BIO-8603 Philosophy of science and ethics - 6 stp

The course is open for students who meet the demands in one of the following categories:

• Category 1: People admitted to the PhD programme at UiT.
• Category 2: Participants in the Associate Professor programme that fulfil the educational requirements.
• Category 3: Doctoral students from other universities. Please attach certified documentation of your status as a PhD student (ie, stamped and signed of an authorized person).
• Category 4: People with a minimum of a Master¿s degree (or equivalent), who have not been admitted to a PhD programme. Please attach certified documentation of education (ie, stamped and signed of an authorized person).

The number of participants is limited to 40. This year, 10 sets are reserved for PhD students participating in the European Training Network project SAF21and 3 seats to PhD students participating in the NORHED  project which the faculty is coordinating. The other 27 seats will be prioritized from category 1-4 and in category 1, applicants from the BFE faculty will be given priority.

Deadline for registration is 01.12.2015.

To register for the course, please use the Application Form and send it to Ingjerd Gauslaa Nilsen (Ingjerd.nilsen@uit.no) . at Modulbygget, BFE faculty, UIT  The Arctic University of Norway

By the end of this course students will be expected to understand:

• the basic issues in the philosophy of science such as the demarcation problem, the debate among competing accounts of the scientific method, the problem of induction, and the concepts of paradigms and scientific revolutions;
• the role and place of science and technology in a modern society;
• various ethical positions and the main ethical issues relating to science.

By the end of this course students will be expected to have gained the following skills:

• the ability to communicate key philosophical and ethical concepts;
• the ability to engage in contemporary debates about the nature and role of science;
• the ability to see their own research in a wider perspective, and to critically reflect upon the basic assumptions and challenges of their research projects.

The course will be held from 1 February - 12 February 2016 (week 5 and 6, totally 6 days) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 09:15 am - 04:00 pm.

On the first Wednesday the program lasts until 7 pm with a social gathering in the Cantine area.

Teaching runs as an intensive course over two weeks with 20 hours of lectures and 12 hours of group discussions and seminars.

NB! You have to participate in at least 80 % of the teaching to be allowed to take the exam. Attendance at lectures will be registered.

The required reading consists of journal articles and book chapters, in total about 350-400 pages. Most of the literature will be made available on Fronter prior to the course start.

All students are advised to read one of the following books before the course starts:

- Samir Okasha (2002): Philosophy of science: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- James Ladyman (2002): Understanding philosophy of science. London: Routledge (chapter 1-4)