Dr. Alber’s talk was interesting because I found Pasteur’s work very inspiring. I honestly did not know all that Louis Pasteur did and the movie just shocked me because of his accomplishments and his reasoning. Abler mentioned how his intentions were solely to help mankind. I like that he came from a modest upbringing in a poor family, which taught him to devoid greed. I feel like his achievements were made possible because he did what he considered right, not for a paycheck or validation but for advancing human progression. I also thought it was interesting how he was invited into the Academy of Medicine without having any relation to medicine before. It honestly surprises me more that he was able to think of sterile techniques and ways to prevent growth formation more than the fact that he created vaccines. I can understand how you can see a microbe and try to get rid of it, but I don’t understand how he was able to think of ways to prevent contamination. Also, how he created equipment and chemicals. I wonder how he would progress in our era of what we know now according to science and medicine.
Author: skaff.12
Alicia Skaff
I thought Gnidovec’s talk was fascinating because I am actually learning about the creation of bones aka osteogenesis in another class right now. I reviewed my notes right before this class and so I was examining the structures I just learned about on the fossils that were passed around. I liked the change of scenery and the fact we saw examples of these fossils but I wish we were able to look more around the museum. I was most interested by the ginormous singular tooth fossil that was passed around. I was curious about the single root because I have watched a lot of dental extractions on dogs lately where they have to drill the tooth in half in order to take out each individual root to prevent injuring the animal. It makes me wonder what other unnoticeable character has evolved since then onto animals now. I was not aware that only 0.01% of the current world population is not extinct. The Permo-Triassic period had 95% of its species eradicated. Also, how Mary Anning was again such a role model to females in science, like mentioned earlier in our Women in Science talk about how she discovered the first ichthyosaur at age twelve. I think it is pretty interesting to think if you rewinded time millions of years ago, basically none of the current species would be present.
Alicia Skaff
I found Otter’s explanation of Kuhn’s work insightful. Kuhn’s work is very dry, like Otter mentioned, and difficult to really understand at a superficial level. I like to think that like his work, his thoughts and ways of communicating them are at a deeper level of complexity. I liked his mention of where the word “scientist” came from because it just seems interesting that we have all these new ideas with that replaced previous ones but we have no recollection of the making of common words we use everyday. I am a little off-stricken by the fact that some people can invest their entire lively-hoods for a mere fraction of a billionth of a step to possibly progress a paradigm. I like to think that the paradigms are slowly adding building blocks and progressing on their individual developments but the honest truth (no pun intended) is that we will never solve the entire paradigm or even discover all the potential ones. Its like running as fast and far as you can but only ever moving in place or like a puzzle with every piece missing but one. It seems pointless to me to venture on a path like this because so many people will want to disprove your work or are so narrow-minded on their own beliefs that any progress would barely have an impact. Although it is interesting how far we have come, with conflicting debates on what is justified as a “truth”, some mysterious must be accepted as a mystery and that is what I believe to be another paradigm truth. Acceptance of the unknown.
Alicia Skaff
Before coming to class I was looking forward to this lecture because the topic of black holes interests me. Dr. Mathur was very insightful and had a strong interest for his field and the continual progression of the study. I really liked finding out about the horizon of the black hole where it is almost a point of no return. The horizon contains no energy because it is equaled out and the closer you are towards the center, the potential energy drops until there is negative energy. I did not enjoy the topic of how entering a black hole would not just kill or crush you but tear every individual part of you. It just made me think of how many people had to experience that until it was a known fact. Saying that you died from a black hole sounds like a very unique way to go but it would immensely painful and could have been prevented. I also liked Dr. Mathur’s explanation of how in science and the world, everything is sought to be explained but black holes are an exception. Energy is not created or destroyed, just transferred. Once a black hole evaporates, information just disappears without explanation. Also, knowing we only know 5% of what is out there is more terrifying that knowing we only know about 10% of the depths of our ocean. I wonder how much more of either will be discovered before the big crunch wipes the slate and possibly reboots the world.
Alicia Skaff
I found Professor Goldish’s talks about controversial debates in religion and science tiring. The speech was insightful and taught me so many things I didn’t know, especially from a new astronomical perspective, but the topic was tiring to me. It seems immensely repetitive that religion and science won’t coexist even today and it is so overplayed and just unnecessary feuding between potential fields that can benefit for one another. I liked his answer to my question about how to discover new information on a scientific research project, some scientists will take a theological approach. The open-mindedness of this is refreshing because the prejudice between the two only hold the people in each fields back from breakthroughs. My favorite part of his speech was the sneaky under-minded work of Galileo publishing in “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World” that the ideas of the Pope resembled a simpleton. It was dangerous, under-minded, and bold. I also enjoyed his explanation of elliptical orbitals and what retrograde actually meant.
Alicia Skaff
Noting that these women were in an era of time were women had no other role in life other than to converge families by marriage and bear children, they accomplished a great deal. One of my favorite women scientists that we discussed today was Mary Anning because of how she not only was the primary income for her household at age ten, but she discovered multiple species and she still barely made ends meet. Although not intended to be a feministic approach but more of a defense of self-pride, Marie Curie’s statement on how her personal life does not affect her intelligence really inspires me. I know it is more based on the fact that she was not French but I feel that it was and still is to an extent today an attack on her gender because of the false pretense in society that men are superior. The fact that some people believe that the one chromosome that is different changes the efficiency and capability of a person is absolutely ludicrous. I am appalled by the notion of how women, in general, were treated lesser than men. I am unsure if I would react the same way for gender equality in the same time period as her and all the other women if it was not considered a social norm. I feel if these women knew what we did now, they would have been more defiant in their time and history would have been altered to women making many of the world’s famous discoveries before man ever could. Still today, women are not given the same equal rights as men and it is especially hard for women in science because science is considered a man’s occupation–although history likes to disprove that. Although it is impossible to prove, I believe that if women were given the same standards as men from birth, we would be milestones ahead of were we currently are in our progress to upgrade our societies.
Alicia Skaff
The discussion of the origin of air interested me the most in this talk. I like the tactic of stripping everything you know about something to the basics to discover more about it. I found it interesting how Priestly’s entire life was guided by his Tuberculosis. If he did not have tuberculosis, he would most likely be more religious and less concerned with air, which would diminish the progress in the discovery of air. Pneumatic is the study of air and its relation to other things. I never knew that there was an actual study of air but I am glad I learned about it. I also like how he unintentionally found “good” and “bad” air without realizing what it meant. Although, it was the concentration of oxygen in the region, he saw that the presence of plants and animals heightened the “good” air present. Also, he had a similar unintentional cure by preposing that carbonated water would cure scurvy but in reality, the Vitamin C in the citrus flavorings proved the medicinal effect. He unintentionally, second-handedly made two discoveries that advanced our knowledge of the subject at that time and I am just in awe that someone is capable of doing that.
Alicia Skaff
I was intrigued when Dr. Root said John Snow was the father of modern epidemiology and was one of the first health geographers because I did not know that and I was not really sure what a health geographer was before. I was unaware that maps were hand-drawn and drawn onto a computer screen sensor before twenty years ago. I liked discussing the “one health” concept because I personally like animal inclusion in topics since I am on a pre-vet track. Also, the concept is brilliant because it brings attention to the fact that most epidemics are spread by animal carriers. Knowing how an animal is transmitted with a disease can diminish the population affected. The fact that everyone thought Cholera was spread by miasma while John Snow recorded an analysis of the water systems’ correlation with people affected was very revolutionary. He was able to think outside of the box and save a lot of people. Although medicine is highly advanced today in comparison, I believe we would not have some of the techniques we have today without his influences.
Alicia Skaff – Dr. Carol Anelli
My favorite part of her presentation was the mention of Paley’s famous paradigm of Natural Theology regarding a clock. This merely states that the parts that combine to make a watch can only create a watch. The point being that everything created has a purpose for its creation. The fact being, a design is desired by a designer, and therefore, obtains a purpose. I liked this theory best because it connects with the theological belief that everything happens for a reason because god has a plan for us all. Although separate sides of a still ongoing war, I believe the two complement each other’s theories. All life forms were created for a purpose from god as a creator, which fits religious and scientific categories. Anelli also stated how evolution is not always idealistic because species evolve to survive current situations but not as practically as they could. For instance, sleep apnea, hiccups, and the design of eyes are all poorly constructed to be more harmful than helpful. Yes, all were created for a reason –because god intended it to be so and because more species would have become extinct if they did not adapt to their surroundings in anyway they could, impractical but still works. I would also like to point out the saying “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” This saying implies that however structurally unsound certain features are, they do the job they were intended to do. Theology and scientific research are battling one another, but both follow the same theories and casualties regarding change and reasoning.