Science & Technology in Society

Rise of the Machines? Understanding and Using Generative AI (Gen Ed 1188)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

If we’re living through the emergence of a highly disruptive technology, namely Chat-GPT and similar generative AI tools, what should we do about it?

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Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) systems such as Chat-GPT have caught the entire world off-guard. They are evolving at a pace that is overwhelming the ability of individuals, organizations, and societies to understand, adjust to, and regulate them. Current-generation GAI tools can write narrative and music, can generate original art, and can write computer programs, all from natural language requests.... Read more about Rise of the Machines? Understanding and Using Generative AI (Gen Ed 1188)

Worlds Beyond: The Past, Present and Future of Solar System Exploration (Gen Ed 1184)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How and why are space missions conducted, and what should the future of human activity in space look like?

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Robin Wordsworth

Earth, our home, is unique and precious, but it is almost inconceivably tiny compared to the vast expanses that lie beyond it. Through robotic and human missions over the last few decades, we have enriched our understanding of our own changing planet and discovered much about our nearby celestial neighbors, although many mysteries remain.... Read more about Worlds Beyond: The Past, Present and Future of Solar System Exploration (Gen Ed 1184)

Pride & Prejudice & P-values: Scientific Critical Thinking (Gen Ed 1024)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How can we (as individuals and as whole societies) better incorporate into our thinking and decision making the problem-solving techniques characteristic of science at its best?

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Edward J. Hall and Douglas Finkbeiner

We humans have developed rational and systematic methods for solving problems, ways carefully designed to chart a reliable path to the truth. Yet we as individuals, as groups, as whole societies fail to take full advantage of these methods.... Read more about Pride & Prejudice & P-values: Scientific Critical Thinking (Gen Ed 1024)

Life as a Planetary Phenomenon (Gen Ed 1070)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

Is there alien life beyond Earth?

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Dimitar Sasselov

What is it about Earth that enables life to thrive? This question was reinvigorated with the 2016 ground-breaking discovery of a habitable planet around the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. A decade of exploration confirmed that such planets are common in our galaxy, and the commonality of habitable planets has raised anew some age-old questions: Where do we come from? What is it to be human? Where are we going? Are we alone in the universe?... Read more about Life as a Planetary Phenomenon (Gen Ed 1070)

Water and the Environment (Gen Ed 1158)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How does the water cycle change us, and how do we change it?

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Kaighin McColl

What do landslides in Brazil, droughts in California, mass migration in Syria and the collapse of Mayan civilization all have in common? Water. This course introduces students to the terrestrial water cycle: how it works, how humans manipulate it, and how it manipulates us.... Read more about Water and the Environment (Gen Ed 1158)

The Challenge of Human Induced Climate Change: Transitioning to a Post Fossil Fuel Future (Gen Ed 1137)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

What can we do now to avoid the most serious consequences of climate change, which poses an immediate problem for global society?

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Michael B. McElroy

Human induced climate change has the potential to alter the function of natural ecosystems and the lives of people on a global scale. The prospect lies not in the distant future but is imminent. Our choice is either to act immediately to change the nature of our global energy system (abandon our dependence on fossil fuels) or accept the consequences (included among which are increased incidence of violent storms, fires, floods and droughts, changes in the spatial distribution and properties of critical ecosystems, and rising sea level).... Read more about The Challenge of Human Induced Climate Change: Transitioning to a Post Fossil Fuel Future (Gen Ed 1137)

Great Experiments that Changed Our World (Gen Ed 1037)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

In what ways does reliving 10 groundbreaking scientific experiments teach us how our own efforts can remake the world?

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Philip Sadler

Facing the edifice of preexisting knowledge, how are breakthrough scientific discoveries made that contradict the existing canon? Ten great experiments that have transformed our understanding of nature will guide us, first through immersion in the scholarship and popular beliefs of the time. Next, how did the discoverer prepare?... Read more about Great Experiments that Changed Our World (Gen Ed 1037)

Prediction: The Past and Present of the Future (Gen Ed 1112)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How and why do humans try to divine their own futures?

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Alyssa Goodman

Image reading PredictionX

Human beings are the only creatures in the animal kingdom properly defined as worriers. We are the only ones who expend tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources trying (sometimes obsessively) to understand our futures before they happen. While the innate ability of individual people to predict has not changed much in the past few millennia, developments in mathematical and conceptual models have inordinately improved predictive systems.... Read more about Prediction: The Past and Present of the Future (Gen Ed 1112)

World Health: Challenges and Opportunities (Gen Ed 1063)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How do we analyze the health of global populations in a time of unprecedented crisis, and create new policies that address the social, political, economic, and environmental dimensions of health in an increasingly interdependent world?

Sue Goldie

Extraordinary changes in the world present both risks and opportunities to health—global interconnections, shifting demographics, and changing patterns of disease.... Read more about World Health: Challenges and Opportunities (Gen Ed 1063)

Sleep (Gen Ed 1038)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How does sleep affect your health, your safety, and our society?

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Charles Czeisler and Frank A.J.L. Scheer

What is sleep? Why do we sleep? Why don't we sleep? How much sleep do you need? What are circadian rhythms? How do technology and culture impact sleep? This course will explore the role of sleep and circadian timing in maintaining health, improving performance and enhancing safety.... Read more about Sleep (Gen Ed 1038)

Human Evolution and Human Health (Gen Ed 1027)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How did the human body evolve to be the way it is, and how does that evolutionary history influence how we can promote health and prevent disease?

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Daniel Lieberman and Kevin Uno

How and why did humans evolve to be the way we are, and what are the implications of our evolved anatomy and physiology for human health in a post-industrial world? Why do we get sick, and how can we use principles of evolution to improve health and wellbeing?... Read more about Human Evolution and Human Health (Gen Ed 1027)

Evolving Morality: From Primordial Soup to Superintelligent Machines (Gen Ed 1046)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

How can we understand the evolution of morality—from primordial soup to superintelligent machines—and how might the science of morality equip us to meet our most pressing moral challenges?

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Joshua D. Greene

In this course we’ll examine the evolution of morality on Earth, from its origins in the biology of unthinking organisms, through the psychology of intelligent primates, and into a future inhabited by machines that may be more intelligent and better organized than humans. First, we ask: What is morality?... Read more about Evolving Morality: From Primordial Soup to Superintelligent Machines (Gen Ed 1046)

Brains, Identity, and Moral Agency (Gen Ed 1064)

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2025

Can we reconcile the scientific 'brain as a machine' view with our strong experience of moral agency?

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Steven Hyman

Advances in brain science have the potential to diminish many forms of human suffering and disability that are rooted in disordered brain function. But what are the ethical implications involved in altering the structure and function of human brains? What’s at stake when we have the ability to alter a person’s narrative identity, create brain-computer interfaces, and manipulate social and moral emotion? In this course, you will ask and attempt to answer these questions, and discuss the implications of mechanistic explanations of decision-making and action for widely-held concepts of moral agency and legal culpability.... Read more about Brains, Identity, and Moral Agency (Gen Ed 1064)

Psychotherapy and the Modern Self (Gen Ed 1179)

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2024

How can we understand the appeal of psychotherapy, widely recognized as the preferred antidote to human unhappiness and misery, and what does it offer that friends, family, self-help, and psychopharmacological remedies do not?

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Elizabeth Lunbeck

What does psychotherapy offer our distressed selves that friends, family, self-help, and psychopharmacological remedies do not? The demand for therapy is currently at an all-time high, bolstering its century-long hegemony as the preferred antidote to human unhappiness and misery, even as it is under sustained attack from critics characterizing it as self-indulgent as well as from platforms that would replace human therapists with chatbots, analysts with algorithms.... Read more about Psychotherapy and the Modern Self (Gen Ed 1179)

Climate Crossroads (Gen Ed 1167)

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2024

Irreversible climate change poses an unprecedented challenge to the stability of all societies: what are the scientifically viable pathways to a future that is sustainable and just?

James G. Anderson and James Engell

What one thing is changing everything in your lifetime—and for generations to come? It’s changing what you eat; it’s changing buildings you live in; and it’s changing politics, the arts, and finance. The change is accelerating. This course reveals fundamental alterations that climate disruption is bringing to multiple human activities and natural phenomena.... Read more about Climate Crossroads (Gen Ed 1167)

Semester:

Offered:

If we’re living through the emergence of a highly disruptive technology, namely Chat-GPT and similar generative AI tools, what should we do about it?

Semester:

Offered:

How and why are space missions conducted, and what should the future of human activity in space look like?

Semester:

Offered:

How can we (as individuals and as whole societies) better incorporate into our thinking and decision making the problem-solving techniques characteristic of science at its best?

Semester:

Offered:

Is there alien life beyond Earth?

Semester:

Offered:

How does the water cycle change us, and how do we change it?

Semester:

Offered:

What can we do now to avoid the most serious consequences of climate change, which poses an immediate problem for global society?

Semester:

Offered:

In what ways does reliving 10 groundbreaking scientific experiments teach us how our own efforts can remake the world?

Semester:

Offered:

How and why do humans try to divine their own futures?

Semester:

Offered:

How do we analyze the health of global populations in a time of unprecedented crisis, and create new policies that address the social, political, economic, and environmental dimensions of health in an increasingly interdependent world?

Semester:

Offered:

How does sleep affect your health, your safety, and our society?

Semester:

Offered:

How did the human body evolve to be the way it is, and how does that evolutionary history influence how we can promote health and prevent disease?

Semester:

Offered:

How can we understand the evolution of morality—from primordial soup to superintelligent machines—and how might the science of morality equip us to meet our most pressing moral challenges?

Semester:

Offered:

Can we reconcile the scientific 'brain as a machine' view with our strong experience of moral agency?

Semester:

Offered:

How can we understand the appeal of psychotherapy, widely recognized as the preferred antidote to human unhappiness and misery, and what does it offer that friends, family, self-help, and psychopharmacological remedies do not?

Semester:

Offered:

Irreversible climate change poses an unprecedented challenge to the stability of all societies: what are the scientifically viable pathways to a future that is sustainable and just?

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