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.