About the Course
The future is a minefield of technological challenges and the moral quagmires that accompany them. The looming specters of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, human-driven climate change, corporate-controlled artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, artificial cognitive and moral enhancement, and a host of other nascent topics present us with major hurdles to overcome in the near future.
We can’t address these challenges piecemeal. The solutions to these future challenges are interwoven. Simple science education alone is insufficient to correct this. And ethical reflection on them devoid of a scientific basis falls flat. Rather, people best prepared to deal with and lead in the face of future challenges are those who have acquired two sets of knowledge: (a) detailed scientific understanding of the problems and (b) the creative, ethical, and logical skills to generate and apply solutions.
In this pair of courses — PHIL288E and BIOL110 — we will therefore tackle problems of the future from both philosophical and biological perspectives, integrating knowledge from both fields, and along the way, reflect on ways to make progress on future problems. In PHIL288E, we’ll be paying special attention to the way the Catholic Intellectual Tradition may provide us with distinctive resources. In BIOL110, we’ll be dissecting current biological primary literature on topics that present existential challenges to humanity and human civilization. In both classes, we’ll be pairing with community partners to bring our work beyond the university community. What’s more: we’ll be framing our units using some of our favorite science fiction texts.
The learning goals for the courses are as follows.
By the end of the course:
- Students will be able to explain the contributions major philosophical questions make to the understanding of ourselves as humans through the successful completion of several reflection papers.
- Students will be able to articulate some of the major problems and range of responses central to philosophical inquiry through classroom discussion and the successful completion of reflection papers.
- Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the various approaches to the philosophical study of human culture and civilization through classroom discussion, quizzes, and reflection papers.
- Understand how community members outside the classroom may interact with the topics covered in the course through the final, community partner project.
- Demonstrate their understanding of the scientific method, the diversity of life, the classification of organisms , cell structure and function , the chromosomal and molecular basis of inheritance and the organ systems of the human body.
The objective of these courses is to give you a firm understanding of the relevant areas of intersection between biological sciences and philosophy. We are asking big questions about what it means to be human now, what humanity will look like in the future, and how humans can live meaningful lives in this future.
Because our approach this semester will be thoroughly interdisciplinary, the two courses in which you are enrolled, PHIL288E and BIOL395, are completely linked. All points count towards both classes, so your final grades for both courses will be identical. Grades will be reported in Sakai.
The course uses the Science for Humans curriculum, which is available for free at scienceforhumans.com. We will assign some material that goes beyond this curriculum, but for the most part, will stick to working through the modules on our primary website.
