Instructors: Cassandra Extavour

Lectures: Fridays 15:00 – 17:00

Course Description: Each of the four Method and Logic courses are devoted to understanding the epistemic strategies used in four distinct areas of biology (A: Principles of spatiotemporal cell organization; B: Neuroscience and behavior; C: Discovery of cell mechanism; D: Evo/Devo). All four courses are based on critical evaluation of the primary scientific literature through weekly discussions of two papers, which could be either classic or modern. Students are expected to understand the following aspects of each paper: What came before and what came (or is likely to come) after? What is the key question that the authors are asking? What methodologies are used and what are their strengths and pitfalls for the question being addressed? Are the findings communicated clearly and effectively? And, most importantly, do the authors rigorously demonstrate their main conclusions or are other interpretations possible? In addition to in-class discussion of research papers, requiring robust contributions from all members of the class, each student will be individually graded on a writing assignment and an oral presentation focused on an open research question.

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