECW Press, 2002)

Georges Charpak and Henri Broch, Debunked!: esp, telekinesis, and other pseudoscience (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)

Len Fisher, Weighing the Soul: Scientific Discovery from the Brilliant to the Bizarre (Arcade Publishing, 2004)

Statistics and Probability

Wednesday, February 20, 2013, 1:10 pm

Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics, 1954, HA29 .H82 1954 (2 copies on reserve)

Richard de Veaux and David J. Hand, "How to Lie with Bad Data," Statistical Science, 2005. (on ereserves)

____________________

David Murray, Joel Schwartz, And S. Robert Lichter, It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Make And Unmake The Scientific Picture Of Reality, Sawyer PN4784.T3 M87 2001

Inge F. Goldstein, How Much Risk? A Guide to Understanding Environmental Health Hazards.

Deborah J. Bennett, Logic Made Easy, How to Know When, BC177 .B42 2004

BŸlent Atalay, Math and the Mona Lisa: the art and science of Leonardo da Vinci, N6923.L33 A4 2004

also: "Numbered by the Numbers, When They Just Don't Add Up," Daniel Okrent, The New York Times, 1/23/05

Amir Aczel, Chance: a guide to gambling, love, the stock market, & just about anything else (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004)

Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear fear: a history of images (Harvard University Press, 1988)

Unusual Activities

Samantha Ettus, The experts' guide to 100 things everyone should know how to do (Clarkson Potter, 2004)

Hip hop hares and other moments of epic silliness: more classic photographs from Outside magazine's 'Parting Shot' (W.W. Norton, 2004)

Robert Ehrlich, Nine crazy ideas in science: a few might even be true (Princeton University Press, 2001)

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the

hidden side of everything (William Morrow, 2005)

Marc Siegel, False Alarm/ The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear (Wiley, 2005).

David Ropeik and George Gray, Risk (2002).

 

Wednesday, Februaryy 27, 2013, 1:10 pm

reading: Edward Tufte and the Visual Display of Information

Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of  Quantitative Information,1983: QA276.3 .T83 1983;  2nd ed. 2001)

Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information, Sawyer P93.5 .T84 1990, P93.5 .T84 1992

Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: images and quantities; evidence and narritive, 1997, Sawyer and CES, Z246 .T84

Edward R. Tufte, Beautiful Evidence (July 2006)

and a video from his visit to Williams College

 

GM Foods, visit from Dr. Agnes Demianski

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

NY Times magazine story called "Playing God in the Garden" by Michael Pollan. This touches on both controversies.  A second reading, from a new book called "Dinner at the New Gene Cafe" discusses the regulatory aspects

(i.e., the US government's shifting view on what constitutes organic food

and whether GM foods should be labeled as such).

see also

"Beyond Organics, " New Scientist, 32-47, 18 May 2002

Nina Federoff and Nancy Marie Brown, Mendel in the Kitchen, Joseph Henry Press, 2004.

James S. Trefil, Human nature: a blueprint for managing the earth--by people, for people (Times Books/Henry Holt, 2004)

 

 

Risk Assessment

Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 1:10 pm

David Roepik (Director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis), Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What's Really Safe and What's Really Dangerous in the World around You (2002)

http://www.hcra.harvard.edu (Harvard Center for Risk Analysis)

 

Sokal Debate

Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 1:10 pm

Levitt, Norman, "The sources and dangers of postmodern anti-science," Free

Inquiry, vol. 21 no. 2 (Spring 2001), 44-47.

Levitt, Norman, "Why professors believe weird things," Skeptic Magazine,vol.

6 no. 3 (1998), 28-35.

Ross, Andrew, "Introduction." In "Science Wars," ed. A. Ross, 1-15. 1996

Durham, Duke University Press.

Sokal, Alan D., Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture, Oxford U. Press, hardback 2008; paperback 2010

Sokal, Alan D., "What the Social Text affair does and does not prove,"

In "A House Built on Sand," ed. N. Koertge.  1998, New York, Oxford

University Press

Sokal, Alan D., his original article in Social Text, reprinted in Fashionable Nonsense (1998, New York: Picador)

Sokal, Alan D., Beyond the Hoax, Oxford University Press, 2008
Post Hoax, Ergo Propter Hoax, Michael BŽrubŽ, American Scientist, 2008

pre-Sokal, "A fifth force farce," Physics Today, Lawrence M. Krauss, October 2008

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-10-26 from 2010

addl readings:

Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, Martin W. Lewis, eds., Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science, Johns Hopkins Press, 1997

Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, and Martin W. Lewis, eds., The Flight from Science and Reason, Johns Hopkins Press, 1994 (hb), 1997 (pb)

James Robert Brown, Who Rules in Science, Harvard University Press 2001

Steven Weinberg, Science and Its Cultural Adversaries, Harvard University Press, 2001

[it includes Steven Weinberg, Sokal's Hoax, in New York Review of Books, August 8, 1996.]

John Ziman, Real Science: What it is, and what it means, Cambridge U. Press., 2000

Gregory N. Derry, What Science Is and How It Works, Princeton U. Press, 0-691-09550-7

James Robert Brown, Who rules in science?: an opinionated guide to the wars, Harvard University Press, 2001

 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 1:10 pm

Alternative Medicine

Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine

publications of National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, http://nccam.nih.gov

James C. Whorton, Nature Cures: A History of Alternative Medicine in America (Oxford University Press, 2002)

Roberta Blivins, Alternative Medicine? A History (Oxford University Press, 2007)

Morris Fishbein, Fads and quackery in healing, New York, Covici, Friede, 1932, R730.F5.

Susan E. Lederer, Medicine: Alternative Approaches to Healing, Science, 299, 10 Jan 2003, p. 205

Martin Enserink, Bioterrorism: New Look at Old Data Irks Smallpox-Eradication Experts, Science, 299, 10 Jan 2003, p. 181

Edzard Ernst, Max H. Pittlser, Barbara Wider, and Kate Broddy, 2006, The Desktop Guide to Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2nd ed. Edinburgh, Scotland. Mosby/Elsevier.

Dennis Normile, New Face of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Science, 299, 10 Jan 2003, 188-190

Martin B. Katan and Nicole M. de Roos, Public Health: Toward Evidence-Based Health Claims for Foods, Science, 299, 10 Jan 2003, 206-207

http://www.berkeleywellness.com/html/ds/dsEchinacea.html

Pamela Paul, "When Yoga Hurts," TIME for October 11, 2007 (ereserve) or

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1668470,00.html

 

Debunking

Penn and Teller, Bullsh*t (4 seasons, DVD's) (on reserve)

 

Non-standard Medicine

R. Barker Bausell, Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Oxford, 2007)

 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013, 1:10 pm

Chiropractic, N-Rays

L. A. Chotkowski, Chiropractic: The Greatest Hoax of the Century, New England Novelty Books, 1998, RZ241.C46 1998

Ralph Lee Smith, At your Own Risk: The Case against Chiropractic, Trident Press (S&S), 1969; ILL.

L.A. Chotkowski (Ludmil Adam), Chiropractic: the greatest hoax of the century? (New England Novelty Books, 1998).

What you should know about chiropractic, E. Ernst, New Scientist, 29 May 2009

From The Transcript, North Adams, http://www.thetranscript.com/ci_14362480

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_14386976

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-10-21 , 2009

Osteopathy

various letters and articles + Martin Gardner chapter

Homeopathy

many references, including Martin Gardner chapter, and

Aijing Shang et al., "Comparative Study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and alloopathy," Lancet 2005; 366: 726-32 (ereserves)

Martin Gardner, The Jinn from Hyperspace (chapter in; Prometheus Books, 2007)

Vaccine-scare fraud; False autism-link claim

WSJ: Junk Science Isn't a Victimless Crime, Paul Offit, WSJ, 1/11/11

WSJ.com: Risky Ally in War on Polio: The Taliban

Paul Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (2010)

Paul Offit on Colbert Report, 1/31/2011; Google "Colbert Offit"

Seth Mnookin: The Panic Virus: a true story of medicine, science, and fear (2011)

articles on Andrew Wakefield

Jenny McCarthy interviewed on Larry King, with a panel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5WTaLnDPY4

Google "Colbert Offit"

 

"Health Foods" and Supplements

www.consumerlab.com

Damaris Christensen, Dietary Dilemmas, Science News, Feb 8, 2003, pp. 88-90,

Martijn B. Katan and Nicole M. de Roos, Public Health: Toward Evidence-Based Health Claims for Foods, Science, 299, 10 Jan 2003, 206-207

Ephedra and other supplements

New York Times, February 23, 2003, "Despite the Danger Warnings, Ephedra Sells"

Extra Vitamin D and Calcium Aren't Needed, http://nyti.ms/f0ZI4Z, 2010

Paul Offit, Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure (2010)

Acupuncture

Michael Shermer, "Full of Holes: The curious case of acupumcture," Scientific American, August 2005 (ereserves)

 

Other alternative medicine

About Oprah: Newsweek, June 8. 2009, by W. Kosova and P. Wingert

 

Salt, Fat, and Weight-Loss Schemes; Evaluating Medical Procedures

Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 1:10 pm

Gary Taubes on sugar, The New York Times, April 24, 2011

Gary Taubes on salt, Science, 281, 898-907, 1998

Gary Taubes, Why we get fat and what to do about it, 2011

Gary Taubes on fat, New York Times magazine, July 7, 2002, pp. 22ff, and The New York Times, Oct 9, 2007

Gary Taubes, Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy, The New York Times, September 16, 2007; The New York Times Magazine, September 30, 2007

Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007)

WSJ: Eating a Bit Less Salt Can Be a Big Health Boone, March 16, 2009

Malcolm Kendrick, The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It

www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/business/01food.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=salt&st=cse

Evaluating Medicine

Mammograms (2002; New Yorker article 2004)

Hormone Treatment (2002)

 

Aliens, Mayan Calendar, and SETI; 2012—The End of the World?

Wednesday, May 1, 2031, 1:10 pm/final paper due

materials from Dr. David D. Morrison, NASA's Ames Research Center

Podcast from the SETI Institute on 2012

Elaine Showalter, Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (Columbia University Press, 1999). Discusses alien abduction, Satanic ritual abuse, multiple-personality syndrome, and the recovered-memory movement.

SETI as an example of science

Crop Circles as an example of pseudoscience

www.cropcircleresearch.com/articles/arecibo.html

nytimes.com, February 18, 2003 (Reuters), L.A. Woman Chased by Fake Alien Sues Reality Show

UFO's: Larry King Live, January 18, 2007 (DVD on reserve)

Michael Maunder: Lights in the sky: identifying and understanding astronomical and meteorological phenomena (Springer, 2007) (chapter on UFO's)

 

Role of Superstition: readings/film

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 1:10 pm

Jay Pasachoff, Richard Cohen, and Nancy Pasachoff, "Belief in the Supernatural among Harvard and West African University Students," Nature 227, 971-2, 1970.

Measles vaccine: New Scientist, 16 Feb 2002, p. 12-13

Robert Ehrlich, Nine crazy ideas in science: a few might even be true, Q171.E374 2001

Charles M. Wynn and Arthur W. Wiggins, Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science ends...and Pseudoscience Begins, Joseph Henry Press, 2001

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Georges Charpak and Henri Broch, Debunked!: esp, telekinesis, and other pseudoscience; translated from the French, Johns Hopkins University Press; SAWYER; BF1409.5 .C4313 2004  

 

James Randi, An Encyclopedia Of Claims, Frauds, And Hoaxes Of The Occult And Supernatural : James Randi's Decided / exposed By James Randi, c 1995; SAWYER; BF1042 .R23 1995 

James Randi, Flim Flam! : The Truth About Unicorns, Parapsychology, And Other Delusions, c 1980; SAWYER; BF1042 .R35 1980

 

Extrasensory perception (ESP)

E..-J. Wagenmakers, et al. psychologists' rebuttal, 1/11

D. J. Bem, claiming to validate ESP, 1/11, in press, J. Personality and Social Psychology

 

possible additional topics:

Creationism, Nostradamus

Dover court decision, 2005 (ereserves)

Science, Evolution, and Creationism (National Academy of Sciences, 2008)

Robert T. Pennock, ed., Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, MIT Press. Reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, April 14, 2002, p. 12

article "Beyond Belief," Boston Globe, September 18, 2001, pp. F1, F6.

http://www.ncseweb.org/ National Center for Science Education: Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools

Eugenie C. Scott, Evolution vs. Creationism (2004)

Matt Young and Taner Edis, Why Intelligent Design Fails (2004)

James Randi, The Mask Of Nostradamus, c 1990; SAWYER; BF1815.N8 R35 1990

Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design (Henry Holt and Company, 2006)

Michael Ruse, A Defense of Evolutionary Theory: Darwinism and Its Discontents (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution (HarperCollins, 1999)

 

Scientology

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/books/review/going-clear-lawrence-wrights-book-on-scientology.html?hp

Lawrence Wright Going Clear: Scientology, Celebrity, and the Prison of Belief, 2012

Janet Reitman, Inside Scientology: the Inside of the World's Most Secretive Religion,2011


Conspiracy theories about the moon landing

www.clavius.org

 

Global Warming deniers: law-professor David Hodas visits

Art Hobson, "Global Warming," The Physics Teacher, November 2010

 with letters to the editor and response by D. Reyfus

 

Science in the Theatre

Maureen Hunter, Transit of Venus

Michael Frayn, Copenhagen

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (revived on Broadway during spring 2011)

David Auburn, Proof

Peter Parnell, Q.E.D.

Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffman, Oxygen (review by Hoffman and  Sylvie Coyaud, of Luca Ronconi and John Barrow's Infinities,  review in Nature, 416, 11 April 2002, p. 585) based on Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams. New Yorker review: In this nonlinear one-act play, based on Alan Lightman's surreal novel, a twenty-six- year-old
Einstein stumbles through his past, present, and future as characters from his life--his wife, his sons, his best friend, and a notional daughter named Lieserl--elucidate his theories of space and time, their explanations lit by naked, dangling light bulbs.  In the director...'s poetic, visual dreamscape, time stops, moves forward and backward, and even ceases to exist. (closed in New York, The Culture Project, on 2/1/03)

Christopher Frayling, The Scientist and the Cinema (Reaktion Books, 2005)

Sidney Perkowitz, Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World (Columbia University Press, 2007)

Shelagh Stephenson, An Experiment With An Air Pump. London: Methuen Drama, 1998.

 

Time

Michael Downing, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004 or 2005)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/science/elliptical-answers-to-why-winter-mornings-are-so-long.html (JMP and Joseph Gangestad '06 explain)