Nat Sci 36 Has Lost Its Lure

The books for Natural Sciences 36, "Biological Determinism," are still piled high at the Coop.

For two years the course achieved great popularity, in part because it fulfilled part of the general education requirement and because anyone who wrote a ten-page paper was guaranteed at least a "B." Longer, well-researched papers could merit an "A."

Last year more than 700 people vied for the fewer than 400 available spaces, Stephen J. Gould, professor of Geology and one of the lecturers in the course, said this week.

But that's all changed this year. Last spring the Committee on General Education decided not to accept Nat Sci 36 as a general education course, because of its unorthodox grading policy.

Now only 90 students are enrolled in the course.

"I'm as unhappy about it (the decision) as I was the day it was made," Gould said. "It was a bad intellectual and educational decision because it restricts the option of professors to teach in the way they feel is the best intellectually."

Gould said he does not see much difference in the interest level of this year's class, compared to last year's, but its composition is different.

Far fewer freshmen and relatively more juniors and seniors enrolled this year, a fact Gould attributes to the decision to stop counting the course for general education credit.

Freshmen are more concerned with fulfilling their general education requirements, while upperclassmen have usually already met them, Gould said.

Instead of the one ten-page paper that Gould and his fellow lecturer Richard C. Lewontin '50, Agassiz Professor of Zoology, required for a "B" in past years, the course now demands six short papers.

Even though Gould disagrees with the Committee's decision, he has no plans to appeal the decision, a fight he said would be a losing battle. "There are other things to do with my life," Gould said.