Assignments

Unit 8 Overview 
Science and Culture: An Uneasy Partnership 
For hundreds of years, science and culture, especially religion, have often been in conflict with one another. In the 1500s and 1600s, especially, religious institutions became very threatened when scientists in Europe started offering people new ways of looking at the world. One of the best examples of this is the case of Francesco Redi, a scientist who set out to prove that flies and maggots did not magically appear on rotting meat through what religious institutions called "spontaneous generation." 
Redi proved, by covering pieces of meat with jars, that flies come from other flies, not from spontaneous generation. When the Italian Catholic church learned about his experiments, they became furious and excommunicated him, calling him a dangerous heretic. Conflicts like these have continued throughout the past four hundred years and into modern times, when scientific ideas like evolution are still considered by some religious groups (but not all of them) to be in dispute. This week, you will learn about the strange, often unstable relationship between culture and science and how it sometimes even manages to produce cooperation.

Unit Outcomes 
•	Explain how cultural beliefs and science are sometimes in conflict 
•	Defend an opinion on a controversial scientific issue 
•	Examine common ground between personal belief in science and faith 
Course Outcomes practiced in this unit 
SC300-1: Explain basic scientific principles and their limitations 
•	
Read pp. 260-264 of Chapter 12 
In course text, The Sciences: An Integrated Approach 
•	Review Key Terms 
See the Readings Page 
•	Respond to Unit 8 Discussion Questions 
On the Discussion Page 
35 Points 
•	Attend the Weekly Seminar 
Log in from the Students' Homepage
•	Check out Extra! Extra! 
For additional Resources 

Inside Big Ideas in Science: From Methods to Mutation 
The shroud of Turin:
http://skepdic.com/shroud.html 
http://www.mcri.org/home/section/63-64/the-shroud-of-turin 
Science and Religion:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5396/1985 
For additional Student Resources click the link below 
http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=index&bcsId=5190&itemId=0470118547 
ID: SC300-08-04-EE

Reading 
Pp. 260-264 of Chapter 12 in The Sciences: An Integrated Approach 

Pp. 260-264 of Chapter 12 in The Sciences: An Integrated Approach 
This week’s readings will explore how scientists are able to use science in order to determine the age of ancient materials such as human bones. 
Reminder: Final Project 
You should be working on your Final Project, which is due at the end of Unit 9. 

Half-life
The rate of radioactive decay measured by the time it takes for half of a collection of isotopes to decay into another element.
Isotopes
Atoms whose nuclei have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons.
Radiometric dating
A technique based on the radioactive half-lives of carbon-14 and other isotopes that is used to determine the age of materials.

Seminar 
For all the discussion of conflicts between science and culture, there are times when science and culture work very well together. One great example of this cooperation took place in the 1990s around the issue of climate change and greenhouse gases. A very large group of well- known scientists and religious leaders from around the United States collaborated on an appeal to convince the U.S. government to do something about our nation's polluting habits.
Before you come to seminar, read the document here: 
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/jointappeal.html 
Come to Seminar prepared to discuss the following questions: 
1.	What common ground do religious groups and science share in this appeal? 
2.	In general, what are the common interests of science and religion? 
3.	It turns out that many scientists are religious believers - how can these two ways of viewing the world work well together? 
Complete one of the following options below: 
Option 1: Participate in a synchronous seminar.