Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Innovative Representations Of Light, Behaving As Both Particles And Waves, Among The Paintings Of Monet And Renoir, Charles Smith

Charles Kay Smith

Monet and Renoir, friends collaborating in open air about 1865, discovered that sunlight filtering through a canopy of tree leaves does not produce the splotches and dapples that studio artists conventionally represented at the time but circles of light. Sometimes the circles of light punctuating the shade are clear, separate and crisp, as though light is being propagated as particles, but if the pin-hole gaps between leaves are very close together, they will project compound or superimposed circles that look like the waves that Thomas Young saw in his double slit experiment in 1803-4. Newton’s Opticks published in 1704 had …

Human Variation In Skin Color And Race As A Social Construct, Jennifer Welborn

STEM Digital

This lesson is part of evolution unit which follows heredity and genetics

The lesson is interdisciplinary in nature in that I discuss the concept of race as a social construct and the idea that there are “black, white, red, yellow” skinned people is something that people developed. It is not based on biology. Race groupings are human-made groups.

Students first learn about mixing light and how to determine black and white from an ADI analysis. They learn that red and green = yellow, etc.

They then photograph each other’s forearms and analyze the images using ADI.

We then discuss skin …

Ethical Problems And Dilemmas In The Interaction Between Science And Media, David Resnik

Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse

Science and the media are not strange bedfellows since they both gather information, value accuracy and objectivity, and recognize their enormous social responsibilities. The public often benefits from interactions between science and the media, and these two institutions often complement each other. However, since they have different standards, goals, expertises, competencies, and funding sources, science and the media can sometimes interact in ways that produce unintended, adverse consequences for the public. Sometimes the public may become misinformed, deceived, or confused as a result of the media's coverage of science. This unfortunate effect can lead to poor policy decisions, ill-informed public …

Ethics, Physics, And Public Policy, Tina Kaarsberg

Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse

This paper discusses the ethical aspects of physicists', and the physics community's involvement in public policy. The work of individual physicists is often quite distant from any societal impact and thus public policy is not normally considered an important ethical consideration for individual physicists. However, in light of the great societal impact of physics-based technologies, the physics profession, by definition, has a major impact on public policy. In addition, most physicists in the U.S. benefited considerably from public funding in their physics education, and many continue to depend upon federal and state funding. Thus, there is a strong ethical argument …