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DAILY SCHEDULE AND READINGS
Introduction
Intensification
Science
American Injustice
Global Injustice
The Future
EXAMS
1st Exam, Due Jan 23
2nd Exam, Due Feb 13
3rd Exam, Due Mar 15
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ANTHROPOLOGY 210
INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY
WINTER QUARTER 2017
UNIT III: SCIENCE
Unit Description
This unit is about culture more specifically, about how different peoples have observed, classified, and understood the natural world, and how this has shaped their interactions with the environment and with resources. For this unit, you will be reading the first required textbook, Gonzalez's Zapotec Science.
DAILY SCHEDULES AND READINGS
Monday, January 23 The first exam is due at 5:00 p.m. today.Tuesday, January 24: The Assumptions of Science
In preparation for today's class, please read Chapters 1 and 2 of Gonzalez, Zapotec Science. Come to class ready to write about your definition of "science." We will begin by examining some assumptions about science and the scientific method. We will then watch the short film "The Forest of Eyes: Koyukon Fishing," and finish by discussing the assumptions of scientific fisheries management and of native fisheries management, and how they fit the different definitions of science that Gonzalez formulates on pages 21-23.
Wednesday, January 25: Section: Zapotec Science
We will be in the middle of careful reading of Gonzalez's Zapotec Science this week. By 8:00 a.m. today, Wednesday 25 January, post 100-200 words on whether and how you think the ideas and techniques Gonzalez describes in chapter 3, "The Craft of the Campesino" are scientific, by any of the definitions of science that Gonzales sets out on pages 21-23 and that we discussed in class on Tuesday, the 24th.
Thursday, Jan 26: Classifying Living Things
Today is about concepts of classification, and about how different peoples classify things differently. We start with a brief review of the Linnean classification system, and then compare this system to that described in Chapters 3 and 4 (read them for today) of Zapotec Science, as well as present some other classification systems that are very different.
Tuesday, January 31: The Practice of Science
In preparation for today's class, read chapters 5 and 6 of Gonzalez's Zapotec Science. You will have a short writing exercise in which you demonstrate your familiarity with the basic concepts in these chapters, and then we will go into those comments in more depth. For the second hour, I will discuss how dairy farmers in Washington use different scientific assumptions and methods to manage different kinds of farms.
My presentation on the present danger
Useful UW resources.
Wednesday, February 1: Section: Zapotec Science
We are finishing our careful reading of Gonzalez's Zapotec Science this week. By 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, February 1, post 100-200 words on the topic of ways that we can apply lessons from the Zapotec Science described in Zapotec Science to our own ways of thinking about food, agriculture, and life in an industrial society.
Thursday, February 2: The overlap of sciences
In preparation for today's class, you should read chapters 7 and 8 of Gonzalez's Zapotec Science. We then watch another short film, "The Teachings of the Tree People," about the late Salish scientist Bruce Miller, and then talk a little bit about how different kinds of science can serve different purposes, and you will complete a short exercise giving an example from your own experience of the ways that different kinds of science either conflict or complement one another.
Tuesday, February 7: Ignoring various sciences
For today, you should read Dee Mack Williams's chapter on Representations of Nature on the Mongolian Steppe. For the first hour, we will examine the arrogance of cosmopolitan science (as Gonzalez calls it) in dismissing other kinds of sciences, illustrated by my lecture on the clash between native and modernist ideas of Science in the corner of China where I work. For the second hour, we will demonstrate the effects of ignoring cosmopolitan science in American politics, which will form a bridge to the next unit of the course.
Wednesday, February 8: Section Science and Science Denial
Scott Pruitt, who is President Trump's appointee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, continues to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Myron Ebell, who headed Trump's transition team for the EPA, has gone further and denied that there is any evidence the world's climate is changing. Yet the science, according to almost everyone who does the science, is clear. Your assignment is to find, print out, and bring to section a piece of climate change denial. The discussion in section will be about why some people are casting doubt on science, especially in light of the critiques of science that we have carried out in this unit.
The questions for the second take-home exam will be posted today, and due at 5:00 p.m on Monday, February 13.