Author: lavoie.20

Claire Lavoie | Albers

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What were Pasteur’s most striking characteristics?

The characteristics of Pasteur that most stood out to me were honestly the ones that reminded me of my grandfather.  He has a sense of humor that matches his level of intelligence, and uses his humor and intelligence to make others feel interested in the knowledge he has to share.  He was very passionate about his subject, and he could sas away any critic that dared face him. He was very driven and dedicated to his work.

His greatest accomplishment?

Anthrax vaccine, Hydrophobia cure, discovery of microbes causing disease, etc.  Honestly, I think his biggest accomplishment is staying strong and believing evidence instead of the current paradigm.  That takes a lot of strength.

His motivation?

I think his motivation was a genuine passion about finding the truth, bettering mankind.

 

A big part of science is experimental testing.  If we can’t test it, why should we believe it?

Pasteur’s experiment was very elegant.  He had a flask of “medium” and sterilized it by heating it up.  He predicted that there would be microorganisms that fall into the flask and grow.  He found ways to change his experiment to #BlockTheHaters and basically prove any criticism wrong.

His laboratory was very beautiful and elegant.  I think that’s actually very important to science; you have to enjoy where you are.  If you’re in a depressing dark room you’ll go insane.

He studied wine, and the microorganisms involved in the fermentation process.  He also looked into fermentation of milk, and other food stuffs.  I’ve never known how cheese is made from milk, but after hearing this, I bet that letting it ferment with different kinds of microorganisms gives you different kinds of cheese.  Actually I’m gonna look that up hold on….. Okay so there’s more to it than that but I was sorta right.

Okay so I’m wondering. These people didn’t really care about hygiene or washing things (or bathing?) but those kind of things are gross and sometimes humorous to us now.  Like in the movie when the doctor dropped his tool and just picked it up and dusted it off like it was fine, but everyone watching laughed and thought that was outrageous.  That’s what they probably actually did though.  It just makes me think about how much of our personalities and beliefs are just from the society we were born into.  – this is also why it’s so hard to change paradigms – if someone were to tell me they found evidence that going months without showering was good for you, I wouldn’t be very quick to believe it.

Book to read: Louis Pasteur’s beer of revenge, Baxter A. G.

With all the developments that we have now, people don’t take disease as seriously.  They then ignore hygiene because they rely on antibiotics.  Personally I think it’s dumb to not take diseases seriously @antivaxxers.  Don’t rely on a cure when you can avoid getting the disease in the first place.

How did Pasteur cure the boy of rabies? I was wondering the same thing.  Basically, the virus was dormant/hiding so when he introduced the vaccine the body started fighting before symptoms started to appear.

This stuff is all interesting to me but I still don’t think I could ever be a doctor.

Claire Lavoie | Dale Gnidovec

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Thomas Jefferson was one of the first real scientists – he found some big claws.  Turns out they were from a giant sloth.  We have one here at OSU!

Peale – started the first natural history museum.  Almost every picture of George Washington we have was a painting of his.

People didn’t really believe in extinction – why would God create an animal then let it die out?  Really there were 5 big extinction times.

There’s a place in Utah where over 8000 bones have been found.  I wonder how people know where the bones belong?  How do we know for sure the bones are in the right place?  How do we know what their fur/scales were like?

Cuvier – proved extinction. (How do you prove something doesn’t exist? Have we been able to prove mermaids don’t exist?)

Napoleon Bonaparte – discovered the Rosetta Stone, given to GB.

They gave the mastadon femur to Paris because there wasn’t really science going on in America.

Claire Lavoie | Dr. Otter

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First of all – love the accent.  Kinda getting me excited to be in London where accents are common.

Science is very important for the modern age (according to the people in charge of science).  Science is viewed as progress.  Basically people think the scientific revolution is a big deal.  It moved Europe from being static to dynamic.  Also saying bye to pseudoscience (astrology, alchemy, witches).

“Jesus Christ, and Issac Newton, and nothing else matters.”

Shelley’s Frankenstein among others attacks science.  This is also lowkey happening today, just more as entertainment.  See the Netflix series Black Mirror for an example.

A fact is where we’ve collectively decided to stop pondering at something.  Society, if it wants, can decide to just open up any truth and destroy it.  Science is a good way to find new facts

This dude is a bigg climate change guy.  On that – people continue to deny the fact of climate change, but as Dr. Otter says, it will continue to become more obvious.  I’m just worried that by the time people accept it, it’ll be too late (it just might already be too late).

Book to read – the textbook for this class (oops)

let’s define some stuff here:

paradigm – set of beliefs held by society. a collective thought. established consensus of scientific facts. it’s what the textbooks are full of, the stuff your teachers tell you.  We need to have paradigms in order to move forward.  They’re like building blocks.

*Side note: I often find myself wondering how people don’t believe in scientific data and deny paradigms.  For example, flat-earthers.  There’s so much evidence but they find a way around every little piece.

Anomalies – facts that don’t fit with the current paradigms.  Examples: retrograde motion, x-rays, fossils, UFO’s.  The accumulation of anomalies eventually leads to the abandonment of an old paradigm and replaces it with a new one.  I’m interested in how the timeline works for a paradigm shift.  Somewhere between the old paradigm and the new one, someone has to discover/create the new one.  Is there a set number of anomalies that gets the shift in motion?

Shockingly, young people are more accepting of change and new science.  You can’t prove anything just by saying “go observe nature” because people have their own lenses through which they see the world.  It’s usually a young outsider that initiates the shift.

“History of science not a linear journey to ‘the truth,’ but rather a discontinuous process whereby one truth is replaced by another.”

Everything in science is ‘true’ until proven false (notice how science differs from the court system).  Paradigms aren’t even true.  They’re just the closest option to the truth that we have.  We’re connected to paradigms emotionally, socially, and financially.  No one wants to give you money to work on something that’s generally not accepted.  Also, paradigms are super expensive to change – all the old equipment would suddenly become irrelevant.

Big Point: Scientific truth is nonlinear.  We can never actually get to the whole truth (kinda sad) (and very humbling).

Claire Lavoie | Dr. Samir Mathur

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Stephen Hawking

Movie to watch: The Theory of Everything.

Most of his work was when he was fairly young.  What we’re most impressed with how well he continued to function with his disabilities.

Black Holes: what happens when the stuff in a star runs out? It becomes a white dwarf – no heat left.  The polyexclusion principle holds it up.  Then becomes a neutron star – super heavy but very small.  It keeps shrinking and shrinking and eventually becomes a singularity.  In physics, we couldn’t figure this out.  This smells like a paradigm shift… something that disagrees with our current understanding is making us rethink our approach.

“Anything where something goes wrong and we don’t understand it, we call it a singularity”

What is Hawking most famous for?

  1. Hawking radiation 1974
  2. Black hole information paradox 1975 – there is so much information in a star.  Every star is different.  So when a star collapses, that point still contains all the information the star had.  As it collapses, if you add stuff to it, you can get the energy to be zero, and therefore the mass is zero and all information is lost.

Since 1975 we’ve been trying to find a solution to this problem.

As you come closer to the black hole, you can use the energy to create particles (this is Hawking radiation).  Eventually the black hole evaporates, but all the information is still gone.

Thought from me -> if our universe started as a point, what if before the point existed, there was a different universe that was shrinking?  I think a current theory is that at some point the universe will get too large and collapse in on itself, so what if 1) time is not linear and 2) the universe cycles between being a point and very large, but because of the information loss paradox, it is a different universe every time.

If string theory is true, then none of the black hole stuff we just talked about can be true.

I saw a post on Twitter earlier that said the ocean is scarier than space because there is so much of the ocean we haven’t explored and there are weird creatures.  I don’t think this person truly understands how much we don’t know about space.

We can only explain 5% of everything.

Note to self: look into multiverses. String theory in 9-space dimensions.

If every singularity is surrounded by a horizon where nothing will ever come out, we (and physics) are safe.

Claire Lavoie | Goldish

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“The church has always gone against science”

The illuminati? Interesting. Is this true? Galileo is a part?

Update: no this is “bull defecation”

 

Book to read: Devils and Angels(?) Dan Brown

Educated by (?)

 

Early on, scientists viewed natural science through a religious lens.  Even today, people refuse to believe in evolution and vaccinations etc. because it goes against their religion.

 

Copernicus: the earth goes around the sun. but this isn’t the first time we’ve had this idea, ancient people also believed that, and Copernicus is reviving that idea.  Also, Copernicus was a priest. The POPE asked him to do the research because he was considering having a renewal of the calendar. Let’s say that again for the fellas in the back: the kickoff for the scientific revolution was done by a priest because the Pope told him to.

We could predict the motion of planets pretty well, except we couldn’t explain retrograde. So Copernicus came up with the heliocentric model, and the Pope and bishop etc. were all about it and said Send It.

 

Good story: Copernicus finds out that someone (Oceander) slipped a preface into his book and died on the spot.

 

Science and Theology are on the same page (says you, I’m not convinced that this is true in all aspects)

 

Kepler and Galileo get a hold of Copernicus’ book.  Kepler was the first person to give us true mathematical rules to describe what is going on in the heavens.  He says repeatedly that he is using the tools God has given him, and God is revealing the nature of the universe through the language of math and geometry.  Aristotle says that there are rules that are true below the moon, and rules for above the moon. Kepler says there are just rule rules. It’s time to give up the circles and go with ellipses.

 

Galileo argues that Copernicus’s model is superior.  The Pope suggests that God’s math is superior to Galileo’s math.  He made fun of him for it. The Pope gets angry. Shocked.

 

I love hearing about historical figures being savage.

 

Newton is born the year Galileo dies.  He spent about the same amount of time studying math and religion.  No one wanted to read his papers on religion. It’s another case of God revealing the secrets of nature to him through math.  ALSO he thought it was in preparation for the second coming of Christ.

 

So in summary – there is not a war between science and religion, there may be tensions sometimes, but it’s not a war.  Personally, I don’t buy that science can agree with all aspects of religion, especially when religious texts are taken literally.  But I can see how science can be explained in a religious way. I want to do a little more personal research on religion before I can really say if it agrees with science.

Claire Lavoie | Women in Science

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Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673)

Believed that we should exclude spiritual/supernatural beliefs from science.  First woman invited to attend a royal society meeting.  She didn’t get a lot of credit during her life, but now does.

 

Caroline Herschel (1750-1848)

Had typhus at age 10, didn’t grow tall.  Eventually moved to England with her brother and helped make telescopes and observations.  Mathematical approach to astronomy.

 

Mary Anning (1799-1847)

Fossil hunter in England.  Shockingly, men got credit for a lot of her findings.

 

Elise Widdowson (1906-2000)

Dietician. Ate nothing but bread, cabbage, and potatoes for three months to experiment.  Advocate for milk.  Paradigm: you can quantify the nutritional value of different foods.

 

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994)

X-ray crystallographer, solved the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin.  Only British woman to win a Nobel prize so far.

 

Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)

Made X-ray images that were shown to Watson and Crick.  Died of ovarian cancer before the Nobel prize was given.

 

Anne McLaren (1927-2007)

Studied embryos and how different parts form.  First woman to be an officer of Royal Society.

 

France:

Emile du Chatelet (1706-1749)

Studied math and physics.  Many affairs.  Translated Newton’s Principia into French and added her own commentary (Voltaire had her translation published after her death).  Big on arguing for women’s right to education and inclusion in intellectual discussions.

 

Marie-Anne Lavoisier (1758-1836)

Wife of Anioine Lavo. and helped explain what he was doing so others could understand.  She recovered all of his work and published it so that it wouldn’t be lost.

 

Marie Curie

Nobel prizes for the discovery of radioactivity and purification of radium.  First Nobel to a woman.  Advocate that your private life should not affect the appreciation of your work.

 

Why so few?

The traditional view of women as supporters and helpers obscures women’s contributions.  Women’s social position meant that they were excluded from professional spaces and organizations and had to collaborate with male family members and friends when “field work” was required.  This makes me wonder if we missed out on a lot of knowledge because great women weren’t given the right opportunities.  In many of these cases, they had to rely on their brothers/husbands etc. that were already doing the scientific work.  If they had opportunities of their own, how many more important female scientists would have been able to discover new things?  It’s also interesting to note that there are no women of color listed.  There aren’t many men of color attributed with discoveries either.  It’s another case of social position affecting the opportunities for these people and acceptance of their contributions.

Claire Lavoie | John Cogan

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Book to read: The Invention of Air

How would you describe air without prior knowledge?  What is it made of? Why do flames need air? Why do people/animals need air?  Where does stuff go after it burns?

Thinking about this makes me question how intuitive I really am, because if no one had told me, I doubt I would be able to come up with the right answer.  It’s also interesting to think about what ideas I actually come up with myself and what ideas I think of because I have the prior knowledge that I have.

Priestly did experiments on mice by putting them in different kinds of air – like where a candle had burned or where a plant was present.  He learned that there was something in common with combustion, respiration, and photosynthesis (without the terms, probably).

Priestly and Newton viewed science as a study of the Mind of God.  They were studying nature to get closer to God.  Enlightenment caused a lot of hope, skepticism, and insecurity.  There was still a great difference in prosperity.  Lots of alcohol consumption.  Predictions of the end of the world.  Pretty bleak.

English vs. French “Science”

English was liberal, encouraged dissent, the royal society shared information, posed problems, improved knowledge, etc.  Didn’t discriminate on class (besides membership dues).  It was like a gentlemen’s club.  I’m not surprised that women were not included.  French, however, was less subjective and more measurement driven, more like a craft, paid to do this work.  Invented the metric system (I’m still salty that we don’t use the metric system in America, it’s literally so much better).

Priestly’s mom and sister died when he was young, and was raised with Calvinism.  He thought he was one of those abandoned by God, and later left Calvinism (but stuck with Christianity).  People thought he was odd, so his congregation did not pay him.  He started out as a writer, then became a teacher.  He had a lot of forward ideas about education.  He met Ben Franklin at a Café.  More was said about his life.  I think knowing a person’s life gives a new perspective when thinking about their work in science.

Phlogiston – the active component of combustion.  When something burns, the phlogiston comes out and when a space is filled it blocks more from coming out.

Scientists will do anything they can to support current paradigms.  I think this is really important. It’s easier to try to force new knowledge to fit an old paradigm than to think of a better explanation – especially because the old one was probably also difficult to come up with.  When we do have a paradigm shift, it’s because someone came up with a better solution.  You have to have a replacement before you can throw out the old one.

Lavoisier – very wealthy and concerned with public welfare.  Copied Priestly’s experiment to produce “pure air” and measures the outcome.  He names Oxygen, and discovers that air has components.  He proposes 33 elements.  Recognizes that substances can be broken down.

Both Lavoisier and Priestly had political repercussions, Lavoisier was beheaded.  It seems to be a recurring theme that scientists meet backlash.  I think it speaks to the idea that people typically don’t like change, especially when it challenges their current ideals.

Claire Lavoie | Elisabeth Root

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Book to read – The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

John Snow did research on Cholera and his discovery changed the way we think about it.  There was a paradigm shift in the way people thought about the cause and transmission of disease.

Cholera was believed to be spontaneously created in the air, and transmitted through the air.  John Snow believed in animacuoles(?) in the water. Now we have the Germ Theory. Before this, doctors sought to understand how disease is related to a person’s lifestyle.  People didn’t like the idea that disease could be spread by something they couldn’t see, smell, or touch.

What did Snow do?  He collected data from the water systems – how many people drank the water and how many got Cholera?  He tied the Cholera data to social and demographic data. His work would have been ignored if Henry Whitehead hadn’t also been doing research.  Together they could refute arguments against anomalies in their data.

Important point – they had an open mind.  Science is not steady, it’s a cumulative accumulation of knowledge.  A paradigm shift is where one widely accepted scientific belief is replaced with a new one.

Humans are very complex organisms with very complex social systems.

Talking about vaccinations and tracking human health over geography was really interesting.  I think it’s important to remember where people are located when considering what kind of health care they need.

Claire Lavoie | Dr. Carol Anelli

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As new technology has come along, it has served to strengthen Darwin’s theories.

In the past, it was believed that every organism is one example of the true Form of a being (Plato’s time).  This is typological thinking – the view that species are unchanging. The first person to suggest evolution and the idea that species can change was Lamarck in the time of the French Revolution.

Later, Hutton talked about the Rock Cycle and how the earth is immensely old, which conflicts with the Bible. Then, in the 19th century, Cuvier and Brongniart observed the layers of exposed rock formations that tell the history of the area based on the fossils present.  Charles Lyell, “Father of Modern Geology,” championed that change over time on earth’s surface is very slow. He published some books that were important to Darwin. John Ray, 17th century, published a book about how species are perfect for their environments – God would not have created anything that is not perfect.  William Paley published a book with similar ideals; God’s creatures are adapted perfectly.

The time before Darwin went on his voyage:

The watch analogy – if you happen to find a watch, you can infer that it has a designer and a maker.  This supposedly translates to God’s creations. They must have a designer and have been designed with a purpose.  Darwin was religious, and a pretty well-off guy. Definitely a family man. Married to his first cousin, Emma, and they were very close with each other.  She was worried that if he lost his religion, they would not be able to be together in heaven. Paley and Wallace were key influences, along with the study of Geology.  It’s still unclear whether or not he held his religious views throughout his life. His views likely changed over time.

 

He first started formulating his ideas very shortly after his voyage.  He waited about 20 years before he published his works. He didn’t want to upset Emma, or receive criticism for upsetting the social hierarchical norms.  He ended up publishing about 25 books and a bunch of papers.

 

1836 England: specimens

1837 Transmutation Notebooks

1844 “confessing a murder”

1858 Wallace

1859 Origin comes out

 

Walsh on Science and Religion: Science and Faith should be as separate as possible.

Book to read – Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin