Spring 2027

The Origins of Scientific Thought

Examines the emergence of scientific method from ancient traditions, its impact on medieval Christendom, and the development of the Copernican-Newtonian worldview.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

The class is not extremely hard but involves a lot of reading. Quizzes and readings are good ways to prepare for exams, which require reading to do well.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify and explain how premodern science was shaped by its social, cultural, and material contexts.

  • Interpret historical sources to construct evidence-based arguments concerning premodern science.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Not open to students with credit forILS 201 or HIST SCI/​HISTORY 323

    • students with credit forILS 201 or HIST SCI/HISTORY 323
    not eligible with
HISTSCI 201

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Not eligible with
    • students with credit forILS 201 or HIST SCI/HISTORY 323

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

FLORENCE HSIA is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MICHAEL H. SHANK is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Fall 2014. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

Professor Hsia delivers engaging lectures with clear slides that help if you miss class, and students report learning a lot from the material.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.76 GPA, 91.0% A/AB (n=133 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.84 GPA, 93.7% A/AB (n=111 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.66 GPA, 88.3% A/AB (n=120 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

The class is not extremely hard but involves a lot of reading. Quizzes and readings are good ways to prepare for exams, which require reading to do well.

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

Students noted that the textbook is not necessary because the professor covers required content in lectures, so attending class is more important than reading the assigned text.

Topics

  • Emergence of scientific method from ancient philosophical and religious traditions
  • Impact of ancient science on medieval Christendom
  • Origins and development of the Copernican-Newtonian worldview

Skills

  • Explain the social, cultural, and material contexts shaping premodern science.
  • Interpret historical sources to construct evidence-based arguments about premodern science.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "6ea3c296e8044e4b806c870f4bc2016216c31ccd128bf01ea23bc2a5de5ebe1d",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}