Ellen Moody's Teaching: Addendum to Syllabus for Spring: 302 Advanced Writing on the Natural Sciences and Technology, 302N16

Dr Ellen Moody

Short Talk 1: RFeynman, boy and young man: The Qualities that Make up the Good Scientist (SYJ, Parts 1 & 2, WDYC, Chapter 1): Bill Symanowski
Short talk 2: RFeynman's criticisms of counterproductive uses and abuses of authority, particularly at Los Alamos (i.e., his stories about counterproductive uses of secrecy), but you may include stories exemplifying this theme from elsewhere in the book thus far (so from SYJ, Parts 2 & 3, especially "Los Alamos from Below" and "Safecracker Meets Safecracker"): Dale Granzow
Short Talk 3: RFeynman's ideas on what is real scientific learning: what ought to go on in a classroom, be in a book &c (e.g.,"O Americano Outre Vez" and "Judging Books by Their Covers" in SYJ and relevant Letters in WDYC): Zaid Obaida
Short Talk 4: RFeynman's Adventures in Areas Outside Physics: Biology, Psychology (Investigations into the workings of his mind), Art, Music and Anthropology ("A Map of the Cat", Always Trying to Escape", "But Is It Art?"; "O Americano Outra Vez!," "Bringing Culture to the Physicists", "Found Out in Paris", "Altered States" in SYJ, and "It's as Simple as One, Two, Three " and relevant "Letters" in WDYC): Drew Balla

Short Talk 5: RFeynman's Investigations into the Conscious and Unconscious Mind and Antagonisms towards Modern Psychiatrists and Psychology ("Mee", "Always Trying to Escape", "Uncle Sam Doesn't Need You!", "Altered States" from SYJ and "It's as Simple as One Two Three" from WDYC): _________________________
Short Talk 6: Mr Feynman Goes to Washington: Why some NASA Shuttle officials are driven to delude themselves and mislead the public ("Mr Feynman Goes to Washington" and "Appendix F" in WDYC, pp. 113-227): Kyle Mummery
Short Talk 7: A World of Pseudo- and Corrupt Science and the Value of Science (Feynman's "Cargo Cult Learning" and "The Value of Science," SYJ, pp. 338-46, WDYC, pp. 239-48): Chris Passarello

Short Talk 8: From Walking with Great Apes: How all three women "relinquished control" to the animals they were observing; allowed themselves to fall into relationships in the animals' terms (Walking with Great Apes, Chapters 1-3): Marc Pickett
Short Talk 9: From Walking with Great Apes: How Louis Leakey came to select these women; Joan Goodall's work as a defense of the "individual" and subjective humane approach to science observation on Mongomery (Walking with Apes, Chs 4-5): _________________________
We will see Goodall's recent film, Chimps: So Like Us (30 minutes)

Short Talk 10: From Walking with Great Apes: how Dian Fossey and Birute Gildakas had to defy the norms of several societies (western, academic, African) to do good work as scientists ("The Sacrifice of Nyiramachabelli and A Study in Patience") Chapters 6 and 7): Kwame Amponsah
Short talk 11: From Walking with Great Apes: the different ways all three women extended their science into protecting and valuing their animals in the local and western populations ("Crusader," "Sorceress" and "Diplomat", Chapter 8, 9, 10): _________________________

Short Talk 12: Olson's Mapping Human History: Discuss the use of genetic studies in "The End of Evolution" and "Individuals and Groups" (pp. 11-53): Christian Moore
Short Talk 13: Early history of modern people: from Olson, Mapping Human History, "The African Diaspora" and "Encounters with the Other" (Chs 3-4, pp. 54-89): Sam Geggus
The class watches "In Search of the First Language"

Short Talk 14: Development of agriculture and anatomically modern people spread across the globe: Mapping Human History, "Agriculture, Civilization and the Emergence of Ethnicity" and "The Great Migration" (Chs 5 & 7, pp. 90-105, 124-36): Robert (Bobby) Schwier
Short talk 15: The importance of climate and geography and puzzling questions: from Olson, Mapping Human History, Who are the Europeans" and "The Settlement of the Americas" (Chs 9 & 11, pp. 158- 74, 194-207): Jeff Chen
Short Talk 16: How studying language patterns and history reflects the same story we find archealogy and genetics tell us; the identity politics of studying languages (from Olson's "Spring from a Common Source," MHH, Ch 8, pp. 138-54, and the film, "In Search of the First Language"): Assefa Meka

Short Talk 17: The Problem of Having to Practice and Lack of Unbiased Review Boards and Presence of Bad Doctors (Gawande's Complications, Part I, "Education of the Knife," "When Doctors Makes Mistakes", "Nine Thousand Surgeons", and When Good Doctors Go Bad" (from Gawande's Complications, pp. 11-35, 47-106): _________________________
The class watches The Doctor.

Short Talk 18: Systems gone rotten; problems with our society's values (based on Angell's "Drug Companies and Doctors: A Story of Corruption," "The Body Hunters," "Your Dangerous Drugstore"): Andrew Torre
Short talk 19: The Problem of the Body in our Society: Pressure to be thin, pressure to be tough and guarded; pressure to conform (based on Mantel's "Girls Want Out" [about anorexia], and Gawande's Complications, Part 2, "The Man Who Couldn't Stop Eating" and "Crimson Tide"): Heather Carper
The class watches about 2/3s of Wit

Short talk 20: False and true ideas about what makes a good doctor (based on Gawande, Complications, Part I, "The Computer and the Hernia Factory" and, The Bell Curve: What happens when patients find out how good their doctors really are?": Christian Moore (2nd choice)
Short talk 21: Treating ourselves very badly: again how money affects our medical systems and how we react to aging (Gawande's online essays, Sick and Twisted", "The Way We Age Now"): Matthew Hardy
Short talk 22: Solitary confinement as a form of torture (discuss Gawande's online essay, "Hellhole"): Matthew Stratton
The class finishes watching Wit

Short Talk 23: How the ambiguities of medicine work to produce inferior care and the need to offer patient autonomy (based on Gawande, Complications, Parts 2 and 3, "The Pain Perplex," "Final Cut" and "Whose Body is it, anyway?"): Michael Musto
Short talk 24: The Problem of Pregnancy and childbirth: valuing the mother (from Gawande's online essay, "The Score: How childbirth went industrial" and from Complications, Part 2, "A Queasy Feeling"): Crystal Roberts
Short talk 25: The Neglect of Vivian Bearing and the Biter Bit (Jack McKee) (on both films, Wit and The Doctor): Mah Foncham

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