Reflection about: "On science and uncertainty" by Lewis Thomas

Ever since a child, stretching my memory as far back as I possibly can, I was fed the information about science and its importance in solving some of the major questions in our world. I emphasize the word "fed" for the reason that I have realized that we as humans have this maddening addiction to science that we even force it on to every single person and claim its correctness whether they favor it or not. Whether what was fed to us is correct or not is a huge gaping question as there is no certainty due to new discoveries constantly changing the so called scientists opinion and this is something that I knew prior to my reading of the text.
As of the text, we humans worry that we will soon create some sort of fanatical machines that will take care of everything and answer all of our questions about the world and universe. It further goes on to state why this opinion is rather banal as we tend to not consider the mass vastness of the world or universe and its complexity can only baffle us more. The uncertainty in science due its continuous updating after discoveries of new methods or laws raises a few thoughts to my mind. How can we know science is correct or even true at the minimum? The human race has used science a method of justification to the mystical wonders that we experience and think about daily and there is no way to prove the certainty of science. It is a guess work that is only attempted to be proven correct by controlling the variables in the favor of the guess. Science is continually changing and therefore it is seen that for a given period the whole world believes an apparent false statement or guess of groups of individuals. If this is the case, then why is the world hesitant and unwilling to believe in religions? What can differentiate religion from science? Most might say that there is a major difference and that we can prove science yet it is seen that science is continually changing and can be completely false. The scientific method is developed to help aid these scientific claims or if we are to simplify the claims, simple guesses, and the reliability of such a case is rather difficult because how do we know it is correct? As science is a way of justifying life and so is religion then these two ways of justification should be equal to a certain extent right? The extract by Lewis Thomas questions the reliability of science but states that it is far from finding the answers to all our questions. In this it is possible to understand why people tend to believe in science. Is it not better to trust something that sounds reasonable and does not have all the answers or is it better to believe in something mystical with simple answers to the immense and complex universe?  This is up to personal preference but through this extract, science, ironically, has appeared to be the quintessential religion.

Indigenous Knowledge Beliefs: Drinking Blood

During TOK class midst our discussion of indigenous knowledge beliefs i managed to mention that the Masai ritual of drinking blood mixed with milk and i was assigned to enter it as a blog post.
Firstly what is indigenous knowledge? the world bank defines it as: "the local knowledge – knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society. IK contrasts with the international knowledge system generated by universities, research institutions and private firms. It is the basis for local-level decision making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education, natural-resource management, and a host of other activities in rural communities." (http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/basic.htm)
The Masai as it is well known are a tribe in the East African nations of Kenya and Tanzania. They are suspected to have migrated from Ethiopia and settled in the three neighbouring countries, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. However a majority of the Masai tribe are in Kenya and they go under a different name in Uganda.
One of the rituals we might find odd in our society now is the fact that they drink cow blood with their milk or even sometimes without milk. The cow blood is obtained mostly with out killing the cow but by puncturing a small hole in the cows jugular vein which is later closed up.What do they use the cow blood for? The Masai mix the cows blood with milk and it is used in making a ritual drink for special occasions or giving it to some one who is sick. Also the Masai depend on cow blood for their nutritional needs sometimes but it is mostly used in special occasions. For example it is give to a woman who has given birth, some one who is sick or someone who got circumcised. It is also used to cure hangovers by  the elderly.

Is History a Science?

To begin with, what is history defined as? History can be defined in two ways: first being the study of past events, particularly on human affairs and the second being whole series of past events connected with a particular person or thing. Now what is science defined as? It is defined as the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observations and experiment. Based on these definitions one might think that there is a common element in both. If science is known through observation and experiment, so wouldn't history be a subset of science? To most it might make sense, but in my personal opinion I believe that history is not a science.

When scientist conduct their research, they are guided by the laws of science and scientific methods. Yes, these methods and laws have come to be improved several times such as the theory of Dark matter and the Universe but nothing has significantly changed. Historians contrarily are constantly dealing with lacking information and this becomes an increasing problem as time progresses and as more raw material is lost, unable to be supporting evidence. Even if these materials or sources are found they are most certainly interpreted differently by different historians meaning the outcome of the written history is always unreliable to a certain extent as each can possibly take opposing sides.  This entails that there is no clear historical method that will result the same answer every time while in science there is the scientific method that will most certainly result in the same conclusion time after time. This I believe is one of the most major indicators that history is not a science but more of storytelling. However it is to be noted that historians are not to be taken as storytellers but they can only go a certain extent to prove their conclusions based on these varying, incomplete sources. Much like history, I believe the opinion of history being science is a matter of personal interpretation but in my opinion, as I have outlined above, I believe that history is not a science.

Moral Dilemma

What is a moral dilemma? A moral dilemma is a situation a solution maybe be morally wrong or unacceptable yet is the most preferable one. The fundamental nature of a moral dilemma is choosing between two or more opposing beliefs or values. One example of a moral dilemma that I can think of  in the real world can be: You are a dean and you have to select a student to give a scholarship to attend one of the colleges in the country for free. You have two possible candidates, one is arrogant, obnoxious and comes from a wealthy family yet attains the best grades. The other one is hardworking, patient and comes from a poor family that cant possibly achieve to get to the college using their own funds however his grades are much lower than student A. Who do you decide to choose?
Personally this is a difficult choice as the one that works hard with less wealth and grades requires this opportunity to get somewhere in life yet the one with the best grade surely deserves to achieve the best education. I would choose to pick the student that is wealthy, obnoxious and has the best grades as I think schools need to maintain the high standards. I chose the ethics of justice as the one with best grade deserves it while, if I chose the ethic of care, the poorer student deserves this opportunity.

A post on Greg Craven's argument

Greg Craven's video from 2007 argues that we as humans should take action to reduce global warming no matter what. He arrived at this conclusion through applying a 'decision grid' in which he compared the consequences of taking action and not taking action depending on whether global warming is true or not. His argument and conclusion make sense to a certain extent, simplifying the trouble of dealing with the global warming problem. Through the grid we saw that the consequence of global warming without action is greater than the consequence of we taking action and there being no global warming. The major loss in taking action against global warming is the reduction of the growth in the economy according to Craven's main argument. Looking at it in a non scientific point of view and assuming that the effect of global warming is total annihilation then Craven's argument is valid and the conclusion is correct. However, looking at it in the opposing manner, the effect of taking action against global warming and figuring out it didnt exist anyway has a very large impact on the economy.  According to some calculations by various professors (http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/12/reponse-to-greg.html), fighting global warming for the next 100 year will limit the economy growth by $718 trillion per year. Accumulated over time, this makes us question whether global warming is worth that much and the chances are it is very unlikely. The loss of money could be used in eradicating poverty around the world yet $718 trillion per year could be wasted leaving the world unable to eradicate poverty. Overall, I believe that Greg Craven's argument is valid and the conclusion is true. Taking action would most certainly increase our comfort in thinking we are hampering the progress of global warming if it is existent yet it is irrational and the amount of money spent on stopping the unstoppable limits the world from progressing to be a better place.  

Seeing is Believing?

It is often said that seeing is believing yet it is generally clear that it depends on the individual to interpret what they see and how they tend to believe what they see. Seeing is one of the major ways humans take in their surroundings therefore making sight one of the greatest sense perceptions. However this does not necessarily mean that seeing can be directly interpreted to be believing, as in order to believe, our perception is run through previous knowledge. Therefore to a certain extent seeing can be believing. A case of seeing being believing in our society can be observed as people tend to react by saying, "I don't believe you! Show me...." In particular an example could be seen as a student tries out for a football team even though his or hers credentials are good the coaches always say, "Show me what you got" meaning that they need to see to believe what has been said. However, despite being an important method of perception, seeing can not always be believing as it can be clouded by other ways of knowing such as language and emotion. As of the example we saw in class of the McGurk effect, we can see that despite hearing the same thing our sight interprets things differently giving us a different outcome all in all. I believe this is evidently showing that seeing is not believing necessarily as what we see leads to different beliefs in different people due to different interpretations and emotions.

Language [Reflection]

Language has a wide variety of roles including expression of emotion and giving directions but language's purpose overall is a way of communicating between us. There are many wonders in language including interesting connotations, denotations and ambiguity which are the main cause of miscommunication as each party does not fully understand what is being said. This is one of the things that struck me the most as we all experience a situation with the literal meaning quite often being not the actual meaning. We saw different examples of connotations in speech, for example the difference between 'shit' and 'faces'. Despite having the same literal meaning, we can see that 'shit' has a negative connotation and is associated with inappropriateness. Look at these two words describing a group of people: 'childish' and 'youthful'. What can be assumed? 'Childish' implies the fact that this group of people are immature while 'youthful' suggests a group of energetic and willing people. This is not the literal meaning yet is used to describe the actual situation without being rude and this is particularly a useful part of language to maintain friendships.
Another major thing that caught my interest about language is Benjamin Lee Whorf's theory of Linguistic Determinism. It is stated that our thoughts are controlled by our native or mother tongue and this does enable us to think certain thoughts. His general point was 'if a language has no words for a certain concept, then its speakers would not understand the concept.' I found this rather interesting as it seemed partly true to me. From my experience, I have seen  people have different ways of thinking based on where they come from yet I do not believe this limits us from learning concepts that are recognized by other languages. It is clear that concepts can exist with out words to describe it. For example, in my native language there is no word or phrase to describe homosexuality but this concept is existent proving that a certain concept can exist with out words to describe it. On the whole, language is a method of communication and this has been evolved overtime to the complex nature it has now such as ambiguity and connotations, but I believe it does not limit our thinking.