due: 6 p.m., Thursday, 11 December in Mood 216 [along with the poster and the accompanying, 3-page explanatory paper]
See the syllabus “policies” section for information about late assignments.

grading information: This paper is worth 10% of your grade. 

further instructions:

• See the syllabus “assignments” section for important information about what constitutes a good paper and what materials and services you may use when writing your essay.
  

• Write a 3-page paper answering the question that entitles the unit we have just finished. (The question is reproduced at the top of the page.) If you must, you may write up to four pages, but your essay should be tightly argued. You may not write less than 3 pages.

• Use 12-point Times New Roman, one-inch margins, and double-spacing. Proofread your paper carefully before turning it in, as it is very difficult to evaluate the content of your essay when it’s shrouded in grammatical and spelling errors.

• As noted in the syllabus, I encourage you to take your essay to the Debby Ellis Writing Center—just realize that the consultants there will discuss your writing with you; they are not grammar and spelling checkers.

• Your essay should have a clearly stated and supportable thesis that appears toward the beginning of the paper. Do not try to address every aspect of the question. Rather, in your introduction, define one aspect of this question you want to discuss, and state a clear thesis (main argument) within that specific framework.

• You should include a conclusion that makes clear how the particular arguments and evidence in the body of the paper ultimately led you to believe your paper’s thesis to be true.

• Back up your arguments frequently with specific evidence, and always cite that evidence appropriately.

• Above all, make this material your own. What good is knowledge if you don’t make it yours? In other words, don’t simply parrot back to me what our authors say, or what I’ve said in class (though of course you should expend some effort in your paper making clear what their arguments are). Your essay should demonstrate that you have thought through these arguments yourself, and have come up with your own educated views on them. In short, your paper should be neither regurgitation of the course texts nor pure speculation. It should reflect your informed views based on a careful reading of those texts.

• What I am really asking in this question, is this: How did the sciences (and particularly physics, since we have focused on that science in this unit) become entangled in the following modernist dichotomy: on the one hand, a massive trust and faith in scientists as an expert class; and, on the other hand, a massive distrust in and fear of scientists as mad, power-hungry, and destructive? In other words, the 20th-century modern condition entailed both a belief in the power of expertise (and particularly scientific expertise) and a fear that such experts in their zeal might expose the darker, even amoral, underbelly that has always lurked under and haunted human nature. How did scientists become entangled in that dichotomy in the first place, and what happened to them once they did?

• Some sub-questions you might want to address (by no means should you try to tackle all of these in one paper!!): How did the physical sciences become associated with such overwhelming hope and despair in the twentieth century in the first place (e.g., think about World War I, Einstein’s theories, early reactions to Einstein in the U.S.)? What were the ramifications of physicists’ participation in the war, and especially the construction of nuclear weapons?

• If you are trying to find a way to get started on answering some of the above questions, you might consider the following passage from Spencer Weart’s Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1988): 

“A sociologist [Alice Kimball Smith] who studied congressional hearings on nuclear energy concluded that even senators looked upon atomic scientists in much the way that primitive groups looked upon their shamans, as beings ‘in touch with a supernatural world of mysterious and awesome forces whose terrible power they alone could control.’”  (112).

How had this happened – how did the public come to believe that scientists had such terrible power?

• Remember to draw upon all available information. Do not try to cite every single text from this unit, but you must make at least one reference to a primary source and draw together insights from multiple texts to support your argument.

• Take another look at the comments I handed back with the fourth unit paper. Read over not only the specific comments I made on your paper, but also the general tips I handed out.