Pasteur Discussion – Savannah Moore

I enjoyed listening to Dr. Alber give a history of Louis Pasteur and his lifetime of scientific thinking. I liked how she started the talk by outlining 3 main questions. We discussed Pasteur as a microbial physiologist who studied microorganisms. Dr. Alber walked us through the many events that took place to lead into Pasteur’s acceptance as a member into the Academy of Science and the Academy of Medicine. We also spent time talking about Pasteur’s life and how politics also shaped the personal and scientific parts of him. The Franco-Prussia War had major impact on the profound Frenchman. Pasteur was forced to move often during the times os unrest, which rattled his life as a scientist with ideas of a laboratory to complete experiments. However, Louis had a laboratory that was built in his childhood home that was very modern. This is now available to view, and Dr. Alber was able to show us images from the home and laboratory. The lab was very modern for the time, and complete with gas lines, modern fume hoods, and an incubation room. Something that particularly interested me was the fact that all of the glassware used was blown by Pasteur himself!

Next, we discussed the main areas of diseases that Pasteur studied. Pasteur investigated the various diseases and looked for practical solutions. Louis was an experimental scientist that enjoyed testing theories to see what gives answers to questions that have been posed. He connected diseases and solutions with the ideas of Germ Theory, and left his mark on the scientific word. The main accomplishment of Louis Pasteur was his studies of diseases to look for practical solutions for the bettering of mankind. He was a man that did his work to help others, and not to just advance himself. This is an important characteristic that made Louis a great scientist.

Geologic History – Savannah Moore

I found the discussion that Dr. Gnidovec led today to be a lot of fun! I think that the history of the earth is interesting and it was nice to learn more about this from a person who is so passionate about what they do. I enjoyed hearing him talk about the many places in Europe that he visited that are tied to his passion for geology an paleontology. Some people he mentioned were previously talked about in the course, but one person that he mentioned I found interesting. I wasn’t aware that Thomas Jefferson was a man of science of paleontology, but that was something new I learned. My favorite part of the presentation was being able to hold some of the fossils that were passed around. The Mastodon tooth was simple amazing. I think it would be an awesome experience to dig at sites and find pieces of history like that! This talk and the pictures that were included from various museums made me even more excited for the trip!

I also visited the museum after the discussion and had a good time looking around. It is amazing to see historical items that took years to find and place into a category to fully see their connection to everything else. I am looking forward to visiting the museums on the trip and trying to find what US pieces of scientific history have landed there.

Dr. Otter- Savannah Moore

I found Dr. Otter’s discussion on the interpretation of the history of science very interesting. I was able to more fully understand the ideas that Kuhn discussed in his book based on the background that was presented. The stages of history in terms of progress ad decline were talked about pertaining to times of paradigm shifts. The 18th century enlightenment showed radically progressive uses of science and started to marvel in the ideas that had been previously created. Following in the 19th century, science became popularized through academics and the term “scientist” was coined. Then, the 20th century focused heavily on the scientific revolution and its impact on the society and how there was a dynamic shift from error to truth with the addition of science. Ludwick Flek was a scientist that developed “collective thinking,” that discussed facts are socially produced and can be destroyed if a society decides to do this.  From this, we talked about Kuhn who focuses on paradigms, which are collective thoughts, beliefs and experiments that form a collective consensus of a group of scientists at a point in time. Without these paradigms, all experiments would be seen as valid because there would be nothing to compare them to. All of the examples that Dr. Otter mentioned have been discussed in class, but we also discussed anomalies of these paradigms. There are always facts that don’t fit in paradigms , which can lead to paradigm shifts after a period of time. However, it is hard to change an consensus that has already been made. We related this to the fact that most paradigm causing thoughts have been presented by younger individuals that are more open to change. Overall, Kuhn uses his novel to rebel against the way that history of science was viewed. History of science isn’t linear and paradigms are a feature of modern science that will always be seeing new implications and be changing with new ideas and thought provoking individuals.

Black Holes- Savannah Moore

I found this discussion to be very interesting. I was intrigued by the many physics attributes that I had not been introduced to before (since I have never taken a physics class). I have learned about some of the basic aspects of Stephen Hawking’s work, but never to the point where Dr. Mathur took the discussion. Steven Hawking attacked some of the most advanced concepts that physics has to offer, and did so with his challenging physical handicaps.

The discussion began with the talk of black holes, and the basics of stars leading to the black holes. The singularity of black holes was presented, along with the opposing ideas of how the circulatory of the stars (ex. sun) may effect if it would still lead to being a black hole. However, even if the star is not perfectly circular, it will still come to a singularity (a black hole). Following this work that was done in the 60s and 70s, Hawking founded the ideas of Hawking Radiation in 1974. Also Hawking created the black hole information paradox in 1975, which is puzzling.

Along with the black hole information paradox and the idea of the shrinking process of the star as it “dies” to become a black hole, I thought of something interesting. So when the Big Bang occurred, everything evolved from that point. With the model that Dr. Mathur put on the board, there will be the “big crunch,” acting as the opposite of the Big Bang. I found it amazing to think that since information is essentially lost when the black hole is in its singularity, this process could have happened many times before, but since all information is lost, we have no way of knowing.

Finally, I found it fascinating that after so much research and time spent on these ideas, we still only know about 5% of visible matter (stars). The ideas of dark energy and dark matter have somewhat recently emerged, and created more room for information to be learned about the universe. The concepts that may be presented about these things within the next 10-20 years is something that may create a paradigm shift. Altogether, the philosophy and physics of the work that Hawking and other great minds have completed is all somewhat of a scrambled mess, but in a good way. The more work that is done and the more small bits of information that is learned, the closer we get to pinning it all together in the right way to have a full picture.

Science and Religion- Savanah Moore

From the beginning of the talk, I was interested in all of the little pieces of information that were given. It is amazing to think that since we have been in school, we have been told in history and science classes about this major conflict of science and religion, only for it to not be as extreme as we thought. We have talked about science being a source of inner conflict for Darwin and many other scientists of the time. We have talked about how some scientists found trouble in balancing their supernatural religious beliefs with the natural sides of the world that they were studying.

I really liked listening to how we typically are told about the Copernicus idea of the earth not being the center of the universe was brought about when he was dong research that the Pope asked him to complete. At this time, people believe that the Enlightenment was the source of conflict between science and religion, but based on this, that conflict was not what we think of it to be. Right before his research began, the protestant reformation has began so people had become very sensitive to religious issues. Once Copernicus was ready to publish his work, a Lutheran added in a preface that stated that the work was only a mathematical model and couldn’t fully explain what happening in the heavens. So far, there was no warfare between science and religion.

This same mutualism followed through the time of Kepler. However, Galilei did cause some more talk than other scientists. When the pope told him that his work with mathematical thoughts were inferior to God’s superior work and knowledge, Galilei included this statement in his book which put the Pope in the character of an idiot. In the book that Goldish mentioned, Angels and Demons, we are made to think that Galilei was almost killed due to the conflict between religion and science, however this is not true. Only because Galilei took the stop of annoying the Pope, he was placed on house arrest. This was only because of Galilei’s strong will, not because of his science having any conflict with the church.

Finally, we ended with talking about Newton, who spent half of his time working on scientific problems and the other half of his time studying church and theology. This scientific genius was seen as a “hero” of the enlightenment, which makes people less interested in his theological studies.

Throughout this whole talk I was intrigued in the ideas that Goldish presented. He was so passionate about these thoughts, and it made it easy to follow. I felt like I was able to view the ideas of religion and science and their possible fighting in a different light. It gives me a new view about the way that the leadership of the church reacted to new science ideas of the times. This historical background of the theology and science has made me want to do more research and learn more about how the church interacted with scientists leading up to more modern times.

Women in Science – Savannah Moore

I found this discussion of women in science to be very exciting. I thought it was interesting how many women got a start by helping with their husband’s work. Women were seen as supporters, not necessarily the main masterminds behind new scientific revelations. During the 19th century, women held a social position where they were excluded from professional space and organizations. For this reason, women were rarely members of the Royal Society and also were studying certain “field work” in things like astronomy or biology.

Many English and French women broke through barriers that had been set for them and other women. Out of the English women discussed, I connected with Margaret Carendish. She focused on the philosophy of science and had strong feelings regarding to the supernatural vs. natural side of science. I like how she focused on the idea of everything being made of something and is here, but supernatural things are not. However, it is possible to believe in both supernatural and natural, but I believe she meant more of the idea that natural science was not as dependent on religious factors as some people had suggested.

For the French women, I have always admired Marie Curie. Not only was she the first women to receive a Nobel Prize, she received 2 in her life. She discovered radioactivity and the purification of radium, which have led to many more things to be competed in science. She also gave the science community another contributor, her daughter, who discovered new isotopes and also won a Nobel Prize.

Overall, I always enjoy learning more about women in science. I think that even today women face a stigma of how much they can contribute to science. It is important to know that women aren’t just a helping hand, they can be main factors to important scientific discoveries. All of the women we discussed were perfect examples of this. I am excited to explore some of these ideas even farther when traveling.

Dr. Cogan – Savannah Moore

At the beginning of Dr.Cogan’s presentation, I found it interesting to think about air the way that scientists and regular people would before there was much scientific background. I couldn’t imagine trying to understand some of the basic facts that are commonly known now when there had not been many discoveries about the topics made yet. I also learned from this that it is hard to take back common things that we have learned in all of our classes. A lot of the scientific things that we learn are not appreciated for how much time it took to come across the basics and progress those thoughts even farther.

During the Enlightenment, there were many scientific revolutions that helped to improve average people’s lives. While these revolutionary ideas from emerging scientific work were important to the time, the political powers at the time were skeptical about losing their power. Along with this, the conflict of religion with science was prevailing to be a great problem. The benefits of all of the work being done are marveled today, however.

It was interesting to see the way ancient chemistry was viewed with the past views of 4 basic elements. Looking at how matter was described at the time and how widely accepted it was is intriguing because it is so different from today. After much more work and discovery, the paradigm shifts that have occurred have led us to what we are learning in school now. Imagine being taught about only 4 main elements and basing all work on the ideas, then learning there are many more that play a factor.

Finally, I enjoyed seeing the experiments and tests that were completed during these times. Based on these ideas that were known at the time, their experiments were done in a good manner. The “goodness of air test” was interesting to learn about. I find it amazing to see the progression we have made about our knowledge of air. From the time of Priestly and Lavoisier to now, there have been much change of our scientific ideas. Overall, this has made think about how much our ideas of science will change/progress within the next hundreds of years.

Elisabeth Root on John Snow – Savannah Moore

Prior to Elisabeth Root’s discussion about John Snow and the geography of science related topics, I had never thought much about the topic. Throughout her talk, there were many things that stuck out as important parts of studying science and understand its history. The idea of scientific progression through learning more about where ideas (such as the cholera epidemic) were rooted is more closely tied to geographic mapping than I had previously known. When scientific revolutions occur, it can be viewed as a paradigm if it explains things that have never been thought of before or sheds new light that changes already accepted ideas. Throughout the talk, I enjoyed hearing how large shifts of ideas are paired with looking at geographic locations.

Particularly, I was interested in the idea of landscape genetics. Landscape genetics attempts to describe how genetic characteristics vary in space and follow the patterns that have been seen genetically, so it is possible to make predictions. There are many applications of genetic evolution that are seen in medical therapeutics. Overall, medical geography has come a long way since John Snow’ data collection of the water system.

I am interested in learning more about job opportunities available for individuals in the landscape genetics area of study. It is interesting to have the opportunity to look at how genetics can evolve and diversify, just as humans do. With that information, it is possible to determine problems that may occur, and even try to help figure out how to prevent them.

Darwin – Savannah Moore

Overall, I believe the ideas that Dr. Anelli presented strengthened the themes that the movie presented. His family and work all played into making him the person and scientist that he was. I like how Dr. Anelli connected history as being something that makes it possible to review all of these things to discuss the roots of all of the ideas that Darwin presented. His ideas were influenced by a range of people with different backgrounds of study. I enjoyed listening to the connection between the French Revolution and polituand Darwin’s time. I will enjoy looking into this connection further and keep historical ideas connected to the science that I study.