Why Can't We All Get Along?

Although we have had Separation of Church and State for about two hundred years, there is still some cross-contamination between the two. Science and religion are like oil and water; two things that no matter how hard you try will never mix. Though there have been attempts to have the two topics co-exist peacefully, I have come to realize that will never happen.

In How to Teach Science to the Pope by Michael Mason, the topic of religion versus science is discussed. In his article, Mason talks about the history, members and purpose of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In my opinion, this “independent and remarkably influential body” (Mason), is not as independent as it may seem. It sounds to me as if they aren’t allowed to publish everything they find just in case it will upset the Pope, or anyone else for that matter.

For instance, the topic of stem cell research has been a controversial one for many years. Recently there has been some talk about the Vatican asking science to “protect human dignity.” What about protecting human lives? Isn’t a person’s life more important than a person’s dignity? At least that’s how I feel about it.

This video, entitled Vatican Calls on Science to Protect Human Dignity discusses the creation of a new document that states, "The dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death. This fundamental principle expresses a great yes to human life and must be at the center of ethical reflection on biomedical research" (Vatican).



On a more positive note, there have been many pieces of satire written about religion and science. One that really caught my interest was Genesis Revisited: A Scientific Creation Story by Michael Shermer. Shermer re-writes the Creation story with a little “science-y” twist. He adds many scientific terms and describes the creation of different kinds of scientists and ends it on a humorous note (Shermer). I found this particularly interesting, religion was taking the hit; something you don’t see very often.

So while there have been strides made in the fight of religion versus science, I feel as though the two will never be in cahoots with one another and they will always be fighting for who is right.





Mason, Michael. "How to Teach Science to the Pope." Discover Magazine. August 18, 2008. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/18-how-to-teach-science-to-the-pope

Shermer, Michael. "Genesis Revisited: A Scientific Creation Story." in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.

Vatican Calls on Science to Protect Human Dignity. YouTube. Rome Reports, 1 Apr. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-KtF0z25g.

Last Thoughts

I have seen these advertisements before and finally got the urge to look them up and I have to say I love it. I think these two commercials are good examples that the human race can head to a better future as long as we keep our curiosity and respect for the world and everything on it. These have some aesthetics but are mostly cultural and scientific. These are the new Discovery commercials, I love the World (Boom de yada)

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/discovery-promos-the-world-is-just-awesome.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/musical-mashes-boom-de-yada.html

Darwin Revelation

At the beginning of this course, my knowledge of Charles Darwin—his work, personal life, and views—was fairly minimal. I could only recall bits and pieces from my 8th grade science and 10th grade biology classes. Being largely indifferent to him (and a few science-related subjects in general), I haven’t devoted a lot of thought to something directly pertaining to Darwin until now.

I try to maintain a fairly impartial approach when it comes to his famous theory of evolution, and its ongoing argument with creationism. Like I’ve mentioned before, I believe anything is possible: because I was raised with and learned both views, I respect and see validity in both sides of the argument, finding it difficult to choose a “side.” Despite my admitted apathy towards this subject, I feel it is impossible to be objective to it, which is my “revelation” —that we cannot completely observe our own species without some sort of bias or influence from our culture/society.

Okay, but this is pretty obvious, right? How is this a “revelation?” I’ve understood for a while that the influence of one’s culture can play a role in his or her beliefs, opinions, and view of the world. I had to argue with myself the day we discussed gender (and race) in Darwin’s The Descent of Man; I saw the blatant sexist observations of a man—but a man of his time.

Being a female myself, the role of women throughout history and in context of cultures around the world has always fascinated me. I am a proud alumna of Catherine McAuley High School, a Catholic girls’ school in Portland, Maine. My senior English teacher considered a feminist by her students, though she claimed otherwise (a “womanist”). I learned a lot in my four years about the places in the world my gender has been, and where I/we can now go, and how far we’ve come.

Here are some of the claims and observations Charles Darwin makes in his work, The Descent of Man: “Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition…of a past and lower state of civilization” (Darwin, 234), “Man is more powerful in body and mind than woman…therefore it is not surprising that he should have gained the power of selection” (242), and finally, “Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether or not proportionately to his larger body, has not, I believe, been fully ascertained” (233). Now, from reading those statements, one would conclude that he was sexist. However, science historian Evelleen Richards argues, “To label him as a sexist may be technically correct…but it is mere rhetoric in the context of a society in which almost everyone was a sexist—who held discriminatory views of woman’s nature and social rôle” (443).

I certainly agree with what she’s saying, which is my “revelation,” but I was still finding myself at another point. Being the progressive thinker Darwin was, shouldn’t he have seen that within his society women were not allowed to become “powerful in body and mind?” Men are typically built bigger than women, so I will cut a little slack for the “powerful in body” aspect. But the mind? Female authors had to be published under male pseudonyms to even be considered! Women couldn’t really train to become doctors or scientists until around his time, so how could they prove that they were just as powerful in mind as men? I guess I just can’t completely, 100% agree that he wasn’t a little bit sexist.

This just proves that Darwin can’t be taken as an objective source to our species. Well, duh! Of course, he’s human too. So when I say my revelation is “that we cannot completely observe our own species without some sort of bias or influence from our culture/society,” I mean I didn’t understand it completely until I got to know Darwin’s work a little better; I didn’t realize how much of an effect an outside source can have on even scientific observations. I would like to think we are as close to being objective as we can today, but who knows? Maybe one hundred years from now, another college student will be writing about the same thing…

Darwin, Charles. “Selections from Darwin’s Work.” pp 67-254 in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed . New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

Richards, Evelleen. “Darwin and the Descent of Women.” in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed . New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

The Bionic Contact Lens

Still in development, the bionic contact lens (would be) a contact lens that gives the sensor the perception of augmented reality.

What is "augmented reality?" A gizmag.com article explains: “Unlike Virtual Reality, where the user’s field of view is completely replaced with an artificial visual environment, Augmented Reality uses head tracking in conjunction with augmented vision to overlay complimentary information on the user’s view.” Basically, augmented reality is when our vision is enanced, adding elements to what we already see, as opposed to replacing it. Below is a video from National Geographic:



Within the past couple of years, a team of engineers at the University of Washington have been working on making bionic contact lenses a reality. The project is being lead by Babak Parviz, an assistant professor of electrical engineering. The research was formally introduced to the public in early 2008. See the YouTube video below:



To see a concept of the lens, click here.

Parvitz and his team were able to build a display into the lens based on an array of LED (light-emitting didode) pixels. Laser beams have also been considered as a light source, because it diverges less than LED light, which could make images sharper.

The lens’ LEDs can be powered wirelessly with radio frequency. (There would have to be some sort of external device to power the lens.) It would have integrated control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature antennas.

The LEDs would create an image on the back of the retina (the light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye), which the viewer would see overlaid onto their natural view of the world.

Reported as of spring 2009, the team has only been able to develop a lens with
 one pixel.

One of the problems the team has run into is getting the weight and size small enough for the human eye, while also being biocompatible and safe. They are grateful for nanotechnology, which helps resolve the issue of size. The tiny LEDS are reported to fit a possible 100 in an inch (resembling the look of powder!). They were able to coat the toxic materials with a biocompatable substance. Prototypes have been tested on lab rabbits, which, within a 20-minute period of wear, did not show any adverse effects.

Another issue was being able to design a surface where the electronic components wouldn’t block vision. Parvitz says the solution to this is to “place most of the minute components in areas over the eye’s natural blind spots.”

They also need/ed to figure out how to push the image away from the cornea (powerful part of the eye that works with the lens to refract light). The normal focal distance for seeing objects clearly is about 25 centimeters in front of a person’s eye. Parvitz claims that a way to work around this would be to “employ an array of even smaller lenses placed on the surface of the contact lens.” Also, the angle of incoming light could be adjusted to make up for the cornea not being able to focus.

So what are the benefits of this crazy eyepiece? A bionic contact lens could allow someone to see better than he or she does already, meaning even a person with good/“perfect” vision would see things differently. Biosensors on the lens could be designed to send a signal when a particular molecule is detected, providing an easier and non-invasive way to monitor health. The lens could inlfluence the gaming industry, creating new experiences for players. It could also affect the tourism industry, providing access to information.

Sources

Eisenberg, Anne. “Inside These Lenses, a Digital Dimension.” The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 25 Apr. 2009. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Hanlon, Mike. “Electronic Contact Lens promises bionic capabilities for everyone.” Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Jackson, Joab. “”Bionic” Contact Lens May Create Tiny Personal Displays.” National Geographic News. 29 Jan. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Nelson, Bryn. “The vision of the future seen in bionic contact lens.” Msnbc.com. 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Parviz, Babak A. “Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens.” IEEE Spectrum Online: Technology, Engineering, and Science News. Sept. 2009. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Would You Eat The "Meat"?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to eat a piece of meat that was grown, SANS THE ANIMAL? Recent discoveries by some of today’s most cutting edge scientists have granted this far-fetched idea some form of reality. Dutch businessman, Willem van Eelen, first initiated the idea while spending time in a Japanese prison camp during the 1950s. Since then scientists have been working hard to generate meat products in alternative ways. One party in particular that has led the way in this field are the Universities of Eindhoven, Utrecht and Amsterdam in the Netherlands who have been “working to cultivate muscles out of the stem cells of a pig.” (Heselmans).
The initial process of growing meat can be simply described as placing cells on a petri-dish where they would then grow into who tissues. Seems easy. The hard part is being able to grow muscle on a large scale, one that might actually satisfy someone’s hunger. In order to do so researchers need to use thin sheets of membranes that would be combined with a correct combination of muscle and fat cells in order to create an appealing texture and taste. Another factor that would need to be assessed is that, “like any muscle, during this process the muscles cells would have to be ‘exercised’ so that they would grow and stretch and not turn mushy.” (Pilkington). So I guess it’s not so easy after all!


If This Doesn't Work Try The Link Provided Below. My Apologies.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/video/3302/q05-220.html

This isn’t the first time an idea of cultivating meat without livestock has been discussed. In 1932 Winston Churchill predicted in an essay that, “Fifty years hence we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.” Churchill’s optimistic attitude seems to have been correct!

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-11/dutch-scientists-grow-first-vitro-pork

There are many different sides and feelings to this phenomenon. Some positive aspects that could arise from this is that there could be eliminating contamination problems in some meats, “avoiding animal suffering by reducing the farming and killing of livestock,” and “dramatically cutting down on food-borne ailments such as mad cow disease and salmonella or germs such as swine flu, by monitoring the growth of meat in labs.” Also, livestock is responsible for taking up 70% of all agricultural land, in the event that labs become more prominent that land could be put to other used. (Choi). Another positive aspect of growing meat that I find the most promising is the idea that it could aid in eliminating world hunger!
On the other hand many ethical and moral dilemmas are being faced as this field of study. One of the main concerns I have with practice is that many jobs could be lost as a result of eliminating the need to farm animals. Other jobs that would be affected by this would include those involved in the trucking and transportation industry that consistently rely on the fact that meat needs to be transported! But I guess this study could be the way of the future, and if done correctly the pros may very well outweigh the cons!

So the question is would you eat the “meat”?







Sources
Adams, Paul. "Dutch Scientists Grow First Pork Meat In Lab". Popular Science . 12.8.09 .

Choi , Charles Q. . "Mad Science? Growing Meat Without Animals ". Live Science . 12.8.09 .

Heselmans, Marianne . "Cultivated Meat ". New Harvest. 12.8.09 .

Pilkington, Nicky . "Where's The Beef". FoodEditorials.com. 12.8.09 .

Ternes, Ellen . "Paper Says Edible Meat Can be Grown in a Lab on Industrial Scale". University Of Maryland. 12.8.09 .

N/A, "Meat Farms- The 50 Best Inventions of 2009". Time Magazine . 12.8.09 .

Accident Avoidance Features

It is safe to say that most of us rely on cars for transportation from one place to another. Many of us have also experienced a car accident at one point, and if not, it is always a concern for many drivers and passengers. What if the technology in your vehicle can help alert you of a accident before it happens? Even though many cars don’t take control away from the driver, would our lives be safer if the car’s computer was aware of something that the driver was not?

Emerging in many new cars today are various kinds of accident avoidance systems. These are systems that are integrated into your vehicle and aid your driving to help prevent accidents. Even though some safety features exist today, many of these are subtle and the driver is usually unaware they exist. These new systems interact with the driver and even control the speed of the vehicle.

One of the first systems worth noting, is the Collision Warning System. This is basically a system that alerts the driver if a collision is predicted if no significant changes are made to alter the current route. Even though this system doesn’t stop the car, it prepares the brakes for maximum performance.


Next, adaptive cruise control can actually speed up and slow down the car depending on the speed of other drivers around. Like the Collision Warning System, this uses radar to sense the speed of the surrounding cars.


Last, the Blind Spot Information system alerts the driver if there is a vehicle in your blind spot. It lights up LED’s on the side view mirror and shows the driver whether there is a vehicle in that spot. It also can alert the driver if there are approaching vehicles that are blocked from view while backing up. I didn’t embed this video because the video is annoying and the guy has bad hair. Here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiWhCL1vS4s

Finally, this shows what could potentially be in store for the future of accident avoidance on vehicles. Because many accidents happen due to human error, if the computers in the vehicle could recognize these before the driver, many crashes may be completely avoided.

Brain Waves and Movies

For some reason this never posted...

In today's society, movies are a big deal. People spend more money on going to the movies than they have in recent years(Cieply). Naturally, producers and directors want their movies to be better. One way to accomplish this is with Neurocinema. The basis of neurocinema is to look at someone's brain while they are watching a movie to see what they actually think of it.

Neurocinema isn't popular among all genres as of yet; it's main "client" is the Horror film genre. Producers will bring in their horror films to be viewed by someone while they are getting an MRI. Looking at the brain while the movie is being viewed will give the producer an idea of what the test subjects feelings actually are. The reason I say this is most people tend to bend the truth when confronted about whether or not they liked a movie. They may say they enjoyed or were scared by certain parts, but when you look at the MRI, you get a different story. *When referring to the MRI: when the brain lights up in red the subject is scared, when the brain lights up in blue the subject is calm or at ease.*

One major reason neurocinema is being used is because people can't accurately remember how they felt about certain parts of a movie. If someone was asked, right after the movie ended, what their favorite part was, or which part had the most impact on them, they may not be able to accurately describe it. With the assistance of the MRI, moviegoers will be able to see what there favorite part, or the part that scared them the most was.



This video helps to give a better understanding of how it is done. The second part of the video shows the same subject watching a different part of the movie. Another great source I found was this article going into further detail about Neurocinema and what exactly happens and what it is doing for the industry.

As we discussed in class, this is a great way of combining the aesthetic with science; movie producers and directors are using science as a way to enhance a visual experience. I think this is an interesting way to make horror films scarier and I look forward to seeing this practice branch out to other movie genres.



Sources:

Cieply, Micheal, and Brooks Barnes. "The New York Times Log In." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 28 Feb. 2009. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/movies/01films.html?_r=2&hp>.

Hasson, Uri, Ohad Landesman, Barbara Knappmeyer, Ignacio Vallines, Nava Rubin, and David J. Heeger. Vol. 2. Ser. 1. Neurocinematics: The Neuroscience of Film. Projections, Summer 2008. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. .

Silver, Curtis. "Neurocinema Aims to Change the Way Movies are Made | GeekDad | Wired.com." Wired News. 23 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. .

Darwin Revelation - We will never know

Right now, it is impossible to completely dismiss each side of the intelligent design verses evolution argument. Growing up, I have been exposed to each side of the argument so it is difficult for me to pick one side over the other. In my earlier years of school, I remember learning about evolution and thinking how this could potentially be a way to which we have came to be how we are today. On the other side, my family always wanted to me to attend church where I learned the very basic version of many bible stories. It hasn’t been until recently where both of these situations have come together in my mind where I could make a decision based on what I already know.

Since I have become older, I have stopped attending church. I began to grow skeptical of organized religion in general, and decided that I didn’t need it to be part of my life. Even though I have made this decision, I don’t want to completely dismiss intelligent design because it is a large part of what I grew up with. While reading through Darwin’s Black Box, one argument really made an impression in my mind. “Well, for starters, a system that is irreducibly complex. By irreducible complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by slight, successive modification of a precursor system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional” (Appleman 593). I think this argument is very solid. Our bodies function through a system of parts that work together, and we cannot live without these coordinating parts in our body. If each part relies on the other one to exist, how did they end up together if they weren’t created?

Modern science has been able to prove so much about our existence such as how things work while innovative thinkers have been able to develop the technology we use during our daily lives. Doctors can help people with diseases, while technology has advanced the equipment they use in modern medicine. In my mind, science has always been able to prove facts based on evidence, which is usually indisputable. Therefore, my beliefs are automatically drawn towards the science aspect of the argument. I also thought it was interesting that other scientists during Darwin’s time had come to similar conclusions about evolution, some were even had no connection to Darwin at all. One in particular was Charles Lyell. “For eighteen years these researchers had all been pointing to the same conclusion, namely, that the species now living had been derived by variation and generation from those which had pre-existed, and these again from others of sill older date” (Appleman 285). Because many scientists began to form similar conclusions about evolution, this gives the theory significant creditability due to the fact that it has been proved by many others and not just Darwin.

There is no doubt that Darwin has influenced the minds of everyone. Even more so, Christianity and other religions have been around for significantly longer. But even though scholars have been working in depth to prove one theory over the other, it has been my recent personal discovery that no one will truly know how we originated.

This video is fairly controversial, mainly because the narrator has strong opinions about how evolution has never been proven. I also liked it because i disagree with much of what he had to say, and because of this, was much more interested in hearing a completely different perspective. One thing I do like about this video is that he says that both intelligent design and evolution should be taught as such theories, and that no one will even know the truth for sure.



Sources

Behe, Michael. “Darwin’s Black Box.” in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed. New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

Darwin, Charles. “Selections from Darwin’s Work.” P. 67-254 in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed. New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

Lyell, Charles. “Priciples of Geology.” in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed. New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

Cop Killer Guns

The FN 5.7 is made by FN Herstal out of Belgium. This personal defense weapon has come under a lot of attack of media scrutiny recently. It originally was made for swat teams attempting to undertake subjects that are wearing Kevlar vests and are considered armed. Because of laws made against this type of gun and it’s ammunition, it is only available for military or police use. However that is not always the case. Drug Cartels particularly along the Mexican Border are gaining notoriety for using this gun as well as other criminals that have found ways to get access to this gun.
The FN 5.7 is a personal defense weapon that is considered one of the most deadly and the easiest to use in the world of this type of weapon. It’s smaller and lighter than a 9mm and it fires 5.7 by 28mm bullets. These bullets are light and small and have the ability to penetrate most “soft” Kevlar vests and several “hard” objects as well. It is capable of penetrating several layers of sheet rock and has stood up to several tests performed by the Passaic County Sheriff’s Dept. in NJ. According to Capt. Mohamed Lostan, “We shot it into bare gelatin and it penetrated 11 inches. We then placed a vest over some gelatin and tried it again, and it penetrated 9 inches. Fired through a piece of sheetrock and into gelatin, the bullet penetrated 8¼ inches.”
There has been a lot of folklore over the years about what has been considered “Cop-Killer Guns.” This name fueled by the media has been used to describe guns like the FN 5.7. The hype started around the mid 1960’s Dr. Paul Kopsch and his colleagues began experimenting with special purpose handgun ammunition. Their goal was to develop a law enforcement round capable of penetration of harder targets like windshield glass and automobile doors. In the 1970's, the scientists produced their "KTW" handgun ammunition using steel cored bullets capable of great penetration. Following further experimentation, in 1981 they began producing bullets constructed primarily of brass. The hard brass bullets caused exceptional wear on handgun barrels, a problem combated by coating the bullets with Teflon. The Teflon coating did nothing to improve penetration; it simply reduced damage to the gun barrel.



In January of 1982, NBC Television broadcast a prime time special titled "Cop Killer Bullets." They then aired a follow up six months later and the “myth” of Cop-Killing bullets was born. There was also a lot a media attention to these guns following the killing of Jim Brady. Jim Brady, Press Secretary to Ronald Regan was shot and killed in an assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr., who had been arrested 4 days before purchasing the handgun on gun carrying charges and was under psychiatric care. This sparked fierce lobbying and the invention of the Brady Group, which has been the primary leader in handgun control advocacy. It eventually ended in the Brady Laws which state that background checks are now required for the purchase of handguns.
Most recently, the FN 5.7 was used in the Fort Hood shooting and has sense become the scapegoat for gun control advocates. On November 5th Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on Ft. Hood on November 5th where troops receive medical attention before being deployed or after returning from overseas. He reportedly felt as though the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were targeting Muslims. Before being stopped by police, Hasan killed four commissioned officers, eight soldiers, and one civilian. Twenty-nine other people were wounded. He is now is being charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder.
This shooting along with several other cases in which the FN 5.7 and several other guns that shoot similar ammunition were used has made gun control groups and gun advocate groups spark up a new war on what’s fair, what’s dangerous, and what our second amendment rights really are.



Sources:
Casey, Mike . "Cop-Killer Bullets." 4 Oct. 2004. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. .  

Hodge, Nathan. "What, Exactly, Is a ‘Cop-Killer’ Gun? (Updated)." Wired 9 Nov. 2009. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. .

Humphries, Michael O. "Radical Tactical Firepower." Tactial Weapons May 2008. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. .

.

Jakes, Lara, and Devlin Barrett. "Rampage Gun purchased legally." The Associated Press 6 Nov. 2009. Web. 15 Nov. 2009

McKinley Jr. , James C. "Major Held in Fort Hood Rampage is Charged with 13 Counts of Murder." The New York Times 12 Nov. 2009. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. .

Stirling, Stephen. "NY: Police Confiscate "Cop Killer" Gun in Far Rockaway." New York Times 21 July 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. .

Darwin Revelation a.k.a. Still Credible After All These Years

In this day and age I find that practically everyone believes in Darwin's Theory of Evolution. I personally adopted it in 8th grade when we were taught it in our principles of science class. The reason most believe his theory to be true is that it makes pretty good sense. For hundreds of years science has been answering our questions about the unknown. Science has allowed us to start to understand the microscopic workings of matter and our universe. If science has been answering unknowns for years, people are far more likely to accept this theory because it's backed by the scientific community, rather than a theory made up by some man in Detroit. I think Darwin's ideas are also far more believable when its greatest natural confliction, the church, works alongside scientists to try and help science explain ideas. The article "How to Teach Science to the Pope" mentions the vast resources that the church has at its disposal and how the church works with the scientific community to incorporate science into religion so that they don't conflict and end up being at each other's throats. It's hard to determine if humans have been physically evolving, there's not a lot of physical proof we can present to say we have. When it really gets down to it we've got about 3000 years of history we know a good amount of. Evolution takes place over hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to a species enemies. Even since the Roman and Egyptian empires our only real enemies are each other. We're not preyed upon by animals because we construct dwellings and have guns to protect us. Some diseases can still pose troubles but nowadays that's nothing compared to the amount of fatal diseases when there was no medicine or established medical field. We tend to not even adapt to our environment. If the environment is too cold for us to physically survive in it, instead of not going there like any normal animal might, we just throw on thick layers of clothes and bring some form of heater. This is the idea that writer and futurist Jamais Cascio puts forth in his article, "Get Smarter."

Instead of physically evolving over millennia of trial and error on a certain subject, we use our cognitive abilities to solve problems. Our most powerful evolutionary asset is definitely our brain. Our brains allowed us to make hunting easier in the past, to construct dwellings to make the condition for living better, to even develop communication systems that allow humans around to world to acquire knowledge on a subject they may want to know. For instance, and this is extreme, but say a man wanted to know how to brace his leg after he broke it in the middle of the outback with no one else around. If he has any sort of internet capable phone, and service, he could bring up his browser and look up how to brace his leg. This sort of easy access to advanced and not everyday knowledge is how we adept to hostile environments. Our almost daily immersion in knowledge can lead to some deficiencies.

Nicholas Carr's piece "Is Google making us stupid?" brings this idea to life. Nicholas opens his idea up with the topic of reading. Most of the article is true but the reading part really strikes home to me. The speed at which we can acquire practically everything we want over the internet has definitely lead me to be a little less attentive to certain activities. When at work I would usually start a task but get bored, so I'd drop the task and try to find something else to do. Being able to hop on your computer and watch a specific episode of your favorite show in about five minutes can definitely lead to impatience in boring situations. I think to myself, "I've been bleaching these tables for 15 minutes. I could've been home playing a game, doing homework, or researching. This also applies to reading and the problems some have with it. Carr said that the fast pace of information technology has made it harder for him to stay connected to a book. Where as he used to be able to read in long segments he can barely make it threw a chapter without his attention span wearing thin. The easy access digital media like videos and games have definitely made it harder for me to get started on a book, but they've made me read more overall. When I sit at my computer I always finish a game I'm playing or a video I'm watching in one sitting, if not, I pick up where I left off immediately when I can. This is how I read books now. It's harder for me to start one, but as soon as I'm reading I won't do anything else until I'm done with that book. I recently took a train trip back to Connecticut which was seven hours long, so I brought a book to read. This almost 700 page book took me about 10 hours to read. I spent the entire train ride reading, and when I got back to my house I lay down on the couch and finished the book. If there's anything that Google and the internet has done its make fun more addicting. If I'm bored I'm more fidgety, just like Carr says, but if I'm having fun I always complete what I'm doing before I move on. So just like Cascio stated, we evolve our knowledge far faster than out actual bodies. Why would our bodies need to adapt to something like polio when we can invent a cure that can be taken as a child to prevent the disease for life.

In short, I believe Darwin to be spot on in his theories basis, especially pertaining to animals even today. But humans aren't generally threatened by anything more than disease, our own creations, and our own stupidity. Maybe evolution will somehow opt out a part of our brain that makes us act without thinking. But for now we'll keep using out knowledge and studies to react to changes in our environment. Much like humans react in the recent Movie 2012 humanity knew the disaster was coming, and in about five years they constructed massive ships that could stay afloat after the world was flooded and could house a good chunk of the world's population. In less than five years, humans reacted to the "end of days" and survived it, not with evolutionary gills, but with an expansive knowledge of seafaring and structural engineering. Here I have a video that helps back up my main point of Darwin still being credible even today.



Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. The Atlantic. 2007. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Cascio, Jamais. “Get Smarter”. The Atlantic, July/August 2009. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/intelligence

Consummate proof of Darwinian evolution. Youtube. Google, 11 Nov. 2007. 30 Nov. 2009.

Mason, Michael. “How to Teach Science to the Pope”. Discover Magazine. August 18, 2008. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/18-how-to-teach-science-to-the-pope/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C

My study of Darwin in this class has taken a new path. I’ve always thought of Darwin as an explanation of the physical world. But because technology is so prevalent in our class, I’ve begun to look at his work through that aspect. I’ve gone back and forth several times over the last few weeks on whether or not humans are effecting evolution for the better or worse. I’ve thought about the angle that more people are living and we have more of our species and therefore our species is dominant. But I can’t ignore the fact that there also is a component about competition between members of the same species. I feel also as though human intelligence has been the species greatest asset. I come to realize because of explanations by Darwin, that intelligence has become the most helpful and the most hazardous aspect of a human’s evolution.

In terms of the medical field, human knowledge has made significant leaps and bounds even in the last thirty years. Humans have become better at surviving and therefore are better at the ultimate goal of evolution, reproduction. They have also become more successful in ensuring that contraception can take place so their genes will be passed on to the next generation. Humans are constantly trying to medically bypass the natural selection of genes by “outsmarting nature.” It is no longer what you are born with but how resourceful you can be. Humans have found ways to make them more attractive, stronger, and more fertile by means personal intelligence or the intelligence of others. So in one sense we have aided natural selection in the respect that we increase our chances of our genes surviving to the next generation, and have found ways to make sure that certain traits are selected for. However we have also taken the job away from natural selection the short term in the sense that we have used our intelligence to live longer, have more children and artificially make ourselves more attractive to our potential mates. For example, we are no longer dying of certain genetic diseases. Certain diseases or “undesirable” traits are being continued to be passed on because medical science is treating them, therefore bypassing natural selection that would have had those genes die before they were able to reproduce. We are selecting to have these genes be passed on and thereby hindering the species. Furthermore, a natural way of keeping population down has been taken away. According to Thomas Malthus, the earth will not be able to support an ever-expanding population. Because the population is living longer and dying less due to medical advances we are changing the face of the evolution of the planet as well as ourselves. We have taken away a fundamental genetic “check” on the population by treating certain diseases. And because our species isn’t dying we are putting additional stress on other species because the planet is not an infinite resource for us to exploit.

Technology has also been a savior and a hazard to evolution. Humans have used their intelligence to build buildings, shape landscapes, and set up permanent residences. Humans have effectively used their technology to forever change the landscape of this Earth. Because of that change they have bettered themselves as a species in the sense that they are able to take most advantage of the natural resources available therefore allowing there genes to have a better chance of getting passed on. However, with this also comes the question of whether technology is our own form of Evolution that will eventually make our species obsolete. As Phillip K. Dick has pointed out, technology can go just as horribly wrong as it can do good. We cannot pretend that we are the only species affected by our interference with evolution. In “Evolutions and the Origins of Disease” by Randolph Nesse and George Williams, they explain the evolution of the HIV virus as it relates to the human race. They explain that we are more prone to treating the virulent strains of HIV that will kill thereby selecting for the less lethal ones that won’t by developing medical defenses and preventative measures. It then becomes about subsistence and the viruses that don’t kill are more likely to survive because their host is surviving longer. They say that, “our collective choices can change the very nature of HIV.” (Nesse, 462) The human race does not often think of how it’s choices effect other organisms. People tend to think that technology is only for humans and that it has no use or effect on other organisms. However if simple choices such as using a clean needle can have that dramatic an effect on viruses it’s terrifying to think what our other more significant choices have on other species. Our instinct tells us that it is better for our species to survive and our intelligence gives us the technology to do so. However, in that use of our technology we have unfortunately wiped out, altered, and hindered other species. Our intelligence is easily our greatest asset. We however have not evolved it enough to know how to use it with out being destructive to everything around us.

Sources:

Dick Philip K. The Philip K. Dick Reader, New York: Citadel Press. 1987.

Malthus, Thomas Robert. "An Essay on the Principle of Population." in Darwin 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001

Nesse, Randolph M and George C. Williams. "Evolution and the Origins of Disease." in Darwin 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001

Didn't catch a break yet

I have a video of some readings here telling us about what Darwin and his colleagues thought of women. The person reads some exerts from some of Darwin's work that have to do with women and how they are looked upon by men, and society as a whole.

Watch Darwinism and Women in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

This video has to do with my paper because i am discussing the roles of women before and after the whole evolution idea was found.

"Darwinism and Women | Creation / Evolution | Veoh." Free Videos Online - Watch TV Online - Free Video Clips | Veoh. Web. 30 Nov. 2009.

The De-Evolution of Man

The De-Evolution of Man

In the dawn of mankind, humans had to live like animals in comparison with modern society. The people had two simple goals: to stay alive and to procreate. If an individual could not meet these goals then he or she would die. In this fashion, the humans that lived on had traits and abilities that would reach the two goals and those characteristics would be passed on to the next generation. It is from these traits that the human race as strived and fought to survive over the millennia. Some of these characteristics that have passed through the generations can be seen today like how humans pick mates. Proof of this natural selection of mankind can be found in the human body in vestigial organs, such as the appendix and the tailbone. The appendix was used to digest plant matter in earlier humans and the tailbone is a remnant of previous ancestors that had tails. In general, traits and parts that were less beneficial to the survival of the individual were replaced and gradually decayed so that only valuable genes would survive. This is, however, until the dawn of the modern age of technology, when the strongest were not the only ones who would survive.

The drive of science has always been curiosity and with that motivation many discoveries have been made. The drive of technology is to take those discoveries and make them useful to society. From suits of armor for protection to automobiles and planes for faster travel to the internet for connecting with other people all around the world, technology would lead to innovations that would be used to expand the capabilities of people. However, like the less useful traits of the ancestors, the ability to complete tacks without the use of these innovations has been slowly decaying. Nicholas Carr has also noticed this trend in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” In the article, Carr writes about his realization that the over-usage of Google and skimming articles online was starting to hinder his ability to read for extended lengths of time. Carr then goes on to describe how other individuals had discovered this as well such as Bruce Friedman who was quoted saying “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” “I’ve lost the ability to do that.” (Nicholas Carr). This trend that Carr found and brought into the light cannot even be considered something to pass through genes to the next generation. However, this is a great example of how the traits would decay as more useful ones would replace them. Carr might struggle with reading a long book, but he has access to Google and instant information on the internet.

As with Carr’s article, not all traits that decay are useless ones, just less advantageous than others that will be passed on. This is what many science fiction stories try to warn the public, because once a trait has decayed to a certain point, it would be very difficult to reacquire it. The perfect example for this is the Philip K. Dick story, “Pay for the Printer”. In this story the population has become reliant on an alien race known as Biltongs that can make perfect copies of anything that only last for a short while. When the Biltongs become extinct, the humans have to try and relearn all the skills of building and making that were lost with the ease of copying items (Dick 239). Even tasks that had been learned by the first humans to survive like finding food, making clothing and lighting a fire had been lost with the over use of the aliens. This is the fear society expects, to become so reliant on something that humans will lose their own abilities and if that tool would ever be taken away, humans would be helpless to survive.

Dick wrote another story called “Strange Eden” where adventurers find a strange planet full of plants and animals that seemed like paradise. One of the crew members decides to walk around and explore the surface and winds up meeting an alien that is so evolved she became an immortal. Brent the crew member is given the choice to stay with her and go through a rapid evolution or to leave. Brent goes with human instinct and stays with her. The captain of the ship encounters the alien who tells him to leave the planet without Brent, who has evolved into a lion like creature (Dick 111). In this story Dick wonders if the next evolution of man will actually be a step backwards. The progression of mankind has steadily been decreasing with the reliance on technology and if people keep losing their abilities to survive without reliance and the technology was ever taken away, that society will resort back to primitive ways.

In both of these ideas, the human race is not heading in a positive direction. To either become toddlers that can survive without support of someone or something or devolve back into the animal kingdom. It is not only science fiction that is portraying this fear. In the last few years, two movies have come out that really portray this warning to the audience. The first movie is Wall-E where the background is that the Earth became inhabitable and humans fled into space where they were pampered into obese sloths. The other movie is Idiocracy where in the year 2505 the entire population of Earth has become idiots due to their reliance on technology and a theory of lesser intelligent people having many more kids than more intelligent people. In Idiocracy the planet is filled with trash and simple problems like plants not growing because they are being watered with Gatorade are beyond the population. In both movies, the hero does their best to help the populace start a better life, either by returning to Earth or by having a competent leader.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic. 2007. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Dick, Philip K. "Pay for the Printer." pp 239-252 in The Philip K. Dick Reader, New York: Citadel Press. 1987

Dick, Philip K. "Strange Eden." pp 111-122 in The Philip K. Dick Reader, New York: Citadel Press. 1987

Idiocracy. Dir. Mike Judge. Perf. Luke Wilson and Dax Shepard. 20th Century Fox, 2006. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Garibaldi1967, 12 Dec. 2007. Web. 28 Nov. 2009. .

Wall-E. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Perf. Jeff Garlin and Sigourney Weaver. Pixar Animation Studios, 2008. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Johnpasma, 5 Nov. 2008. Web. 28 Nov. 2009. .

Darwin Revelations
Through our recent studies of Darwin within Cor-220 I have come to better understand Darwin’s findings and idea’s in a much clearer light than I have previously before. I have adapted his concepts, theories and beliefs to structure my own personal revelation on modern day evolution and how it has changed since his time. That revelation is as follows; evolution is still the same but for humanity it has been taken away from nature and put in control of our two hands. Evolution works differently and much more rapidly on the modern day human as the vast quantities of information continues to build up and affect us all. It is no longer an internal change of DNA but rather the external modification of us. It is our new form of adaptation, to get smarter and learn more rather than wait for evolution to pick what is right for us. In the article “Get Smarter” by Jamais Cascio, she states:

“WE’VE been augmenting our ability to think for millennia. When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio. The rise of urbanization allowed a fraction of the populace to focus on more-cerebral tasks—a fraction that grew inexorably as more-complex economic and social practices demanded more knowledge work, and industrial technology reduced the demand for manual labor. And caffeine and nicotine, of course, are both classic cognitive-enhancement drugs, primitive though they may be.”

This is an important aspect of humanity that most people never seem to consider. We have freed ourselves from evolutions grasp and found other ways to more rapidly adapt. There is so much information out there that we cannot simply know it all anymore. The internet is one of those external adaptations that has affected us so greatly on not only how we gather information but how we learn/record that information and even our cognitive process. We can longer read every little detail and word out there on the page, we have to skim through and pick out the important stuff to keep moving, there simply just isn’t enough time out there to absorb it all if you were to read it all.

Some people on the other hand feel that this is making us stupid rather than smarter. Author Nicholas Carr, writer of the article “Is Google making us stupid?” claims that “…And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” Saying that he has some form of constant ADD. It could be seen that the internet is making us stupid but is it really or is it just a radical change in how we think and an adaptation to how we can further understand and learn more in much less time? According to an article that interviews Stephan Hawking, it would take 15,000 years to read all the books in a national library which by the time you finish there will be many more made. (Casey Kazan) He further goes on to explain the concept of the external transmission phase” where evolution applies to the external transmission of information through databases down to the next generation as a form of evolution, thus allowing quicker pace of evolution through our own hands. (Casey Kazan)

Lastly, here is a link to a Youtube video about how we “find, store, create and share” information from the beginning to now.

I chose this video for the reason that it clearly shows how much information is around on just the internet alone and helps people grasp why it should be considered a part of our evolution. Simply because we do not loose information between generations anymore, it continues to grow to a point to when we can simply control our genetics and modify our beings to new heights. It also demonstrates that if we were to not have this information stored digitally how inefficient the entire system for finding information would be. We have reached a point where information is so readily available that it can allow for the forgetfulness of certain things since they can be simply reacquired so easily.

Works Cited
The Atlantic. July & aug. 2008. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

The Atlantic. July & aug. 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Information R/evolution. Youtube. Google, 12 Oct. 2007. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Kazan, Casey. "Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"" The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel. 3 July 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Evolution of the computers, and security, and information access

Ever since man first had secrets, there has been someone ready to steal it. As the security of these secrets increases in complexity, so do the methods used to steal them. This cycle creates a constant battle of invention to outsmart the opposing force. It’s all comes down to whether you can build your wall taller than the other guy’s ladder.
In the beginning of the terminal era there was only one way to use the internet. The user had to specify a service (IP, FTP, TELNET) to use to connect to a server. The connection would then be negotiated by the specified service protocols. This gave the user a great deal of working knowledge to operate his or her machine with. When the GUI (graphics user interface) was developed, the realm of computers opened up to a broader range of users than ever before. User now didn’t have to know to change their FTP transfer mode from ASCII to binary when transferring from a Microsoft platform to unix/linux. They didn’t need to remember all 24 options for how to list the contents of a directory (or even how to list a directory’s contents other than just clicking the folder).
This lack of user knowledge has created a large division between the computer literate and the hacker. To clarify, a hacker is not a malicious computer user. This is a title bestowed on malevolent tech-savvy users by the media (because how can we come together to hate something if we haven’t labeled it?). A hacker is simply a very highly skilled computer user. This influx of unskilled users has led to great holes in security. If a user has entrusted you with their security on a network, chances are that they’re walking around the internet blindly with no concern for the consequences of their actions. When malicious users try to take advantage of the disregard for security, it’s now your job to find the hole the attacker has dug and board it up.
In the end it really comes down to computer fluency. How well can someone speak the language needed for the task? The inside of a computer is, in every way, like a small world. There are different languages and customs, different way to travel, and there is always powerful shadowy figure watching whose good side you should make sure you’re on. There are more languages for the web than I can even count; xhtml, perl, ruby, python, apache, java, javascript, the list goes on. The same goes for application programming. Then just to navigate the computer a user MUST be FLUENT in command prompt for windows, and all the different shells as well as terminals for both mac and linux. The user who is more fluent in subject is currently needed will be the winner, and the only way to make sure you always win is by knowing them all.
Jamais Cascio, suggests that we are heading toward what he calls the “Nöocene epoch”, where we begin to evolve to deal with the amount of information that we have created. I believe that we may have already reached this point. In the article by Nicholas Carr, Carr discusses evidence that this could be rather simple step. As the brain adjusts to in taking bits of information and moving on to find more, patterns in the brain develop that allow it adjust to this constant hoping from subject to subject. This adjustment, however, make the brain less able to focus on single tasks for long periods of time. This could be the next significant change in humans. In the computer security race, something like this could make all the difference. As Darwin state, “For as all the inhabitants of each country are struggling together with nicely balanced forces, extremely slight modifications in the structure or habits of one inhabitant would often give it an advantage over others; and still further modification of the same kind would often sill further increase the advantage” (112).





works cited

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid? - The Atlantic (July/August 2008)." The Atlantic: Breaking News, Analysis and Opinion on politics, business, culture, international, science, technology, food and society. July & aug. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. .

Cascio, Jamais. "Get Smarter - The Atlantic (July/August 2009)." The Atlantic: Breaking News, Analysis and Opinion on politics, business, culture, international, science, technology, food and society. July & aug. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. .

Darwin, Charles. Darwin (Norton Critical Editions) (3rd Edition). New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Print.

Reverse Revelation

In this class we have spent most of our time discussing Darwin and the implications of his actions and publishing on society. Whether right or wrong in the the context of the class, it is clear that there is a biased opinion throughout the course of anything that contradicts evolution. However, this class is not the only place where that holds true. The same thing can be said of our modern society. This has inspired me to do something similar to Darwin's actions of discovering evolution based on observation. Just as Darwin sat and observed the world and came to that revelation of evolution, I plan to talk about what revelation I have come to from sitting in our class and from observing the world around me.

To start out simply, I'd like to discuss the things that are necessary for evolution to take place. But first let's start with a definition of evolution from Merriam-Webster;

"the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : phylogeny b : a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also : the process described by this theory."

This leaves me asking the question 'what is needed for evolution', or to go one step back, 'what is needed for a species to survive'? The main three essentials are food, sleep and sex. Food to nourish us and to power our bodies with energy, sleep to rest and to allow our bodies to recover and repair, and last sex for the purpose of perpetuating the species. In order to survive, all we need is to prefect these skills, so why are we the curious organisms that we see today? If we follow the rules of evolution, I would say rabbits are the winners: they are able to breed fast, eat food and sleep efficiently to allow for the perpetuation of the species, which, according to evolution, is all that is the purpose of any creature.

This moves on to our next topic of discussion: what humans have that is not necessary in evolution. The first of these is certain emotions or feelings. Granted, having a sense of fear is definitely something that could have helped us to acquire food in the past, but what about embarrassment, specifically blushing. There is no reason for this emotion; it has no place in helping us in any of the three categories of food, sex and sleep, which begs the question of why do we feel it and why does the blood rush to our face what advantage does this give us? This alone provides a huge gap in what Darwin had to say, and leads me to a revelation.

Humans don't exists for the purpose of perpetuation of the species. Clearly there is something more to our existence. This is tribute to the fact that humans have an intelligence unmatched by anything else on the planet, but we also have something much much more important; the desire to improve self and society. Most humans have the desire to better themselves and to improve things and the quality of life around them. No other known life-forms show these same characteristics on scale that we do. That alone makes us unique to anything else on this planet, and much of the purpose of evolution.

In conclusion, our current existence surpasses anything that evolution intended for us to be in all areas, from thought to physical ability. We have built buildings, bridges, and monuments unlike anything else known in the universe. We have learned to fly and to break our physical limits of being grounded to the point where exploring other worlds beyond our own. Nothing can stop us; we are indeed are something more than a pile of chemicals and cells. We are the human race, whose reach knows no bounds, and if what evolution says is wholly true I feel I'd be in cave somewhere right now defecating myself.

Citation:

National Academy of the Sciences. "Frequently Asked Questions about Evolution and the Nature of Science." in Darwin 3^rd ed . Phillip Apple man, ed. New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

Darwin, Charles. "Selections from Darwin's Work." pp 67-254 in Darwin.3^rd ed. Phillip Appleman, ed. New York: W.WNorton, 2001

Paley, William. "Natural Theology." in Darwin. 3^rd ed. Phillip Appleman, ed. New York: W.WNorton, 2001

"evolution." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 30 November 2009

"Blushing 'biggest gap in evolutionary theory'". telegraph.co.uk. 11/30/09 .

"Evolution: An Unscientific Faith." Web. 30 Nov 2009. .