While reading “Indra’s Web” I was drawn to the interaction between the natural world and the technology people had created. I lost my copy of the story and was wondering through the internet trying to find another, and I came across the Vedic metaphor “Indra’s Net.” The net describes a... Continue reading

In Asking the Right Questions, Martin Delaney is calling scientists in the health field to task for not being more organized and action oriented in the search for a cure for the AIDS virus. At one point in his speech he says, “you are scientists with certain needs, rights, and... Continue reading

When Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver were working on their original concept of entropy in information delivery, the focus was primarily on how signals sending information were being transmitted and what types of things were interfering with the delivery of the signal. In Who Wrote the Book of Life, Lily... Continue reading

Race, gender, and socioeconomic prejudice have been front and center in the media in the past few months. Our readings in class point out this is not a new occurrence. Elizabeth Blum explores each of these factors in regards to an environment activism movement occurring in Nigagra Falls, New York... Continue reading

In Scientist in the Classroom: The Cold War Reconstruction of American Science Education, John Randolph explores the development of science curriculum for the 1950s classroom and the desired effects the physicists hoped the curriculum would develop in the society at large. He stresses that the goal of the physicists was... Continue reading

Early in the semester we had the opportunity to read biographies of Charles Darwin and Maria Mitchell. In each of these biographies, the authors both suggest the scientists and their science are products of the particular social environments in with the scientists live. Renee Bergland stressed Mitchell’s career “was facilitated... Continue reading

In Appropriating the Weather, Friedman makes the argument that developments in meteorology were spurred on by “advent of powered flight and World War I.” (4) Soldiers needed to know if it would be safe to fly and directions of winds so to properly plan attacks with either bombs or gas.... Continue reading

One of our assignments for this class is to participate in creating blog posts. This is a relatively new approach to the communication of scholarship. In another class, I happened to have quoted a blog post in a paper only to have the professor tell me in no uncertain terms... Continue reading

In Reenchanted Science, Harrington seeks to show how the transition from one cultural philosophy to another can have a profound impact on the direction of a society. She describes a world in the mid 1800s as full of scientists who sought to understand the world through law. In particular, she... Continue reading

In her biography of Maria Mitchell, Renee Bergland compares the presence of women participating in science to the motion of the planet Venus. She describes how in early 19th century America, science and mathematics were appropriate subjects for girls to study opposed to the philosophy and languages boys were encouraged... Continue reading