Methodology of Science: Biology

This year, we’re happy to be adding a fourth Core course, Methodology of Science: Biology (MSB), that serves as the entry point for the entire Core Sequence.  Taught by biology instructor Dr. Kim Failor and Core instructor Dr. Tomohiro Hoshi, the course extends the Core’s emphasis on the fundamental structures of reasoning further into the context of scientific thinking.  In particular, the course aims to introduce students to aspects of scientific methodology in analyzing and interpreting raw data to support scientific claims, as exemplified in topics in biology.

MSB prepares students both to practice and to critique the application of scientific methodology and statistical analysis.  As part of this project, students master facts and concepts in ecological and cellular biology, as well as concepts and techniques in statistics and probability.  They study, in addition, the principles of experimental design appropriate to these phenomena and tools of analysis.  But even as they acquire the skills to deploy the scientific method, the students are situated to critically evaluate the use of these same strategies in sophisticated and important scientific arguments.

The mechanics of the course support these aims.  Each week, a series of lectures discusses the biological and statistical issues and then integrates them into biological case studies of the concepts in question.  Weekly exercises foster mastery of the concepts, and periodic writing assignments encourage deeper reflection and experimentation with the problems and methods.  ‘Skeptical scientist’ features highlight possible avenues of criticism and further analysis.  And in a culminating end-of-year project, each student will design and perform an experiment and analyze the results.

The EPGY OHS Core Sequence is a central part of our academic program.  In Core courses, the subject matters of science, history of science, political theory, and philosophy provide a forum for developing a range of analytical and philosophical skills that can be applied broadly in both academic and public reasoning.  This background provides students with a common intellectual framework that distills the curriculum-wide emphasis on mastery of the structures of reasoning and modes of argumentation.  Characteristic of this framework is an ability to ask conceptual and foundational questions in a particular discipline, a preparation to think critically about work and discourse in these disciplines, and a mastery of the principles and practice of rigorous and logically informed reasoning.