SCI 110 - History of Science

Institution:

Delaware County Community College

Subject:

Science

Description:

This course, designed as a non-laboratory science option for non-science majors or as an open elective for Natural Science majors, traces the philosophical, cultural, intellectual, and technological developments that influenced the evolution of modern science. By examining these developments made over a span of two millennia, students in the course identify the people, places, ideas, and discoveries that led to fundamental shifts in worldviews resulting in changes in the way people obtain knowledge about, investigate, and understand the physical world. Specifically, the course explores the origin and influence of scientific methodologies by tracing the changing role of experimenters, their experiments, and the tools they used. In addition, students document the converging influences that resulted in the Scientific Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. The course concludes by highlighting important scientific discoveries up to the present day and the continuing struggle between science and long-held misconceptions and beliefs. Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to: Develop an answer to the question "What is science?", state the basic assumptions underlying modern science, and discuss the origins of these assumptions; Define "scientific paradigm", describe its influence on the development of science, and outline the factors that result in a change of the scientific paradigm; List the characteristics of a scientific methodology; Understand the role politics, religion, and commerce played in the history of science; Explain the difference between deductive and inductive arguments and their role in the study of the physical world, identify people who employed them, and give examples of each form; Describe the approaches and contributions to science of Greek, Islamic, Chinese, Indian, and European thinkers and identify the people and places associated with these approaches and contributions; Outline the changing role of experimentation in the history of science, the tools used in the experiments, and describe their influence on the origin of scientific methodology; List examples and relate the significance of the people, places, ideas, and discoveries that were part of the Scientific Renaissance; Describe the emergence of the Scientific Revolution from the Scientific Renaissance and provide examples of important scientific discoveries over the past three hundred years; Identify current areas where scientific research is in conflict with popular beliefs and analyze a selected conflict by examining all arguments put forth in the context of the scientific method and the history of science.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

ENG 100

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.dccc.edu

Phone Number:

(610) 359-5000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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