"There are differences between a child and a fetus insofar as a child has a mind and therefore “rational nature has already begun its development."
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"If a woman does choose to abort, it is a decision that should be reached with care, judiciousness, and ideally in situations where the woman has other moral obligations that parenthood would render it difficult or impossible to fulfill."
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"When I suggest that the woman should not be compelled to subordinate her interests to those of the fetus, I sometimes meet with the response: “But if she is allowed to have an abortion, the fetus is subordinated. It is just a question of who shall be subordinated to whom.” In a sense, of course, this is correct. There is a conflict of interest between the woman and the fetus, and someone is going to lose. But that is true in every Samaritan situation. There is a conflict between the distressed party’s need for aid and the potential rescuer’s desire not to give it. The point is that our law generally resolves this conflict in favor of the potential Samaritan."
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"Burgeoning human life, we might put it, is respect-worthy. Abortion involves loss. Not just loss of the hope that various parties might have invested, but loss of something valuable in its own right. To respect something is to appreciate fully the value it has and the claims it presents to us; someone who aborts and never gives it a second thought hasn’t exhibited genuine appreciation of the value and moral status of that which is now gone."
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"It is impossible to attribute moral status to a [human embryo] on grounds of its physical characteristics alone – even when its potential is considered – because there is no point in the process of ontogeny at which a scientific finding can be made, as it were, that a glob of protoplasm is now sufficiently endowed with moral freedom that it has become a responsible agent or sufficiently endowed with cultural, aesthetic, and ethical capacities that it has become a human being."
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"Even if we fully grant fetuses the status of persons, akin to that of any other person, this alone does not necessitate the moral impermissibility of abortion. This is because no one person’s right to life entails that another person must forcibly submit to unwanted bodily intrusion with the goal of sustaining the former’s life."
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"Imagine that an ailing violinist needs to stay hooked up to your kidneys for a certain amount of time in order to survive a rare affliction. If you choose to unplug yourself, the violinist will surely die. According to Thomson, if you have not consented to this dependency relation, you are free to terminate it, even if doing so results in the violinist’s death. Thomson does not deny that the violinist is a person with rights, including the right to life. Rather, she questions what obligations such a right imposes upon other human beings. It is not the case, she argues, that the violinist’s right to life necessitates that another person has an obligation to provide him with whatever he needs to survive. Analogously, even if the human fetus were considered a person from conception, it does not follow from this alone that others, particularly a pregnant woman, have an obligation to provide the fetus with whatever it needs to survive, especially when this entails the unwilling use of someone’s body."
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"I am not arguing that people do not have a right to life... I am arguing only that a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person’s body – even if one needs it for life itself. So the right to life will not serve the opponents of abortion in the very simple and clear way in which they seem to have thought it would."
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"Even granting that embryos and fetuses are persons, however, this alone would not entail the moral impermissibility of abortion rights, mainly because prohibiting abortion, and compelling women to gestate, violates the formula of humanity against them."
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"People who oppose abortion choice would have to argue that, unlike any other person, a human fetus has a moral right to instrumentalize a person for sustenance even against the latter’s wishes."
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"In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant clearly defines “person” as a moral agent; as a being with certain cognitive capacities, “a subject whose actions can be imputed to him. Moral personality is therefore nothing other than the freedom of a rational being under moral laws.”
In his Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason, Kant argues that the human capacity of “personality” is the source of our dignity as rational creatures, and he defines it as “the susceptibility to respect for the moral law as of itself a sufficient incentive of the power of choice.”
And, once again in the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant specifically defines the term “humanity” as “the capacity to set oneself an end – any end whatsoever.”
It is clear from these passages that Kant correlated the capacity for free choice and moral agency with humanity and personhood. The problem for Kantian pro-life philosophers who argue that conception is the moment when a new human person first comes into existence is not just that embryos and fetuses lack moral agency and free will, but that Kant was clear that it was impossible to correlate the acquisition of freedom, and therefore humanity, to a physical or biological event."
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"We do not, as a society, compel individuals to donate blood or bone marrow, even if this means people will die as a result of not getting these vital bodily fluids, and certainly nine months of pregnancy is a greater bodily sacrifice than donating blood or bone marrow… As a society, we recognize the moral imperative to treat all persons as ends in themselves and that all persons are worthy of intrinsic respect. And we recognize that this imperative applies even if respecting it in one person entails the death of another... I can grieve the lives lost as a result of bone marrow or blood shortage and get still maintain that donations must be voluntary - that no one can be strapped down and have their marrow or blood forcibly extracted."
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"Viewing fetuses as patients independently of the women who carry them correlates with the increased dehumanization of those same women by transforming them into environments or containers for the unborn patient...More concerning is that “nowhere does the [federal guidelines] section on fetal research cite maternal safety as a consideration."
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"Given the correlation between single motherhood and poverty, it is quite understandable that this is a lifestyle to which women would choose to not be tethered, especially since it presents a formidable obstacle to growth and self--improvement."
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
America is Behind in Weather Forecasting
Brandi Slavich
Weather is important. We all experience it on a day-to-day basis and getting warnings out in time saves lives yet our country, the United States of America, is behind compared to other nations. The issue begins with the people who argue that the U.S. inferiority in numerical weather prediction really does not matter. Despite the facts that compared to other countries the United States has third rate status in numerical weather prediction some assume that since we have access to the superior forecasts of the models of the European Center (EC), the UK Met Office, and others that that is enough.
The technology of weather prediction has improved dramatically during the past decades as faster computers, better models, and much more data (mainly satellites) have become available. The problem is that the U.S. global model is number 3 or number 4 in quality, resulting in our forecasts being noticeably inferior to the competition (Mass, The U.S.). Consequently, even though we have all the potential to be on top and have the most destructive weather in the world, the U.S. is settling with substandard forecasting. With this in mind, a major contributor to the United States inferiority is that we have inadequate computers/lack of computer resources. The European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) is running models with substantially higher resolution than ours even though we can afford the processors and disk space is definitely part of the problem. The U.S. does not have enough computer power available for numerical weather prediction and the U.S. modeling inferiority is costing us big bucks. For example, if you read the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast discussion online you will notice that they frequently depend on the ECMWF, not the U.S. models.
Time and again, we’ve learned the value of improving the “resolution” of our numerical models, say, describing the weather on a grid where the points are separated by 15 km instead of 30 km. But that’s computationally expensive. [Yet] typically when we increase the resolution, the change permits us to notice deficiencies in the model that we didn’t worry about before. A number of companies and U.S. entities are paying hundreds of the thousands of dollars EACH to get European Center model output. (Hamill)
Europe has the advantage with models that have twice the resolution as ours. To illustrate, the NWS has two computers that are not even on the worldwide top 500 list while the ECMWF has two machines that rank 37th and 38th worldwide; each with 24,546 cores and a computational ability of 0.75 petaflops while the NOAA’s Fairmount location only has 0.38 petaflops. Furthermore for the past twenty years the U.S. has been using Three Dimensional Variational Assimilation (3DVAR) while the European Center, the UK Meteorology Office, and our Canadian neighbors have upgraded to 4DVAR. In fact, a Professor in Atmospheric Sciences asserts “the lack of computer power and poor coordination between research and operational weather communities in the U.S. has crippled our ability to move forward towards the high-resolution weather prediction capability” (Mass, Second Rate). Hence why resolution is considered a key aspect for weather prediction.
Under those circumstances, when it comes to research the U.S is on top, having the largest meteorological research establishment in the world; however we are not taking advantage of it. The Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) continues to be reluctant when it comes to using models and approaches developed by the U.S. hence why the interactions with the research communities are bounded. Similarly, not only has the EMC been isolating themselves and has become known for their “not invented here” attitude, the NWS is not innocent either. Due to the fact that the NWS’s budget has been under pressure, university research has been the first thing they seem to cut out.
The government weather research is NOT in the NWS, but rather in NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. Thus, the head of the NWS and his leadership team do not have authority over folks doing research in support of his mission. This has been an extraordinarily ineffective and wasteful system, with the NOAA research teams doing work that often has a marginal benefit for the NWS… The folks in NCEP [National Centers for Environmental Prediction], NWS, and NOAA leadership have been willing to accept third-class status, providing lots of excuses, but not making the fundamental changes in organization and priority that could deal with the problem. Lack of resources for NWP is another issue...but that is a decision made by NOAA/NWS/Dept of Commerce leadership. (Mass, The U.S.)
The result is inefficiency, there is no group to coordinate the research and development of the U.S. research community so the progress of pressing problems is slow and money ends up wasted. Likewise, the NOAA/NWS polar orbiter acquisition program has been characterized by mismanagement for years, not only delaying the next generation satellites, but again costing the nation billions of dollars.
All-in-all the most disturbing part of this is story is not that we are behind the Europeans and others, but that we are well behind what this nation is capable of (which is far beyond ECMWF). Our inferior computers, poor management, lack of effective leadership, and inability to tap the large weather research community are just some of the issues that makes forecasting in the U.S. inferior. We may have the potential to be at the top but nothing is going to change until people begin to see that weather prediction is an incredibly complicated enterprise. NOAA deploys satellites, weather balloons, radar data, and more. Our data assimilation algorithms synthesize this data. Our models and our supercomputers crank out the numerical guidance 24/7. Our forecasters are always on the job and bust their humps in ways you could not believe when severe weather is on the way. All of this costs taxpayers pennies a day. And the data is free to all and free to you without advertising (Hamill).
Overall, although the weather enterprise has a great deal going for it and “the large U.S. meteorological community has made significant strides in weather diagnosis and prediction, progress has been slowed by a lack of cooperation, coordination, and pooling of resources” (Mass, Uncoordinated Giant). It is time to incorporate all our strengths together. We need to regain our stature as a world leader in research and operational meteorology so that U.S. meteorologists can better serve and protect our nation.
Work Cited
Hamill, Thomas M. "Has the US fallen behind in numerical weather prediction: a response from a NOAA scientist." ABC 7: Storm Watch 7 Weather Blog. Allbritton Communications Co., 5 Apr. 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
Mass, Clifford. "Second rate U.S. numerical weather prediction: Why you should care." The Washington Post 26 Feb. 2013, Local: 1. The Washington Post. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
- - -. "The Uncoordinated Giant: Why U.S. Weather Research and Prediction Are Not Achieving Their Potential." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 87.5 (2006): 573-84. EBSCO. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
- - -. "The U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Numerical Weather Prediction: Part I." Cliff Mass Weather Blog. Blogger, 18 Mar. 2012. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
Miller, Petter. "Why Are Europeans Better at Predicting Weather?" National Geographic 7 Mar. 2013: n. pag. Print.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Kant’s Categorical Imperative: Determining the Morality of a Decision
Kant’s Categorical Imperative:
Determining the Morality of a Decision
Brandi Slavich
Before Kant, the most valued moral theories were based mainly upon Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, which established that whatever leads to greater happiness is what is moral. Although Aristotle’s work was especially important to Kant, he was still dissatisfied with the popular moral philosophy of his day. Later, he derived his own requirements for a moral system to determine whether a particular act could be considered morally right, wrong, or somewhere beyond that domain. Based on the demands of the categorical imperative, which has three propositions of morality, this imperative was given as the criterion in which to judge all other principles.
Established on a basis of fairness and universalizability, Kant realized there cannot be one rule for him and another for everyone else. This guided him to the first principle of the categorical imperative, “an action must be done from a sense of duty, if it is to have moral worth” (The Moral Law 528). Under those circumstances he also omitted the actions which conform to duty, but have no direct impulse, however performing them because they are impelled to do so. In layman’s terms, a person who is forced to act a certain way cannot be said to be doing so morally. Subsequent from the first, Kant derived a second principle, that an action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim by which it is determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire (Metaphysics of Morals 16). Essentially, Kant is suggesting that an action is not moral if it is performed solely for the sake of its outcome. To illustrate, a person who acts well simply because they believe they will be rewarded in the afterlife is not a moral person, whereas a person who acts well for the sake of acting well would be.
With regards to the two proceeding propositions, Kant then formulated a third: “duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law. I may have inclination for an object as the effect of my proposed action, but I cannot have respect for it, just for this reason, that it is an effect and not an energy of will” (Metaphysics of Morals 16). Whether in your own or in that of another, Kant derived that you should act in such a way that could be universal for all of humanity. From these three principles, Kant begins to summarize that: In [comprehending the possibility of a synthetic a priori moral law], we want first to inquire whether perhaps the mere concept of a categorical imperative may not also provide its formula containing the proposition that can alone be a categorical imperative . . . .
When I think of a categorical imperative, I know at once what it contains. For since the imperative contains, beyond the law, only the necessity that the maxim be in conformity with this law, while the law contains no condition to which it would be limited, nothing is left with which the maxim is to conform but the universality of a law as such; and this conformity alone is what the imperative properly represents as necessary. There is, therefore, only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can concomitantly will that it should become a universal law (qtd. in Kitcher 555). This is almost a rational application of what is known as the “golden rule”—“do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Kant’s version is simply “act in such a way that it would be positive should everyone act the same.”
According to Kant, when the categorical imperative is not followed—when a person attempts to set a different standard for themselves than the rest of humanity—it is immoral. A person cannot decide whether demeanor is right or moral through empirical means, such assessment must be achieved a piori using pure reason. It is this manner of responding to human experience that makes Kant’s writings an important model for humanely progressive human rights thought and education. Far from being an unrealistic, overly optimistic idealist — as he is sometimes depicted — Kant, in the most enduringly valuable aspect of his criticism, had his eyes wide open and showed a responsibly inconclusive and righteously honorific attitude toward the dignity of a vulnerably divisible humanity. His attitude can be taken as exemplary for responsibly reflective human rights thought and education (Bynum 188).
Though there has been much debate, it seems there is a substantial presence that disagrees with Kant. Considering “to this day, no one has a clear and plausible account of how Kant’s argument for the formula of universal law is supposed to go” (Kitcher 555) some have deemed his thought process irrational, while others have said: Even specialists have fallen into confusion about these questions and have, as it were, begun to see ghosts in quarters where reason prevails: but, quite apart from this, the doctrine of a categorical imperative inherent in the will of man himself appears at present to meet with most unexpected and most unwanted repercussions in the common opinion, not merely of Germany, but almost of the whole world (Ebbinghaus 97).
Some philosophers take issue with the categorical imperative from a logical basis. For example, Kitcher argues: Kant seems to think that L [conform your actions to universal law] is equivalent to FUL [formula of the law of nature]. He objects that L and FUL cannot be equivalent, because L carries no implications for any particular action, whereas FUL is meant to be (and is) action-guiding… Others have tried to figure out Kant’s reasoning in support of FUL, but verdicts reflect the current consensus that the quest for a solid argument is futile. There is considerable agreement on some of the key moves in the preliminaries to the focal argument (qtd. in Kitcher 556).
Furthermore, the categorical imperative fails when trying to scale to large groups of people. For instance, when making new laws, variance in the axioms of the lawmakers will cause the categorical imperative to break down. For example, when it comes to abortion, one person may find the decision moral in certain circumstances on the basis that a zygote is not a person, whereas another would disagree. Consequently, the two people would disagree over whether or not abortion is a moral decision when the categorical imperative is the tool used for the determination. That being the case, there are at least two sides to every story. From a functional perspective, with regard to an individual determining whether or not his or her actions are moral, Kant presented a well thought out imperative that can help a person determine whether or not an action is moral. And its similarity to the golden rule, treat others the way you would like to be treated, is a testament to how prolific such a system of morality has been throughout history.
Resources
Bynum, Gregory
Lewis. "Immanuel Kant's Account of Cognitive Experience and Human
Rights Education." Academic Search Complete. Wiley
Blackwell, n.d. Web. 1
Dec. 2013.
Ebbinghaus, Julius.
"Interpretation and Misinterpretation of the Categorical
Imperative." The Philosophical Quarterly 4.15 (1954): 97-108. Print.
Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals.
Trans. Lewis White
Beck. Second edition, revised ed. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall
Inc., 1997. Print
Kant, Immanuel.
"The Moral Law." Trans. T.K. Abbott. Ethics. Philosophy: The Quest for
Truth. Comp. Louis
P. Pojman and Lewis Vaughn. 8th ed. New York: Oxford
UP, 2012. 525-536. Print.
Kitcher,
Patricia. "Kant’s Argument for the Categorical Imperative." Nous 38.4
(2004):555-584. Print.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Dell Tablet vs. iPad Advertisement Analysis
Tablet VS iPad
Before I begin I would like to provide a short summary of the commercial. At the start of the commercial there are an iPad on the left and a Surface RT tablet on the right. The person with the Surface tablet scrolls his or her apps and then zooms; after seeing that the person with the iPad then tried to zoom but Siri says “I do not zoom like that. Ouch. Ouch.” Next, the person with the Surface tablet puts an SD card in to expand their memory; as a result, of course, the person with the iPad tried it only to come to the conclusion that they cannot expand their memory. To continue the person with the Surface tablet then demonstrates the multitasking feature that Siri then admires by saying “You can do two things at once? That’s cool.” In the end, both people with the iPad and Surface tablet then move take their device off the screen to leave you seeing the price of each while Siri makes her final concluding comment of “Oh, that’s not cool.”
First, to analyze this advertisement, let us note some of the advertising techniques they used in this advertisement. After watching this ad a few times you begin to notice that they used stacking (listing reasons why the product is good), repetition, cause and effect (use this product and your problems will go away), price appeal, and name calling (comparing the product to the competition in a way favorable to the advertiser). Stacking, cause and effect, and name calling all somewhat overlapped one another in the commercial. This commercial began by showing an Apple iPad next to the Surface RT tablet; that implied that they will compare and contrast the two. In the process of name calling, Microsoft’s commercial showed many features of the Surface tablet by demonstrating them, which is similar to stacking; they demonstrate, or list reasons, how the Surface tablet is better than the iPad, which can also be seen as cause and effect. This commercial shows that if you get the Surface tablet, you will not have any of the problems that you faced with the iPad. Furthermore, while comparing the two devices, the commercial repeats itself frequently. Repetition is a good technique because it increases the chances that your audience will remember the information presented in your advertisement. Microsoft used this when they repeatedly showed how much better their product is than Apple’s product, and as a final point they used price appeal. Microsoft showed the cost of their new Surface tablet next to the price of an iPad, which showed the customers that they would save money if they went with the Surface tablet over the iPad.
Not only did Microsoft do a good job using several advertising techniques, they also did very well with many other aspects of the commercial. To start with, they did well with not having too much going on in the commercial by not having distracting backgrounds, motion, or music. Having too much going on in a single commercial could pull your audience’s attention away from the overall message, or persuasion technique, to get you to purchase their product. In addition to Microsoft’s commercial not having too much going on at once, they were also very clear with their message and got straight to the point. By taking into consideration that you only have seconds to catch and keep your audience’s attention, going straight to the point can be very beneficial because then the advertiser is more likely to get their message across.
On the other hand, like most things, this commercial also has room for some improvements to be made. While overall this commercial was very effective, it seemed to be over a little too quickly; it seemed like it did not have enough examples to sway the audience into switching from the iPad to the Surface tablet. Given the cost of a tablet computing device, a consumer is likely to need considerable reason to choose on product over another. This commercial, however, gave only three examples: expandable memory, multitasking and zoom. It would have been beneficial to have added many more. The commercial would have greatly benefitted from mentioning that the Surface tablet also has a larger display, can work with most printers, has more free cloud storage, comes with Microsoft office and every member of your family can have an account on the surface tablet; all of which the iPad does not have.
Nevertheless, even though we may see advertisements every day it almost seems that we see them so often that we do not even think about them anymore. With regards to this Microsoft commercial, at first glance we see this as humorous not necessarily as an advertisement. Microsoft, out of all the other companies in the world, chose to compare their product to Apple, why? Well, Apple is one of the largest companies around today and it very well-known. Apple products seem to be very popular yet they do not offer nearly as much as other company’s products do. Microsoft showed Apple fanatics that they are not getting what they paid for but if they switch to Microsoft you will not only have more and better features on your devices, you will also be saving money; which in this economy is always a plus.
Therefore, this commercial was effective but could have benefited from some minor adjustments. By using persuasion techniques that are common throughout the advertising industry—such as stacking, repetition, price appeal and name calling—the advertiser increases their chances of people purchasing their product. This commercial also did very well when it came to not only telling you to purchase their product but also showing you many reasons why you should; however, this commercial could have been a little longer and more persuasive by adding more reasons why you should get their product.
Brandi Slavich
Before I begin I would like to provide a short summary of the commercial. At the start of the commercial there are an iPad on the left and a Surface RT tablet on the right. The person with the Surface tablet scrolls his or her apps and then zooms; after seeing that the person with the iPad then tried to zoom but Siri says “I do not zoom like that. Ouch. Ouch.” Next, the person with the Surface tablet puts an SD card in to expand their memory; as a result, of course, the person with the iPad tried it only to come to the conclusion that they cannot expand their memory. To continue the person with the Surface tablet then demonstrates the multitasking feature that Siri then admires by saying “You can do two things at once? That’s cool.” In the end, both people with the iPad and Surface tablet then move take their device off the screen to leave you seeing the price of each while Siri makes her final concluding comment of “Oh, that’s not cool.”
First, to analyze this advertisement, let us note some of the advertising techniques they used in this advertisement. After watching this ad a few times you begin to notice that they used stacking (listing reasons why the product is good), repetition, cause and effect (use this product and your problems will go away), price appeal, and name calling (comparing the product to the competition in a way favorable to the advertiser). Stacking, cause and effect, and name calling all somewhat overlapped one another in the commercial. This commercial began by showing an Apple iPad next to the Surface RT tablet; that implied that they will compare and contrast the two. In the process of name calling, Microsoft’s commercial showed many features of the Surface tablet by demonstrating them, which is similar to stacking; they demonstrate, or list reasons, how the Surface tablet is better than the iPad, which can also be seen as cause and effect. This commercial shows that if you get the Surface tablet, you will not have any of the problems that you faced with the iPad. Furthermore, while comparing the two devices, the commercial repeats itself frequently. Repetition is a good technique because it increases the chances that your audience will remember the information presented in your advertisement. Microsoft used this when they repeatedly showed how much better their product is than Apple’s product, and as a final point they used price appeal. Microsoft showed the cost of their new Surface tablet next to the price of an iPad, which showed the customers that they would save money if they went with the Surface tablet over the iPad.
Not only did Microsoft do a good job using several advertising techniques, they also did very well with many other aspects of the commercial. To start with, they did well with not having too much going on in the commercial by not having distracting backgrounds, motion, or music. Having too much going on in a single commercial could pull your audience’s attention away from the overall message, or persuasion technique, to get you to purchase their product. In addition to Microsoft’s commercial not having too much going on at once, they were also very clear with their message and got straight to the point. By taking into consideration that you only have seconds to catch and keep your audience’s attention, going straight to the point can be very beneficial because then the advertiser is more likely to get their message across.
On the other hand, like most things, this commercial also has room for some improvements to be made. While overall this commercial was very effective, it seemed to be over a little too quickly; it seemed like it did not have enough examples to sway the audience into switching from the iPad to the Surface tablet. Given the cost of a tablet computing device, a consumer is likely to need considerable reason to choose on product over another. This commercial, however, gave only three examples: expandable memory, multitasking and zoom. It would have been beneficial to have added many more. The commercial would have greatly benefitted from mentioning that the Surface tablet also has a larger display, can work with most printers, has more free cloud storage, comes with Microsoft office and every member of your family can have an account on the surface tablet; all of which the iPad does not have.
Nevertheless, even though we may see advertisements every day it almost seems that we see them so often that we do not even think about them anymore. With regards to this Microsoft commercial, at first glance we see this as humorous not necessarily as an advertisement. Microsoft, out of all the other companies in the world, chose to compare their product to Apple, why? Well, Apple is one of the largest companies around today and it very well-known. Apple products seem to be very popular yet they do not offer nearly as much as other company’s products do. Microsoft showed Apple fanatics that they are not getting what they paid for but if they switch to Microsoft you will not only have more and better features on your devices, you will also be saving money; which in this economy is always a plus.
Therefore, this commercial was effective but could have benefited from some minor adjustments. By using persuasion techniques that are common throughout the advertising industry—such as stacking, repetition, price appeal and name calling—the advertiser increases their chances of people purchasing their product. This commercial also did very well when it came to not only telling you to purchase their product but also showing you many reasons why you should; however, this commercial could have been a little longer and more persuasive by adding more reasons why you should get their product.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Belief in God is Irrational
By: Brandi Slavich, Lil Barton, and Kevin Reyes
In order to argue the fact that the belief in god is irrational we should first have a firm understanding of the word. For a belief to be rational it needs to be based on reason or logic. It is impossible to say that the belief in god is rational because it lacks any sort of sufficient evidence, logic, or reason supporting it. One of the most simple arguments against the rationality in the belief in god is the personhood that god is given. This is known as the anthropic principle; it argues for relation between humans and the universe’ creator, believers claim that the universe was designed by a creator with a conscious mind. This theory has no evidence to back it up. The burden of proof lies with the believer; they are to prove that god does exist and are completely unable to do this. The philosopher David Hume states, “A stone will fall, fire will burn, that the earth has solidity we have observed this a thousand and a thousand times.” But god we have never observed in any form yet people continue to irrationally believe. In the past people relied on God and religion for answers to life’s major questions like the origin of the universe, but now we have science to rely on. We have been provided with the tools necessary to answer life’s questions based one proof and reason rather than blind faith.
The creation-evolution controversy involves a reoccurring cultural, political, and theological dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and of the universe. The existence of complex life is often cited as evidence of the existence of a god. Creationism is the belief that the universe and living organisms originated from specific acts of divine creation, while evolution is natural selection acting on genetic variation. Even though creationists may irrationally refute evolution, evolution is an undisputed fact among the science community because of its abundance of supporting evidence in the form of the fossil record and the entire field of genetics. In contrast, there is no evidence in support of creationism—it was a story told before science existed to explain our own existence.
Ultimately, it is not just about evolution versus creationism. To scientists, the real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is completely non-threatened by the claims of creationists because its evidence stands on its own and contradictory evidence would simply spawn improved scientific theories. On the other hand, without god creating people, god becomes relegated to an impersonal “first mover,” as Thomas Aquinas would say. This is far from the personal god in which many people believe. Furthermore, the Miller-Urey experiments performed in the 1950’s showed proof-of-concept that chemicals present on primordial earth, reacting with electricity in the form of lightning, could have created amino acids—the building blocks of DNA. Other scientific hypotheses suggest that organic material could have been brought here on comets or meteorites after being created elsewhere in the universe. Thus, it seems that god is not a necessary first-mover for even simple life to exist.
Therefore the argument that life, both simple and complex, is evidence of god’s existence does not hold up. The fossil record and genetics demonstrate that evolution is a scientific fact, and to believe in a god simply because of the presence of life is irrational in the face of such evidence. The next step in an Aquinas-like regression would be whether the universe and its contents were created by a deity. But science has an explanation for that, too—it’s called the Big Bang.
An example of this is the “Big Bang Theory” which has been studied and is backed with science and logic and reason which the theory of God lacks all of. The Universe began from a state of infinite density called a singularity. Space, time, and matter was all created at one simultaneous moment called the Big Bang. A common misconception is that the big bang happened at one point in space and that the big bang was an explosion, this is untrue. The big bang happened everywhere and it was an instant expansion of matter/space/time that we now call the universe. In 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered distant light that was redder than usual. This discovery proves that the universe is still expanding from points of singularity. Now we can talk about the Law of relativity. Every black hole has a core which has a singularity. Every black hole has points of infinite density which is causing the universe to constantly expand. The universe doesn’t expand more in one direction then the other. Think of it like a balloon, it expands evenly all around. Why should we believe in something that has no sufficient evidence, I am not saying this is the only valid form of the creation of the universe but I am saying that this has more science to back it up. Phillip Morrison a theist and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology stated “I find it hard to believe the Big Bang Theory; I would like to reject it but I have to face the facts”. We to have to face the facts; we no longer need God to fill the holes in our reasoning, we now have science that can provide proof.
To close, we have provided you all with the proof that humans have always been seeking, we have provided you with reasonable and logical explanations for the universe that are backed up by the scientific evidence that religion will always go without. Whether it be the Big Bang theory or Evolution, we are not here to convince you of either. We are here to provide you with alternative answers that you are able to rely on with more than just your faith. In the past belief was accepted because there no other answers existed but science has saved us from those irrational beliefs. We will end with a parable by John Wisdom about a gardener, he tells a story of group walking onto a lot that had many flowers and weeds growing, one of the men infer s that a gardener must tend this plot based on the growth. So they wait for the gardener to come but he never does. The same man who inferred there must be a gardener states, “Perhaps he is an invisible gardener,” so the men set up an electrified barbwire fence in an attempt to find proof of him, no shrieks are ever heard. They then patrol with bloodhounds and he is smelled. Yet the believer is still not convinced. The skeptic states “what remains of your original assertion? How does what you call and invisible, intangible and eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or one that never existed to begin with?” in this parable we see the blind faith so clearly in the man, he believes indefinitely in the gardener with a complete lack of any reason or proof he exists. That is my question for you, why believe so blindly in something with no proof at all, because your peers do? Or your family does? It would be irrational to believe in an invisible intangible and eternally elusive gardener and it is just as irrational to believe in an invisible intangible and eternally elusive god.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Classical and Operant Conditioning
Brandi Slavich
Generally we think of learning as students sitting in a classroom or lecture hall with notebooks listening intently to a teacher in the front of the room. Although according to psychologists there are two types of learning, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Most of the time one of the simplest ways of identifying the differences between the two is to know which one is involuntary or voluntary behavior. Classical conditioning is an involuntary response that is evoked by a once neutral stimulus; while operant conditioning is a voluntary response due to reinforcement. Nowadays both classical and operant conditioning are utilized for a variety of purposes.
Classical conditioning has numerous real-world applications. For example whenever Crystal would smell Axe cologne there was no response (neutral stimulus). She recently started is dating Kevin (unconditioned stimulus) who she is always happy and relaxed around (unconditioned response) but Kevin wears Axe cologne. So now when Kevin isn’t around and Crystal smells Axe cologne (once neutral stimulus) she is happy and relaxed (involuntary response). Therefore, before Crystal would smell Axe cologne there was no response but when Crystal was with Kevin she began to pair the once neutral smell to being happy and relaxed resulting in Crystal being happy and relaxed whenever she smelled Axe cologne. Comparably some teachers are able to implement classical conditioning in a way that could help their students. By creating a positive classroom environment (conditioned stimulus) where everyone feels comfortable with one another (unconditioned stimulus) the student could overcome the anxiety or fear they have of speaking in front of the class (conditioned response). Now when the student needs to be in front of the class s/he will have no response making it a neutral stimulus.
While operant conditioning is a voluntary response, it is a response that came to be controlled by reinforcements and punishments. There are two different kinds of reinforcements, positive and negative. Positive reinforcement is when you are given something you want, while a negative reinforcement is when you get something taken away that you didn’t want in the first place. Positive and negative reinforcements occur when an event following a response increases your tendency to make that response again. Contrarily, punishment encourages weakens your tendency to make a response following an event. Punishments are when you get disciplined for something you did. Some examples of positive reinforcements are getting dessert after you ate all of your vegetables or after executing a turn during a skiing lesson your instructor shouts out “great job!” Negative reinforcements can resemble a teacher giving the class no homework for a night after doing well on the exam or you decide to clean up your mess in the kitchen in order to avoid getting yelled at. While punishments can be similar to you getting your cell phone taken away or after you hit your sibling you get sent to your room without dinner.
In conclusion, while both involve the process of learning and shaping behavior, there are key differences between the two. Classical conditioning focuses on changing behavior through influencing involuntary and automatic behaviors, whereas operant conditioning focuses on changing behavior through dealing with the modification of voluntary behavior. Both of these conditions, however, are ways psychologists are trying to understand and study human behavior.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Stop Complaining about Meteorologists
The first philosophical imperative is to not speak about things of which you have no knowledge. Many people speak about things they ultimately know nothing about. For example, countless number of people like to complain about Meteorologists being wrong. Well, there are numerous things that can impact the weather, like temperature and dew point (at EVERY level in the atmosphere). I am not yet a meteorologist but even I know that predicting the weather is not easy, but I trust in our meteorologists to do the best they can with the resources they have. Our atmosphere changes all the time and there is no way to tell someone with 100% confidence what is going to happen on a given day, ever. Meteorologists tell you the chance of something happening on a given day; however, many people don't even understand that. Many people do not understand what the probability of something happening means and what it means to be in a certain risk area. In addition, did you know that we live in one of the most tornadic countries in the world yet many other nations spend more money on there weather services than the United States? If you want better forecasts and warning times then you better be willing to dish out the money for better equipment to help make that happen. But until then, do your research and do not speak about things you have little to no knowledge about.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Missing Gilmore Girls
Brandi Slavich
“Oy with the poodles already!” is an interesting phrase that works for every occasion because “Oy” and “poodle” are two of the funniest words in the world according to the Gilmore Girls. Gilmore Girls was a TV show that ran from 2000 to 2007 and even though I may have gotten into it near the end of it I still am in love with this TV show and I own all 7 seasons. This show was my escape and it taught me how to be a better person. But, first let me begin by telling you a little bit about the show. The main idea was that the mother, Lorelai who got pregnant at 16 ran away from home with her baby because her family didn’t understand her. She raised her daughter, Rory, all by herself and they had an unspoken rule which was to be best friends first and mother and daughter second. Like most families they did have their fair share of arguments, however, they would always make up and it would bring them closer. To me Gilmore Girls wasn’t just a TV show; it was another world I could escape. Just like many of you, I bet at some point in your lives you wanted to escape because of family, stress, school, or something else. Well, Gilmore Girls gave me that escape because it was a different but still a realistic TV show. I understand it’s not very common for mother and daughters to be best friends but this show made me want it seem like it could be a realistic goal. Gilmore Girls it taught me that if I ever were to have children I would speak to them not as if they are below me and explain things to them because that is a better way of communicating than just saying “no.” Every year, sometimes even twice a year, I have a marathon of all 7 seasons because this show means so much to me and it never gets old. Lorelai and Rory are two young hyper and happy women who like to make jokes and have a good time together. Every time I watch this show I understand more and more of their jokes and I feel as if I should go out and find more things to do, like helping others, because this show inspires me to be a better person. Finally, the only way Gilmore Girls could be more important to me is if you had a Kit Kat bar growing out of its head. So, I hope you will believe me and give Gilmore Girls a chance. This show may sound a bit girly but it really isn’t. I know both men and women who like this show and also found it a nice escape from reality as well as interesting. Hence, why I hope that they will eventually bring back Gilmore Girls for at least an 8th season.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
America is not the Greatest Country in the World Anymore
Brandi Slavich
"When I look at the world today and the strong winds of technological change and global competition, it makes me nervous. Perhaps most unsettling is the fact that while these forces gather strength, Americans seem unable to grasp the magnitude of the challenges that face us. Despite the hyped talk of China's rise, most Americans operate on the assumption that the U.S. is still No. 1” said Fareed Zakaria in an article published in TIME magazine on March 3, 2011. America was once a great country and we use to be on top; however we are not on top anymore.
Let me begin with reminding you that America was once one of the greatest countries in the world, in the 1950s and 1960s. Our great history has been engraved into our heads. We had a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies. We got through the Civil Rights Movement. NASA founded and we landed on the moon because people still believed in science. We were also cultural leaders of the time and the technological leaders of the entire planet. No one produced more cars, airplanes, locomotives, medicines, bombs, or bridges than America back then. People used to come to America for freedom and opportunity but America has changed. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one; America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.
For a start, America’s education has fallen from where is used to be. According to an article entitled “U.S. Students Still Lag Behind Foreign Peers, Schools +Make Little Progress in Improving Achievement” from the Huffington Post on July 23, 2012 in an International Exam, American students ranked 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading; while only 6% of U.S. students performed at the advanced level. While the U.S. is improving, progress within the United States is middling. Although 24 countries trail the U.S. rate of improvement, another 24 countries appear to be improving at a faster rate. According to an article from News One on April 24, 2013 one in four Americans are failing to earn a high school diploma on time and the United States is lagging other countries in the percentage of young people who complete college. In addition, in 2009, the U.S. spent more than $10,000 per student, ranging from about $6k in Utah to about $18k in New York; It resulted in Utah's high school graduation rate being higher than New York's.
Conversely, health care in America is overpriced and underperforming. According to an article from “How Stuff Works” website by Molly Edmonds the United States spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product on health care every year than any other country; yet, the United States ranks 37th out of 191 countries in the health care systems. Our infant mortality rates are even higher than over 40 other countries. Additionally, a flawed pharmaceutical system allows drug manufacturers to pay smaller manufacturers to delay production of generic versions of their drug, thus allowing them to drive up the cost of their own, a practice called “pay-for-delay.”The lack of a medical marketplace allows care providers to generate their own pricing, without oversight. The result is that Americans spend far more than peers on health care, and the quality is not proportionally better.
In a like manner our government is also not funding services that we all depend on, like our National Weather Service (NWS). “The problem is that both objective and subjective comparisons indicate that the U.S. global model is number 3 or number 4 in quality, resulting in our forecasts being noticeably inferior to the competition,” according to Cliff Mass, professor in atmospheric sciences, “I have been working on this issue for several decades (with little to show for it).” Later he explains that it is due to the U.S. having inadequate computer power available for numerical weather prediction, inferior data assimilation, NWS weather prediction effort has been isolated and has not taken advantage of the research community, and the NWS approach to weather related research has been ineffective and divided, along with lack of leadership. Additionally, according to Thomas Hamill from ABC7 “Typically when we increase the resolution, the change permits us to notice deficiencies in the model that we didn’t worry about before. Why don’t we just buy data from the Europeans and be done with it? Save the US taxpayers a lot of money, right? Well, for a few reasons. First is that our government has an open-data access policy. Your taxpayer money paid to buy the supercomputers, the satellites and radars, paid our salaries, and the US government then makes sure that the weather data is freely available to all. ECMWF may share data with the NWS for internal use, but the US government can’t then share that data with the rest of you. Weather prediction is an incredibly complicated enterprise. NOAA deploys satellites, weather balloons, radar data, and more. Our data assimilation algorithms synthesize this data. Our models and our supercomputers crank out the numerical guidance 24/7. Our forecasters are always on the job and bust their humps in ways you could not believe when severe weather is on the way. All of this costs taxpayers pennies a day. And the data is free to all and free to you without advertising.”
In other words, our interventionist policies create a never-ending supply of enemies, forcing us to waste money on a strong military. The United States has a history of meddling in the affairs of other nations. The U.S. helped establish Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and sent money to Afghanistan to fight Soviet Communism in the 1970’s. By interfering in the business of others, America has created many enemies. Saddam Hussein became a despotic dictator leading to both Desert Storm and the Iraq war. People who lost family members to weapons purchased with American money in Afghanistan grew to become Al Queda terrorists, ultimately responsible for attacks on the United States, such as 9/11. Now the U.S. is considering helping Syria and possibly putting a no fly zone there; which would make Russia mad because they have an alliance with Syria. Ultimately there is a potential for another World War III. According to an article entitled “America’s staggering defense budget, in charts” from the Washington Post on January 7, 2013 the United States remains the world’s dominant military power; however, we spent more on our military than the next 13 nations combined in 2011. This is all tax money that would not need to be collected and spent if we would stop interfering in other nations’ business. Countries such as The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and others typically keep to themselves, and thus live peacefully without an ultra-expensive military.
To tell the truth, not only is our government putting us in danger but also is slowly taking away our freedoms as well. The NSA has been spying on hundreds of thousands of their own citizens and other countries’. The U.S. government has been looking at our emails, monitoring our phone calls, our internet use, and much more; which is against the fourth amendment. The fourth amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. In a like manner, the FBI has developed the capability to remotely turn on Android handsets and laptop microphones to record your conversations."The FBI hires people who have hacking skill, and they purchase tools that are capable of doing these things,’ said the former FBI official. Not only is our government overstepping their boundaries but on Thursday June 13, 2013 they went one step further by violating another amendment. A law passed stating that protesters are now prohibited in front of the Supreme Court; which just happens to go against our first amendment. According to an article on reason.com “We all have the need and right to be left alone. We all know that we function more fully as human beings when no authority figure monitors us or compels us to ask for a permission slip. This right comes from within us, not from the government.”
Furthermore, European countries have mandatory paid vacation while the United States does not. The typical U.S. worker at a private company gets ten days of paid vacation and six paid holidays per year, which is remarkably less than what Europe employees receive. A recent study showed, France comes in at number 1 mandating their employees a minimum of thirty paid days off per year. The U.K. comes in second place with a total of twenty paid days off, followed by Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway with twenty five paid days off per year. This, too, is a matter of law. The European Union in 1993 required all member countries to set a minimum of twenty paid vacation days per year. Additionally, John Schmitt, a senior economist with CEPR and one of the authors of the report, said that even when U.S. workers have paid time off available, they don't always take it. Many may feel they don't have enough job security to risk being out for a period even if they are entitled to the time, he said.
Not to mention, even when we are working we are still lagging behind when it comes to our internet speed. Would our work time be cut or even become more productive if we had faster internet? Probably. According to data from Ookla, which runs Speedtest.net, "the US places below dozens of countries, including Latvia, Moldova, Andorra, Estonia, and Uruguay. Asian and European countries appear to be leading the pack with Hong Kong, Singapore, Romania, South Korea, and Sweden snapping up the top five spots, respectively. Ookla based its download speed results on millions of tests of consumer download speeds from across the globe. It calculates the rolling average of the data in Mbps, or megabit per second, in 30-day periods. Currently, Hong Kong has a whopping speed of 71.22 Mbps, while the US reaches just 20.74. One of the reasons the US ranks lower than so many other countries is because of its size and lack of Internet infrastructure. There are still parts of the US where the Internet is slow, intermittent, or just available via dial-up"
All-in-all, even though we have been influenced to believe that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world when ultimately we are not, but we used to be. Our education is in the middle compared to the rest of the world. The U.S. health care is overpriced when the quality is not better than other countries. The U.S. creates many enemies like Al Queda and Saddam Hussein by interfering with other countries business. Our government is taking away our freedom from right under our noses and we don't have mandatory paid vacation time like European countries. The reasons above, in addition to others, are why we rank behind Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Canada, England, Japan, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Ireland, and several others in the Successful Societies Scale. Once we overcome American Exceptionalism, we can begin to identify the problems that plague our society in an effort to improve ourselves.
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