| Description: |
This course will focus on the conceptual and philosophical foundations of
science, seeking to model scientific activity and to discover what its
distinctive characteristics are and how they account for its incredible record
of empirical success. We will consider the questions of demarcation, asking
whether creation science can be regarded as science and, if not, why not.
Finally, we will consider a series of challenges from philosophy, from the
history of science, and from the sociology of science to scientific realism,
the claim that we should understand our best scientific theories to be (at
least approximately) true descriptions of an objective and independent world.
Course requirements will include a midterm examination and a final.
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