In today’s society no one can legitimately afford to ignore chemistry – the information it provides about the past, its modern significance, and its ability to shape the future. Chemistry, like all science, is dedicated to discovery and practical application. As a scientific discipline it is inherently incapable of formulating the ethical boundaries and restriction of its own inquiries. Human beings themselves must bring ethical limits to unbounded scientific curiosity. For many people the introduction of the scientific method actually undermined the credibility of traditional ethical structures which had historically been used to guide scientific inquiry. Questioning traditional ethical structures, often presented as part of religion, can result in a deep uncertainty of one’s own character. A team-teaching approach allows for the simultaneous study of chemistry and religion/philosophy which mimics the conflict and ultimate synthesis that must take place in the minds of students as they develop as ethical decision-makers in an age of science.<br/>This paper describes two undergraduate courses created and team-taught by the authors, where each author represents a different discipline. The authors have taught two courses exploring the conflict and synthesis between science and religion/philosophy: a discussion-based honors seminar and a summer undergraduate course open to any interested student which fulfills a general education requirement. Both team-taught courses required the students to learn about selected topics in chemistry and religion/philosophy. Specifically students learned about the chemical basis of Darwinian evolution and modern advances in atomic and quantum chemistry. These areas of focus were selected because they represent dramatic shifts in the understanding of humanity’s place in the universe. Students were exposed to the philosophical works of Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, and Schleiermacher while studying these worldview-altering scientific advances. Students were ultimately challenged to develop a new interpretation of the interaction between science and religion by analyzing selections from literature. In addition to describing these courses, this paper details the facilitation process for our discussion-based honors course and the team-teaching approach we applied to the more traditional course that also allowed for chemistry laboratory experiments to be performed by the students.

Team teaching across the disciplines: An interdisciplinary study of chemistry, religion and philosophy for the development of human meaning and purpose

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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