History 323
general education
New general education requirements and new requirements for each major go into place for students entering in Aug. 2005. Most of these reduce the number of hours required to 120-122. Students already here have the option of switching (and some may have to switch if they change majors). You will have to check with your department for new major requirements. I am coordinating the
Science and Technology in Society general education requirement.
are we winning the war against disease?
A story about the dangers of a dangerous flu epidemic.
dependence on technology
Monday the phones were out in Hardin and on substanial parts of the campus. Today the authentication server was down when class started so I couldn't log in. When my kids were small they couldn't make sense of what was happening if the electricity went out. We are dependent on technology.
I actually rather enjoy teaching now and then without the technology, just to prove that I can and also because it makes me think about the material in a different way, having to keep the organization in my head instead of using the notes.
But there are a lot of areas in which we a hopelessly dependent on technology, and as those technological systems get more and more complex it becomes impossible for them to be 100% reliable. The authentication server had a lot of problems last fall because the university computer system had trouble handling so many new freshmen with laptops.
is technology good or bad?
One
student wrote:
It’s not good or bad by itself, it’s the people who use it that make it one or the other.
That is a common approach to the moral issues raised by technology, and in one sense it is obviously true. But if you go a level deeper, doesn't some technology have more potential for harm than other technology? Certainly for most technologies we now use the benefits outweigh the harm. But can you think of possible technologies where the harm would outweigh the benefits?
reading blogs
I don't have time to make all the comments I would like, but I've written comments on a few blog entries. However, I feel the need to correct something I said in class (thanks to
Tony): the statue on the top of Philadelphia's city hall is William Penn, not Benjamin Franklin. One sidelight of the story is
the curse of William Penn: Philadelphia has not won a major sports championship since the decision to build buildings taller than William Penn's hat.
technology push
Solving a problem you didn't know you had: try either
this or
this.
blog thoughts
If you are running out of things to blog about try reading other people's blogs (click on the links to the right) or here are some ideas.
- The Europeans now have a better rocket for launching large satellites than the U.S. Meanwhile the U.S. space budget does not including money to continue operation of the Hubble Space Telescope.
- Is a well-engineered bridge also going to be beautiful to look at? David Billington has made that argument. In talking about skyscrapers and in my notes on the Brooklyn Bridge I touched on the change in architectural styles in the early 20th century to an approach with much more emphasis on the functional.
- How was Edison's process of developing new technologies different from modern-day technological innovation?
- Is technology universal, or are there different national styles? Is the best technology for one country necessarily the best for another country?
history
It isn't fair to pick on someone's first post when they are just trying out the system (so I won't provide a link), but one student wrote:
The progression of technology in America is quite astounding considering that there were no major technological advances from the age of the Greeks until the Colonial Age in the American Colonies. The ingenuity of these settlers came out of necessity to ensure their survival in the Colonies.
One of the key new ways of thinking you need to learn in a college history course is to get past easy generalizations. The ancient Greeks weren't particularly innovative in technology, though they made important contributions in mathematics. There were many crucial technological innovations before the 1600s, particularly agriculture and water power in the middle ages, the printing press, and the age of exploration.
The United States was not a leader in most technologies until after World War I. When that war broke out the U.S. was way behind Europe in aviation, even though it had been invented in the United States, and in many areas of chemical engineering. Since this course focuses on American technology I will stress the areas in which the U.S. made important contributions (eg. steamboats, American system of manufacture) but it is important to remember that American technology was on average inferior to that in Europe until at least the Civil War.
The argument can be made that the colonists needed technological ingenuity and that started a tradition of technological progress in the United States. But that was in the majority of cases not radical new technologies but improvements on technologies invented elsewhere. Even the automobile was invented in Germany. I know it is hard to imagine the United States as a third world country, but try to keep that in your mind, because then how the U.S. came to technological leadership becomes a much more interesting question.
a question to think about
SR asks the question:
Do you believe that Science Fiction can become Science Fact?
I think science fiction authors do set out to shape the future, as much by showing us the consequences of a technology that we might want to avoid as by showing us what we might want. Attempts to simply predict haven't been very successful--one interesting example is the movie
2001: A Space Odyssey. The people making that movie sought to make the views of daily life an accurate prediction for 2001. We are far from having routine travel in space and a moon base.
the relationship between science and technology
On this topic see thoughts from
Kirby,
Tony, and
Daniel.
A friend who teaches at an engineering college in Massachusetts wrote to me on this topic:
The example I use is the talented auto mechanic who can fix anything wrong with any car. I make the point that one of my daughter's teachers xx years ago praised such a person for having a deep knowledge of physics. I ask my students -- many of whom are struggling with freshman physics -- if they agree. Most do not.
If you agree, in what sense do you mean it?
