Critical Thinking Blog Post #9

In the beginning of the course I wasn't sure what the connection between science and humanities were. Through this semester and taking this course helped me realized that there is indeed a connection between both fields. I saw myself as a humanist and will continue to be that way for awhile. Science is a great field and I believe both come hand in hand with each other.

My thinking about science and humanities has changed after taking this course. It helped me see how science and humanities are connected in a way. It also showed me how important it is to understand science because it is all around us everyday and it's good to have knowledge about the natural world we live in. I do look at science and technology different now after seeing everything I saw in this class. From global warming and creating cars for suburbs to the creation of robots and the creation of nuclear weapons. There are some aspects in each of these fields that is hurting the human population in terms of jobs and health.

There is a new connection that I was able to make between humanities and science and I have Alan Lightman to thank for that. In his book Einstein's Dream he took Einstein's way of viewing the world we live in and made it in a way that us humanist could understand. For example with the chapter on time, we slow down time by being up and being active and doing something. The way that time slips away from us when we're not doing anything. Let's say we're sleeping, it doesn't feel like a long time if we sleep for 8 hours, but 8 hours is a lot of time being used. Even sitting in a house playing video games all day, it doesn't feel like a long time by hours go by fast just sitting there doing nothing.

As this semester finishes up, I am less optimistic about science and technology. I feel like it's not being used for the common good of society, but we will never know the effects of things if we don't do it. So I guess I'm a little in the middle when it comes to being more or less optimistic about science and technology. What does the future hold for us?

I liked this idea of having a blog for the course. It did help me with understanding topics discussed in class and see how other people viewed these topics. It helped me with my research as well. This was a good tool!

Critical Thinking About Scientific Progress

Scientist provide us with information regarding the natural and/or the physical world. They cure unknown diseases, create weapons of mass destruction, clone people and animals, and much more. Doesn't sound like its that harmful does it? Oh, but it is! With the increasing in technology and intelligence, the outcome of science will just get worse. This will be dangerous for the future of humans and animals and the physical world. I don't believe that scientist know what the outcome of what they are doing, or consider science, going into it. They just see the effect after the damage is done. For instance, in the legendary story of Frankenstein, the scientist Victor Frankenstein creates this monster, just to test out science, and after creating the monster it had negative affects on mankind. The monster caused havoc among other humans and in the city of which they were located. Victor never knew that this would happen, but he saw what happened and it wasn't positive. This is just creating something close to humans. 

Also, with a great scientist by the name of Robert Oppenheimer, he created something that could wipe out a whole country, the atomic bomb. It started the Civil War and with technology increasing, i'm pretty sure there is something that can destroy everything on the planet. We don't need bombs on our planet that can get rid of human-life as we know it.

There are many positive attributes of science but there are many negative outcomes that affect the environment, our health and our planet. No one knew by creating a car that uses gas would release emissions that create global warming and not allow gasses to leave the planet. Yes, science create a easier way of living for us, yes it helps us understand the physical world we live in but it does harm us and will continue to harm us in the future. 

A Scientists Life and Work - Assignment #7

The scientist of which I will be talking about is Albert Einstein. He has made the famous contribution to the world of figuring out that E=MC2. We have an understanding of the physical world thorough this formula and it's truly amazing. The way how he lived his life was definitely different then most people do. This is what most great scientist do though. They are usually to themselves, not a people person, in which Einstein was, he used to not go to school. All of these qualities show how determined to their work they were and well it was for the best! Einstein's work was recognized in his lifetime and it still has a major impact on us today and will continue on in the future. His work inspired us, because know did get knowledge about the physical world in which we live in. Although, it could seem to be threatening to us for the fact that his formula was used to make an atomic bomb, which wasn't probably his interest at heart. In the graphic novel, Einstein's Dream, by Alan Lightman, helped bridge the gap that was divided between science and humanities. In this book we get to see what it is to think like Einstein without necessarily being a physicists. This book is truly enlightening and it is a good read. It goes over the little things in life we barely pay attention to.

Assignment #6 - Sharing and Reflecting on Two Research Sources

My research topic is about the promise and perils of technology advancing now and in the future. I will be conducting research on is the negative effect that creating robots already does have on us in today's society and how it will affect us in the future as well.

The authors of my first source are Michael Anderson and Susan Leigh Anderson. The title is Robot Be Good and it's a periodical from the Scientific American. I found this source using EBSCOhost. The relevant information that this source provides is ethical issues that robots face. Will robots be able to make ethical decisions is the question raised in this article. The authors say eventually they will but I don't think it's enough for working in an environment with other human beings. The argument that the authors are saying is that through research and more development of robots, they will be able to make robots behavior more acceptable to humans. This gives my paper an optimistic view to the fact that robots may not be hurting us that much. I chose this source because it dealt with a job working with humans and actually talking to them. A regular job that any human is capable of doing and I thought having this example would best fit my paper.

The second source I chose is by Pamela J. Hinds, Teresa L. Roberts, and Hank Jones. The title is Whose Job Is It Anyway? A Study of Human-Robot Interaction in a Collaborative Task. This article is from an academic journal called Human-Computer Interaction. I found this source on Academic Search Complete a.k.a. EBSCOhost. The information in this article is relevant because when we think about jobs and the future of robots taking over, we have to think how the interaction would be before they actually start creating these robots. We have to think about what's comfortable for the worker. The argument that is in this article is that it is possible for robots to work with humans just as long as the creators create a machine that's acceptable to humans. What this adds to my paper is proof that this hurts jobs for humans because once again humans are able to perform such tasks. It just makes it easier because a human can tell a robot what to do and it will do it whereas some humans don't like to have someone in charge of them telling them what to do.

Ass. #3 - Brainstorming on Research Paper Topics

In picking out what research paper to write about I felt that I would like to do Idea #2 - Science and Technology: Promise and Peril. I like to write about and find information on the pros and cons of important topics among us today and that affect our future. Of course doing this you cannot have a bias mind. You must be openminded to both sides of technology, the bad and the good. The one topic I was leading towards the most was the promise of Artificial Intelligence vs the danger/problems for loss of labor. This is a very interesting topic to talk about and research more.

The second idea was Idea # 4 - Popular Science: Bridging the Two Cultures. I thought about doing this research paper because I feel that the world isn't two sided and that there is a common ground between the humanities and sciences. To get an idea about how people think that they are or not somewhat related would be cool to read upon.

'Popular Science' Awe? Inspire? Threaten?

Writer of the New York Times, Edward Rothstein, feels that today, science is used in popular entertainment. I agree with him because in order to appeal to humans is through entertainment. Everyone likes to laugh, feel suspense, and think about unusual scientific happenings. Examples, aliens, UFO's, time machines, etc.

The one example I chose is the movie Inception. The technology depicted in this movie was the idea of entering a human body through dream invasion and implanting ideas in people's minds. The main character, Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, would steal people's most close secrets for many investors across the world. He then had to complete his biggest mission thus far by implanting an idea in one of his competitors mind to destroy his company. I believe that this is possible. When it comes to science and technology, ANYTHING is possible. The way how they showed how they get into people's subconscious  it in the movie was not dumbed down at all. The audience was attracted at the fact that it was happening, the idea of being able to make up a dream. In the movie they showed different ways that humans normally wake up from a dream, such as when in a dream and you're falling from somewhere you wake up automatically. I can say that has happened to me. So the audience did seem to believe it. 

The technology represented in this film gives me a sense of 'awe' because recently I had a dream where it had different levels as shown in the film. That attracted me to the film even more. I think that my response to this text is not typical because most people wouldn't feel like you can do something as implanting an idea in someone's head to get what you want. It does seem a little far-fetched. I do believe there is some people in the U.S. that would have the same reaction as me. In today's world where entertainment is a big market, it is harder to sell serious science than it is to sell science fiction. I don't think there is a limit to what kind of science that can be popular with today's audience. You just have to sell it to where people understand it fully and try to make it enjoyable to everyone. 

Assignment #1

What's up world! I'm Lars Rand and welcome to my blog.  In my life I hope to accomplish being an successful actor, owning a couple of companies and much more! The major that I am taking up at LaGuardia Community College is Theater and Communication. What motivated me in choosing this major was the acting part. I really didn't know what I wanted to major in, so I did a little research and I decided to take on this new challenge of acting. In five years from now I see myself being in a couple of movies and hopefully in a T.V. series and hosting a T.V. show as well!! After completing my associates in Theater and Communication I plan on continuing my education at a acting school called The William Esper Studio located in Manhattan. 


There is always a debate about how people understand the world. A lot of people lead towards humanities and a lot of people are for science and technology. I on the other hand have an understanding of both sides but I do lean more towards the humanities side. I believe that science and technology and humanities do relate with each other in some aspects. The reason why I'm affirmative for humanities is because of the courses I've been taking such as Acting and Persuasion and Debate, Philosophy, that it just makes sense about the world. Yet, science and technology does have its impact as well. 


In the United States people are accepting to science/technology, but I think that only a small part of the states do see the negative sides to it and want to make a change. 


I do think that some people in the world accept such categories in social science to understand their world but more people lead towards humanities. People do take as psychology to understand why people act the way they act and why they think the way they think and they take that to understand their world.