Reading Connections #2

For centuries religion has been there to explain the world around us and to give us a feeling of reassurance that everything happens for a reason. A so called “divine plan” put together by a supernatural force. Religion is a way of answering all of lives mysteries which cannot be solved with common knowledge. Within the last couple hundred years the development of scientific ideas has brought up many questions regarding the confidence in previous religious beliefs. This has brought lots of tension between the church and science since each side’s beliefs cancel out the others.
The articles “God vs. Science” by Dan Cray http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-1,00.html and “How to Teach Science to the Pope” by Michael Mason discuss the ongoing joint existence between religion and science and how they are working together to bridge the gap between the two. “How to Teach Science to the Pope” talks about the Vatican Observatory and how it assumes a large role in determining the facts and fictions of science. Consolmagno is quoted in this article saying “The idea that the universe is worth studying just because it’s worth studying is a religious idea.” This is because the church believes that understanding the universe is a way to worship Gods creation. The Academy of Science is made up of the best scientists in the world, some religious and some not. Father George Coyne has said there are no adequate reasons to believe in God, he believes that you only need to believe that there is a “mysterious unknown at the root of the universe.” In the article “God vs. Science” I found something that I thought was interesting. It discussed the Multiverse hypothesis which says that our universe may be one in a cascade of universes which negates the idea of divine intervention and significantly increases the odds of a universe containing human life.
After reading these two articles I think that the use of the Vatican Observatory to link religion and science is a great idea. Both can be used together to come to a conclusion on many complicated questions. Sometimes science cannot deliver any reasoning as to why things exist, this is a perfect time to apply religious ideas.

Works Cited

Cray, Dan. “God vs. Science.” Time Magazine. November 5, 2006. October 23, 2008 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-2,00.html

Mason, Michael. "How to Teach Science to the Pope." Discover Magazine. August 18, 2008. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/18-how-to-teach-science-to-the-pope

Reading Connections #2: Creation of Nature: Then and Now

After reading a segment of 'nature and god, wisdom and will' from Shapin's "The Scientific Revolution," I got a better idea of the common perception of people at that time regarding the creation of 'nature.' Shapin refers that nature shows solid evidence of design, that it's 'artfully' contrived, which was generally accepted by mechanical philosophers. If this design isn't accounted for by the intelligence of nature itself, then this artful design had to arise from something outside of nature. This train of thought was the basis of one of the most important 17th century arguments for the existence, intelligence and creation of nature from a deity, or God. This argument of design links the practice of science and religious values in this early period. This wide idea or argument, or common perception that God, or a deity is responsible for the intelligent and specific design of nature was the cornerstone of common or natural theology. Shapin was essentially pointing out that around the end of this period religion and science meshed and reconciled fairly well. Generally, the blend between religion and science at this point coincided together without many disagreements. There was a widely perceived common thought that God truly exists, and the evidence of the creation of nature exists, due to a seemingly highly detailed natural world so perfect that it only is attributed to God's creation. As i read about Shapin's take on how many people of the 16th and 17th centuries were deeply rooted in the 'ethical' belief of this intelligent design from a higher power, I did some research on some current beliefs on the theories and thoughts of the creation of nature.

I located an article from BBC news, titled, "Universe child of previous one." Which refers to how a joint UK-US team has attempted an alternative theory of cosmic evolution. The article suggests that the Universe undergoes cycles of "Big Bangs" and "Big Crunches", meaning our Universe is merely a "child of the previous one". It challenges the conventional view of the cosmos, especially the views of the 16th/17th century scientific revolution. The new ideas may explain why the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. Professor Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University is quoted from the article, "at present the conventional view is that all of space, time, matter and energy began at a single point, which then expanded and cooled, leaving the Universe as it is today...It can be thought of as a child of the previous universe." This new theory suggests that there's a continuous cycle of universes, with each a repeat of the last, but not an exact replica. The new idea builds on previous work by the same team, and is set to challenge the current model. When observations showed the Universe to be expanding, this caused some of the biggest unanswered questions about the origin and characteristics of the universe and cosmic physics.
The article outlines the modern thought and theories of the creation of the universe, Professor Neil Turok, of Cambridge University have developed a theory to explain the cosmological creation. They suggest that time actually began before the Big Bang, meaning there was a preexisting universe. This would also mean that the current Universe is much older than presently accepted. "At present there may be an alternative 'dark matter' universe that exists at the same time as ours, but we could never reach it," explains Professor Turok. He says the best way to think of this is to think of a pane of double glazing with a fly on it. The fly is unable to cross over from one side to another, just like we are unable to get from one universe to another. These two universes are drawn together by the force of gravity and will eventually collide. This means that things that are happening now will help to create another universe in the future. This modern article expands concepts in our class because it shows the massive evolution and knowledge that humans contain of the universe and nature itself, and the massive evolution of the theories and thoughts of thinkers of how and why the universe exists and was created. This source is relevant to our class because it shows the modern scientific conception of how our universe was initiated. This source depicts how our modern lifestyle seems to lack a strong connection between science and religion. This study, and other scientific studies are mostly reliant on the science, rather than any religious aspects. There seems to be a lot more disagreement, and less of a friendly connection on issues between science and religion in modern times. Scientific study, at least in my mind, appears to have a less direct involvement and agreement with religion in our modern day rather than the time Shapin was referring to.

Works Cited:

Cruddas, Sarah. Universe 'child of previous one'. 5 May 2006. BBC News. 24 Oct. 2008 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4974134.stm>

Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Trish Tomlins Reading Connection #2

Science is incapable of supplying manking with answers to the ultimate questions - why things exist, what their purpose on Earth is, etc. - and these philosophical questions can be met with an answer in religion. Michael Mason's article "How to Teach Science to the Pope" discusses that science does not have to be an answer to religion and that it does not have to explain it. Instead, he suggests that both can remain present and powerful social factors in the present day world. It is impossible, after all, for science to provide mankind with all the answers. Science does not explain many aspects of human life such as love, friendship, etc. However, more and more the Catholic Church is beginning to accept the finding of science as truth and is beginning to re-examine the way the clergy members interpret the Holy Scripture, as they are historically known to have done. Bible interpretations are beginning to move from a literal perspective to a spiritual one.
The current relationship between religion and science is this, according to the Mason article: scientific issues have received unprecedented levels of importance within the church. The Vatican readily admits the increasingly dominant role that science and technology is beginning to play in society and even has gone as far as to acknowledge that science, for the most part, is yielding positive results. It is the persistence of a mechanistic view of humanity that troubles church officials. Ethical issues (cloning, euthanasia, contraception) are a large concern for the church because they immediately affect the human body and are not scientific questions. It has been proven by science that they are possible and now it is up to religion to say whether they are ethical.
After reading this article, I began to think about the chruch and its stand on ethical issues, such as cloning. I found an interesting article explaining the church's stand on the topic and why it has decided that cloning is immoral. In Terese Auer's article "Cloning: A Catholic Moral Evaluation", he tells the reader how cloning is done. Through in vitro fertilization, an embryo splits two cells to begin development. At this point scientists remove the coating around the embryo, split the two developing cells, and apply an artifical coating around the new embryos in which they could grow. This is known as cloning because the new cells formed are the exact replicas of the original ones.
The act of splitting the cells within the embryo with the purpose of producing a new human life is immoral to the Catholic Church because it opposes the idea that human procreation is preserved for the union of a man and a woman. The embryo is not being brought into existence though a personal act in which the spiritual love of the spouses is being demonstrated. To seperate the physical from the spiritual is to act in an unhuman way, according to Auer, thus degrading those involved in the act of creating a human life. It is not humane to either the parents or the child to be raised in such a scientific environment - a human child shown not be a piece of technology and the scientist who concieved him or her should not be the master of the destiny of the embryo. That job should be left up to God.
In order to obtain a balanced argument, I sought to find an article that would explain all the benefits of cloning. The problem that arouse while doing this was that all I was able to find where useless pages that did not reference and were not written by experts in the field of cloning. Finally I found an article that i think might be creditable, at least in comparison to the other sites I looked at.
"Human Cloning Benefits" by Jayashree Pakhare discusses that cloning has many benefits to society. Firstly, the production of clone tissue could prove to be helpful in rejuvenation, or making skin look more youthful and could one day reverse the aging process. More helpful to society, however, cloning could aid in heart attack treatment by cloning healthy heart cells and injecting them into the damaged area of the heart to help it recover from a heart attack. Combining clone cells with stem cells could help to repair or place damaged organs in suffering people and help to save lives. The benefit that most relates to the Catholic argument against cloning is the treatment for infertility. Right now, the success rate for infertility treatment is extremely low, but with cloning it would increase the chances for infertile couples to concieve a child.
Although the Catholic Church and modern day science may never agree on ethically blurry issues, they are building bridges between science and religion. The Mason article has proven that you can be Catholic and scientific.

Works Cited:
Auer, Terese. "Cloning: A Catholic Moral Evaluation." Jan-Feb 1994. Trinity Communications. 23 Oct 2008. <http://www.ewtn.com/library/prolife/cloning.txt>
Mason, Michael. "How to Teach Science to the Pope." Discover Magazine. 18 Aug 2008. 22 Oct 2008. <http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/18-how-to-teach-science-to-the-pope/article>
Pakhare, Jayashree. "Human Cloning Benefit." Buzzle.com. 27 Apr 2007. 22 Oct 2008.

Where Were All the Women?

For the last couple of weeks during class, we’ve been discussing women’s places and roles in society during the seventeenth century. We’ve especially been discussing where all the women were during the Scientific Revolution. Reading the Article “Gender, Science and Modernity in Seventeenth-century England” by Ruth Watts, provided me with a better understanding and explanation for the women’s so called “absence” from this time period. The article speaks of how the Seventeenth century was filled with a “reconstruction of knowledge based on inductive methods, empirical investigation and cooperative research.” (Watts) What launched the apparent absence of women during the Scientific Revolution was The Royal Society, established in 1661, forbidding membership to women. There have been many speculations about the roles of women during this time period, but this article help brings to light the real reasons of where the women were. Women were not provided with as high a degree of education as the men of this century were. They were excluded from formal education from grammar schools and universities. Their roles were considered to have a more domesticated focus than that of the men. Their responsibility was to run the household and look after the children. However, this article establishes a woman’s role in science through culinary and medical practices. Upper and some middle-class women were allowed to take part in the intellectual ferment of the day because of the growth of scientific lectures and the excess printing of the day.
Some women, the ones who were related to those who advocated scientific and educational reform were involved in the changes. Women were also affected by the theories and speculations of magic and occult philosophies. They were seen as witches and beings of magic, who practiced and supported these ideas, and fell under the terrible claws of the witch hunts and witchcraft trials of Europe.
Reading this article and participating in these discussions has made me truly sit down and think about how glad I am to live in a time where women have rights and a defined place in society. I am thankful for the fact that I am allowed to express my ideas, thoughts, and opinions without being forbidden to do so. I appreciate the freedom I have to experience a higher degree of education, to decide my own course in life, and to establish my own place in society and the world. I don’t have to worry about having to live under a husband’s or father’s thumb because in this world, in my life, they have no control over who I am or what I do. I have the right to my freedom and my independence and I am the only person in control of my future and destiny. I’m so thankful to live in a time where my opinions or my ideas and work can contribute or even change the world. I’m so happy to live in a time where, in general, gender is equal and women have a standing of importance.

Another article I found that relates to this idea and question of women during the Scientific Revolution and the seventeenth century was “Partners and Rivals During the Scientific Revolution.” This article can be found at www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/sj/cj/cj5science.html.
This article discusses how men partnered with women during the Scientific Revolution to provide education through the Jesuit schools. This article discusses the background and foundations of the schools and the roles of both women and men in the process and how they could be partners yet rivals during a time of great reform and how this overcame the general attitudes towards women during the time period.

17th Century Women in Science

We recently read and discussed the abstract from the article, "Gender, Science and Modernity in Seventeenth-century England", which answered the question "where were all the women?". I think this is a great article that discussed why women were not heard of during the scientific revolution when it came to new ideas and discoveries. The article talked about the different reasons why we never heard of a lot of, if not any, women scientists in England during that time period.
Even though I am not a scientist, reading the article still made me upset to hear about the different reasons why women could not come forth with their ideas. When I think about our society today, and how much women have progressed it makes me appreciate the fact that I have the ability to say what I want to say without having to worry. Reading that women feared being hung if they came right out with their ideas, because they would of been considered witches, really disturbs me. Another point the article made is the lack of equality in England during that time. Women were not as well educated as men were because they simply were not allowed to get as good of an education. Their "job" was to take care of the house and the children, it was so uncommon for a women to be smarter and of a higher status than a man.
This made me very curious and think about the women that were in fact able to get their ideas out there and how they were able to do so. In an article I found titled, Scientists Anonymous, by Asha Gopinathan, she discusses one major way women found a way to get their thoughts and ideas out there to the world. One of the main points she discussed is how women disguised themselves as men in order to say what they wanted to say. This fact makes me think in two different ways. My first thoughts are, "good for them", they found a way to get what they wanted to say out there despite the many challenges holding most other women back. Then I think about how disturbing it is that women had to pretend to be men.
Even if women were able to get their ideas out there they still had to degrade themselves by pretending to be men. Overall the challenges women had to face were extremely unnecessary and pretty upsetting.

Works Cited

Gopinathan, Asha. "Scientists Anonymous." Current Science 90 (2006): 1175. 21 Oct. 2008 .

Watts, Ruth. "Gender, science and modernity in seventeenth-century England." Paedagogica Historica. 2005. 41, 1, 79-93. ISSN: 0030-9230.

Reading Connections #2; Where were the women?

Many discoveries were made in the Scientific Revolution, however the only ones that are talked about today were made by men.  Which brings up the question where were the women in the scientific revolution?  In class a couple weeks ago we discussed this question and were able to make some connections to why women's ideas were not taken into account during this time period.

Using the article handed out in class titled Gender, Science and Modernity in Seventeenth-century England, by Ruth Watts, helped us come to various conclusions.  It was stated that women were affected by educational reformation, politics, and the mindset that they were just not educated enough to contribute.  Women in that time period were said to have their place in medicinal or culinary roles, not in science research.  Not only these reasons held women back but they were also not able to attend institutions and university's to further their education and they could not attend the Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.  In this society men were able to further their understanding of science and experiment to come up with new ideas.  Not being able to attend such places made it clear that men thought women in the seventeenth century had no place in science.  

Even though women had all of these struggles during the scientific revolution some found ways around it and began to research regardless.  Such as Maria Cunitz who was stated as the first female scientist.  She was a natural philosopher and was most interested in astronomy.  She was never able to attend any formal university because she was a women but her father, Dr. Henrich Cunitz, taught her himself.  She wrote Urania Propitia in 1650, which was her first work that included new tables, methods, and solutions.  Only a few copies were printed and she published it privately since women were not supposed to be writing on science.  She went on to continue researching astronomy and join the Republic Of Letters where she could share more of her findings.  Maria never went on to publish anything after Urania.

Although Maria Cunitz is considered the first female scientist of this time period there were many others.  Their work was and is not widely known today because it was not right for a woman to be so knowledgeable on natural science.  Mostly important men like Bacon, Aristotle, and Newton are considered the key players in the revolution.  If the women's work was accepted and known about back then the scientific revolution could have been completely.   

What's New(s) in Science?

What's news in science? Sensor System Runs On Electricity Generated By Trees. For my study of what's new, and news worthy in today's modern science, I found a couple articles, describing that MIT is constructing a new type of sensor on trees that detect several amounts of data. This is particularly important due to the world’s energy crisis. Anywhere we can get clean electricity and energy is always important and beneficial in the long run. This topic is also potentially interesting because of the several uses that come from harnessing natural energy from trees.

I initially found an article by browsing on ‘Google’ from science news searches and found “Can Electricity From Trees Power Gadgets?” from dailygalaxy.com. I learned from reading this source that the scientific explanations are simplified for a general audience to understand. This article is just a basic overview of the science and research of the energy captured from trees. The second source I found was from ‘Google’ after browsing under searches of ‘tree sensor systems’, I came up with an article from MIT discussing the science and process of how energy is harnessed from trees, where the energy comes from, and the analysis and research of the subject in more detail than the first source.

To summarize and evaluate the first source I accessed, according to dailygalaxy.com, a new sensor system is under development from MIT that runs on electricity generated by 'ordinary' trees. Trees are capable of self-sustaining a reliable source of electricity. MIT researchers believe they can power a network of sensors connected directly to trees to perform a variety of tasks. While a tree may not seem like much of a source of power, according to the article trees have a "trickle charge" that adds energy up. The article quotes, "just like a dripping faucet can fill a bucket over time," said Shuguang Zhang, one of the researchers on the project and the associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering (CBE). The U.S. Forest Service says that manually recharging or replacing batteries in remote automated weather stations makes things impractical and costly, especially since they are usually located in hard-to-reach places. This would be alleviated by the new sensor system. In the past these weather sensors and forest fire sensors were run off batteries. Now MIT has developed new sensors that can derive their own power from the tree itself. The system would bypass power issues by tapping into the trees very own self-sustaining power supply. This would utilize energy we have on earth, save batteries, and save manual hassle and cost changing them. It would also alleviate landfill usage from batteries. Each sensor is equipped with a battery that can be slowly recharged using electricity generated from the tree. The sensors would be self-sustained with power as a result of the energy emanating from trees. The uses for harnessing the trees power could serve as what the article refers to as “silent sentinels,” sensors along the nation's borders to detect potential threats such as smuggled radioactive materials. The sensors can also track forest fire models and data, as well as detect and prevent fires, by sending early reports to authorities. The new self powered sensor system is a scientific innovation that harnesses secure and efficient data of weather, forest fires, and potential smuggling effectively. How the system transmits information, is from the tree producing enough electricity to allow temperature and humidity sensors to wirelessly communicate signals of information four times a day, or immediately if there's a fire. Each signal hops from one sensor to another, until it reaches an existing weather station that transmits the data by satellite to a forestry command center in Boise, Idaho. The article then proceeds to discuss where this energy from trees actually comes from, and scientifically how the self-powered sensor system works in general terms.

Exactly how is the generating power produced in trees accessible for us to take advantage of? According to the article, MIT colleagues recently reported the answer in the Public Library of Science. "It's really a fairly simple phenomenon: An imbalance in pH between a tree and the soil it grows in," said Andreas Mershin, a postdoctoral associate at the CBE. Voltree Power and the MIT team plan to test the wireless sensor network in the spring on a 10-acre plot of land provided by the Forest Service. Christopher J. Love, creator of the ‘bio-energy harvester battery charger module’ and the ‘sensors’ at MIT said, "We expect that we'll need to instrument four trees per acre…Right now we're finalizing exactly how the wireless sensor network will be configured to use the minimum amount of power." Love also suggests that unskilled workers can design the system for easy installation. If this is all successful in the near future it will function as a wonderful scientific revolution for data collection, weather collection, fire prevention, and smuggling detection.

My opinion on this innovation, in which the original sources don't have, is that we need to be doing things like this more often. We have the capabilities to innovate, create, develop and research new beneficial inventions for our society. As a nation, and as a world, we should have institutions like MIT and others developing and researching new ways to harness energy and other developments more often to propel our existence in prosperity for the future, and in contemporary society. We have the money and the capabilities to develop innovations like this more often, and to utilize these developments like this more often. Instead we have our priorities in racking up debt in Iraq, ruing the economy, and doing other political malfunctions as a country (cough *Bush* cough) instead of developing our time, energy and money into developments like this that save energy, and would strive for the future. This piece of new scientific news matters to me because harvesting energy in new ways is something we need to do more frequently. Anywhere where I see innovations in the right direction of energy preservation, matters to me. It should matter to our class and the rest of the world for the same reasons; the energy crisis is very pressing right now. In general, this innovation doesn’t have a large effect on us, however the data collection from the sensors provides a better way to study weather and forest fire patterns, which indirectly will have an effect on us. This strictly benefits data collection more than us personally. The sources appeared where they did because I accessed the more general article first, through Google, and then I found where that article originated from with more detail on the second source, once I put more effort in research. If this innovation is completed and tested successfully from MIT, then in my mind it will definitely be revolutionary since we found a way to harness energy that’s coming from the very Earth we step foot on.

First Source:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/10/researchers-say.html

Second Source:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/trees-0923.html