"You could make an argument that no one should have less than four or five courses in science," Verba says, "but given constraints on time, it may be that the core is adequate. It really is impossible to know what the right answer is."

What does an adequate education in science mean? Faculty members say it is hard to define and that it is difficult to quantify how much is enough science. Some are also careful to acknowledge that distinctions between different disciplines are often artificial.

"This whole business about how is enough has been a subject was a topic of debate since the Core was founded," says Henry Ehrenreich, Clowes professor of science who also chairs the FAS sub-committee on science.

"There are people who think there is too little science and there are those of us who think these things tend to take care of themselves," he says. "A single discipline can't see you through life."

Soft Science

Besides the fewer science requirements in the Core, science concentrators often scoff that the courses offered are not very "science-y" in nature and that it is possible to graduate from Harvard learning very little about how the natural world works.

Science B-16, "The History of Life," for example, will accept term papers written on the American Civil War, while students turned in miniature models of Stonehenge and handmade clothing painted with constellations as final projects for Science A-17, "The Astronomical Perspective."

The majority of Faculty members, however, say that the Core curriculum does indeed provide an adequate science education and does not necessarily need to be revamped.