Environment Study Discussions
Unit 1 Discussion
With reference to the issue of probability, search online for examples of scientific predictions that claim to be objective and to have specific outcomes. Do you agree? Might one raise valid doubts about the objectivity or outcomes?
Probability of Objective Scientific Predictions
Most scientific predictions are falsifiable, which means that their predictions can be contested. The use of probability in scientific predictions ascertains the likely that the quantification is not sustainable. The approach follows the statistical representation of the study hypothesis that relies on probability range. The use of the probability or other quantification measures defines the likelihood that to some extent the scientific predictions are not accurate. The theoretical framework of the predictions forms the clouded objectivity of the predictions as a reflection of a study finding and natural phenomena. Thus, the theoretical predictions show constrains on the parameters of scientific phenomenon based on the deviated views of the concept.
The Brans-Dick theory is a relevant example of scientific predictions that is objective but contestable. The theoretical framework explains the concept of gravitation. The theory is contested by other theoretical concepts like the Einstein theory of general relativity. The Brans-Dicke theory explores the gravitational interaction using scalar fields to which the gravitational constant G is assumed to be constant and its 1/G taken over by the scalar field. The contradictions of the theory shows the deviations in quantitative predictions. Even though the deviations are small enough to be overlooked, they cause a differences in the general relativity of the theory (Sattar 31). Some studies also found time-variations in the structure constant as substantial enough to prove the probabilistic deviations. Moreover, the increase in more new ideas to contest the theory also proves the ability to prove falsification in the some statistical facts of the study. The existence of the deviations also confirms the quantifiable precisions in the theory as a hypothesis factor in the study. Thus, the Brans- Dicke theory proves that objective scientific predictions with specified outcomes can be doubted.
Work Cited
Sattar, Sadia. Gravitational Collapse in f (R, T) Modified Theory of Gravity. Diss. University of Sargodha, Sargodha. 2018.
What might science not be able to explain? Find examples online of natural events that people believe can be scientifically explained, but might not be.
Natural Disaster
The scientific explanation for the cause of natural disaster still remains in limbo even though many scholars try to give supportive scientific theories. The occurrence and existence of natural disasters is yet to be scientifically confirmed. The occurrence of disasters like floods and climate change continue to contrast the scientific and sociopolitical understanding of natural disaster. There are studies that tend to identity such disasters as natural and scientifically influenced while others negate any association to scientific and natural occurrence. The disasters can be attributed to human activities like high emission of toxic gases that change the ozone layer thereby causing a drastic change in the intensity of sun rays to the earth’s surface. The view has created a contrasted perspective on between the scientific proof or the existence of “natural disaster” and the sociopolitical claim made by climate campaigners (Chmutina and Jason). Thus, the variations in the understanding and explanation the concept gives a divided opinion on the agreeable position on the scientific acknowledgement and cause of the natural disasters.
Scholars are indifferent between the scientific acknowledgement of natural disaster and sociopolitical claim. The difference is primarily vested on the identity of the disasters as natural occurrences. Climate campaigners hold the sociopolitical views that climate change and floods are natural disasters because they are caused by natural phenomenon. On the other science, studies shows that disasters like floods and climate change are caused by human activities hence deters from the natural occurrence concept. The deviation from the natural causality concept overrides the scientific explanation of the events and effect raised by the devastating consequences of the human activities. Therefore, as much as some studies tend to prove climate change and floods to be natural disasters that are scientifically developed, there are no provable scientific theory to support the natural and scientific cause of climate change and flooding.
Work Cited
Chmutina, Ksenia, and Jason Von Meding. “A Dilemma of language:“Natural disasters” in academic literature.” International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 10.3 (2019): 283-292. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13753-019-00232-2
Search online for examples of sociobiology that might run counter to contemporary social belief
Sociobiology and Social Beliefs
Sociobiology is the evolution of social behavior in animals. The interaction between the living natures creates a complex behavior exchange in the animals that develops common concept of behavioral ecology. Human beings are not exempted from this experiment of character development. The most common example of sociobiology is the evolution story that allowed human beings to use their acquired of developed behavior and evolutionary advantage in the environment to build certain behavior patterns that supported their survival. The concept is often defined by the placement of genetics which not only explains the biological difference but also the socio-biological differences that shapes people’s behavior, character, and social preferences. The genetic placements show that people with stronger genes are likely to survive than those with weaker genes. The characterization based on gene strength is guided by the biological composition that makes people more suitable to certain environments and prone to certain illnesses. Thus, sociobiology factors are responsible for the behavior differences in people, which is caused by the interaction between individuals’ genetic, character developments, and interpersonal development that makes the receptive to certain social beliefs, cultures, and environmental behavior.
The evolutionary concept of sociobiology contradicts various social beliefs such as the religious explanation of man’s evolution. Science argues that mankind evolved from ape-like creatures to the modern man over the years. The evolution of mankind shows that people acquired their biological and physical being in natural transition and to some extent such development is still ongoing particularly in biological development and intellectual capacity. The same theory is believed to be responsible for the development of social behavior which is a factor of the biological transition of people over the years. However, this theory contradicts social beliefs in religion that purported by human beings were wholly created by divinity and does not need any time-based transition to change to anything. Religious beliefs show that man was created in the image of the creator as a new being who never developed over time. For instance, the Christians’ inclination of creation identify the seniority of man over other living things as proof of the creation by a Supreme Being. As a result, people are expected to obey the religious foundations of mankind’s origin and not conform to the sociobiological claim for nature-based behavior development. The position also contradicts the social behavior conformity to life expectations and interactive relationship between living things. Therefore, the sociobiological ideology of creation deeply contradicts the religious view of creation as an existing belief.
Work Cited
Perry, George, and Ruth Mace. “The lack of acceptance of evolutionary approaches to human behaviour.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 8.2 (2010): 105-125 http://www.academia.edu/download/32866979/perry_mace.pdf
Unit 2 Discussion
From online sources, provide contemporary examples environmental activism. Has the initiative or activity of the group or individual been effective? Why or why not?
Environmental Activism
The wake of global warning has necessitated various lobby groups and more reinforced environmental activism in the last decade. The specification in factor causes and human activities on the environment has led to a group of lobbyists who are more goal specific thereby increasing the pace of activism on environmental preservation. The Citizen’s Climate Lobby is one such organization whose input has gone noticed across the world. The international climate lobby group has given a new style to the fight for better society by countering the various factors mentioned to impede sustainable climate and livelihood across the world (Citizen’s Climate Lobby). The group champions for a carbon-free world by providing recommendations on the best way to reduce and mitigate carbon emission to the environment. The approach calls for a responsible production and manufacturing that prioritizes the environmental conservation as a factor of production thereby building a social cost factor through various initiatives to stop production of carbon to the environment.
The Citizen’s Climate Lobby is observed as very successful in its championing for a carbon free world. The success of the organization is attributed to its new approach to environmental conservation. Rather than just lobbying publicly through demonstrations to have manufactures stop releasing carbon to the environment, the group devised a way of influencing the political decisions in favor of environmental conservations. The lobby group recommends use of elected representatives to the governments, nationals, and international organizations to create legislations that would protect the environment against unnecessary carbon dioxide emissions. The group also offers various professional alternatives to carbon-based productions to ensure that sustainable methods are used. Besides, CCL has widely grown in its operations thereby creating a positive influence through public engagement and interesting environmental conservation.
Work Cited
Citizen’s Climate Lobby. We Build the Political Will for Action. Citizen’s Climate Lobby. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/methodology/
From online sources, provide contemporary examples where water has played a role in international affairs.
The Hydro-politics
The hydro-politics refers to the politics of water. Water is an essential natural resources that is not substitutable to any other resource. The essentiality of water to life has made it an important commodity of interest to various communities and governments across the world. As a result, the world has experienced various instances where conflict is caused by or quenched by water negotiations. The position makes water a natural determinant of international power that is influenced by various policies to influence the nature of relationship between countries and regions. Moreover, the identification of the drastic drop in clean water makes it a precious commodity yearned for by many people. Thus, water is viewed as a factor of international understanding owing to its border lining and precision thereby influencing global affairs.
The Jordan River has been at the center of Middle East’s regional affairs and understanding over the years. With as low as 1% water presence in the middle east, claim on a water body is the center of understanding and affairs in the region (Diaz Escudero). Jordan River stretches about 223km connecting Galilee Sea to the upper course and Dead Sea to the lower course. The rivers connects countries such as Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank. The river has various cultural, religious, political and socioeconomic impact on the nations that forces tension and understanding on equal measure. The river has stood between war and peace of the nations over years with constant negotiations carried out to have an agreeable use and access to the water by citizens of the affected nations. The approach makes the Jordan River one of the most important factors of regional affairs whose presence and impacts hold the region to position. Thus, the Jordan River plays an important role in the international and regional affairs of the affected countries.
Work Cited
Diaz Escudero, Marina. Jordan River Basin: Hydro politics as an arena for Regional Cooperation. Global Affairs Strategic Studies, University of Navarra. https://www.unav.edu/web/global-affairs/detalle/-/blogs/jordan-river-basin-hydropolitics-as-an-arena-for-regional-cooperation
From online sources, provide contemporary examples of where recycling is net beneficial; find an example of where it is not net beneficial.
Beneficial Recycling
Recycling has become one of the key method of reducing waste in the environment. Recycling takes on materials that cannot be decomposed or worn-out over time. The materials are made of toxic physical substances that increases landfill wastes hence the need to recycle them. The presence of the recyclable material threatens the environment because it gives room for production of more indecomposable substances. Moreover, it increases the cost of oil use, carbon dioxide and other toxic elements emission to the environment (Hopewell, Dvorak, and Kosior 2117). Thus, the reprocessing of the new products using plastic waste ensures that substantial amount of the waste is reused in the production of the same products or other products based on their elementary changes and conformity to development.
The recycling of plastic across the world has proved beneficial. The threat of plastic waste amounts to the highest quantity of landfill across the world with many plastic currently finding its way into the ocean. In the recent time, environmentalists have blamed disposal of plastic waste for the decline in marine life and flooding in some parts of the urban centers. Plastic produces toxic chemicals that undermine marine life and also block drainage systems in urban areas. As a result, recycling has proven to offer substantial solution to the control of plastic wastes and their spillage into marine and air life. However, the same success enjoyed by plastic’ effective recycle is not provable in energy recycle. Even though some studies argue that energy is recycled, there is less evidence to prove the effectiveness of the process. Instead, the introduction of renewable energy that suits that descriptions does not purely utilize all energy spillage in the subsequent productions. Thus, the recycling of plastic has proven net beneficial to the reduction of solid landfills.
Work Cited
Hopewell, Jefferson, Robert Dvorak, and Edward Kosior. “Plastics recycling: challenges and opportunities.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364.1526 (2009): 2115-2126. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2873020/?_escaped_fragment_=po=0.555556
Unit 3 Discussion
Discussion1: Artificial Intelligence and Religion by Professor Yorick Wilks
The video discusses the connection between artificial intelligence and religion. Artificial intelligence test the scientific responsiveness of individual’s mental capacity to various scopes of knowledge while religion address the spiritual beliefs in people that is soften associated with sociocultural understanding of human welfare and origin. In discussing the links, the lecture questions the existence of an artificial superintelligence suppose one would arise and its disposition to people (Wilks 00.05 – 00.15). While science believes in mental development, the existence of one superintelligence being to occur is yet confirmed by any circumstances particularly in reference to the evolution effect. This concept is portrayed in religion through the creation narrative. According to the lecturer, religious beliefs assume that creations are disposed to their creator. As such, humanity is in existence as long as they have access to the creator who poses all the powers to their being and intellectual narrative. The lecture further makes references to recent cult-like beliefs that rose in US where people pledge worship to the super-intelligence suppose it emerges and other futuristic ideologies like the Transhumanism that began in the 18th century, which shows a strayed relationship between artificial intelligence and religion.
The video lecture’s point of view relates to that discussed by the class readings on John Hedley Brooke’s Science and Religion on Introduction and Chapter 1: Interaction between Science and Religion. The reading by Hedley discusses the link between science and religion considering that the two forces immensely grew during the revolution time. According to the reading, there is the perception that the interaction between the two subjects was responsible for their immense growth having had a common inference about life and moral support (Brook 4). Religion is perceived to have given scientist the moral understanding of life to dig deep into the unknown facts. However, there is also the contrasted position between the two subjects. The reading shows that some scholars show the conflict on understanding of life between the subjects that puts them aside than together. Therefore, like the clip, the reading shows a contrasted relationship between religion and science.
Work Cited
Brook, John Hedley. Science and Religion: Introduction to Interaction between Science and Religion, Some Preliminary Considerations. HUMN 3991.
Wilks, Yorick. Artificial Intelligence and Religion. Gresham College. 2020. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ai-religion
Discussion 2: Science and Religion in Global Public Life
Professor Elaine Howard Ecklund discusses the correlation of science and religion in the public sphere. Ecklund argues that the social science of sociology provides the relational understanding of human lifestyle. The science also helps study and understand religious group on a theoretical perspective. The view presents sociology as the understanding of social practices and the science of studying individual opinions and their choices that relate to others (Ecklund 00:16). The views gives a direct connection between science and religion where science supports study of social relationship where each discipline supports power relationships and ladder to support level of social status. The identity and groups of the discipline members show certain level of similarity where each group funds a development of knowledge based on human interactions and the attitudes they have on their environments.
A Similar voice is echoed by Barbour in the text When Science Meets Religion. The video retaliates the same views held by the study text by issuing a distinct role in the study of the connecting points between science and religion. The video is clearer in point and views through a contemporary introduction to the essentials issues and ideas often overlooked in the connection between science and religion as improvements of human wellbeing and understanding. Thus, the discussions on the video fall in the same manner as Barbour’s view on spirituality and its quantitative dimensions of life.
Work Cited
Ecklund, Elaine Howard. Science and Religion in Global Public Life. The Gifford Lectures. 2018. https://www.giffordlectures.org/videos?page=1
Barbour, Ian G. When science meets religion:[enemies, strangers, or partners?]. SPCK, 2000.
Discussion 5: Called to Truth
Professor Michael Welker makes an unfamiliar call to religious study in his views of theoretical knowledge through the discussion titled Called to Truth. According to professor Welker, an understanding of the liberating call for a truth demands that people not only limit their views and thought to the cognitive and ethical factors but also expand their search into the religious understanding of the truth (Welker 00:05:00 – 01:20:00). The view portrays an extensional discussion to his previous thought on justice where he believes religion has an inseparable ability to transform truth in a more understandable manner due to the inner inability to ideological development that identifies with the study of truth. Religion gives a critical evaluation of factors that distort the truth thereby influencing the metaphysical and subjective concept of Godly truth. The religious truth is an instrument of responsibility that puts people in faith through character development. Therefore, according to Welker, criticism of religious truth by other scholars distorts the truth and reduces its conceptualization by human beings. The scholar’s discussion is directly relevant to Barbour’s view in When Science Meets Religion. The religious conceptual of the truth referred to by Welker is the foundation of Barbour’s link of science to religion.
Work Cited
Welker, Michael. Called to Truth. The Gifford Lectures. 2019. https://www.giffordlectures.org/videos
Unit 4 Discussion
Is biotechnology in any meaningful way different from eugenics as practiced in the past?
Difference between Biotechnology and Eugenics
The essence of biological science lied on the desire to excel in life physiology. The determinations to improve the biological capabilities of the organisms influenced the development of the traditional biotechnology. The approach defines the primary difference between the biotechnology and eugenics as practiced in the past. Biotechnology focused on the cumulative study of organisms to improve their well-being. The approach followed extensive ethical studies that used rapid technology to improve the organism livelihood. The approach created an overreliance on technology as the indifferent factors of production with least focus on the biological compassion of organisms as the primary change factor. However, this method differed from the eugenics when compared in practice. Eugenics introduced the use of technology to enhance organisms’ physiology and genetically composition to give certain desired traits (Buckwalter and Stan). In most cases, the introduction of eugenics pursued creation of genetic engineering to improve the survival rate of organisms.
Work Cited
Buckwalter, Mike, and Stan Grove. “Eugenics: Science’s Dark Past or Today’s Biotechnology?” https://www.goshen.edu/bio/Biol410/bsspapers06/MBeugenics.html
Raymond Tallis is a neurologist who believes that “neuromania”, the belief that science will soon be able to fully understand how the brain functions, and consciousness arises, is mere blind faith. Find other online examples of scientific manias, either past or present that were proven false or, you believe, will be proven false.
Scientific Manias
The view that science will one day fully understand the brain functions is based on blind faith. Even though science has drastically evolved and become more sophisticated, some concepts still remain unanswerable due to the complexities of knowledge developed. This explains the reason some scholars have found refuge in religions amidst studying science to give religious meaning to unfounded facts that science can no longer give answers to. Similar instances have also occurred in the past where used scientific ideologies and theories were proven to be untrue. The early study on electrons gave different meanings due to the diversification of the concept in almost all areas of science. Early in the days, it was believed that electrons were like tiny balls that orbited nucleus. The Arnold Somerfield’s Bohr’s model portrayed the electron orbits as elliptical but later adjusted based on the relativity theory of Einstein. The view showed that the electron are balls that orbit around the nucleus.
However, the claim has come to be proved otherwise. Modern quantum mechanism shows that electrons are more mysterious and tend to behave unevenly in scientific knowledge. Of all the doubtful positions of the concept in science, it was indeed proven that electrons do not orbit the nucleus. Thus, late scientific findings also showed that electrons are not tiny as early perceived and could be comparable to ball motions.
Work Cited
Vickers, Peter. “Four Convincing Scientific Theories that Fooled Scientists for Decades”. The Silicon Republic. https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/scientific-theories-proven-wrong