Connecting Science with Other Ways of Knowing --- a One Culture Course: Course Assignments, Spring 2025

ALWAYS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Assignments (newest first)

Class #4, April 17, 2025

If you are among the small number who have not informed me of a) a favorite work of art, b) a favorite piece of music, and c) a favorite poem or other piece of literature, please do so as soon as possible. I plan to make use of your music favorites in our next class.

NO CLASS, April 10, 2025

Class #3, April 3, 2025

Before the third class, carry out these tasks:

• Read, and read critically, "Science, Religion, and Beliefs" here: https://oneculture-reflections.blogspot.com/p/science-religion-and-belief.html

What is your overall feeling about categorizing beliefs in this way? Are there specific points with which you agree or disagree? Come prepared to challenge the ideas in this essay.

• Read the file attached to the email I sent you today (3/30), which contains "The Spiral", a short story by Italo Calvino, from his Cosmicomics. Learn more about Cosmicomics HERE. (Attachment is a text file in .pdf format, which you should be able to open and read in Preview (Mac) or Adobe Acrobat Reader (Mac or Windows).

Last week, a student asked, in essence, why is there beauty? In trying to connect science to various ways of knowing, we will look at art, music, and literature, in all of which, beauty is an important idea. Can you think of Darwinian evolutionary ideas that might help us understand how beauty comes about? Do you find any ideas in "The Spiral" that pertain to this question?

(Yeah, I know -- what is beauty? Coleridge said, somewhere, that beauty is unity in variety. Good enough for me.)

• Last week, a student asked me what I mean in this course when I use the word know. Look up know and knowledge in any dictionary.

You will find that each of these words has many definitions. This course pertains to "other ways of knowing." Think about which of the many ways to knowing, or many kinds of knowledge, might be within our sphere of interest. Can the word have any single meaning in a study like this one?

Do any of the definitions of know or knowledge contain the word certainty? Where do we find certainty?

Class #2, March 27, 2025

Before the second class, please familiarize yourself with these resources

• Review the last two sections of What is Science? (see assignments for Class #1, below), It's not easy being anti-science and Science is not all there is.

• Formulating a Law: https://oneculture-reflections.blogspot.com/p/formulating-law.html

• Testing a Theory: https://oneculture-reflections.blogspot.com/p/testing-theory.html

• Poem: On a Bird Singing in its Sleep, by Robert Frost: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Robert%20Frost%20Poet%20Poetry%20Picture%20Bio.htm

Class #1, March 20, 2025

Before the first class, please read the following

• Course Introduction

https://oc-olli2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/one-culture-connecting-science-with.html

• What is Science?

https://oneculture-reflections.blogspot.com/

• Poem: Introduction to Poetry, by Billy Collins

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46712/introduction-to-poetry

Class #3, April 3, 2025