I found Mark Bittman's Tedtalk, What's wrong with what we eat talk to be somewhat educational, but also misleading at the same time especially when it came to agriculture. It is true that humans are over eating especially when it comes to meat, but that is because we're no longer cavemen who need to go out and hunt for our meals but instead, we can go to the grocery store or a restaurant to get anything we desire. Thus I believe that added convince is what is adding to the obesity epidemic, not the agriculture industry. One thing that I felt was semi-true was that yes agriculture production is the second most polluter in the US, but only about 2% of the United States population are farmers, and that 2% strongly cares about the environment especially…
Chris McCandless was somewhat troubled, but I didn’t see him having mental health issues. Reading about McCandless’ early life, it looks like the transition between his mother’s first marriage to her second could’ve been what shaped some of his views. If anything, Chris McCandless was enlightened and knew what he wanted when he started his journey in Into the Wild. Being a fan of both Emerson and Thoreau, I believe Chris McCandless was looking to see the Earth as a transcendentalist would. Even when a stranger he came into contact with offered something to his benefit he would rarely accept. Chris McCandless wanted to do things on his own while on his journey.…
Neil Degrasse Tyson was a person that you would not expect what he would be today. He was an average kid until one day…. he then had a love for space. From then on he has been one of the greatest astrophysicists in the world.…
Right from the start of the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy hits you with a foreshadowing of how small you are compared to community with the example of the demolition of Arthur Dent’s house. It shows how powerless Arthur Dent is to stopping the destruction of his house and how high and mighty humans feel by controlling what gets destroyed and what does not. Earth is treated just like Arthur Dent’s house, useless and in the way for something better. The Vogans address Earth as nothing more than construction and insinuate that if they couldn’t travel light years to read the fine print of the demolishment of Earth than they are better off dead. In the Hitchhiker’s guide to save room, humans were written in as “harmless” and why shouldn’t they be? Humans were for their whole existence ignorant to the fact that there was more than just…
In the article,"Why do many Reasonable People doubt Science?", the writer, Joel Achenbach, asserts that people disbelief science for a variety of reasons. He first described dogmatism and naive beliefs, which are subconscious intuitions that people cling to, to be the reason why many disbelieve science. He further explains that many are reliant on personal experience and anecdotes rather than hard facts and statistics to come to conclusions and that is why many disagree with scientific findings. Achenbach, in his article, also mentioned that, another reason for the disbelief of science is political where "disbelievers", claim that the purport of science, especially in the aspects of climate change, is a propaganda of climate activists and environmentalists who seek to employ the idea of global warming to attack the free market and industrial society. He also mentioned that the disbelief is science is caused the fact that,…
As stated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, “Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes… The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms.” This quote by Neil DeGrasse Tyson not only applies to storms, but also applies to many things we previously did not understand. It basically displays the idea that just because we do not understand a concept, does not mean we will not be able to explain it in the future. Our society must get to the point of being comfortable with not knowing, instead of using myth to explain concepts we do not understand. In…
“He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was star-shaped hole.”(124). Instead of Tim O'Brien telling us facts about this man, he was describing what was happening and how the man looked. Using the 5 senses can help describe in a meaningful way. That is because using the 5 senses can connect with the reader and create an image in their mind to understand what is happening on a deeper…
On April 4, 2009 at Biola University, there was a debate regarding the existence of God between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens. This debate was very interesting because both philosophers felt strongly about their opinion. William Lane Craig was first to speak and discussed his side of the debate very clearly. Craig stated that he believed in religion and philosophy. He also made it lucid that he believes that there are no good arguments that atheism is true, but there are a myriad of arguments that prove that theism is true.…
Another philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, also argues against the unity of science by stating that the laws of physics do not define the laws of nature. She states “Nature does not ‘add’ forces. For the ‘component’ forces are not there, in any but a metaphorical sense, to be added; and the laws which say they are there must be also given a metaphysical reading” (Cartwright, 875). Cartwright distinguishes between two ways of thinking about laws. The first way is that “fundamental” laws are those hypothesized by the realists, and they are meant to describe the actual structure of the universe. The second way is that “phenomenological” laws, these laws are useful for making empirical predictions.…
The lack of understanding and authenticity behind the reasons on why or how things exist have led to the creations of myths such as the Greek, Romans, Scandinavians, and other people around the world who began to use their stories as explanations. Authors Richard Dawkins and Edith Hamilton’s books help better understand two different points of views on the Mythological Theory.…
Stephen William Hawking is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity.…
* Human senses are limited; they convey knowledge of the physical world, but deeper truths can be grasped only through intuition.…
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) became the inspiration for the environmental movement. Its elegant prose expressed passionate outrage at the ravaging of beautiful, unspoiled nature by man. Its frightening message was that we are all being injured by deadly poisons (DDT and other pesticides) put out by a callous chemical industry. This message was snapped up by intellectuals, and the book sold over a million copies. Many organizations have sprung up to spread Carson's message.…
“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” (Adams Chapter 1) From the beginning of Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” it has seemed as though this was indeed the case; at least in terms of the haphazardness, randomness, and unpredictability. Throughout my time reading this particular novel, I have hardly been able to accurately predict or infer the progression of the plot, characters, settings, or conflicts. This uncertainty of the dynamics of the literary elements has made it extremely difficult to call attention to the themes or morals. However, there must be some meaning hidden behind the seemingly random events strung together.…
he was curious about sensory capacities – how light things are, how heavy things are, how loud things are, etc…