A guest professor is teaching an honors program course next semester.
Dr. Philip M. Silverman is a retired research scientist and former program chairman of molecular and cell biology at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. He previously worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. He retired in January 2010.
Silverman will teach an honors junior-senior seminar titled “A Brief History of Science,” a play on Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.
Silverman said the history of science will include prehistory, the classical Greek thinkers, the Italian Renaissance, and the factors that mythology, religion and perception of the world have played in the creation of science and scientific theory through time.
“I can’t imagine why anybody should consider himself or herself educated in the liberal arts without a knowledge of how we have come to perceive the world. By world, I mean the world of sensory phenomena, the objects and phenomena of the natural world, how we have come to view them the way that we have,” he said.
Silverman said humanity’s way to view the world is its greatest achievement.
Silverman said the idea for this course came from teaching a seminar about creativity at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. He began thinking about whether historical scientists were creative, which caused him to think about the history of science, he said.
Silverman said he hopes students learn two ideas from the course: the unique status of humans as the only species to ask “why” and “how,” and the nature of humans to assert patterns and regularities on the world because we can’t stand chaos.
“If these students don’t walk away with anything else, I hope they will walk away with the notion that we live in a knowable world, and most important of all, we live in a world that is worth knowing, and in part, it is because it is a world that is beautiful. I think that’s an underestimated motivation for scientific exploration,” he said.
Dr. Helen Gaudin, associate dean of Petree College of Arts and Sciences and professor of biology, said she studied with Silverman at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and introduced him to Dr. Karen Youmans, director of the university honors program and associate professor of English.
Gaudin said Silverman has been interested in teaching since 1990 and is passionate about explaining science to non-scientists, which is beneficial since many scientists lack the skill.
“I have worked with many outstanding scientists, and he is exceptional in his ability to communicate science. We are fortunate to have him,” she said.
Silverman’s work as a scientific researcher and his interests in the subject make him a fit for the interdisciplinary goals of the honors program’s courses, Youmans said.
“His experience in the field coupled with his broad commitment to the liberal arts makes him ideal for this class, so one thing he’ll be bringing to the students in the class is just his vast experience as a researcher,” Youmans said.
Vladislav Izda, cell and molecular biology junior and member of the honors student council, said Silverman visited campus for an honors enrollment party and distributed copies of the course’s syllabus.
Izda said he is excited to take the class because of Silverman’s experience.
“It would be a great privilege to learn from somebody like him,” he said. “It’s what every scientist aspires to be someday.”
All honors students are required to take a junior-senior seminar as a capstone course for the honors program.
The history of science course is full, and will be taught 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays in the fall.
While honors students have primary enrollment, non-honors students interested in an honors course may request to be admitted by enrolling on a waiting list if they have a GPA of 3.5 or more.
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