Ed Glaeser again on the Scientific Method in the Core

Now that the rubber hits the road at Harvard, Glaeser tries mightily to change the direction of the revision... from an article in the Harvard Crimson:

A thorough general education requirement on the scientific approach to society would require two courses. First, students should take a course that teaches the crafting of rigorous hypotheses. This could be a class on evolutionary theory and human nature, psychology, political theory, or even economics. The key requirement should be a focus on rigorous theory about mankind. I tend to think rigor improves with mathematics, but I am perfectly willing to accept that there are verbal substitutes.

Second, students should take a class on evidence and statistical inference. This could either be pure statistics or empirical tools taught through the lens of a particular topic. Decent citizenship of the world is incompatible with statistical ignorance. A Harvard education must train people to separate compelling evidence from froth. Statisticians do have a comparative advantage in this, but I can readily imagine great core courses taught by Florence Professor of Government Gary King or Ford Professor of the Social Sciences Robert J. Sampson teaching students empirical methods with a focus on politics or sociology. The analytical reasoning component of the proposed system includes such courses but comes up short of mandating them. While other methods of analytical reasoning like logic are important, a statistics-oriented course should be required.

The scientific method should not be an afterthought at Harvard and it should not be confined to the physical sciences. Whether Harvard students are going to be running non-governmental organizations in Africa, hedge funds in Greenwich, or even academic institutions in Cambridge, they will need to analyze situations and process data. In considering a new system of general education, the Faculty should embrace the scientific methodology that will enable students to do this effectively.

Core Revision Proposal available

The Core Committee's proposal has been sent out via email in PDF format. If you want to cut-and-paste because you really want to rewrite a paragraph or two, here is an online version. This version does not preserve all of the formatting, but is perfectly legible.

"Spock, we're only human..."

Bones McCoy of Star Trek always had a mild expletive before that, but since we're modeling civility on this blog I thought I'd leave it out. What did he mean? We have children, we teach classes, we go to movies... and putting final touches on a draft proposal just doesn't happen automatically... we're looking at end of the week...

What kind of courses enable a student to learn the Scientific Method?

The Scientific Method is a common learning goal of most core curricula around the country. Of course we want our students to understand this most important achievement of scientists. How best to ensure that understanding? Are hands-on experiments in laboratories the only way possible?

Here is a syllabus from psychology that addresses the scientific method.

A graduate course in political science at Duke... is this not the scientific method?

A UCSD grad course in social science research methods.

A hilariously over-ambitious UC Berkeley course in advanced econometric methods for undergraduates... by a great researcher, but really, could more than a handful of undergraduates succeed here?

SCU proposal out next week

We are trying to put the final touches on a proposal that will have minimal typos and maximum clarity, for distribution to faculty early next week, to then begin our next round of feedback and revision.... We look forward to your comments.