Short Talk Schedule for Advanced Composition in the Natural Sciences and Technology

On Feynman, SYJ & WDYC:

Session 3: Thurs, Sept 11th

• Short Talk 1: RFeynman, boy and young man: The Qualities that Make up the Good Scientist (SYJ, Parts 1 & 2, WDYC, Chapter 1: Chaitanya Sanna
  
• Short talk 2: RFeynman's criticisms of 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" and WDYC Part 1): Sabiha Qureshi
  

Session 4: Thurs, Sept 18th

• Short Talk 3: RFeynman's Definition of a Good Experiment (e.g.,"A Map of the Cat", "A Different Box Of Tools" "The Amateur Scientist" from SJY and "It's as Simple as One, Two Three" from WDYC): Carl Bohman
  
• Short Talk 4: 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, Letters): Nicky Soltani
  

Session 5: Thurs, Sept 25th

• Short Talk 5: Mr Feynman Goes to Washington: Why some NASA officials are driven to delude themselves and mislead the public ("Mr Feynman Goes to Washington" and "Appendix F" in WDYC): Jasmine Pai
  
• Short Talk 6: A World of Pseudo- and Corrupt Science and the Value of Science (Feynman's "Cargo Cult Learning" and "The Value of Science": Martin Ucanda
  
• The class watches Ralph Leighton's The Last Journey of a Genius.

Session 7: Thurs, Oct 9th

• Short Talk 7: 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): Shwetha Srinivas
  
• Short Talk 8: RFeynman's Adventures in Art, Music and Anthropology ("But Is It Art?"; "O Americano Outra Vez!," "Bringing Culture to the Physicists", "Found Out in Paris" in SYJ, and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" and relevant "Letters" in WDYC): John Chinery
  

On Quamnen, The Best American Science and Nature Writing:

Session 9: Thurs, Oct 23rd

• Short Talk 9: The Non-Human Animal World (Richard Conniff's "Africa's Wild Dogs" and Ken Lamberton's "The Wisdom of Toads"): Ben Phenis
  
• Short Talk 10: The Natural Landscape (Wendell Berry's "Back to the Land" and Peter Mattiessen's "The Island at the End of the Earth"): Amar Sharma
  
• Short Talk 11: Machines (Paul de Palma's "http://when_is_enough_enough?.com" and Brian Hayes's "Clock of Ages"): Naveen Mughal
  

Session 10: Thurs, Oct 30th

• Short Talk 12: Human Culture and Nature (Cullen Murphy's "Lulu, Queen of the Camels" and Craig B. Stanford's "Gorilla Warfare"): Justin Long
  
• Short Talk 13: Pseudo-Scientific Thinking Exposed (Natalie Anger's "Men, Women, Sex and Darwin" and Hampton Sides' "This Is Not the Place"): ________________________
  
• Short Talk 14: Imagination and Science (Oliver Sacks's "Brilliant Light" and Ann Fadiman's "Under Water"): Akemi Yamashiro
  
• The class will watch selections from episodes from David Attenborough's 1979 Life on Earth: A Natural History. This takes the viewer on a pictorial journey which dramatises and explains Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Session 11: Thurs, Nov 6th

• Short Talk 15: Myths in Medical Science (Helen Epstein's "Something Happened" and Atwul Gawande's "The Cancer-Cluster Myth"): ________________
  
• Extra Short Talk 16: The Problems of Doing Something Useful in Science (Judith Hooper's "A New Germ Theory" and Richard Preston's "The Demon in the Freezer"): Brian Jacknow
  
• The class watches Jones and David R. Axelrod's Lost at Sea: The Search for Longitude.

On Konner, Becoming a Doctor

Session 12: Thurs, Nov 13th

• Short Talk 17: The Origin of Konner's Journey, His Thesis and First Encounters: Melvin Konner's Becoming a Doctor: Preface, Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2: Marcus Walker
  
• The class watches as much of Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson's film, Wit as time permits.

Session 13: Thurs, Nov 20th

• Short Talk 18: The Trenches (Chapters 3-5: "Emergency Ward Surgery," "Anesthesiology: The Technicians of Sleep" and "Ward Surgery): Nick Zuber
  
• Short Talk 19: The Problems in Treating Mental Illness (Chapters 6-7: "Neurosurgery and Neurology" and "Psychiatry"): Jen Fritzius
  
• Short Talk 20: How Women's Health is Treated (Chapters 9-10: "Obstetrics" and "Gynecology"): Brian Jacknow
  
• The classes finishes seeing the rest of Wit.

Session 14: Thurs, Dec 4th

• Short Talk 21: Death and The Overuse of Technologies (Chapters 11-12: "Pathologies" and "Medicine I: A Failure of the Heart"): Amin Abu-Ali
  
• Short Talk 22: Why Doctors are Distrusted and a Failure of Common Sense: (Chapters 13-14: Medicine II and III: "Deathwatches and "Healing and Hope"): Sarah Wilkinson
  
• Short Talk 23: Optimism and Synthesis (Chapters 15-16: "Fourth Year: Highlights and Heroes" and "Conclusion"): Brendan Cave
  
• Short Talk 24: The Mistreatment of Vivian Bearing in Wit: Baharak Mohammadzadeh-Fakhri