Science for Humane Survival (SfHS) is a year-long, interdisciplinary offering made up of two 3-credit courses, SfHS I and II, listed as Inter-D 125 and 126 respectively. Each course is organized topically, without prerequisites, and is open to everyone. You can take either SfHS I or II, or both, and either one first. There are 3 lecture hours and 1 discussion hour per week. In Science for Humane Survial, I try to respond to two main questions:

1. How can long-term survival of the human species in humane and ecologically stable conditions be achieved?
2. How can individuals try to survive as healthy and vigorous humane beings in contemporary industrial capitalist society (the US)?

      Among the topics I included in the past were food, energy, pollution, population, ideology, social organization, transportation, exercise, clothing, shelter, competition, and cooperation. My intention is to again focus on those topics, the understanding of which is critically important to our individual lives and to our collective lives as members of the human race.

      I want to consider the role of science in shaping our perceptions of the world. My view of science, I should make clear at the outset, is that it is a social undertaking strongly influenced by the prevailing economic, social, and political climate, a perspective I want to develop.

      My goal in this course is to encourage you to become engaged in activities directed towards humane survival--to motivate you to actually take part in responding to the major questions 1 and 2. How you become engaged will be largely up to you. I will suggest possibilities, and will tell you all the available resources of which I know, but what you choose to do need not be limited by my suggestions. This sounds pretty wide open, and to a large extent it is. Many of you will immediately want to know, How will we be tested and graded?, a concern that already says a great deal about the society in which we live.

1. a typewritten Critical Book Review of each of four books, each review to be two (2) typewritten pages in length, in the format of the Sample Critical Book Review (pp.30-31). I have many papers to read, so keep each of them to two pages.
2. a typewritten Final Critique of the Course of three (3) pages, in the format of the Sample Final Critique of the Course (pp.32-34). You must provide all the information called for, and respond to all the questions asked.

      My evaluation will be based only on the four Critical Book Reviews and the Final Critique of the Course.

      I will return your critical book reviews and your final critique of the course as soon as I have read them.

For the Spring 1997 term, the schedule is as follows:

1. 1st critical book review due Tues Feb 18.
2. 2nd critical book review due Tues Mar 25.
3. 3rd critical book review due Tues Apr 15.
4. 4th critical book review due Tues May 6.
5. Final critique of course due Tues May 13.

      Each of the five papers should be submitted at the lecture class meeting on the given date.

      I believe that all coercion is harmful, and have tried to structure this course to reduce it to a minimum. But I do require reading and writing (though I value non-literate cultures that rely on and maintain oral traditions). As is apparent from the preceding section, Requirements..., there are no written examinations. This feature of the course has been criticized by various faculty, and not only arch-reactionary ones, but also by liberal faculty and even some who claim to be radical. Underlying the criticism is the belief that students will not study unless forced to; if you don't study you won't learn; if you don't learn then the course is without value; so you must be forced to study

      My view is that often the kind of "learning" a student is forced to do in preparing for exams is not valuable (except in the trivial sense that it enables her/him to pass or get a good grade in a course). Rather than to really teach knowledge, the actual purpose is more likely to be that of conditioning the student to accept both coercion and the belief that, though personally unpleasant, it is socially necessary to submit to the dictates of 'higher authorities.'

      For example, pre-medical students are forced to pass physics courses in which they must learn to apply Newton's Second Law of motion, F=ma. This 'knowledge' is of no use in the practice of medicine. The rationalization offered--which I believe is fatuous (and banal)--is that "we are teaching the students to think."

      If the goal of a course is to teach a skill, then a test may be a useful indicator, but if the goal is to engage the student in critical thinking (and acting), as is the case here, then preparation for an exam, which necessarily narrows the focus of concern, may be, and I believe is, destructive of the alleged purpose of the course.

      It is one of my beliefs, as an anarchist, that people are not "naturally bad, lazy, greedy, or dishonest", and that in reasonable circumstances we don't have to be forced to act decently and energetically. I try, in accord with my faith in people, to make the course so interesting that you will want to be fully engaged, and will benefit from it with only minimal coercion by me.

      Of course, I'm also realistic enough to know that some of you will 'take advantage' of the situation and make only a minimal effort (as in all courses). Still, I don't want to be an intellectual policeman. My role in this course ought rather be to inspire you to become involved in helping make the world a good place for everyone. Critical thinking is the key, I believe, to a better world.

      Books. Reading good books is essential for really knowing the world. I prepared an extensively annotated bibliography with almost 70 starred (*) titles from which you should choose the 4 books you read for this course. I have not asked the campus bookstore to order any books for this course.

      Borrowing. Libraries are the best source for all the books you are not ready to buy, and of course for out-of-print books.

      Buying. The cheapest source I know of--and also the best radical bookstore in the Boston area--is
The Lucy Parsons Center --formerly the Red Book Store--at
549 Columbus Ave
Boston MA 02118-1125
      tel: 617/267-6272
      e-mail: lpc-c@lists.tao.ca
      Hours are 12-9 Mon-Sat and 12-6 on Sunday.
It's a little over one block east of Massachusetts Ave. You'll get 20% off list price on all book purchases there during the semester. To get the discount you need a stamped bookmarker, which I will sign and give you at my office, to identify you as a student in this course. [Note added April 2, 2001: I'm no longer teaching. So far as I know, this arrangement has lapsed.] The store is staffed entirely by volunteers, all unpaid. It's a collectively-run bookstore with ambition to become a community center. Currently there's a growing stock of diverse, non-sectarian radical titles, with sections on women's issues, children's literature, Spanish-language books, American Indian books, African-American books, gay and lesbian books, anarchist books, and left classics. There's also a phenomenally rich, diverse offering of periodical literature.

      Wordsworth, at Harvard Square in Cambridge, is a commercial bookstore which gives a 10% discount on all paperbacks. Its stock is quite large.

      This handout is the first of a substantial number I plan to distribute during the semester. Usually I bring each handout to the lecture class for distribution on only a single day. Following the class, I then put copies of that day's handout(s) on bookshelves in the Physics Department office, Room S-3-105.

      The bookshelves are located to the right of the mailboxes. Copies of this first handout will be in the slot numbered 1, and subsequent handouts will follow, in the order in which I distribute them. Please keep each handout until the end of the term, and don't take duplicates.

      Information about a variety of groups, all nongovernmental and some of them local grassroots groups, is available in files at the reserve desk. In addition to material on organizations, there are some books and listings of titles of periodical publications, individuals, publishers, and distributors. To see an up-to-date listing ask one of the librarians at the desk, or type into a console at the desk either co intrd 125 or in salzman.

      I have been gradually transferring the files from my office to the library since late in the summer of 1993. In addition, the files contain some books and periodicals, and I am planning to obtain copies of some documentary video tapes that you will be able to check out for home viewing or listening.