Alexandra Bradner
Given the accelerating pace of the biological sciences, there is arguably no more relevant, useful, and appealing course in the philosophical arsenal right now than the philosophy of biology. We are a scientifically illiterate nation, and philosophers of biology are poised to respond: we can present scientific problems clearly to non-specialists, place those problems in their socio-historical contexts, generate critical analyses, and imagine alternative hypotheses. But philosophy of biology is typically offered only every other year at R1 institutions (and only every 4-6 years elsewhere) as a small, specialized, upper-level undergraduate seminar or as an early graduate seminar—i.e. to minimal impact.
To make matters worse, in order to succeed in philosophy of biology, students must arrive with prerequisites in math and biology, to process our contemporary readings, and with prerequisites in Aristotle and/or medieval philosophy, to grasp the significance of the Darwinian transition to populationism. Still, departments rarely require these prerequisites, first, because it can be hard enough to enroll the course without any prerequisites; and second, because requiring too many prerequisites can scare off scientists who are especially protective of their GPAs. As a result, general-ed students enroll, thinking they’re in for a “hot topics” course in bioethics, and end up behind and bored.
In this poster, I will detail the syllabus of a philosophy of evolutionary biology course for a general undergraduate population that achieves three learning outcomes, without abandoning our field’s canonical texts. By the end of the course, students:
1) come to understand the shift from essentialism/natural state to populationism by reading a series of Darwin’s precursors and much of both the "Origin" and "Descent;"
2) master the populationist paradigm by exploring a collection of contemporary phil bio papers that build upon the issues encountered in the "Descent;"
3) satisfy their hunger for bioethics by studying, in the last 2-3 weeks of the course, a group of articles drawn from recent journals.
I have taught this course four times at three different institutions to maximal enrollments. Pedagogically, the course employs a number of techniques and methodologies to maintain student engagement: a one-day philosophical writing bootcamp to alleviate science students’ anxiety about writing philosophy papers; a visit to the library’s rare book room to view historic scientific texts in their original editions, two classes on the "Origin" spent in jigsaws, one class spent on a team-based learning exercise, an external speaker invited to respond to students’ questions via Skype, two weeks of student-directed learning, and lots of lecture and discussion.
This particular course design comes with some costs, primarily errors of omission, which I will detail. But the benefits of introducing a broader population of students to the philosophical problems of biology compensates for the losses, which can be recuperated in a second course or an independent study. Perhaps most importantly, teaching philosophy of biology in this way delivers to philosophy new students who otherwise would never have encountered the discipline, both sustaining our major and increasing enrollments in upper-level courses.
