Princeton University Library

Fine Hall Library

Writing 114
Assaults on Modern Science
Fall 2004
Matthew Brauer

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1. Background Information

Use these sources to provide a context, answer factual questions, and for the recommended readings in their bibliographies.

AccessScience
An electronic version of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Offers authoritative articles, news updates, and biographical information on leading scientists.

The concise encyclopedia of the ethics of new technologies. San Diego: Academic Press, 2001.
[Firestone Library, Trustees Reading Room QH332.C662 2001]
A collection of essays assessing the ethical implications of a variety of new technologies, not only medical. Each signed article includes a glossary of terms and a bibliography.

Chadwick, Ruth F. Encyclopedia of applied ethics. San Diego: Academic Press, 1998. 4 vols.
[Firestone Reference BJ63 .E44 1998]

Clarke, Paul A.B. and Andrew Linzey. Dictionary of ethics, theology, and society. London ; New York: Routledge, 1996.
[Firestone Reference BJ63 .D53 1996 and also online through Ebrary]

Reich, Warren T. Encyclopedia of bioethics New York : Macmillan Pub. Co.; London, Simon & Schuster Macmillan; Prentice Hall International, 1995 5 vols.
[Firestone General & Humanities Reference QH332 .E52 1995]

CQ Researcher
These are in-depth, non-biased reports published 44 times a year about a single political and social issue, with regular reports on topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the U.S. economy.
"Each 12,000-word report is a unique work, investigated and written by a seasoned journalist. It can be read in its entirety or by section, which include a background and chronology; an assessment of the current situation; tables and maps; pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions; and bibliographies of key sources."

FACTS.com
This service outlines the critical events, central issues, descriptive statistics and key people making news year by year from 1940 to the present. The Issues & Controversies section contains reports of some depth on selected topics, with information drawn from daily newspapers and supplemented by a variety of other publications. The reports include bibliographies and provide links to related information.

MEDLINEplus
A medical and health information site from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. Of particular interest are the medical encyclopedia, the "Health Topics," and the news. Also recommended are the "State-of-the-Science Statements" and the "Consensus Statements" at http://consensus.nih.gov/ .


2. Finding books on your topic using the Main Catalog

  • Search the Main Catalog to find out what books, journals (but NOT journal articles), videos, sound recordings, or other materials the Princeton University Library owns that are relevant to your topic.
  • If the materials you need are checked out to other readers or not available at Princeton, use "Borrow Direct" to get the book quickly from a partner library.
  • When researching a topic, use keywords or Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Here are some examples of relevant subject headings. Omit the dashes between subheadings, when you are doing a subject search.

Advertising--Research--United States--History
Evolution (Biology)
Evolution (Biology)--Religious aspects
Evolution--Study and teaching--Law and legislation
Errors, Scientific
Modernist-fundamentalist controversy
Religion and science--History
Science--Social aspects
Science and law
Science and state
Technology--Social aspects
  • You can combine terms in keyword searches, for example:
	scien? and polic? 
	evolution and (law? or legal)
	"intelligent design" and science

Note that the ? works like a wild card and finds any word starting with the preceding stem.


3. Finding secondary analytic articles in magazines, newspapers, and journals

Article Indexes (in print or electronic format) identify articles in popular magazines, scholarly journals, and newspapers by author and by topic. In some cases the full text of an article will be available online.

Wilson OmniFile
Broad subject coverage. Full text beginning with 1982 for major American journals that cover a wide range of disciplines, including applied science, religion, philosophy, and public policy.
EBSCO Academic Search Premier
Another broad database with full text from 3200 magazines and journals in all subject areas.
Proquest Direct - Periodical Research Library
Indexes over 2500 journals and provides full text for a majority of them.
Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis)
Full text of more than 700 newspapers world wide, as well as hundreds of trade, business, and legal journals. For current news, Lexis-Nexis and Factiva are the most comprehensive and up-to-date resources avaialble. Includes full text of the New York Times.
Philosopher's Index
The major source for finding articles in philosophy journals or collections of essays. Coverage begins in 1940 and continues to the present.
MedLine
Part of PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's comprehensive index of scientific journal literature in medicine and the medical sciences. In aspects of social science and humanities relating to medicine, only items from medical science journals are included, and popular literature on medical topics is not included.
ATLA Religion Database
American Theological Library Association's index to journals and collections of essays from the 1940s to the present. More than fifty core journals are available in full text.
PsycINFO
Comprehensive database of psychology, the behavioral sciences and mental health, providing abstracts and citations to journal articles and books/chapters, dissertations, government documents and technical reports from the 1800's to the present.
Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS)
Policy literature database based on the social science holdings of the New York Public Library that provides citations to articles, books, reports, and select government documents on public and foreign policy issues from 1972 forward. The print version of PAIS goes back to 1915, and is located on the Social Science Reference Center Index Shelves.
Sociological Abstracts
Provides abstracts and indexing for the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences: journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.

4. How to find journals in Princeton's Libraries, if no full text is available online

  1. Follow the PUL or SFX link, if available.
  2. If not, search the Main Catalog.
  3. Do a journal title search for the title of the journal, not the title of the article.
  4. When looking at the catalog record for the journal, check which library owns the journal and whether the library has the year and volume you need. Note that recent issues are shelved separately from older bound volumes.
  5. If Firestone or another Princeton Library has the year/volume you need, copy the complete Location and Call Number. The call number for a paper copy of a journal could be a Library of Congress or a Richardson call number, or Princeton could own back years of the journal of microfilm.
  6. Use the Call Number Information handout and the Special Locations handout to determine where the journal is in the library.

5. Selected Web Sites of interest

Bioethics.net
Selected articles from The American Journal of Bioethics and useful background information, including sections on cloning, genetics, and "favorite topics."

Bioethics Resources on the Web
From the National Institutes of Health, this site links to NIH publications and other data from federal government, academic, and research institute sites.

Astronomical Pseudo-Science: A Skeptic's Resource List
This is a selected list of resources for those who want to examine with a skeptical eye some of the claims at the fringes of science that seem connected to astronomy. The last section includes some general books that deal with a broader range of pseudo-scientific topics. Instructors can often use the enormous media and student interest in some of these topics as a way of generating discussion about what constitutes science and about how the scientific method allows us to test controversial hypotheses and determine whether nature really works in the way they claim.

Skeptical Inquirer
[Skeptical Inquirer] encourages the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public.
URL: ONLINE

Intelligent Design?: A special report reprinted from Natural History magazine
A reprint of the April 2002 report by Natural History magazine, including links to publications on both sides of the discussion.

Intelligent Design Network
URL: http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/publications.htm

Harun Yahya
Full-text publications of Harun Yahya, a Turkish thinker and author, on interpretation of science and religion.

HIV Denial: The Controversy over HIV and AIDS
The contention of a small number of so-called "dissenters" that HIV is not the cause of AIDS has recently received international attention, thanks to South African President Thabo Mbeki's public questioning of the scientific evidence linking the virus to the disease. In 1994, Science correspondent Jon Cohen conducted a thorough examination of the arguments of the leading dissident, virologist Peter Duesberg. Volume 266 - 9 December 1994

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Last update: 11/03/04 Send mail concerning this page to:
Mitchell Brown mcbrown@princeton.edu

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