1. Please describe the background of the dispute between Dr. Samuel Huntington and Dr. Serge Lang.
Huntington is a teacher in the social sciences and Lang is in the natural sciences. Huntington wanted to join the NAS which Lang is a member of but Lang did not want him to because he does not believe the soft sciences should be mixed with the hard sciences or even be considered science in the first place.
2. How did Lang respond to Huntington’s “pseudo mathematics?”
Lang responded by creating a petition that would forbid him from being accepted by the NAS.
3. What aspects of the dispute between Lang and Huntington are “political?” How does the author, Jared Diamond, feel about “Academic Freedom?”
It was political because the NAS worked to give scientific advice to the government and because Huntington supported the efforts of Vietnam and studied political instability so Land thought he was too right wing. Jared Diamond feels that academic freedom is unfair because insiders of academics can raise whatever issues they please about it but outsiders cannot.
4. Why does the NAS exist? Why does this make that attacks against Huntington seem peculiar?
The NAS exists to provide scientific advice to the government before they do anything and it is peculiar because that is exactly what Huntington is doi9ng and yet the NAS is using it against him.
5. Why does Diamond find fault in the traditional perceptions of the hard sciences?
He finds fault because they are stereotyped as being in a lab mixing chemicals when in fact many different things which never end up in a lab can still coont as natural sciences.
6. Why are soft sciences difficult to study?
They are hard to study because their variables are not easily controlled and they can never truly be repeated.
7. How did the NAS need to change in the early 1970s?
They needed to start admitting social scientists because the government needed their advise about thing like the Vietnam war.
8. What are the problems in “operationalizing” a concept?
It is not always clear what method should be used to measure a phenomenon like social instability.
9. Briefly describe how Diamond illustrates operationalizing in:
•Mathematics
A number and counting system.
•Chemistry
Identifying some property of a substance of interest, or of a related substance into which the first can be converted. The property must be one that can be measured, like weight, or the light the substance absorbs, or the amount of neutralizing agent it consumes.
•Ecology
Computing different aspects of an environment like height of trees or volume of a marsh and creating an index of all aspects combined into one number.
•Psychology
A questionnaire developed from widely agreed upon statements.
10. What were Huntington’s operationalized concepts that provoked the wrath of Lang?
They were economic well-being, political instability, and social and economic modernization.
11. Why is the task of operationalizing more difficult and less exact in the soft sciences? Why does it lead to the ridicule of the soft sciences?
Because certain aspects of social sciences cannot easily be defined and measured like emotions, and this leads to ridicule because the concepts being studied tend to be familiar ones that all of us fancy we're experts on.
12. Why does Diamond believe that Lang might be ignorant of the measurements taken by social scientists like Huntington?
This is because he believes his question ''How does Huntington measure things like social frustration?'' would be the same as asking how quantities are measured in math.
13. Does Diamond believe the labels associated with the sciences be replaced? Explain.
Yes, he believes soft sciences should be called hard and hard sciences easy because the soft sciences are much more intellectually challenging.
14. Does Diamond believe the soft sciences to be more valuable than hard sciences? Do you agree? Explain.
He seems to suggest that the soft sciences are more important but I do not agree because while it is true that understanding each other is important, the natural world is what caused our existence in the first place and I believe that not understanding it will make it harder for us to understand human nature which is a part of the natural world in a way. Therefore I believe that both sciences are equally important.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Brave New World Chapter 9
1. What did Lenina do when she got back to the rest-house?
She took so much somma that it kept her in the trance of a somma-holiday for eighteen hours because she was incapable of dealing with the realities of life she had just faced for the first time.
2. What does Bernard ask his Fordship, Mustapha Mond?
He asks him to allow John and Linda to return with him to London as a part of some scientific investigation into their situation.
3. What does John say when he is by Lenina's bedside? Why is this significant?
He recites a passage from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This could possibly foreshadow the death of John and Lenina since they are being compared to two characters who are doomed from the very beginning of Shakespeare’s story.
She took so much somma that it kept her in the trance of a somma-holiday for eighteen hours because she was incapable of dealing with the realities of life she had just faced for the first time.
2. What does Bernard ask his Fordship, Mustapha Mond?
He asks him to allow John and Linda to return with him to London as a part of some scientific investigation into their situation.
3. What does John say when he is by Lenina's bedside? Why is this significant?
He recites a passage from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This could possibly foreshadow the death of John and Lenina since they are being compared to two characters who are doomed from the very beginning of Shakespeare’s story.
Brave New Wold Chapter 8
1. How would you describe John's upbringing? Why do you think he says that he is "Alone, always alone." (p. 137). How does Bernard feel about John?
John was thrown into a world he could never have any true place in. He had a cruel childhood being brought up by a woman who had been conditioned to hate the idea of motherhood. His manliness was constantly being challenged by his mother’s lovers who bullied him and took away the one comfort he had in his life, the love and attention of his mother. He tried very hard to fit into his community but was rejected. All of his experiences lead him to believe that forcing himself to suffer was the only way to gain some sort of enlightenment on his sad situation. He was torn between the world and customs of the Indians and those of his mother’s previous life in the civilized world. He says he is alone because he was raised by the customs of both these worlds combined therefore no one from either of these places could truly understand him because he would have some qualities of the other world. So he was always being rejected by both sides and therefore could never belong anywhere and was always alone.
2. Why does John say at the end of the chapter, "O brave new world!" (p. 139)?
He says this because he believes that the civilized world is full of opportunity for him and he will truly be happy and fulfilled there. It is in a way a fresh start for him.
John was thrown into a world he could never have any true place in. He had a cruel childhood being brought up by a woman who had been conditioned to hate the idea of motherhood. His manliness was constantly being challenged by his mother’s lovers who bullied him and took away the one comfort he had in his life, the love and attention of his mother. He tried very hard to fit into his community but was rejected. All of his experiences lead him to believe that forcing himself to suffer was the only way to gain some sort of enlightenment on his sad situation. He was torn between the world and customs of the Indians and those of his mother’s previous life in the civilized world. He says he is alone because he was raised by the customs of both these worlds combined therefore no one from either of these places could truly understand him because he would have some qualities of the other world. So he was always being rejected by both sides and therefore could never belong anywhere and was always alone.
2. Why does John say at the end of the chapter, "O brave new world!" (p. 139)?
He says this because he believes that the civilized world is full of opportunity for him and he will truly be happy and fulfilled there. It is in a way a fresh start for him.
Brave New World Chapter 7
1. How does Lenina feel about their appointed guide?
She does not like him because he is unclean and he smells. She is not familiar with him and is scared of him because he is extremely different from civilized people.
2. How does Lenina react to "naked Indian"(p. 110)? Does it remind you of anyone else we have studied?
She is shocked that old people can look like that because no old person she knows looks like the Indian. She is similar to Prince Siddhārtha in the way he reacted when he saw old age for the first time.
3. How does Bernard react to the pueblo of Malpais?
He is fairly calm while Lenina is disgusted by it. He gives the impression as though he has seen it before.
4. Who is Linda? What is her relationship to Tomakin?
She is the woman that the D.H.C. lost in the reservations and she had a child of his there and has lived there ever since. Tomakin is Thomas who is the D.H.C. who is the father of her child.
5. Why does Linda believe that "everything they do is mad"(p. 121)? Please be specific.
She believes this because everything the Indians do is opposite to what her society did. For example, each person is only suppose to have one other person for intercourse even though in Linda’s society everyone had everyone else.
She does not like him because he is unclean and he smells. She is not familiar with him and is scared of him because he is extremely different from civilized people.
2. How does Lenina react to "naked Indian"(p. 110)? Does it remind you of anyone else we have studied?
She is shocked that old people can look like that because no old person she knows looks like the Indian. She is similar to Prince Siddhārtha in the way he reacted when he saw old age for the first time.
3. How does Bernard react to the pueblo of Malpais?
He is fairly calm while Lenina is disgusted by it. He gives the impression as though he has seen it before.
4. Who is Linda? What is her relationship to Tomakin?
She is the woman that the D.H.C. lost in the reservations and she had a child of his there and has lived there ever since. Tomakin is Thomas who is the D.H.C. who is the father of her child.
5. Why does Linda believe that "everything they do is mad"(p. 121)? Please be specific.
She believes this because everything the Indians do is opposite to what her society did. For example, each person is only suppose to have one other person for intercourse even though in Linda’s society everyone had everyone else.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Brave New World Chapter 6
Part I
1. Why does Lenina think Bernard Marx "odd" - please use specific references from this chapter in your answer.
She thinks he is odd because he is so personal about things like sex, shown by his embarrassment when Lenina talked about their date in public. She also thinks this because he is so unsocial, shown by his unwillingness to talk to the bots in the changing room.
2. Please provide more lines from Lenina that she learned from hypnopedia (there are some great ones in this chapter!). Do any of them remind you of sayings that we may use - please don't use commercial jingles. i.e. "1-800-54-Giant!"
“A gramme in time saves nine”, “A gramme is always better than damn”, “Everyone works for everyone else”, “Thank Ford”, “Never put off till tomorrow what fun you can have today”, and “When the individual feels the community reels”. These remind me of sayings we have such as “Thank God”, “Never put off to till tomorrow what you can do today”, and “Kill two birds with one stone”.
3. What is Fanny's explanation for Bernard's behavior?
She says there was alcohol in his blood-surrogate.
Part II
4. What did the Director tell Bernard about his own trip to the Reservation? Why did it initially make Bernard feel uncomfortable?
He told him that he went with a girl she got lost one night in a storm and was never found even though he severely hurt his knee trying to look for her. This made Bernard initially uncomfortable because a man as important as the Director had done the forbidden act of thinking of the past just because his disapproval Bernard had such a strong affect on him.
5. What does the Director threaten Bernard with if he doesn't change his behavior? Why does it elate Bernard?
He threatens to have him transferred to Iceland. It make Bernard happy because he was able to have such a strong effect on the Director and he knew the threat was not legitimate.
Part III
6. How does the Warden describe the Reservation?
He explained that it was divided into different sections, that it was separated from the civilized world by a deadly electric fence, that the savages there still spoke different languages and were of mixed breeds, still married and were born into families, and that there were many wild and dangerous beasts there.
1. Why does Lenina think Bernard Marx "odd" - please use specific references from this chapter in your answer.
She thinks he is odd because he is so personal about things like sex, shown by his embarrassment when Lenina talked about their date in public. She also thinks this because he is so unsocial, shown by his unwillingness to talk to the bots in the changing room.
2. Please provide more lines from Lenina that she learned from hypnopedia (there are some great ones in this chapter!). Do any of them remind you of sayings that we may use - please don't use commercial jingles. i.e. "1-800-54-Giant!"
“A gramme in time saves nine”, “A gramme is always better than damn”, “Everyone works for everyone else”, “Thank Ford”, “Never put off till tomorrow what fun you can have today”, and “When the individual feels the community reels”. These remind me of sayings we have such as “Thank God”, “Never put off to till tomorrow what you can do today”, and “Kill two birds with one stone”.
3. What is Fanny's explanation for Bernard's behavior?
She says there was alcohol in his blood-surrogate.
Part II
4. What did the Director tell Bernard about his own trip to the Reservation? Why did it initially make Bernard feel uncomfortable?
He told him that he went with a girl she got lost one night in a storm and was never found even though he severely hurt his knee trying to look for her. This made Bernard initially uncomfortable because a man as important as the Director had done the forbidden act of thinking of the past just because his disapproval Bernard had such a strong affect on him.
5. What does the Director threaten Bernard with if he doesn't change his behavior? Why does it elate Bernard?
He threatens to have him transferred to Iceland. It make Bernard happy because he was able to have such a strong effect on the Director and he knew the threat was not legitimate.
Part III
6. How does the Warden describe the Reservation?
He explained that it was divided into different sections, that it was separated from the civilized world by a deadly electric fence, that the savages there still spoke different languages and were of mixed breeds, still married and were born into families, and that there were many wild and dangerous beasts there.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
TOK Essay
"People need to believe that order can be glimpsed in the chaos of events" (adapted from John Gray, Heresies, 2004). In what ways and to what extent would you say this claim is relevant in at least two areas of knowledge?
This statement can be applied to two areas of knowledge, the natural sciences and the social sciences. It could be argued that the very purpose of the natural sciences is to find order in the chaos of natural events and therefore this statement can be readily applied in this area of knowledge. In Reuben Abel’s book Man is the Measure, Abel claims that science explains facts by taking a general law combined with specific conditions of nature to logically deduce the facts. This shows how scientists are taking the chaotic situations of their natural environment and finding a way to explain them with order and reason, therefore glimpsing the order within that chaos. An example of this is the expedition that was taken to find water on the moon in October 2009, when NASA launched a missile into the surface of the moon to break up the rocky ground and collect samples to discover if they contained any water content. NASA was trying to find supportive evidence that the Moon was once a part of the Earth by studying the composition of its water molecules. In the end they discovered that it was strikingly similar to water on Earth and this was the evidence they had hoped to find. This supports this claim because it is an example of how scientists try and make sense of the chaos that is our universe. Despite how much they do not understand they are working they are looking for an order and explanation for the way the universe is.
Another example of this statement in the natural sciences is the Climategate Scandal. E-mails of many climate change researchers asking other climate change researchers to manipulate their data to make global warming seem like more of a threat than it actually is were discovered by computer hackers and posted online for the rest of the world to see. This supports this claim because it shows that these scientists were trying to create order by fooling other people into believing they had to organize themselves to deal with the issue of global warming. In the chaos of environmental change these people took drastic measures to ensure there would be some organization of support for environmental awareness. The implication of this statement in the natural sciences is that the world and universe we live in is completely chaotic and we may never truly understand it despite how much we try to organize it.
In the social sciences, it could be argued that people devote their time to trying to find an order to the chaotic event that is mankind. In Man is the Measure, Abel claims that the purpose of the social sciences is to formulate general conditions under which events occur either by or within human beings. This shows how scientists in the social sciences, similar to those in the natural sciences, are trying to make sense of a chaotic phenomenon such as human behavior and are therefore looking for the order within chaos. An example of this claim in social sciences is the documentary titled 18 with a Bullet, which studied the trends and behavior of gangs in El Salvador. A group of social science scientists and a camera crew went to a city called San Salvador in El Salvador and spent months following and interviewing a gang called 18 to learn about their culture and see how their social system was set up. These scientists were looking to find trends that would predict the behavior of the gang members in certain situations and they were looking for explanations for the violence they encouraged within their culture. This example supports this claim in the social sciences because it shows how these people were trying to find a rhyme and reason to human behavior in such a violent and chaotic environment. They were looking for the order within the social system of such a chaotic group of individuals.
Another example of this statement in the social sciences is the Stanford Prison experiment. In this experiment student volunteers were chosen to participate due to their background of being generally good people with no real criminal record; some of these students were assigned to be guards while others were assigned to be prisoners. Social scientists observed the behavior of the students in this prisonlike environment and discovered that guard students very quickly began abusing the prison students to the point where they had to stop the experiment. This behavior lead these scientists to believe that even good humans are easily susceptible to becoming evil in a sadistic environment. This experiment exemplifies how this statement applies to the social sciences because it shows these people in the experiment felt the need to organize themselves in such a chaotic environment as a prison in order to survive. They felt the need to find order in chaos. The implication of this statement in the social sciences is that humans resort to order and system in any chaotic situation despite the outcome of their actions.
A counterclaim to the relevance of this statement in both the natural and social sciences is that the statement is false to begin with. It could be argued that people do not attempt to find order in situations of chaos and therefore they would not feel that it is necessary to do so. An example that may support this claim would be anarchist societies which strive to abolish all systems of order and embrace the idea of chaos in a way. However, this claim can be disputed with the fact that the majority of human societies do not promote anarchy and that that suggests the majority of humanity would be likely to support this claim of finding order in chaos. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to say that this statement is readily applicable to both the natural sciences and the social sciences.
This statement can be applied to two areas of knowledge, the natural sciences and the social sciences. It could be argued that the very purpose of the natural sciences is to find order in the chaos of natural events and therefore this statement can be readily applied in this area of knowledge. In Reuben Abel’s book Man is the Measure, Abel claims that science explains facts by taking a general law combined with specific conditions of nature to logically deduce the facts. This shows how scientists are taking the chaotic situations of their natural environment and finding a way to explain them with order and reason, therefore glimpsing the order within that chaos. An example of this is the expedition that was taken to find water on the moon in October 2009, when NASA launched a missile into the surface of the moon to break up the rocky ground and collect samples to discover if they contained any water content. NASA was trying to find supportive evidence that the Moon was once a part of the Earth by studying the composition of its water molecules. In the end they discovered that it was strikingly similar to water on Earth and this was the evidence they had hoped to find. This supports this claim because it is an example of how scientists try and make sense of the chaos that is our universe. Despite how much they do not understand they are working they are looking for an order and explanation for the way the universe is.
Another example of this statement in the natural sciences is the Climategate Scandal. E-mails of many climate change researchers asking other climate change researchers to manipulate their data to make global warming seem like more of a threat than it actually is were discovered by computer hackers and posted online for the rest of the world to see. This supports this claim because it shows that these scientists were trying to create order by fooling other people into believing they had to organize themselves to deal with the issue of global warming. In the chaos of environmental change these people took drastic measures to ensure there would be some organization of support for environmental awareness. The implication of this statement in the natural sciences is that the world and universe we live in is completely chaotic and we may never truly understand it despite how much we try to organize it.
In the social sciences, it could be argued that people devote their time to trying to find an order to the chaotic event that is mankind. In Man is the Measure, Abel claims that the purpose of the social sciences is to formulate general conditions under which events occur either by or within human beings. This shows how scientists in the social sciences, similar to those in the natural sciences, are trying to make sense of a chaotic phenomenon such as human behavior and are therefore looking for the order within chaos. An example of this claim in social sciences is the documentary titled 18 with a Bullet, which studied the trends and behavior of gangs in El Salvador. A group of social science scientists and a camera crew went to a city called San Salvador in El Salvador and spent months following and interviewing a gang called 18 to learn about their culture and see how their social system was set up. These scientists were looking to find trends that would predict the behavior of the gang members in certain situations and they were looking for explanations for the violence they encouraged within their culture. This example supports this claim in the social sciences because it shows how these people were trying to find a rhyme and reason to human behavior in such a violent and chaotic environment. They were looking for the order within the social system of such a chaotic group of individuals.
Another example of this statement in the social sciences is the Stanford Prison experiment. In this experiment student volunteers were chosen to participate due to their background of being generally good people with no real criminal record; some of these students were assigned to be guards while others were assigned to be prisoners. Social scientists observed the behavior of the students in this prisonlike environment and discovered that guard students very quickly began abusing the prison students to the point where they had to stop the experiment. This behavior lead these scientists to believe that even good humans are easily susceptible to becoming evil in a sadistic environment. This experiment exemplifies how this statement applies to the social sciences because it shows these people in the experiment felt the need to organize themselves in such a chaotic environment as a prison in order to survive. They felt the need to find order in chaos. The implication of this statement in the social sciences is that humans resort to order and system in any chaotic situation despite the outcome of their actions.
A counterclaim to the relevance of this statement in both the natural and social sciences is that the statement is false to begin with. It could be argued that people do not attempt to find order in situations of chaos and therefore they would not feel that it is necessary to do so. An example that may support this claim would be anarchist societies which strive to abolish all systems of order and embrace the idea of chaos in a way. However, this claim can be disputed with the fact that the majority of human societies do not promote anarchy and that that suggests the majority of humanity would be likely to support this claim of finding order in chaos. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to say that this statement is readily applicable to both the natural sciences and the social sciences.
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