Crazy Ideas and Scientific Theories
PHY105

Required Texts

These two books are written for the general public and they can be obtained online or at bookstores. The Rivier Bookstore has them for this course if you are in town.

Nine Crazy Ideas in Science by Robert Ehrlich (Copyright 2001, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-09495-0)

Voodoo Science by Robert Park (Copyright 2000, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-514710-3)

Course Content

Crazy Ideas and Scientific Theories is a core science course that can be taken to fulfill the general education science requirement at Rivier University. The course is well suited for this purpose because it will provide practice in writing and logical reasoning as well as help students to better understand science and learn some science content. The emphasis will be on evaluating an idea as a scientific theory. Specifically, it will expose students to some modern ideas that have been proposed as scientific theories, provide a way to evaluate whether an idea has merit as a scientific theory, and give the student a framework to evaluate which of two competing theories has more merit.

Attendance/Homework

This course is completely online and there will not be any face-to-face meetings. This online course is asynchronous and will not require attendance at chat sessions, nor will it require postings on any kind of discussion board. I have developed a schedule for giving out and receiving homework. Since this is a seven week course, there will be homework due twice each week. The homework will generally alternate between questions about readings in the texts and short papers. The papers will be evaluated for their logical structure as well as for their science content. All of the homework is given online and your answers will all be given to me online. I have written web pages to assist you with the homework. These web pages should be viewed sequentially from top to bottom, without skipping, as described in the Getting Started page. In addition I will also be available for email contact using the email form in the main menu.

Time Commitment/Student Expectations

A three credit science course taught during a regular (14 week) semester usually requires three hours in class per week, plus 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour in class, for a total of 9-12 hours per week. The 9-12 hours per week rule is also appropriate for this three credit on-line course when taught during a 14 week semester. This course is now in the seven week format meaning that the assignments have been doubled up each week. It is good in that we get done sooner, but it also means that the amount of time per week could increase. As the course was developed every effort was made to streamline the assignments so that the amount of time need to do the course is at a minimum. Some weeks will require less time than others, but 10-hours a week is likely an average number for this class.

This format puts a lot of responsibility on the student. As one student put it, this is an "online access class" and not "online live". Students must have self-motivation and be comfortable asking questions in this environment.

Consider the following quote from a former student: "Online courses require a lot of responsibility. Since there is no teacher taking attendance, it is tough for the student in the sense that sometimes the student might forget to go online and do the assignment. It is also difficult for the student to ask the professor questions if there is no professor; yeah, one could email the teacher, but might forget to look for the response because of another class that the student might actually have to go to. For a person such as myself, that has little computer experience, and is used to GOING TO CLASS, having the professor there to answer any questions, it is quite difficult to maintain focus on a class that takes place over the internet."

Overall Philosophy

One reason the world is such a fascinating place is that something is always surprising us. This gives variety and excitement to our lives. But why are we surprised? Maybe it is due to experience. Gravity never changes, yet hot air balloons rise, airplanes take off, rockets propel men and women into space, and space probes leave the earth and travel beyond the limits of our solar system. These are not surprising to anyone that lives in our day, but can you imagine how surprised people who lived 1000 years ago would have been to find out that someone walked on the moon? How would they have explained such a feat? It would not have made any sense according to their explanation of the world, but in our day it can be completely explained by the "laws of science." There are many observations that initially don't seem to make sense, but can be understood with a little background and some logical reasoning.

Some crazy ideas end up being scientific "truths", others don't. They thought the idea of the earth being round was a crazy idea, but it turned out to be true. Some people thought that “electrons orbiting around the nucleus like planets around the sun” was not a crazy idea, but that one turned out to be false. Today some scientists say that coal doesn't come from living organisms, time travel is possible, the solar system has two suns, etc. Is there any way to predict which ones will be proven true and which ones will fail? This course will investigate that question. As we learn some criteria for deciding, we will be exposed to a lot of science and learn to better understand the world around us. It should be interesting and fun to look into these crazy ideas that may one day become scientific theories.

This course will investigate some theories that you may not have thought about before or that seem "odd" and not consistent with other experiences. It is not intended for someone who wants to be a scientist. It is intended for someone who is a little curious and wants to know more about the world around them. It is also intended for someone who wants to learn to reason better and who wants to be able to communicate that reasoning to others better.

The general philosophy of the course is to use science content as a means of developing better writing, logical thinking, and mathematical reasoning skills. The course is more concerned with the process of understanding the observations than it is with imparting a body of knowledge. This is reflected in the fact that there are not any exams in the course, only homework problems and papers that will give lots of practice with the process. By doing this course you will not only gain a better appreciation for what scientists do, but you will be a better problem solver within your own discipline as well.

This is a core science course and it will provide practice in writing, logical thinking and some mathematical reasoning.

All essential information is contained in your textbooks or on our website, but students are occationally expected to ask questions and get more information when needed. The Canvas home page will be used like class time would be to expand and clarify information. If you have questions, don't know how to start a problem, or aren't sure if there is enough information, please ask. Send an email using the email form on the website. Keep in mind that I expect most students will require an average of 10 hours per week to get everything done for this course, as explained on the information page. That would include doing some research when needed, careful study of the text and web pages (including trying to do the examples on your own), and doing the homework.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Students be able to evaluate when an idea has merit as a scientific theory.
2. Students will learn and be able to use two logical devices, specifically conditional arguments and abduction.
3. Students will be able to write organized papers to logically show that a theory has merit as a scientific theory.
4. Students will be able to identify theories that attempt to explain an interesting observation.
5. Students will be able to identify data associated with an observation.
6. Students will be able to use logical abduction to determine which competing theory is most likely to be correct.
7. Students will be able to write organized papers from an abduction outline to determine the best theory for an interesting observation.

More Homework and Paper Details

Homework will be due by 7:30 am as posted in the course schedule shown below. Think of it like we meet on Monday and Thursday nights and I'm giving you the whole night to turn in your homework. Some professors use midnight as the cut-off, but I give you until 7:30 the next morning. The homework is accessed through the main menu. The assignments must be done in numerical order as given below. The homework will be graded as a class, so please have the homework in on time. Homework handed in early will be kept until the due date to grade. On the due date I will mark the homework and send the marked homework with a grade back to you using email.

Five "short" papers are required for this course (the first one is actually a homework assignment for practice). These papers will all be written in a prescribed format that uses logical reasoning as the foundation. I have found that this structure facilitates the study of the topics and it is a straight forward way for the instructor to see if the student has mastered the basic concepts. It isn't so much a matter of proving why things are the way they are as it is explaining the observations in a logical manner using well established "facts" and principles. For most of your papers the textbooks that we are using will provide the well established "facts" and principles. Writing the papers in the prescribed format will require that you determine the central idea, identify relevant observations, and understand how the observations are connected to that main idea. These are the main tasks of any scientific investigation.

Please use the email form provided in the main menu of this site (at your left) to send your homework to me. Do not send your homework in attachments through your normal email. I do not open attachments. Copy your homework from your text editor or word processor and paste it directly into the email form. This form provides information to the instructor in a format that facilitates grading.

This course is very sequential. The course will start with very fundamental concepts and then build upon them to get to a point where more complex activities can be accomplished. Much of science is built in this fashion. The following table details the topics, homework, and assignments by week.

Graded homework should be completed and emailed
to the instructor by 7:30 am of the due date.

Grading

The final grade will be based on homework, papers, and the final paper using the criteria for Academic Assessment at Rivier College. The percentage of correct homework, the average score of the three papers, and the grade for the final paper will count as follows:

Criteria	% of Grade
Homework	40%
Three Papers	40%
Final Paper	20%

A student with a homework percentage of 87%, a paper average of 84%, and a grade of 86% for the final paper would get

(0.4)(87) + (0.4)(84) + (0.2)(86) = 85.6

and would receive a B for their final grade.

Late assignments: There will not be any penalty for up to three late homework assignments. If there are four or more late assignments at the end of the semester, all of the late assignments, including the first three, will be penalized one point each when calculating the final grade. Only the late assignments will be penalized and this will be done when final grades are calculated, after the assignments have been graded (all assignments will be graded as if they came in on time).

Email questions are encouraged. I will post those questions (and answers) that could be helpful to all students on our Canvas homepage. There is also a "Class Notes Page" where common questions and answers are posted (see the "Syllabus, Etc." menu). Every attempt will be made to quickly answer questions, but don't leave things to the last minute! The instructor will not normally be available on Saturday and will never be available on Sunday.

The class homepage also has a link to Academic Policies at Rivier and for this class. On our class policy page (http://www.rivier.edu/chemistry/policies/) specific statements have been extracted, from the policies common to all undergraduate courses at Rivier College (http://www.rivier.edu/undergradcoursepolicies.), on Attendance, Habitual Non-Attendance, Academic Assessment, Academic Honesty, Classroom Behavior, Electronic Devices and Students With Disabilities. You are expected to be familiar with these policies and adhere to them.