A Small Insight #5

Monday, April 28th, 2014

Newspaper article on Racism in Soccer

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-29/outrage-over-alves-banana-racist-taunt/5417026

When I saw this article (and video), I could not suppress a small chuckle of amusement and slight horror. But then, as I thought it over, I felt my heart warming of admiration for this soccer player, Daniel Alves.
It may be difficult to act with good humor and without anger in situations of racism, yet Alves managed to overcome the adversity by taking advantage of the situation and eating the banana that had been thrown at him. Well, I guess that, in his case, his wit came before any aggressive impulses.
It makes me wonder where racism stems from. I mean, Alves is a pretty renown soccer player, and it surprises me a little that anyone had the guts of showing the narrowness of his/her thoughts when his action was streamed for the world to see. It is possible that he/she expected Alves to react in a less-mannered and more self-deprecating, humiliating way.
Anyway, I am happy of how this situation ended pretty well. 

Weekly Blogpost #32

Friday, April 25th, 2014

Afterthoughts on Seminar

The main distinction, in my opinion, between science and religion is that science is a method to find answers while religion provides the answer. That said, let me give an example. When people turn to their faith to explain death and possibly afterlife, they do not really seek to question the explanation that is given to them. Some people can question, can have doubts and try to find an alternative answer. But in the end, the purpose of religion is to answer the inexplicable, to seek answers without having "doubts" or "questions" as the main or principal purpose. Religion gives the answer. On the other hand, science is a method to find truths. People use science as a pathway to find evidences supporting different beliefs. 

Homework from Week 30

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014

Reading: "Crystal Truth and Crystal Balls," Richard Dawkins

& "The Fallacy of Scientific Objectivity," Hilary Lawson

1) Why does Richard Dawkins think that a scientific approach to understanding crystals is "more illuminating, more uplifting, and also stranger than anything imagined" by pseudoscience like mystics and New Age gurus?

Dawkins believes that pseudoscience is controlled by the magical power of language. People are able to fool others by using bombastic and much colourful words in order to convince the others of the truthfulness in their preaching. People with less education, or with a less keen and critical eye, would be more easily gullible to the words of a New Age guru who holds on to a claim and persuasively defends the veracity of the phenomenon he is explaining. On the other hand, the scientific approach observes phenomena as they are, without attempting to embellish the natural course of things. In the atomic level, or further down, there are particles, rays, that define and are in a constant show of wonderful things that are not necessarily visible to the naked eye. Of course, tools of high technological development might be necessary, but the evidence provided by others having witnessed the natural phenomena is proof enough for the people to at least imagine (or search up on Internet) what happens naturally, in a scientific point of view.

For example, people are sometimes tricked into believing star signs (ie astrology) is very much true. It is possible that there is a correlation between the positions of the stars and planets and the personality of an individual. However, instead of listening to a woman or man using their mystical powers and their persuasive eloquence to find out, the people might better seek out to look at the stars themselves, and try to find a relationship between  the two supposed factors.

Haven't many people experienced the placebo effect, where a patient believes himself cured because he was told he had ingested a medicine? Well, this is a clear example of humans' tendency to believe what we would like to believe, even though it is not necessarily true.

Alchemy might be another example. It is said that gold was tried to be produced in a man-made fashion. Instead of seeking this out of sole trial-and-error, it might be better to try finding the sources from where gold is produced in the earth, and then try to emulate this. If not, just enjoy the view and thought of how gold is produced, a fascinating process for some, I am sure.

Black holes are covered in myths, due to words and language that distorts the way they actually are. But when one delves into the core of the truth, maybe he will find the beauty from their terrifying power. Truth is not reflected by language, a medium through which scientific knowledge is spread.

2) Why does Hilary Lawson think that science is a "fiction" that tries to achieve objectivity but can't?

Lawson thinks that scientific knowledge is also tainted by bias. The scientist can present his thesis, his ideas, his data, and his evidence in such a light that makes his hypothesis seem right. People might be tricked by his skillfullness in presenting his research, and then adopt these faulty findings due to practicality. The common use of this knowledge incorporates it in everyday life until it is not questioned, and is bothered to be questioned, anymore.

For example, Galileo never offered concrete evidence that the world turned around. He had not observed this, yet everyone eventually accepted it. None of them carried conviction, yet we accept that the earth revolved around the sun as common knowledge. Or in physics. Many of us don't understand, grasp, or have witnessed the phenomena that we discuss, yet we accept them as true due to a certain dogma. We believe so because it seems right. Lawson suggests that science might lose credibility someday as well, as religion did in the past.

3) How can we square the circle? Create a theory of your own that allows for both "crystalline truth" and "scientific fiction."

The truth is, even though we have not been able to observe them with the naked eye, there are things that happen in the microcosmic world that we have to accept happen. For example, we are made of atoms, even though we do not see each individual particle. Are we going to start questioning that because we cannot see it? We could, but what would be the use? Of course, scientific knowledge can have a source of bias, but that is why we receive our own education, to be able to raise our skepticism when we feel something is not right. We have the right for judge for ourselves, choose what we want to accept and don't, and this is applicable to science as well. There are things that allow for imagination to take its course, and what allows this to happen is the veracity of the scientific knowledge that we have (or at least our conviction of their happening). After all, this does refer back to the question we had at the end of the Perception lesson: What would life be if "seeing" is not believing.

Weekly Blogpost #31

Sunday, April 20th, 2014

The significance of a moment

I suddenly remembered this question, and I have a little distinction to add. There are, indeed, some moments that are more significant in the sense that they have an impact on one's future. For example, taking a college entrance exam is a major step when applying for colleges. And, therefore, the day you take the exam will have much significance towards that person's future (at least relatively). But then, there are moments that become significant when reflected upon, even if their significance had not been noted at the present time they had happened. For example, sometimes relationships are built from random moments of connection. I might begin a friendship by helping someone out of a difficult situation, without even knowing that the person had been in need of someone. The moment would be considered significant later on, when reflected upon, as the two try to remember when their friendship started. 

I guess a moment's significance should be considered on at least two criteria: Was the moment known to be significant, or did it become significant through memory?

BBT 30

Friday, April 11th, 2014.

Give some examples of things that were believed to be true by scientists

but which we now know to be false now.

Why does this happen?

Examples of such cases were: 

1) geocentrism, when people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that all the other stars and planets revolved around us;

2) that the Earth was flat and seafaring travelers would reach a point where they are at the end of the world and fall off (terrible monsters and a hole at the edge);

3) the identification of certain diseases as a "punishment sent by God" instead of a result from bacteria pr virus;
4) the atom being the smallest particle (more atom models have been developed, with protons, neutrons, electrons and all the microscopic world);
5) the fountain of youth giving immortality;
6) alchemy (making gold out of a combination of clay mixtures).

This happens because new information is "discovered" and discards or expands upon previous beliefs. Scientists find new information that complements or alters the body of knowledge that has been formed and called scientific knowledge.

Weekly Blogpost #30

Wednesday, April 9th, 2014.

Reduced (or expanded) to formulas

The law of gravitational force, the law of action-reaction, the law of inertia, E=MC^2. All these formulas, among many more, are the laws of physics that summarize life around us. The laws of physics can be written out as words, but are more often transcribed into a logical and scientific combination of letters, numbers and symbols into a formula. 

Isn't it weird to think of the world summarized into an equation? At the end of the day, when physics students or physicists, or any individual really, work with these formulas and these theories, it is as if they are holding the fate of the world in their hands. At least in theory. But, most of all, isn't it weird to find cases of null solutions, or when a whole sequence and process of reasoning, is proved completely wrong or unsound? If the formula is a model representing life, does it mean that life was wrong as well in a sense, if the model was inaccurate?

Weekly Blogpost #29

Friday, April 4th, 2014

Thoughts arising from an experiment on "Index of Refraction"

I am sitting here, with my sister, helping her finish a lab report on an experiment testing the correlation between the index of refraction and the angle of refraction. (As a side note, in case the scientific terminology is throwing off, the index of refraction is the "velocity at which light passes through a medium", and the refraction is the passage or deviation of light off a surface. Or something on that order - I am not a physics person, and never completed an in-depth physics course.) And while I help her go through the "proper organization of a lab report," questions keep popping up in my head, as I have flashbacks to the good times when I had to spend lovely hours and hours, sometimes for two or three days, writing a lab report on the female guppy mating preferences or the proliferation of a fruit fly population with the ratio of the different manifested phenotypes (and genotypes).

The scientific method has been devised to conduct experiments in the most controlled and properly ordered manner as possible. Experimenters nowadays, whether from natural or human sciences, use the scientific method to conduct their researches, and further their understanding of a phenomenon or expand upon an ongoing study. I am not saying that the scientific method is wrong, and that all research conducted in accordance to the scientific method is flawed. However, I do think that it is in use because it is the best that we have for now. In other words, it is not perfect (if perfection exists, that is).

For example, as I conducted experiments, I would always repeat treatments, because more trials increase the chances of eliminating or identifying skewed data. However, along my trials, I would often realize more fallacies in the set-up of the experiment, such as variables to control. The problem would be that I could not change the faults, because that would change the controlled variables of my experiments and therefore affect my data. Even though I found faults, I could not modify my experiment, because that would mean the repetition of the entire experiment, which was not possible in the class time limits constraining me. Of course, others could say that I should have come later, and dedicate hours afterschool to correct my mistakes. But then, isn't there a possibility of me finding more errors to correct? Would there ever be a point of perfection I could reach to my satisfaction? Might I not fall in a pattern of starting-again's that captures in an eternal cycle of unfinished experiments?

Well, I guess that is what science is about though. Science asks that we identify whether the initial hypothesis was supported or rejected, and the mistakes or areas of improvement that could be used for later. Science leaves the space, and encourages (or pressures?), the experimenters to continue their experiment, to fall into an eternal cycle of the search for truth. Science, as we had discussed in class, is based on the assumptions that have been proven to not be false, as opposed to be proven true.

I wonder, does this characteristic of scientific study make science a reliable source of knowledge? Science is the best knowledge we have of its kind, yet are people not often forgetting the somewhat ephemeral reliablity science has? Aren't people often in equivocation of the possibility that a fact (which had been proven to not be untrue) might suddenly be found completely false in the near future, whether tomorrow or in a year or in a century?

As I sit and help the write-up of this lab report, I wonder how people grew to trust science so much. Yes, most knowledge classified as scientific has undergone thorough investigation and all, but it is often things that we do not "see" or perceive with our own senses. I mean, we just assume, take things for granted, that there is bacteria everywhere (for example), or that there are molecules composing the water we are drinking. We had finished off the section on Perception by asking "What would life be if perceiving was not believing?". And now I ask myself that, yes, although we are perceiving science to a certain extent, we do not have the absolute confirmed certainty of its occurrence; therefore, how did our heavy reliance on science grow?