"The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied and systemanc application of known laws of nature, causes the unknown to reveal themselves. Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is more wanted is method. Only let something be determined and fixed around which observanon may rally."

...from "Friday," H. D. Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)

 

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Much of the writing in this issue of Synthesis comes out of my general education course, "Intellectual and Cultural Perspectives on Science" (ICPS) and thus some thoughts about the class are in order. I came to Wesleyan in 1986 after many years at Hunter College in New York City, primarily to teach physical chemistry and continue research with my group on the structure and molecular dynamics of DNA and proteins. I had in mind also working on general education and developing a course of some kind, but I had no idea of the specifics.

My ideas on this remained relatively unshaped until later that year when I went back to reading Thoreau, including Walden, but also some of his lesser known work and journals. Thoreau considered himself a scientist &emdash;a naturalist to be more precise&emdash;and took lots of data for his personal use on things like the coming of seasons and the flowering of plants. He even collected specimens for Louts Agassiz at Harvard until they had differences over some new ideas by Darwin. Thoreau also used a quintessential "scientific" approach to the craft of writing. "Data," based on observations, his extensive reading, and conversations with Emerson and others, were collected into his famous journals. The journals were then culled for their best ideas, which were written and rewritten into essays. The "experiment" involved here was in a sense being carried out on himself, and the wanderings and wonderings of his psyche. All this was brought into a deeper perspective for me by Robert Richardson's fine intellectual biography, Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind (University of California Press).

Somewhere along the way it occurred to me to do a course on a sort of Thoreau model, incorporating some provocative readings on or about science, scientists and the practice of science, together with extensive classroom discussion, journaling and some sizable writing projects. This all came into focus in January 1988. I set up ICPS and ran it in prototype during the spring term of that year with a class of twelve. I gave it again last year, Spring '89, for some thirty students. The writing requirement in the course is not for the faint-hearted &emdash;a short autobiography, one short paper (an interview or profile of an imaginary scientist) and three longer papers of 10-15 pages, which may be on any subject and in any genre, as long as the idea is based on something emanating from the class. The course otherwise has an informal quality to it&emdash;predominately discussion rather than lectures&emdash;and we sometimes end up in strange places. Often I have had other Wesleyan faculty or visitors to the university come to class and we have an impromptu, unstructured discussion with them for an hour and a half or so. These sessions are always for some reason or other quite memorable, both in the impression the visitors make on the students and vice versa. We are pleased to include here some of their writing, represented by contributions from Bob Richardson and from the science writer K. C. Cole who is currently a visiting faculty member at Wesleyan.

The purpose of ICPS as a general education course at Wesleyan is to provide a forum for the creative exploration of diverse perspectives on science. The comparison and contrast of the practice of science with creative work in other areas, as well as the parallels and developing connections between science and the humanities and arts are discussed. In a larger sense, the course provides an experience of what the process of an intellectual life is like, whatever the endeavor: readings, ideas, art, experience, and discussion transformed into individual creative products, and somehow fed back into the social and intellectual process of the group.

Talk on all this is easy, but creative productivity is expensive both in time and the intellectual and emotional currency of those involved. Ultimately, it's the students in this class who make it happen, and they do it well. My special thanks to Schuyler Kirkland-Allen, Julie Baher, Justin Bass, Nicole Bish, Anne Cadigan, Whitney Cowing, Gayatri Gopinath, Silvia Maleville, David Molnar, Robin Poujade, Cornelia Reiner, Daniel Schwarzlander, Brooke Tippens, Tina van der Veer and Julie Wilgoren from the first class, and Amy Andrews, Marni Beck, Joanna Brainard, Benjamin Brand, Lisa Carrico, Lucy Cross, Richard Desper, Lexi Funk, Kara Gilmour, Adam Hahn, Jesse Hartman, Jeremy Hornik, Jacky Jennings, Tony Karajanis, Alexander Kudera, Jocelyn Leventhal, John Manville, Holly Milton, Sophia Nardin, Sara Newmann, Michael Ostrowski, Wendy Owen , Alison Pratt, Rebeca Rumayor- Alfonso, Daryl Spencer, Rose Tomey, Natasha Vacroux, Luke Wood and Nicole Zell from the second. A special mention of thanks also goes out to Annie Dillard, Burton Hatheway, Lucile Blanchard, the morte subite academy of science, and the Nairobi Trio.

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 D.L. Beveridge  
Middletown, CT 
August 29, 1989