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\centerline{MONT 106N -- Identifying Patterns}
\centerline{Paper 1 -- October 14, 2009}
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{\it General Information}
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Your next formal writing assignment for the course will be
an essay responding to one of the groups of questions below, or
if you prefer, to a question or questions of your choosing.  If you decide to
design a topic of your own, I ask that you discuss it with me 
no later than Wednesday, October 21 {\it at the latest\/}, to make sure it is
acceptable.  Your paper should be prepared using MS Word or equivalent
software, about 5 double-spaced pages
in length.   You will be submitting it by email as for some
previous assignments.  The due date is {\it Monday, October 26}.
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{\it Description}
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This is not a ``research paper'' -- you need not consult sources
other than  {\it Everyday Practice of Science} or possibly 
our main {\it Statistics} text.  Instead, you 
should think of your paper as a detailed defense of a particular
conclusion or response to all or some of the questions 
in one of the topics below, written in a reasonably formal
style.  By this I mean that the questions you are addressing
and your response(s) to them should be clearly stated in the first 
paragraph.  Then the body of the paper should be a presentation of 
the reasoning and the evidence that lead you to 
your conclusion.  Your job is to convince your reader of the soundness
of your conclusion, starting ``from the beginning.''  That is, you 
should not assume the reader has been present for any of the discussions
that we have had in class, or that you might have had with other
Natural World cluster students.  You might try explaining a possible 
opposing point of view, then giving your reasons for rejecting it as 
part of your argument.   

I will expect to see specific
details from Grinnell or possibly our main text
cited as {\it evidence\/} to support
your assertions, and in many cases short quotations from the text
will be a most effective way to provide evidence.  Please identify
any such quotations by the page(s) on which they appear.  Use
the following style:
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Grinnell describes the process of scientific discovery as one
full of uncertainty.  For instance, he states that
``at the frontiers of research, even the distinction between
data and noise sometimes will be unclear'' (Everyday Practice
of Science, p. 26).  
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One word of caution -- Grinnell himself uses a rather large number
of quotations from other sources.  If you are quoting one of those,
look in the References section at the end to determine the source, 
and say what that source is and where Grinnell quotes it.  

If you want to design a topic of your own, the same general ground rules
apply.
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{\it A Suggestion}
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I will be happy to discuss (or read a first draft of) your paper and give 
you some preliminary comments by email.  Or, you can come by my office hours
if you want to ``run your paper by me.''  Alternatively,  I think 
you may find it very helpful to have a first draft of your paper read
by another student in the class.  I can set up ``reading pairs'' 
working on different topics if you are interested.
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{\it Evaluation}
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I will provide written comments on your work, and
assign two grades for each paper -- one for how well your conclusions
are presented and supported (in other words, for how convincing your
arguments are), the other for how well your writing follows the standards
for formal written English. (For instance, how well is the paper
subdivided into paragraphs each addressing a particular item in your
argument?  Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical, recognizable
sequence?  Are the sentences within each paragraph ordered well?
Are they grammatically correct?  Are there awkward sentences?  
Are there overly flowery, overly colloquial, or incorrectly-used
words or phrases?  Is punctuation used correctly?  Are there spelling and/or 
typographical errors?)   

{\it Everyone will have the opportunity to 
submit a revised version of the paper after receiving my comments. 
If you choose to resubmit, I'll evaluate the new version in the 
same way and count only the better of the two sets of marks.\/}  
The due date for resubmissions will be announced when the papers are
returned.
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{\it Topic 1 -- Practice of Science (and Mathematics)}
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Grinnell makes a pretty convincing case that the things scientists
do as they pursue their research are much more interesting and exciting 
than the dry descriptions of the final results that make it into
research articles and textbooks.  If you think back to your 
high school geometry class, was there a related difference
between the process of finding a proof, and the process of
writing it down?  Are there good reasons why there {\it should 
be} such difference?  Is there a distinction to be made between 
what research articles should look like and what textbooks 
should ideally look like?   How do mathematical techniques 
like statistics fit into the picture?  Do you think they are more 
important on the ``discovery'' side of things (the left side of 
the diagram on page 5), or on the ``credibility'' side of 
things (the right side of that diagram)?    
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{\it Topic 2 -- Faith in science and religion} 
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Chapter 6 in Grinnell's book is called ``Faith.''
What does faith have to do with the everyday practice of science?  
Conversely, what does science have to do with religion?  
Grinnell says that he sees science and religion in a relation 
that he calls {\it complementarity}.  What precisely does he mean by 
this?  Give an example of what complementarity of viewpoints
might mean by discussing some question Grinnell discusses or that 
we have considered.
Does Grinnell's view seem to you to be a reasonable way to reconcile
these different aspects of human thought?  
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