Jasper Becker, Selections from Mao's Hungry Ghosts: "False Science, False Promises" and "How Many Died?" and:

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Becker and Angell: Scientists, Politics, and the Law

In "False Science, False Promises," Jasper Becker details what happened when the political agenda in Mao's China was allowed to shape the scientific research carried out in that country. Marcia Angell is similarly concerned with the relationship between the scientific community and the government's legislative and judicial bodies. What should the relationship between science and politics be? Is it possible for scientists to be completely objective? Is this an ideal, a myth, a reality, or something else altogether?

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Becker and Barber: Politics, Ecomonics, and Manufactured Disasters

What might Barber learn from reading Jasper Becker? Is there a risk in subordinating economic life to political decision-making? Becker tells us, for example, that Mao's Marxist government micro-managed agricultural practices across the entire country, producing what may have been the world's largest famine. Judging from Barber's argument, would you predict that a comparable disaster might happen here if his proposals were implemented?

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Dillard and Becker

Dillard's "The Wreck of Time" and Becker's "Hungry Ghosts" both address the facts surrounding the deaths of millions of people. Dillard, of course, is less concerned with any one event than she is with other people's reactions to the events, while Becker focuses specifically on Mao's "Great Leap Forward" during the years from approximately 1956 to 1962.

In these two essays, what is the nature of loss? How can loss be measured? Do those measurements matter after the fact? How might Dillard interpret the long list of facts that Becker presents?

Marisa James, Fall 2000

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Becker and Faludi: The Roots of Authoritarianism

Like The Citadel, the People's Republic of China during Mao's later years might be described as an authoritarian society--a society which offers ordinary people little personal freedom or control over their own lives. On the basis of your reading Faludi's "The Naked Citadel" and the selections from Jasper Becker's Hungry Ghosts, make an argument about the origins of authoritarianism. Is it fair to say that authoritarian regimes are generally the product of evil geniuses--like Hitler and Saddam Hussain--who drag along everyone else? Do authoritarian societies maintain control over the populace simply by the exercise of brute force, or do good and well-meaning people participate in such societies willingly? If authoritarian societies are not created by evil geniuses or by the exercise of brute force, how do they come into existence?

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Becker, Gould, and Gladwell: The Science of Human Behavior

Please use the readings by Gladwell, Becker, and Gould to write an essay that responds to the following question:

Given the evidence that Gould and Becker provide, do you feel that Gladwell's claims about the laws governing human behavior are justified? In what ways do Gould and Becker confirm Gladwell's argument? In what ways do they complicate or even contradict Gladwell's argument, in part or in whole? What are some of the larger implications for society, for education, for politics?

The sentence in bold is the actual question; the sentences that follow it are related questions that it might be helpful to consider. Please understand that the question is not asking you to "compare and contrast" the three authors. Instead, the question requires you to test Gladwell's argument, or some portion of the argument, against the specific evidence provided by Gould and Becker. In the process, you may wish to modify Gladwell's argument in order to improve it; alternately, you might offer a counterargument. You can focus on any aspect of Gladwell's argument that you like, and you can use any evidence provided by Gould and Becker. Feel free to discuss the implications that you consider to be most important.

For the rest of this assignment sequence, see the Putting Science in Context sequence.

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Becker and Gould: "Good Science," "Bad Science," and the Nature of Truth

We have now read two quite different prose pieces. The first, Stephen Jay Gould's "What Does the Dreaded "E" Word Mean, Anyway?" deals primarily with various understandings, and misunderstandings, of Darwin's enormously important discovery. The second reading, several chapters from Jasper Becker's book Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine, describes the disastrous agricultural policy initiated by the government of mainland China during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

As I said in class, these two readings have very few connections on the level of what they explicitly say, but on the level of implications, many rich connections might be made. For the second assignment, you will need to make such connections between the two texts as you develop a response to the following question:

Is reality just a matter of perspective? Does it matter if one set of scientific conclusions becomes more widely accepted than another? To what extent should our values be allowed to influence the conduct of scientific research? Can science ever be totally free from non-scientific values? How can we distinguish between science and pseudo-science? When science conflicts with our values, what should we do about it?

In China, did the problem lie with bad science, or with bad uses of science? Or did it lie with popular common sense--superstitions and fantasy? If the Chinese leadership had read Gould's essay, would famine have been avoided, or was the famine caused by factors other than "bad science" alone?

The first question above, in bold type, is the one that you should answer in your papers. The questions that follow it do not need to be answered, but they might help you to think through some of the ramifications of the initial question. Please do not try to construct your essays by answering each of the subquestions: that will not produce a coherent argument.

For the rest of this assignment sequence, see the Putting Science in Context sequence.

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