This is a philosophy of science course focused on questions concerning the nature of scientific evidence and what we learn when scientists investigate disease. The course is for Philosophy majors, biological sciences majors, and anyone else, and we’ll cover relevant philosophical and scientific background so that students who are new to philosophy or biology can still enjoy the course. Though it’s not a bioethics course, some of the issues we discuss are ones that matter for bioethics and public policy, so students interested in bioethics should find the course valuable. We’ll cover a number of topics, but they will be organized around two broad, overlapping areas:
Questions concerning knowledge, evidence, and reality that arise in the study of cancer and other diseases.
Questions concerning how scientific modeling affects evidence and decision making about disease. This includes topics on roles of animals In science, on how models influence our knowledge of the spread of disease in pandemics, and other topics.