Title
MIT Course
Preview
Type of Activity
Instructional Approach
Content Area
SDG
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We start the first day with a brief discussion of Gusterson’s second article, building on the previous long discussion of the first one. The second part of this discussion is based largely on television interviews of two activist leaders of the campaign for nuclear disarmament. We conclude with Beckwith’s chapter and its relevance to current events at MIT.
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Each week’s readings will be accompanied by a set of guiding questions. As you read the materials, take notes about key messages as well as questions you have. Class discussions will center around these.
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Each week’s readings will be accompanied by a set of guiding questions. As you read the materials, take notes about key messages as well as questions you have. Class discussions will center around these.
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Each week’s readings will be accompanied by a set of guiding questions. As you read the materials, take notes about key messages as well as questions you have. Class discussions will center around these.
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We will also have as guest speakers two MIT faculty members familiar with the March 4 movement, the founding of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the broader context of MIT in 1969: Aron Bernstein and Heather Lechtman. You can get a sense of the times from this MIT admissions video. The older man appearing repeatedly throughout was Walter Rosenblith, who at the time held the important role of Chair of the Faculty. The film also includes Noam Chomsky, Shirley Ann Jackson (co-founder of the Black Students’ Union), math professor Alar Toomre bar-tending in 18.01, and more.
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This week, three students will present 15-minute summaries of their final paper concepts. We will also have Jonathan Beckwith as a guest speaker. Readings for the first class are from Beckwith’s book, where he shares several examples of social and ethical implications of research in the life sciences, including the misuse of science to subjugate different groups of people. The last chapter we read this week describes Beckwith’s efforts to work within the existing power structure of biology research to shift it to greater social responsibility. Such change often occurs so slowly that it only becomes apparent after several decades. We will compare the original report of the ELSI Working Group’s plans with a later article seeking to apply the lessons learned to nanotechnology research. The implications for present-day MIT should be apparent.
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You are required to submit a one-paragraph (no more than 150 words) response to the readings each week by 4pm the night before class. The responses are not meant to be formal, but instead help you engage with the class material and help us lead and focus the class discussion. You should not spend more than 30 minutes each week on the responses, although we expect you will spend significantly more time doing readings.
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Each student will write brief weekly response papers of not more than 500 words each (35%). These should present a critical assessment of the assigned material and not a mere restatement of content (link to class readings). The responses give you an opportunity to analyze key ideas that cut across readings, identify questions the readings prompt you to ask, suggest critiques of the data, methodology, or conclusions, or raise concepts you want to clarify.
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Each week students will write a very brief (at most 2 paragraphs but could be just bullet points) response to the readings. These might offer comparisons between readings, a summary of the main arguments as you understand them, a series of questions the reading left you with, or if warranted the occasional rant about a particular reading.
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Weekly Responses for the people and other animals section.