BMB 560 Methods of Scientific Inquiry in Biological Sciences
Spring 2007: Tues/Wed: 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. 1001 Stellar-Chance Labs
Aims of the course (1 credit) This course introduces advanced undergraduate, graduate and medical students to methodological and ethical aspects of scientific research by: a) examining the basic methodologies of experimental research, concept and hypothesis formation; and b) following the conceptual development of selected fields of biomedical sciences from their phenomenological to molecular stages with special regards to strategies in experimental design and hypothesis formation.
1. The Making of a Scientist. (1 week)
Faculty: D. Wilson & Z. Domotor
2. Methodological Basis of Scientific Inquiry. (3 weeks)
(Hypotheses in biomedical science: Interaction between experiment and theory, levels of organization and description, reductionism.)
Faculty: Z. Domotor (Department of Philosophy).
3. Conceptual Developments in Immunology (2 week)
Faculty: M. Cancro (Department of Pathology).
4. Discovery of mitochondrial respiration and phosphorylation. (2 weeks)
Faculty: D.F. Wilson (Prof. of Biochem. & Biophys.)
5. Research Methodology in Infectious Diseases (2 weeks)
Faculty: H. Rubin (Prof. of Infectious Diseases)
6. Hypothesis Testing in Population Dynamics. (1 week)
Faculty: W. Ewens (Department of Biology)
7. Research Strategies in Population Genetics. (2 weeks)
Faculty: P. Sniegovski (Department of Biology).
8. Ethical Dimensions in Scientific Research. (1 week)
Faculty: Z. Domotor & D.F. Wilson
9. Overview.
Faculty: Z. Domotor, & D.F. Wilson
Instructors: D. Wilson (Biochemistry and Biophysics), Z. Domotor (Philosophy), and guest lecturers.
Course format: Lectures introducing each topic are followed by discussions of relevant materials by the students. All lectures will include supplementary handouts.
Requirements: Students are expected to prepare a short mid-term paper as well as a final 15 page term paper with a topic chosen by the student, analyzing and/or critically evaluating the conceptual or experimental development of a specific biomedical research result. Grading will be based on course participation, contributions to class discussion, and quality of submitted term papers.
Recommended readings: Claude Bernard: An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, Peter Medawar: Advice to Young Scientists, and Kenneth F. Schaffner: Discovery and Explanation in Biology and Medicine.
This course is designed to introduce advanced undergraduate, graduate, and medical students to methodological and theoretical aspects of scientific research in biomedical disciplines. Special attention is paid to experimental methodology in biology and medicine, case studies in selected fields of biomedical sciences with focus on conceptual development and hypothesis formation, discovery, gathering evidence and theory testing, analytical and writing skills, and moral factors in biomedical research.
We start with stereotype discovery episodes in the biomedical sciences, as seen by various exponents of the field, including Claude Bernard and Peter Medawar. Here we emphasize the underlying types and phases of concept formation, scientific inference, reasoning by analogy, induction, causal and probabilistic analysis. Then we go deeper into the methodology of scientific inquiry by discussing the specific forms of hypotheses, theories, levels of organization and description, reductionism, and the distinguished subject matter and objects of explanation in biology and medicine.
In this context, we also review some of the broader issues of Popperian and Lakatosian research programs, Kuhnian paradigm shifts, serendipity, and statistical methodology in data processing.
After the overview of methodological issues, our focus shifts to critical evaluation of the development of specific notions, theses, and research programs provided by the rich history of biomedical research. These include but are not limited to: receptor specificity and self/nonself discrimination in immunology, membrane structures and membrane transport systems, electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation in cellular respiration. The conceptual development in this realm of research topics is examined within the preceding research and methodological frameworks. We also offer insights into the varied roles of individual scientists, their background and research environment of the time in shaping the ongoing creative process. In this somewhat historical approach, the topic-specific knowledge required is minimized, and the focus is always on the underlying processes by which research programs actually advance and are made uncommonly successful. The seminar will conclude with a discussion of ethical dimensions of scientific research, including the moral aspects of research goals, methods, staffing, standards of proof and evidence, dissemination of research findings and control of scientific misinformation, and allocation of credit.
This course offers an ideal methodological perspective from which students can critically analyze the assumptions and practices of science surrounding their own special interests. They will become familiar with the foundations of research, as well as learn to think and write analytically and argumentatively about the ways in which biomedical research results are achieved, and acquire pertinent skills needed to teach others.