Research Assignments and Writing Exercises

HPS 1702 Junior/Senior Seminar for HPS Majors
HPS 1703 Writing Workshop for HPS Majors
Spring term 2005
Research Assignments and Writing Exercises

Policy on Late Submission of Research Assignments. Late submission of these assignments is strongly discouraged. The assignments are cumulative and late submission leads to the delaying new work and so falling further behind. If an extension is sought, it should only be for a few days. The need for the extension should be explained in writing and a date nominated in writing for the time of submission.

This seminar is intended to be a "capstone" experience for majors in history and philosophy of science. So far, each of you have taken an array of courses that specialize in one of other aspect of HPS. This seminar will give you direct experience of how someone in HPS synthesizes their history of science and their philosophy of science. This will be done through a series of research assignments that you will carry out in the course of the term. They will have historical and philosophical components and lead up a term paper in which the historical and philosophical parts are synthesized.

See Schedule for deadlines.

Revised March 29, 2005.

Select some episode in history of science that interests you and prepare a short, roughly 500 word description of it.

The plan is that your analysis of this episode will be developed in the course of term through the remaining assignments. So you should pick an episode in which consideration of evidence (or perhaps the lack of it) was of central importance.

Focus for HPS 1703 Writing Workshop.

(a) Good scholarly writing is simple, clear and direct; and it communicates well to the intended audience. Try to conform to these goals in the writing. Use short sentences, an active voice and simpler language wherever possible. Have some idea of who your reader is. Assume it is someone who works in history and philosophy of science but may not know your particular science or the historical example. The other students in the seminar fit this description.

(b) Good scholarly writing is spelled correctly, uses proper grammar and is laid out attractively on the page. Submissions not conforming to these standards will be returned for revision.

Wondering "how much can I copy and paste into my essay"? If you have to ask, you'd better look at my handout on the use of sources.

Remarks added January 29, 2005.
Having read everyone's papers, there were some problems that arose often enough for me to list them here:

Anachronism. Many of you mixed modern day judgments of the science in with the historical narrative. While these judgments are certainly important, they must not be allowed to take over the narrative. Our goal is to understand an historical episode in its own terms--the goals, methods, thoughts, analyses, etc. of the people in question and how they implemented them. We are not aided in that by remarking that we now agree or disagree with the person. Indeed we are obstructed if that later judgment replaces the historical analysis we should have given. (See further remarks on this question under Assignment B below.)

History. It is common for historical narratives to start by acknowledging the origins of some science in antiquity and then tracing its development to the present day. That doesn't mean that all historical writing has to do this. It is quite legitimate to pick one episode and look just at that. Indeed when you have only 500 words to write it is much better to do that. Otherwise you waste far too many words on bland generalization and do not have enough left to do justice to the real topic.

Sources. Historians of science don't just know things. They learn them from sources. It is fundamental in academic history that you tell your readers what your sources are. The principle is that a reader ought to be able to find and verify the source claimed for your major points. As a result, citing an entire book is inadequate. The reader should not be expected to read an entire book to find the material you used. That notion guides most citation conventions. You give enough information on a source so that the reader can find exactly what you read. Hence author and title are not enough. The publisher and edition should also be given. If you and the reader consult different editions, the pagination and text may be different. While none of you came close to it, I'll mention the danger at the opposite extreme. In practice you cannot cite everything, lest your text become a cluttered mess. So you have to decide what in your text can be taken as common knowledge and needs no citation. e.g. you could take it as common knowledge that Darwin wrote Origin of Species and traveled on the Beagle and so need not be footnoted, but a particular quote from him would need a citation.

Evidential focus. Narrowness of episode for this assignment. You need to keep in mind how this assignment is to be developed. It will eventually be connected with some issue in the philosophy of induction. As a result, the episode must have evidential considerations playing some prominent role. Since entire theories tend to have enormous evidential bases, this indicates that you should choose as narrow an episode as you can. Otherwise you will become overwhelmed by the volume of material and be able to say little beyond banalities. The analysis of one single experiment could well supply enough material, for example.

Expand your earlier short history into a longer case study of roughly 1500 words. Considerations of evidence and inductive evidence must be a central feature of your case study, so that it can be combined with the remaining assignments. Your account must incorporate material from at least one primary source.

Please submit the assignment as an attachment in email to jdnorton@pitt.edu

If this assignment is to be successfully developed by the remaining philosophical assignments, it will need some quite concrete material pertaining to induction, evidence and confirmation. For this reason you are urged to focus on as narrow a topic as you can. (See remarks above under Assignment A.)

Focus for HPS 1703 Writing Workshop.

The essence of good historical writing is sensitivity to context and the goal in this piece of writing is to locate the episode in its proper context. The danger in writing an historical episode is that we allow what we now know to overshadow what actually happened. For example, we now know that Einstein's special theory of relativity can be presented in terms of two principles and some clever thought experiments on light signals and clocks. That his original 1905 paper was full of electrodynamics is a matter often left for another day. While this attitude might be acceptable if our goal is to understand the theory in its own right, it is an anachronistic trap if our goal is to understand how special relativity emerged historically. It came from Einstein's resolute pursuit of problems in electrodynamics. Understanding those problems and Einstein's struggles with them is how we understand the discovery of the theory. (For my contribution to this literature, see http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton, under history of special relativity.) A common mistake made especially by scientists is to assume that they somehow know the history of a theory merely because they understand the theory itself.

Historical narratives must be grounded in the evidence of historical sources and the better the source the better the account. For this reason, historians put a premium on histories that draw directly on primary sources."Primary sources" are those written by the principal figures and are generally deemed more reliable the closer they are written in time to the events in question. Primary sources include scientific papers and books as well as archival materials, such as manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence. "Secondary sources" are written by others and recount the episode in question. They are an essential part of the history of science and for many purposes quite sufficient. Breaking new ground in history of science, however, requires analysis of primary sources.

Remarks added February 24, 2005.
After reading everyone's papers, I thought it might be helpful to make some remarks on a particular style of writing history.

It is common in science textbooks to include sections, often introductory, on the historical background of the science. This is to be applauded; understanding the historical origins of the science can add greatly to the appreciation of the science. Sometimes this history is very well done. On other occasions, it is not. Then the history can be reduced to a quite misleading caricature of the what really happened. A famous example is the history of special relativity. In the older textbook tradition, the origins of the theory were routinely attributed to Einstein pondering the Michelson-Morley experiment. We soon learned, however, that this experiment had only a very indirect role in Einstein's discovery and that Einstein barely recalled if he even knew of the experiment at the time he discovered the theory. Two factors seem to have promoted this myth in the textbooks. One is that it is pedagogically easy to proceed from the experiment to a development of the theory. If only the theory had been discovered that way, the historical path would have been a great way to teach the theory! The other is that it fitted with the popular idea of a close link between theory and experiment. Special relativity was the theory and the Michelson-Morley experiment was the experiment that found expression in it.

This possibility of science textbook histories running astray is widely recognized. There is another, more subtle problem that is not so widely recognized. In both textbooks and research articles, scientists are encouraged to write in a passive anonymous voice. The fiction is of a kind of disembodied scientific consciousness that is the repository of scientific knowledge: "It was known that..." New discoveries are stripped as much as possible of human form and motivation: "It was observed that..." This locution suppresses the human beings who made the discoveries, where and when they were done, the reasons they thought to observe where they did, their passions and aversions, the rivalries and feuds and the many dead ends. Writing in this style makes it very hard to pay proper attention to context.

Prepare a short (500 word) discussion of a problem in the philosophical treatment of induction and confirmation that is relevant to your historical case study. You should identify a definite thesis and an argument that supports it. Then supply some evaluation of the thesis and supporting argument. e.g. is the thesis properly supported by the argument?

Please submit the assignment as an attachment in email to jdnorton@pitt.edu

What problem should you select? Look at Assignment D below. Your goal with Assignment C is to familiarize yourself with some problem in the philosophy of induction that can be developed into the final assignment. Does some philosophical issue come up in your historical case study that could be developed?

Focus for HPS 1703 Writing Workshop.

The essence of good philosophical writing is attention to thesis and argument. In this regard professional philosophy is quite distinct from the popular view of philosophy as a collection of clever but obscure remarks that no one really understands and the sad lament that we are surrounded by mysteries transcending our humble grasp. Save this for cocktail parties. Professional philosophers seek to state their claims--their theses--in as simple and clear a language as possible and then to establish them with cogent argumentation. This is your goal.

In the popular view, establishing something by argumentation is sometime taken to mean that it is established by colorful language or even rhetorical subterfuge. That is not what is intended here. A prerequisite for this seminar is a class in logic. The informal arguments you studied there are the sort intended here.

Here are two examples of a thesis and supporting argument. Both are given in a very condensed form, but they should be sufficient to indicate the style of analysis I am encouraging.

Thesis: No inductive argument scheme can be justified. ("Hume's problem," modernized)

Argument: A justification for an inductive argument scheme will either be deductive or inductive. A deductive justification would contradict the inductive character of the inductive. An inductive justification requires either use of the very inductive inference scheme under consideration, which is circular; or calling in another inductive inference scheme, which triggers an infinite regress.

Thesis: ("Grue") Inductive inference is powerless to support useful inferences; any inductive inference scheme that allows us to infer from the observation of green emeralds to the greenness of unobserved emeralds must also allow us to infer equally that they are any other color.

Argument:
1. Assume that we have an inductive inference scheme that assures us that observation of green emeralds supports the hypothesis that unobserved emeralds are green.
2. Because of the symmetry of green and grue (under the standard definition of grue), the same inductive inference scheme must assure us that observation of grue emeralds supports equally the hypothesis that unobserved emeralds are grue.
3. Redescribing 2., we have that the inductive inference scheme must assure us that observation of green emeralds supports the hypothesis that unobserved emeralds are blue.
4. Thus the same observation of green emeralds, supports equally the hypothesis that unobserved emeralds are green and that they are blue (and, by duplication of the argument, any other color we care to name).

Combine your historical case study with your philosophical analysis to produce a draft paper not to exceed 9,500 words. Your analysis should establish a definite thesis in philosophy of science that is grounded in your historical case study. The paper should conform to the style sheet of the journal Philosophy of Science, as described below.

Please submit the assignment as an attachment in email to jdnorton@pitt.edu

Exactly how this is to be done is up to you--that's the creative part in HPS! There are some obvious models to follow. Your historical case study will most likely review how scientists brought evidence to bear on some hypothesis or theory. So...

-- Does your case study provide an illustrative example of the use of a particular form of inductive inference?
-- Does the case study demonstrate the untenability of some particular account of induction?
-- We have seen a number of meta-level claims about induction: Hume's problem of induction, "grue," the underdetermination thesis. How does your case study bear on these meta-claims?
-- Does your case study manifest an approach to inductive inference that does not fit well with any of the standard accounts we reviewed? Can you learn a new approach to induction from it?
-- Is there something in your case study that does not sit well with the received view of induction, evidence and the nature of science that you have seen in the philosophical literature?

Focus for HPS 1703 Writing Workshop.

Part of preparing a manuscript in HPS is the appropriate formatting of the document and, most especially, the use of a consistent system of referencing your sources. The system used and the general layout of the document will generally be specified by the vehicle through which you will publish. Every journal has a house style and will ask you to submit manuscripts to it using that house style.

In order to gain experience in the consistent use of a particular system, I ask you to conform your term paper to the house style of the journal Philosophy of Science. Their style sheet is available at http://journal.philsci.org/Guidelines/ and the relevant portions begin under the section "Preparing Final Version for Publication." I do also expect your paper to conform to the earlier requirement on the sheet that: "The manuscript should include an abstract of approximately 100 words. A word-count must be submitted with each essay: a paper may not exceed 9,500 words, including abstract, footnotes, and references."

You should conform your paper to all their guidelines, including layout, margins, type and, most especially, the system for citing your sources and preparing a list of references. You should ignore obviously inappropriate requirements. (e.g. Do not email the paper to the editors of Philosophy of Science! There is no processing fee! I will not expect transfer of copyright.) Since the sheet mentions TeX, let me add that I cannot easily read papers sent to me in TeX, so please don't.

To get a sense of what it wanted by the style sheet, it is very helpful to look at sample issues of Philosophy of Science. If you do not have a recent article from Philosophy of Science at hand, you can look at it in the library, either on paper or through the library's digital library. The journal also offers a free sample issue online at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/PHILSCI/

You will be paired up with another student and each will be the other's editor. Your function as editor will be (i) to assist the author in perfecting the content of the paper and (ii) to assist the author in conforming the paper to the journal style sheet.

I am devoting the seminar meeting on April 12 to your exchange of editorial advice, since I will be away at a conference that week.

I am assigning 1/10th of the term paper grade to your editing (i.e. 3% of 30% in HPS 1702 and 6% of 60% in HPS 1703). You will get the full 1/10th credit as long as the student whose paper you edit inserts a sentence on the first page saying "This paper edited by [your name here]." A priority in your editing, then, will be to assure that this sentence is added in the paper you edit!

Focus for HPS 1703 Writing Workshop.

(i) It is important to get feedback from others whenever you undertake scholarly work. This routinely happens informally when we circulate manuscripts among friends. And it happens more formally when an editor, usually with the support of anonymous referee reports, asks for various changes to the content of a paper. Typically acceptance of the paper for publication depends upon completion of the changes to the editor's satisfaction.

(ii) Most documents need to be edited to weed out obvious typogr&*^aphical errors ("typos") and some that are harder too see. The traditional way of doing this is for an editor to work through the paper, pencil in hand, marking the text and putting explanations in the margins. (That is why style sheets want text double spaced and generous margins. It leaves rooms for these editorial marks.) The editing and printing industry has long used a standard set of marks that you should know about, since they are nearly universally used and understood. This is the system an author is asked to use, for example, when "proof pages"--the first attempt at the final published text--are sent to an author by the printer for approval. You are asked to indicate necessary changes using this system.

You will find the marks described in US Government Printing Office Style Manual. Washington, 2000, Ch.1 See paragraph 1.23 on p.4-5 for a table of commonly used marks and a sample copyedited page illustrating how they are used. Some marks are used in the margin and others in the text. You'll get a sense of the system most quickly by comparing the sample page with the table.

If you edit paper copies of each other's work, you might find it convenient to use this system. Times in publishing are changing and this system is ill-adapted to the editing of electronic documents. I have seen systems of electronic proofreader's marks devised, but I'm not sure if any are standard. Major word processing programs also provide the capacity for a reader to insert editorial remarks in the text. It will be interesting to see whether a new electronic standard for proofreader's marks emerges.

Submit a final version of the paper whose content conforms to the material requested in E. and whose style conforms to the Philosophy of Science stylesheet.

Please submit the assignment as an attachment in email to jdnorton@pitt.edu

While is it almost impossible to ensure that every comma is exactly as require in the stylesheet, I will reduce the paper's grade for significant deviations from the style sheet. Learning the discipline of a style sheet is part of learning to be a scholar.

In the closing weeks of term, each of you will make a presentation to the seminar on your research project. Those of you presenting in earlier weeks may not have completed your projects. In that case, you should report on your preliminary results and expectations.

As a warm up, on March 22 I will ask everyone to speak informally to the seminar for five minutes on any matter of relevance to their project (either the historical or philosophical aspects). (2% of presentation grade)

The longer presentation will be on March 29, April 5 or April 19 as indicated in the schedule. (8% of presentation grade) The available timeslots will be filled on a first come-first served basis. So lock in your choice now, either by email or in class.

An important part of scholarly work in any field is communicating your result and some of the most important communication occurs in the form of oral presentations. Being able to make a strong presentation will serve you well, no matter what field you work in. The guides below pertain to the longer presentation you will make and not the five minute warm up on March 22. It is just intended to get you comfortable talking to the seminar.

Here's a checklist that can be used to assess a presentation.

The longer presentation should last 20 minutes. A common problem with speakers--novice and expert--is that they go over time. It is important to learn how to keep to the allotted time. I will insist that you not go over. So prepare in advance. If (contrary to my advice!) you are reading, find out how long it takes to read a page. If you are presenting with transparencies or Powerpoint screens, have a dress rehearsal to calibrate how long you need to present one transparency or screen. My own calibration is roughly 2 minutes per screen. The one thing you should not do is guess how long it will take and then hope for the best. That rarely works.

The following lists the styles commonly used and some of my views on them. You should choose the one you feel will work best for you.

Reading a paper. This is a style more commonly seen in straight philosophy or straight history. It is the weakest form of presentation. Most people are unable to write in a style that can be read well. The result is too often a kind of academic ritual in which a speaker goes through the motions of reading the words and the audience sits politely, grasping only parts here and there, waiting for it to be over. Commonly, some audience members may be given the manuscript in advance and they are able to prepare by reading the paper in advance or they may be reading along. The style is virtually unknown in scientific circles, where the very idea that someone might read a paper at a presentation is sources of bemused bafflement. The tradition in HPS is moving strongly away from reading papers.

The major failing of reading a paper as a mode of presentation of information is that the audience can only hear one or two words at any one moment. People are much better at absorbing information visually. A large amount of material can be seen at once and it is easy to move backwards and forwards in the material on display. All the following alternatives rely to some extent on presenting material visually.

Chalk and talk. This is the traditional form of presenting material in classroom. The speaker--usually an instructor--stands at the blackboard, speaking from notes, and writing key points on the blackboard. This is an effective means of communication for teaching. Time is lost while the instructor writes on the blackboard. But that pacing ensures students have time to copy down the blackboard notes and think about them. Chalk and talk is generally not used for conference and other major speaking events, since the amount of material that can be communicated is smaller than in the following methods. If you use this method, you should try to be at the blackboard in advance of the audience so you can start to write up the material. You are strongly advised to use a handout as well.

Overhead projector transparencies. For a long time this was the standard for scientific presentations. The transparencies provide a summary snapshot of the point being made by the speaker. The speaker speaks to the transparency, filling in the details. It makes presentation of graphical and photographic material easy, although reproduction of photographs onto transparencies is often of poor quality. In the older tradition, you would write onto transparencies using colored pens. That yielded to computer generated transparencies. They are easy to prepare since laser printers can print directly onto transparencies. The most common misuse of transparencies is to cram them with small print. Make sure you use large point sizes, e.g. 16-18 point, so that the transparencies remain uncluttered and easy to read, even from the back of the room. The temptation to cram more stuff in is great; resist it!

Powerpoint/digital projector. This is now becoming the standard mode for scientific presentations and for public lectures. The principal problem with using it is that you need a lot of pieces of technology and all must function. You need to bring your own computer with the presentation on it. You need your host to supply a digital projector. You need to have the cables necessary to connect your computer to the projector. And you need a host who knows how to switch on the digital projector. (At a recent conference, I was unable to use my Powerpoint presentation since the organizers did not know which of the many switches on the hidden panel to throw in order to activate the digital projector!) Otherwise the conception of the talk remains the same. Each screen is a summary snapshot of the point being made, with your speech filling in the details. As before, don't cram the screen with too much text. Keep the point size large. I use 16 point and larger. Powerpoint provides a lot of ready to use templates, with colorful background images. My personal preference is to avoid them. These sorts of fancy templates look good for a moment. After they've been seen on 20 screens, they become annoying. What happens is that the templates compete with your material. You can disguise a lack of content with a fancy layout. Or, if you have something to say, you can use the fancy layout and leave your audience suspecting that you don't have that much to say because of the distracting layout. My strong recommendation is to keep the layout very simple and very neat.

John D. Norton, Spring 2005