The form of an essay should be akin to a review of a book for a magazine/journal ant the outline should be approximately as follows:

• Introduction with a description of the main thesis (or theses) being argued in the book.
• A critical review of the thesis from a scientific perspective. Critical review of (some of the) the examples given in the book to support the thesis. If the thesis itself addresses the theory of science, compare it to other models described in Chalmers or in the lectures.
• Summary and/or conclusions.

The essay must be written entirely by the student. Quotes from the book are, of course, allowed as long as they are clearly marked. Also quotes from other sources are allowed as long as they are marked clearly with a proper reference. Any suspicion of plagiarism will be reported to the Vice Chancellor.

The essays will be reviewed by the students themselves. Every student will be assigned another student's essay to review and to give feedback. This will be done in two steps. First a near-final draft of the essay is sent to the reviewer who will respond with written feedback. Then the reviewer will present and discuss the final report with all students, giving further feedback to the author and allowing her/him to respond. In this discussion session the reviewer should also comment in the author's response to the original feedback.

Here are some point that the reviewer should take into account when giving feedback to the draft and the final essay:

• General: Is the essay properly thought through? Is the content and style relevant given the intended audience? Is the text interesting and gives good insight about the book?
• Content: Is the description of the book clear and concise? Does the text give the reader a reasonable understanding about the content of the book. Can you tell what the essay's author thinks about the book?
• Disposition:Is it easy to get an overview of the contents of the essay? Does the introduction give a good overview of the layout of the essay? Are the headlines relevant and interesting? Is the paragraph divisions relevant? Does the conclusion give a relevant summary?
• Execution: Is the style/language appropriate for content the intended audience? Does the introduction inspire to continued reading? Is the opinions about the book well argued? Is the essay properly proof read?

• The choice of book should be submitted via the Canvas system by noon Tuesday the 4th of February.
• A near-final draft of the essay in PDF-format should be submitted in Canvas and e-mailed to the appointed feedback student, by noon, Monday the 2rd of March.
• The feedback student should send his/her comments to the draft to the author and submit it in Canvas by noon, Friday the 6th of March.
• The final essay in PDF-format should submitted in Canvas and e-mailed to the the appointed feedback student by noon, Thursday the 12th of March.
• The final essays will be discussed on Monday the 18th (13-17) and Tuesday the 17th (13-17) of March. In preparation for the discussion session, all students should read all essays, at least cursorily, to be able to contribute to the discussions.

Both the essay writing and the feedback are compulsory parts of the course.

Suggestions for books to be reviewed

• Science, Order, and Creativity (second edition)
  David Bohm and F. David Peat
  [Routledge (2000)]
• The Golem - What You Should Know about Science (second edition)
  Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch
  [Cambridge University Press (1998)]
• Not even wrong : the failure of string theory and the continuing challenge to unify the laws of physics
  Peter Woit
  [Jonathan Cape (2006)]
• The trouble with physics : the rise of string theory, the fall of a science, and what comes next
  Lee Smolin
  [Houghton Mifflin Co. (2006)]
• The God delusion
  Richard Dawkins
  [Houghton Mifflin Co. (2006)]
• The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
  Bobby Henderson
  [(2006)]
• Making Science: Between Nature and Society
  Stephen Cole
• Representing and intervening : introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science
  Ian Hacking
  [Cambridge University Press (1983)]
• Science of science and reflexivity
  Pierre Bourdieu
  [University of Chicago Press (2004)]
• Primate visions : gender, race and nature in the world of modern science
  Donna Haraway
  [Verso (1992)]
• Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse: feminism and technoscience
  Donna J. Haraway
  [Routledge (1997)]
• Simians, cyborgs, and women : the reinvention of nature
  Donna J. Haraway
  [Routledge (1991)]
• Impossibility: The limits of science and the science of limits
  John D. Barrow
  [Oxford University Press (1998)]
• Paradoxen som försvann (Where does the weirdness go?)
  David Lindley
  [Studentlitteratur (2002), BasicBooks (1996)]
• A different universe
  Robert B Laughlin
  [Basic Books (2005)]
• Theories on the Scrap Heap
  John Losee
  [ University of Pittsburgh Press (2005)]
• Theories of Scientific Progress
  John Losee
  [Routledge (2003)]
• The Cosmic Landscape
  Leonard Susskind
  [Hachetter Book Group (2006)]
• What is life?
  Erwin Schrödinger
  [Cambridge University Press (1992)]
• A Third Window: Natural Life beyond Newton and Darwin
  Robert Ulanowicz
  [Templeton Press (2009)]
• At home in the Universe
  Stuart Kauffman
  [Oxford University Press (1995)]
• Meeting the universe halfway : quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning
  Karen Brad
  [Durham, N.C. ; Duke University Press (2007)]
• Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies
  Sandra Harding
  [Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1998)]
• The Science Question in Feminism
  Sandra Harding
  [Ithaca: Cornell University Press (1986)]
• Common science? : women, science, and knowledge
  Jean Barr and Lynda Birke
  [Bloomington, In : Indiana University Press (1998)]
• A world without women : the Christian clerical culture of Western science
  David F Noble
  [Oxford University Press (1993)]
• Love, power and knowledge : towards a feminist transformation of the sciences
  Hilary Rose
  [Cambridge, Polity (1994)]
• Sexual science : the Victorian construction of womanhood
  Cynthia Eagle Russett
  [Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Univ. Press (1989)]
• Nature's body: gender in the making of modern science
  Londa Schiebinger
  [Boston: Beacon, cop. (1993)]
• Science and an African logic
  Helen Verran
  [Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2001) (mathematics)]
• Vetenskapsteori.se
  Paul KT Persson
  [This is not a book, but a web site about the theory of science that, among other things, claims that the course "The scientific method" at Lund university is "anti-scientific".]