1.1 Introduction and When Is Science Relevant

Learning Goals

[Link to PlayPosit]

[Link to instructional video]

More details: [link to topic on SSS website]

After this lesson, students should

1. Recognize the need to distinguish facts from values in political and everyday decision-making.
2. Understand that scientific expertise has utility for political decision-making.

3. Realize that social and behavioral aspects of the world can be approached scientifically and, therefore, have relevant experts.

Definitions

• Facts

  Objectively true claims about reality. Everything that is the case. What is, descriptively, including spatial relations, causal relations, attributes of objects, etc.

• Values

  What is of value, important, of worth. Oughts, shoulds, etcs.

• Democracy

  A system of government wherein a society’s citizens all have input into policies.

• Epistocracy

  A system of government wherein a particular subset of a society—privileged by their education or other markers of expertise—decides policies.

Examples

• [Cass Sunstein and his book Nudge.]

Common Misconceptions

• Mistaken quote

  Explanation.

Context

[Explanation of how the current topic into the larger context of the course by explaining how the previous topic(s) relate to the current topic and leaving cliffhangers for future topics where relevant throughout the lesson]

Before

X.X Lesson Name

Explanation.

• Itemized explanation.

After

X.X Lesson Name

Explanation.

• Itemized explanation.

Recommended Outline

Before Class

• [Any essential logistical things that need to be done for this class]
• Prepare a seating chart.
• Review PlayPosit and discussion questions and ask faculty, Gabriel, or Emlen any questions you have.
• (Optional) Prepare a presentation.

During Class

• (20 min) #Ice Breakers
• (10 min) #Review of Class Structure
• (10 min) #Discussion of Utopia
• (5 min) #Brief Topic Overview
• (30 min) #Discussion of Democracy vs. Epistocracy
• (5 min) Collect questions for plenary.

After Class

• [Any essential logistical things that need to be done as followup for this class]
• Collect answers from notetakers for the forum / plenary.

Lesson Content

Ice Breakers

The purpose of this activity is to encourage students to turn their cameras on, get comfortable speaking with each other, and start to build a sense of camaraderie and community. The first ice breaker can be done in the whole class, and then one in small groups. You can switch out for different ice breakers if you have one you prefer.

Instructions

1. (10 min) Ice breaker for class: Name, major, one interesting thing you learned or experienced recently.
2. (10 min) Small groups
   1. Ice breaker: Two truths and a lie
   2. Choose roles for the first two weeks: spokesperson, notetaker, jester

Review of Class Structure

GSI will quickly review the structure of the class, encourage students to read the syllabus, and answer any questions. This is in the syllabus, so this should be a quick review and encouraging students to watch PlayPosits before section and look at the syllabus. Students should be reassured that, although there’s a lot of class time and a complex structure, there is not a ton of work outside of class, there will be many opportunities for questions and review, and most students who attend regularly and pay attention do well in this class. Emphasize participation as an essential part of learning this content and the importance of the class community, even when it’s online. And make sure to leave some time for questions!

Structure of Course

• Two topics per week
• For each topic, you will:
  • Watch a PlayPosit video lecture and answer the embedded questions (10-45 minutes), due 6 pm the night before section.
  • Attend a 90-minute section with your GSI in which you will discuss and practice applying the ideas from the lecture (Tuesdays and Thursdays).
  • Attend a 50-minute plenary session from 10 to 11 on Wednesdays and 11 to 12 on Fridays. In these, faculty will address student questions, dialogue with each other on the topic, and emphasize the most important takeaways of the topic.
    • Quizzes will be from 11 to 11:30 every other week on Wednesdays.
    • The time after the lesson/quiz ends to 12 on Wednesdays will be for faculty office hours and free discussion between the faculty and students.
• As noted above, there will be a short quiz every other week. In these, you will be asked to apply topics to novel contexts with multiple choice and short response questions. There's a total of 6 quizzes. Your worst two quiz grades are dropped.
• Because participation is so important, attendance contributes to your grade. You get four freebie no-questions-asked absences without losing any credit. And if you email your GSI in advance with a good reason for an absence, we will will try to get you a recording of the session(s) you missed.
• There will be two course projects:
  • A short essay analyzing the use of one or two course concepts in a current news or opinion article.
  • A final poster or brief presentation in which you will apply give course concepts to a question of your choice at the intersection of science and society.

Discussion of Utopia

This is a brief discussion getting students starting to think about how society is and how it might be better. You can tease the students about their utopian thinking. (Can they imagine something even better? Conversely, is it realistic?)

Instructions

1. Ask students: “Imagine the world you would love to see us reach 50 years from now. In what ways would it look different from the present? Everyone write a sentence or two in the chat but wait to hit return until the instructor’s signal.” (This is called a Waterfall: This way everyone writes without being biased by others’ responses).
2. Ask a few students to expand on their written response from the chat, addressing: “For those things that you described, how much would achieving them depend on experts vs. how much would it depend on shifts in values/priorities?” Did you see any utopian ideas in the chat that surprised you?
3. Zoom Poll: To achieve your ideal world, is what’s needed primarily a change in knowledge or a change in values?
   1. Waterfall: If you said knowledge, what kinds of experts would you need to work towards your goal?
   2. Waterfall: If you said values, do you think experts or knowledge would also be needed? If so, what kinds?

Brief Topic Overview

The purpose of this activity is to review the basic ideas of democracy vs. epistocracy, facts vs. values (as covered in the PlayPosit, but since it’s the first day we can’t expect all students to have watched it), in order to set them up for a productive discussion in Activity #5.

Instructions

1. Have slides ready (all GSIs can use one set of slides)
2. GSI presents:
   1. Facts vs. values. Give a few examples.
   2. Democracy as government by the people, typically representative democracy, vs. epistocracy as government by the experts (also called technocracy).

Discussion of Democracy vs. Epistocracy

[Brief description of and motivation for the activity]

Instructions

1. Zoom Poll: Which would you prefer to live in, a democracy (government by the people) or an epistocracy/technocracy (government by experts)?
   1. Democracy
   2. Epistocracy
2. (15 min) Small group discussion
   1. Why did you give the answer you did to the Zoom poll? What are the benefits of your choice? What are the costs/limitations of your choice?
   2. In what ways is the current U.S. political system epistocratic and in what ways democratic? What aspects have been successful? What are limitations/problems/failures of our system? In what ways is the U.S. governed by people who are neither representative nor experts?
   3. Optional: What about other countries with which you're familiar?
3. (7 min) Discuss the questions above in the whole class. GSI should try to make sure as many as possible of the following points are mentioned:

4. (8 min) Return students to small groups to discuss the following questions: If you were to create a government from scratch, in to what extent and in what ways would it be epistocratic and democratic?
   1. How would your system come to a decision on a new healthcare plan?
   2. How would you deal with disagreement about facts? How would you deal with disagreement about values? Why are they different?
   3. How might your system go awry? How would you go about minimizing such problems?
   4. How different is your system of government from the one we have? How could we get there from where we are now?
   5. How can expertise on psychology, decision-making, and society help us make better decisions as a society?

Introduction to Ed Discussion

The purpose of this activity is introduce students to the Ed Discussion forums, to get them to set up accounts, and to have them start using it right away to share and react to course topics.

Instructions

1. Give students link to our Ed Forum, have them sign up.
2. Have students go into their section's thread on Science in a Democracy and post:
   1. One lingering question, observation, worry, or reason for optimism that they might like to hear the faculty talk about in the plenary.
   2. One repsonse to a classmate's post.

Changemaker

Consider the Ladder of Inference. Why is it integral to distinguish between fact and value? Where do both of these fall on the Ladder and what role does the reflexive loop have? If you need a quick refresher on the Ladder of Inference, go here: https://thesystemsthinker.com/the-ladder-of-inference/