SY2028:03
Risk and Controversy in Science and Technology
Townsville
HECS Band 1
26 hours lectures, 12 hours tutorials. Semester 2.
Staff: Professor S Crook.
As the pace of scientific and technical change accelerates and has an ever more significant impact on our lives, so too are science and technology more and more embroiled in public controversies. Examples include controversies over the safety of genetically modified food, the causes and consequences of global warming, the ethical propriety of new medical technologies and procedures, or the safety of mobile phones. The subject shows that such controversies are inevitable and linked to the fundamental dynamics of the ‘risk society’ we now inhabit. The following topics are discussed. Risk society: reliance on ‘expert systems’, the overload of risk information, the politics of risk. Public understandings of science and technology: deficit models and panics about public ignorance, the ‘expert’ vs ‘lay’ distinction, alternative models. Science and technology in the media: upbeat and downbeat coverage, the problem of simplification. Understanding hostility to science and technology: cultural dimensions of risk-anxieties, origins and types of ‘anti-science’. Types and dynamics of environmental controversies: the concerns of activists and publics, the significance of contested expertise, paths to resolutions. Living with risk and controversy: the ‘normality’ of controversy, coping with the eroded authority of experts, science and technology in the wider culture.
Learning Objectives:
- understand the ways in which ‘risk societies’ generate controversies about science and technology;
- identify and assess the factors that shape public attitudes towards science and technology;
- understand the dynamics of environmental controversies and the changing role of expertise;
- apply the knowledge acquired in the subject to specific current or recent scientific and/or technical controversies;
- develop the following generic skills: the ability to think critically, to analyse and evaluate claims, evidence and arguments and to reason and deploy evidence clearly and logically; the ability to adapt knowledge to new situations; the ability to speak and write logically, clearly and creatively; the ability to reflect on and evaluate learning processes and products; the ability to learn independently and in a self-directed manner; professional, community and environmental responsibility.
Assessment by tutorial work (20%); assignment (2000 words) (30%); final examination (50%).