Next Week:

Technology in Education (Stephanie

This Week:

Artifical Intelligence (Tom and Na)

Read the readings for the week

Focus Response 7 Due Friday Oct 31.

Previous Weeks:

Oct 24: Focus Response 6:  With the dawn of microcommunication technology our society moved farther from the service society into the information society (keep in  mind that we just emerged from the industrial society).  Now billions are spent on information accumulation, storage, accessing, transmission, and presentation. You cannot do anything today without using these new technologies. With the emergence of this new era also comes a greater ignorance (as we evidenced by the lack of our corporate understanding of the science and technology behind....) of these black box (or highly consumer oriented consumer designed and tested boxes) technologies and of the "truth" that these technologies might represent or not represent.  If you were to write an essay on "Truth and the new knowledge and communication technology" (Truth and the cell phone, truth and the internet, truth and the computer, truth and the virtual classroom), what article would YOU write and what would it say - a sneaky way to say write an essay on an area that interests you in this diverse array of related technologies.  Be sure to reference your readings and other knowledge gained as you read for and write your essay.

Oct. 15 Wednesday find an article on an area of health that you think raises interesting questions for or about science, technology and truth. Bring either a copy or a summary with you to class to share.

Oct. 17 Focus Forum Response 5 is due: 

Our view of health science and technology and of truth in the health area seems to be a very complex picture with a complex language of its own. Improvement in health may be due to nutrition or is it literacy and education or declines in fertility or no maybe economic or other types of security. We have enhanced our ability to "sense" diseases empirically way beyond the "common 5 senses". We have the benefits (or problem) of "localization". A shift from the acute to chronic. A shift from human attention and "craft" in medicine to technological machine statistical based "medicine". CFS. CTS. RMD. AIDS. CJD. West Nile..... Booby trapped genes.....Demographic transition....... Epidemiological transiton......

• If we were to really consider "truth" in health care and health care technology, what would health care look like?
• What might the implications of the new views and trends in health signify for the important issues dealing with people that need to be addressed by the Christian community?
• Why might we both as Christians, and as US residents be unwilling to address these issues?
• How does the issue addressed in the article you found fit into the entire picture?
  

Complete the reading for Oct. 6. 

Assessment (Exam 1) Sept 8.  No class meeting

EXAM Process: Due by Friday Oct. 10, noon (If you don't like this, then substitute Thursday Midnight Oct. 9).  To Access the Exam: click on the Blackboard link at left, go to the HON301K site and click the Assessment Link on the left menu bar.

Type up your response in your word processor. When you are ready to submit your "Assessment Focus" response, then click on the >> View/Complete link at the bottom of the Assessment description. Next you may either paste your response into the text box or attach your file (only if you use Microsoft word or attach an rtf (rich text format) attachment using the "Choose file" attachment feature.

NOTE: You can use the "Save" button to work on your file until you are ready to submit. You can only "Submit" once, so be sure that you have what you want to say said in the way you want to say it, before you click that "Submit" button!

October 3: Your project synopsis is due on Friday Oct. 3. Post the synopsis to the Project Forum. I want each of you to create a thread and you will post your synopsis and project updates here. Reviews of your synopsis will be posted as replies within your project thread. There will be no separate Focus Forum for this week to allow you to focus on your Synopsis Paper. Please do remember to still  read the readings so that you can contribute to our in-class sessions.

I have updated a tentative set of expectations to serve as a guideline for your project/topic synopsis on the Course Project page.

Sept. 26: Focus Response 4: What is truth. Please complete a response to this week's Focus Question after reading all the assigned readings (Due Friday Sept. 26). Click the Discussion Link to post your answer to Focus Forum 4 in Blackboard.
Truth is something that is "innate" to a given cultural group or to all humanity? If we had a hard time defining science and technology, then you would think that defining truth would be equally difficult. However, most individuals or "groups" would quite quickly answer with "their" definition of "truth". As you read the readings for this week I would like you to contemplate these questions:

• What is your definition of "truth"?
• Where does your (view this as my personal, Christian, evangelical Christian, Western, and human) concept of what is true originate?
• How does the way we "receive" and "define" truth, influence the way that we might define other concepts, like science and technology?
• Cite the reference (in the style that is correct for your field, MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian - see the library for examples if you can't remember) for your "truth" reading and be sure to incoporate both your reading and some/all of the other readings for this week into your response.

Sept: 24: Find an article that addresses the question of "What is truth". Link the article (if it is on-line) or put the reference in your forum posting this week, and bring a copy to class for Sept 24, Wednesday, to summarize how it contributes to our understanding of "truth" during today's session.

Sept. 19:  Focus Response 3: What is truth? Seeing the real world   Please complete a response to this week's Focus Question after reading all the assigned readings (Due Friday Sept. 19). Click the Discussion Link to post your answer to Focus Forum 3 in Blackboard.
The reading for this week looks at technology and its "roles" in society. The team that wrote the chapters in Monsma are Christians from various fields of study, while Ursula Goodenough is a scientist who defines herself as religious. Monsma points out that in reality (as we concluded for science) "technology is everything and everything is technology", but then goes to develop a well laid out definition of technology in somewhat the same trend as we ended up for science--as an "activity", an action. Goodenough points out the derision that current society often holds for scientists and then uses a distinction of natural technology to set up what technologies we should pursue. Think about your understanding of technology in light of the viewpoints of these readings. Then look through the modern "concepts of technology" found in current society (say on the internet or in library databases) (i.e. try to find some empirical data).

• What really is technology, what does it do, and what controls technology?
• What is the relationship between science and technology?
• How does society view science and technology in the current world climate?

Sept. 12: Focus Response 2: Science? How do we model the world around us? Please complete a response to this week's Focus Question after reading all the assigned readings (Due Friday Sept. 12). Click the Discussion Link to post your answer to Focus Forum 2 in Blackboard.

Much of the way we see the world is through the models. Science also uses models. The "scientific method" is a model. A theory is really a model. The reason that models are used is that they make simpler pictures of the really complex world that we can in turn study and understand, or use to test against reality and refine as we learn more. An interesting question for this week in light of all these readings on "science", "method" and "model" might be threefold:

• What are the models on which our life/living, our institutions, and our society are built around?
• How do we build and evaluate these models?
• How do these models differ from scientific models?

An individual is not a model, and yet we can model a typical individual. So what is the distinction between a model and reality?

Sept. 5: Focus Response 1: Please complete and Post to in the Blackboard Discussion Area (click the "Discussion" link at left) a response to this week's Focus Question prior to class on Sept. 5. To post, you must reply to the main question. Begin by clicking on the Forum Link "Focus Response 1". Then read the question and click on the reply button. I recommend typing your response in word (double space between paragraphs) and pasting into the discussion box or alternately copying a copy from Blackboard into word prior to submitting your response. Please be sure to read the Focus Question Rubric for expectations for your response.

Many of the readings for this semester will make assumptions. Assumptions about world view, about who we are as humans, about where we have come from, about our heritage. The readings for this week allow us to take a look at some of these viewpoints. Each of us also has a distinct and valuable viewpoint as well. Based upon your development as a human and using ideas from the readings that might "interact" with this development, what do you think about the impact of humanity's past upon our present and future? Do you think that our science and technology have modified our/your basic persona? Are we developing into Homo futura, Homo technosapiens, or ...? There are no "right" answers here, but think a bit on the issues, readings, questions on the daily schedule pages and develop your own response.