Recently, students in Astronomy 490, a course for upper-level undergraduates, sat for an examination that was curiously open-ended and speculative, by Cornell standards: They had to predict humanity's future in 1,000, 10,000, 1 million and even 1 billion years. Their answers were to a series of questions asked by Yervant Terzian, the astronomy department's venerable former long-time chair and the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences.
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| Professor Yervant Terzian, left, leads Astronomy 490, Crititical Thinking, in 105 Space Sciences, with students from several Cornell colleges, including from left, Matt Dombrow, Agriculture and Life Sciences; Kim Smith, Engineering; Anish Aggarwal, Engineering; Jason Neuswanger, Arts and Sciences; Eli Schwartzberg, Hotel Administration; and Eathen Gums IV, Architecture, Art and Planning. Robert Barker/University Photography |
There were questions about the length of human life in the future, the present "goal" of humanity and whether humans will contact extraterrestrials. The answers, which had to be clearly rationalized and critically explained, provided unique insights into student thinking.
Most students suggested that the search for happiness will continue to dominate as humanity's goal 1 billion years into the future. Some noted that humans will have evolved into something different even a million years from now, making it difficult to speculate on many of the questions, such as humanity's future "goal" and the human life span.
If the course content sounds familiar, indeed it is. This is the seminar on "critical thinking" originated in the fall of 1994 by Carl Sagan, the great science popularizer and the first David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences at Cornell.
Sagan taught the course until the year of his death in 1996, when Terzian took over the class during Sagan's final hospitalization. Then, out of respect to its originator, the class was discontinued.
Last year Terzian stepped down after 20 years as astronomy department chair, and this semester he brought the course back. He will teach it again next fall.
"Now I have more time, and I am putting a lot of concentration into teaching," said Terzian. "I think it is important to teach critical thinking."
Sagan originally wanted the class to be largely made up of international senior students, and he selected his classes by formulating his own application forms. Terzian, however, seeks a far more free-form approach. He has retained the international and protean atmosphere, but without the use of application forms or limiting the course to seniors. This semester, Astronomy 490 has 21 students, mainly upper level undergraduates and a few graduate students, representing virtually all of Cornell's seven colleges and 16 different majors that range from engineering to hotel administration.
"I think the students have been outstanding," said Terzian. "Their discussions and their thoughtfulness stimulate one another. This is a group in which everyone is at the level of being able to discuss extremely complex concepts. The students are prepared to examine provocative ideas and discuss them in a very critical manner."
Although Terzian includes selected topics from the history of astronomy in the course, the class is asked to examine and employ critical thinking in scientific and nonscientific contexts. Terzian presents topics such as cosmology, the nature of time and reality, the "theories of everything" in physics and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life.
Terzian has followed Sagan's pattern by including such non-scientific subjects as astrology, extra-sensory perception and faith healing, but examining them from a scientific viewpoint. Students debate the subjects and make their own presentations on such questions as "Can Machines Think?" "Is Immortality around the Corner?" and "What Is the Debate between Science and Religion?"
Students in the class thrive on ideas -- both explaining their crucial meanings and ways of looking at them. For instance, during a recent class session undergraduates Daniel White and Kushagra Verma gave a presentation on the human future in space in which they examined the case for establishing a human presence on Mars and the possibility of mining near-Earth asteroids for minerals. At the end of the presentation, the class questioned White and Verma on their ideas and offered their own explanations.
"It's interesting to see perspectives on using the scientific method," said Jason Neuswanger, a sophomore astronomy major. "Plus, Dr. Terzian is really, really awesome." Nathan Odom, a sophomore history major, also finds the class absorbing: "The subject matter itself completely floored me. I can't believe that so much of it is neglected [in society]."
The structure of the course has changed slightly since its early days, but the intent of the course has not.
"The teaching of science or scientific thought is not the most important thing, nor the goal of this class, but it is the ability to critically think about various issues," said Terzian.
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