STS 353 - Bio-Social Controversy

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as SOCI 353) Scientific controversies take place not only within scientific communities but may be joined and waged in public arenas as well. This course is centered around the intense reaction triggered by extension of biological explanations and evolutionary logic to all aspects of contemporary life including race, sex/gender, violence and social behavior in general. Scientific Controversy is a strategic site for analyzing the social dynamics of various disputes including those among biological and cultural anthropologists, academic scientists and transgender activists, and between advocates of divergent views of race and sexual difference. Alternative perspectives – Darwinian feminism and efforts by transgender biologists to challenge the gender binary – are also relevant to our conversation. The range of conceptual frames deployed to interpret these controversies includes Popperian philosophy of science, the sociology of Relativism and Rhetoric, and a Foucauldian power/knowledge perspective. Mr. McAulay.