Tues || 8.29: In-class meeting
In what ways do past and present images portray the scientist as "other"? What's at stake?
□ What does being a “science person”/“not a science person” mean? The Scientific Mind vs. The Public Mind: Are You Smart Enough to Wear a Lab coat?
□ 2017 total solar eclipse event discussion

week 2 reading

□  week 2/3 slideset

□  Padua, Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, pp. 215-319 and then on to 2dgoggles.com to look around.
   [note: we are reading this “out of order for a reason which we’ll talk about in class]

□ choose one of the three choices below to look at, and fill out the worksheet to bring to class next Tues

• snopes.com for the thread under the category of "fact check" +  "science"
           http://www.snopes.com/?s=fact+check%3A+science

• “Mythbusters" at TV Tropes http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/Mythbusters

•  input “science memes" into a search engine (or, "science memes" + "neil degrasse tyson" or
    "science memes" + "bill nye" or "science memes" + "sheldon cooper")

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online lab session assignments

Online assignment #2: The Scientist as Superhero, Benjamin Franklin edition
~ Upload a tackk blog post by 10 p.m. on Fri. 9/1 ~

For your blog post you will view:

□ “Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky”(1819) LINK
[Note: you can click on the picture to enlarge it] www.benfranklin300.org/frankliniana/result.php?id=14&sec=1

. . . and then you will post your comments:

In your post, use the analysis next to the painting as your launching point, and then expand on it.

For example, what else do you see in the picture that helps to give it its atmosphere? What aspects of the painting relate to the scientist images that we looked at last week (in-class and in the readings and web links)?

What responses do you suppose a viewer in 1819 was meant to have about Franklin? About scientists? About scientific knowledge? How might responses vary according to whether the viewer was an American, or French or British (both nations that knew Franklin well, and also had impressive scientific achievements)?

To what extent to you think that this image of Franklin would match images an artist might produce today -- if the Physics department, say, commissioned portraits of famous researchers in physics for their lobby?

These are just examples of using specific details to generate lines of analysis to consider, and for generating hypotheses about what cultural connections might exist -- you are welcome to work from these, or from your own questions, or a mix of the two. Your post should be in the vicinity of 300-350 words.

Tags: drpandora@ou 2133fall17 franklin1816