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Science and Society

HPSC3022

Science has become an essential element of Western societies. It is impossible to imagine our lives today without the achievements of science, technology, and medicine. Many scientists and laypeople think that scientific knowledge transcends political, social, cultural, and economic conditions. Sociologists of science think otherwise. In this unit, we will investigate the nature of science, the position of science in society, and the internal dynamics of science. Sociologists of science have compared scientific knowledge to a ship in a bottle: if you see the finished product, you can't understand how it came about, and you can't believe that it is not what it claims to be: the empirically determined truth about the world. In this unit, we will have a close look at some of these ships in bottles and examine how they got there. When observing science-in-the-making, rather than the finished product, the factors that influence science become much clearer. We will introduce some the most exciting and innovative ideas about what science is and how it works by examining the sociological and anthropological approaches to science that have become the basis for research in the social studies of science, technology, and medicine, including: the norms of science, scientists' images of themselves, the boundaries between science and other subjects, the rhetoric of scientific writing, laboratory work, science museums and science in the media.

Unit of study details

Unit of study level: Senior

Credit points: 6

Commencing semesters: 1

Further unit of study information

Unit of study handbook: HPSC3022

Costs and scholarships information: Costs and Scholarships

Final dates to withdraw from units of study: Census Dates

Available for study abroad and exchange: No

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