CAREER: The Formation and Support of Chemists and Chemistry

SES 99-84106 - Lawrence M.普林西比（约翰霍普金斯大学）“职业生涯：化学家和化学的形成和支持“这个职业生涯奖支持首席研究员在教学和研究方面的综合跨学科科学-人文职业的发展，特别是在化学及其历史发展方面。它的教学和研究部分都涉及化学的性质，方法，实践和学科身份以及化学家的形成等基本问题。它的研究部分集中在18世纪早期的巴黎科学院及其成员，这是化学在关键时期的主要场所。尽管对这个时代的兴趣越来越大，但在学院仍然没有对化学和化学家的形成，工作，教学和相互作用进行全面，综合的研究。科学院的首席化学家威廉霍姆伯格为该项目提供了一个组织主题。该项目强调霍姆伯格的想法和他与老师，学生和同事的互动。霍姆伯格是通过与重要人物（包括冯·格里克、勒默里、波义耳和昆克尔）学徒十年而成为化学家的。他写了一本完全脱离17世纪化学课程传统的教科书，而是以方法论和化学的新身份为中心。作为研究人员和教师，霍姆伯格在塑造新兴的“新化学”方面发挥了关键作用，促进了其重要性，并在后来包括麦格、福罗伊和拉瓦锡在内的机构中（重新）形成了化学的学科身份和文化。初步的研究还表明，霍姆伯格对“旧化学”--嬗变化学--的奉献迄今为止还不为人所知，这种奉献可以追溯到波义耳、贝歇尔和其他人。这一特征有望进一步阐明炼金术/化学的连续性这一令人烦恼的问题。该项目展示了化学史之外的关键问题，包括仪器的作用（学院的燃烧透镜）、科学争议、赞助和宫廷文化、实验主义和“隐性”知识。该项目的教学部分继续强调化学的性质和方法，将这些科目作为有机化学入门的新重点。目前的有机化学教学没有反映科学作为人类活动的现实或过程，也没有教化学家如何工作和思考世界。方法论和独立思考被死记硬背和独裁主义所取代。利用历史和科学哲学的见解，PI计划从根本上沿着科学方法论的主干重新定位课程，以便让学生更准确地理解“化学的本质”。“我们的目标是培养能够科学地思考化学问题的学生，而不仅仅是列举事实。内容材料（例如反应、机制等）将被显示为科学探究的发展-与使用19世纪分类法的标准演示文稿截然不同。这门课具有广泛的影响力，影响了超过50%的约翰霍普金斯学生和全国所有医学预科和许多工程专业的学生，因此是一个关键的地方，以提供更真实和更深入的理解科学，因为它是实践。该项目的特点是一名化学教育专家的参与，为研究生开设培训班以提高教学技能，并创建一个网站，作为其他地方使用的教科书的辅助工具。本文还提出了一种新的科学史课程--科学形成（运用研究部分的成果）。

SES 99-84106 - Lawrence M. Principe (Johns Hopkins University) "CAREER: The Formation and Support of Chemists and Chemistry"This CAREER Award supports the development of the Principal Investigator's integrated interdisciplinary science-humanities career in both teach-ing and research, specifically in regard to chemistry and its historical development. Its teaching and research components both relate to fundamental questions about the nature, methodology, practice, and disciplinary identity of chemistry and the formation of chemists.Its research component focuses on the early 18th-century Paris Academy and its members, a chief locus for chemistry during a critical period. In spite of growing interest in the era, there remains no com-prehensive, integrated study of chemistry and chemists at the Academy-their formation, work, teaching, and interactions. Wilhelm Homberg, the Academy's chief chemist provides an organizing theme for the project. The project emphasizes Homberg's ideas and his interactions with his teachers, students, and colleagues. Homberg was formed as a chemist by a decade of apprenticeship with important figures (including von Guericke, Lemery, Boyle, and Kunckel). He wrote a text-book that broke completely from the 17th-century cours de chymie tradition, centering instead on methodology and a new identity for chemistry. As researcher and teacher, Homberg played a key role in shaping the emergent "new chemistry," promoting its importance and (re)forming the disciplinary identity and culture of chemistry at the institution that later included Macquer, Four-croy, and Lavoisier. Preliminary study also indicates Homberg's hitherto unknown devotion to the "old chemistry"-transmutational alchemy-traceable to Boyle, Becher, and others. This feature promises to shed further light on the vexed question of the continuity of alchemy/chemistry. The project showcases critical issues beyond the history of chemistry, including the role of instruments (the Academy's burning lens), disputes in science, patronage and court culture, experimentalism and "tacit" knowledge.The project's teaching component continues the emphasis on the nature and methodology of chemistry by using these subjects as a newly focus for introductory organic chemistry. Current teaching of organic chemistry does not reflect the reality or process of science as a human activity, and fails to teach how chemists work and think about the world. Methodology and independent thought are replaced with rote memorization and authoritarian claims. Using the insights of history and philosophy of science, the PI plans to reorient the course radically along a backbone of scientific methodology in order to give students a more accurate understanding of the "nature of chemistry." The goal is to produce students who can think scientifically about chemical issues rather than only regurgitate facts. Content materials (e.g. reactions, mechanisms, etc.) are to be shown as developments from scientific inquiry-a sharp departure from standard presentations using 19th-century taxonomies. This class has wide influence, affecting more than 50 percent of Johns Hopkins students and all pre-med and many engineering students nationwide, and so is a key place to provide a more authentic and deeper understanding of science as it is practiced. This project features the participation of a chemical education specialist, training classes for graduate students to improve teaching skills, and the creation of a Website as an adjunct to textbooks used elsewhere. A new history of science class on scientific formation (deploying results of the research section) is also proposed.