Midterm-

MIDTERM EXAMINATION:

MIDTERM EXAMINATION: SUMMER 2008, Critical Thinking
Professor David C. Lane, Ph.D.

Instructions

1. Be sure to place your entire midterm on your website and when you
are finished send a link of your test to your teacher directly at neuralsurfer@yahoo.com
2. Make sure that it is YOUR OWN work and that if you use other
authors please be sure to quote and/or cite the material appropriately. Plagiarism will not be
tolerated and you will receive an "F" automatically for the examination.
3. The test is due NO LATER than JULY 12TH at midnite.

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4. What is your real name? Stefanie Dimayuga
5. What is your "user" name? Supergurl7788
6. What is your email address that you use for this class? Supergurl7788@yahoo.com
7. Name and address for your website. http://mavericksphiloblogs.blogspot.com/
8. Have you done all the reading for the first three weeks? I’m currently in the process of finishing up
9. Have you watched each of the films that were required? In process, finishing up
10. Please place here all of the postings you have done for this
class (you can copy and paste them)

Richard Feynman The Pleasure of Finding Things Out involves the discussion of a closer look on and interesting point of view of the world of science today. As a physicist, Feynman, seemed to make some sorts of reasoning or mathematical, scientific deduction to everything that was happening around him. He seemed to be an ambitious man yet humble at the same time, because he was not in favor of elitism. His views on life were very general and simple nature to it but it all made perfect sense, even something as simple as teaching his son humbleness with the people bowing to the pope. It delivers a sense of respect and even gratitude towards the person you are honoring.

What I found interesting was his analogy of building card houses to concentration and putting things in the right place. It’s like if you have a set goal to “build” or construct something whatever it maybe, your full effort and focus must be on whatever this goal is otherwise you could mess things up, like when he mentioned forgetting a card while building the house could destroy the entire house and have the whole thing fall apart, very similar to real life scenarios. Also if one is to “mess things up” one must be able to accept the consequences that are ahead. I believe he says this because when there are flaws in a person’s plans it is their responsibility to take care of the problem at hand because they should’ve been careful enough to detect if there were going to be any flaws in it at all.

Bertrand Russell Thinking clearly

Clear thinking for most people is something that is actually one of the most challenging obstacles in life that we must overcome. There are so many cases in life in which we as imperfect human beings do not think “clearly” because there is a separate instinct in us all that would tell us otherwise, where as clear thinking would be a more sensible thing to do. Why do people fall victim to either embarrassing or horrible predicaments from time to time? It is because we do what we “hope” is the right thing, even though we know that deep down it really is not the right way out. We want to believe so badly that it is the right choice so we make excuses for ourselves.

For example if there are two best friends, but unfortunately they are interested in the same guy. Friend A knew that Friend B was interested in the guy first. Yet the guy is interested in friend A. What should friend A do? Walk away because she knew from the beginning that her friend was interested in the guy first? Or should she risk hurting her friend’s feelings and start dating the guy because after all they are the one that are into each other? If friend A is to be thinking clearly here in this situation, she would walk away, but in most cases because people tend to side with how THEY personally feel, they make the decision that is supposedly the “best” at the moment regardless of how nonsensical or irrational it may be.

This is where the usage of “excuses” comes into play, in order for the person to no feel so bad about what he/she did.

CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman

In this excerpt, Feynman discusses the issues of people in society being somewhat brainwashed by their surroundings or their occupations therefore leading us all to be lying to ourselves. His friend that was going to go on the radio to talk about Cosmology and astronomy and what the applications are to real life, was presented to be deceiving himself because of what he had be taught and what his beliefs were where in fact his knowledge was a set of things to remember in a particular sequence that was enough to make him adamantly believe in his own teachings.

Feynman believes that people like this are being dishonest. He said “If you're

representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to

the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you

under those circumstances, then that's their decision.” Its like Feyman is trying to say, in order truly good scientist, one must be proven wrong and accept the fact that they are wrong instead of trying to fight it and keep finding the logic behind things even though there may not even be any real logic behind it. In reality several types of results must be published. If only one type of result is published then it makes the argument look “good” so that there is no other conflicting evidence.

Critical Thinking in an Online World

In the society we live in today, our information sources are more convenient to us because of the internet. The Internet is a very popular source of information to people because you can do just about anything you want on the internet, jobs, marketing, chatting, play games, banking and even go to school. Although, could habitual usage of the internet be the down fall of people’s “critical thinking” skills? It may, because the information is so easy to search for. Information t is practically handed to you. To be cliché’ anybody even a monkey could google lets say astrophysics and get results. Sometimes it’s not always the best choice to rely on the internet as your number one source of sufficient and accurate information.

Unlike back then when people used to only have one source which was the Library. With the library you’re almost sure to have 100% accurate information. This is most likely because the info that was documented in these books were from scholars, and educated people with degrees that are professionals at knowing their stuff. Whereas nowadays things like “Wikipedia” is not recommended by many teachers/professors because it is not an “official” source. These sources are just documented by regular people like you and me. On the other hand some of these internet sources that were written by ordinary people could have a possibility of being even more reliable because these facts may have been written from firsthand experience which is something to take into consideration. For example I look up certain guitars, what if the person who documented this information on Wikipedia was a guitar specialist? In the case I would definitely trust that source of info.

Cold reading

This particular excerpt caught my eye because it reminded me of a few things I’ve seen or read about. First of all, it made me think of the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopie Goldberg, In the movie Whoopie Goldberg’s character was a phony, swindling medium that discovers in actuality, she really is gifted. There are so many people in the world that are like Whoopie’s character. There is a scene where they first introduce her character and she is holding a séance with an elderly woman for her late husband. Whoopie stirs up the whole know it all act and then mentions that there is a supposed presence of the womans husband in the room. She starts to say really generic things like “he’s wearing a suit” or “he’s smiling.” Then she mentions names of supposed people that might have had a connection with the woman’s husband. Upon noticing that the woman was of a Latin race, whoopie started relaying a bunch of Latin sounding names to the woman until there was one she was familiar with. She knew that eventually one would work.

These cold readings can be quite easy to do especially if the person you are reading believes in it. Even something as simple as fortune cookies, or astrological signs, people tend to believe these things because instinctually they want to believe it, regardless if it makes any sense or not. If you’re an Sagittarius and your horoscope says, “you are the perfect lover, sometimes stubborn but you are also very adventurous.” Everyone will believe that particular horoscope was made especially for them, because they will find supposed things in the fortune that matches their personality like “oh I am stubborn.” People tend to forget that A LOT of people are! And there is nothing special about these supposed horoscopes. Whoever wrote the horoscope just made up the most generic information, and personality traits that a majority of people have, thus making them believe that it is really for them.

Viruses of the Mind

This all goes into the idea of influential surroundings over all leading to brainwashing. As we know it, who we are is a great reflection of the environment we grew up in. Who our parents are, is who we come to be. It may sound stereo typical but it is very common in many cases. Like if a child comes from a broken home then he/she might live a life dwelling on problems. If a child grows up in a basically decent home then he/she would most likely grow up to be a decent person. It starts when a person is at a very young age because this is when you believe anything someone tells you. Dawkins mentions a little girl that is being trained to believe all these things that her father tells her in order to bring her up as the best possible person she could be. As a person gets older he/she makes friends and the friends influence them as well. As a matter of fact a majority of a person’s influences come from friends especially at young ages like, fads, trends, peer pressure etc. One must conform in order to be accepted by a certain group, so they do whatever it takes to be accepted.

I sort of see the analogy of the computer virus but I’m still not exactly clear on it. Perhaps because they are both things that are implanted into a system whether you are willing or not.

Karma

I am a true believer in the concept of Karma. They could say that it’s a bunch of superstitious non sense but I believe that it does have to do with a lot of physical concepts of the world. It all makes perfect sense if you apply Newton’s third Law for any action there is an EQUAL or OPPOSITE reaction. This means generally whatever action you perform, the same action will be applied to you as well. If you are nice to someone they will be nice to you. If do something to hurt someone, either they might hurt you back or you will be hurt in another way. It always come back to “bite you in the ass.”

Karma is also there to either reward us or teach us a lesson. Someone in one of the discussion said that they don’t see the connection of the video and Karma, they just see the consequences of our actions when we do something…but that is the exact point! Karma IS the consequence! Karma comes to get us in order to prevent us from performing a bad action again. In the video the guy got shot at, if he didn’t hit the girl then maybe he wouldn’t have got shot at.

Beyond belief

Wow I was reading through a lot of the other post responding to “Beyond Belief” and man do a lot of people agree with Richard….This is a very sensitive topic for someone like myself because I am a born catholic, and to try to find flaws in the logic of religious points of view is something that I find hard to do. To me religion is to each is own like everything else. Its not like we people who have religions are brainwashed or anything, we just have beliefs in a high power. Believing in a high power keeps us in line in life and it makes us want to do better to please God.

And yes I agree with Joan, when science cannot prove something the idea’s of a higher pwer come into play. Why else is it like that? Why are we here? How did we get here? Did we just form from the dirt on the ground like plants? Or did like Aliens make us? I really highly doubt that. Look I’m not trying to be preachy here and force people to believe in what I believe in, like I said to each is own, but I’m just trying to get my point across about the religious aspects of things and that it isn’t all bullshit like what a lot of people are saying. I know it is still difficult up until today to cross religion with science, (ala evolution) but if you really scrutinize it, you can. Now Im not going to go in detail but I know you can.

Beyond Belief continue

Beyond Belief-

The discussion or shall I say debate between the truth of science and religion has been going on for ages. The opposing sides each find separate facts for their perspective side in order to deliver more supporting evidence. Everyone at the conference was generally in disbelief of the idea of religion and was trying to defend science in return. The reason it is always such a touchy subject to mix religion and science is that science in a way could beat the idea of religion because science could present theories and proof of something existing, where are religion people have to believe without seeing. This is also known as having faith.

People with religious backgrounds are fearful of the idea that “there may not be a God” with the evidence of science which is why they tend to avoid the topic. This is why a lot of non religious people see us religious people as foolish and naïve because we are supposedly believing in something that may or may not exist, which is why they see us to be sort of brain washed and that your “own religion” is entirely up to you not what a “higher power tells you to do. If it doesn’t, then what are we praying for? What are we living for? As a catholic I believe that you can combine religion and science. People talk about the beginning of time and the big bang. Well how did that happen? Do you think we seriously magically appeared here one day without the help of a higher force?

John Maynard-

Here John Maynard talked about evolution which applied the theory of Darwin. This is the Game theory that involves rational living and thinking. Smith believed that mathematics had a large role in evolution rather than having religious possibilities. Smith believed that religion had been burdensome to him in the sense that he was not able to follow his thoughts to the very end because of lingering doubts.

Even as a Catholic I suppose I could see what he means when he says that he was not able to follow his thoughts to the very end because when you carry a religion you are trained to think a certain way and do certain things to keep a person in good order. Although, even though he claims himself as an atheist he generally would think of himself s agnostic because there’s still that bit of question of what if there really is a God, and he is actually wrong.

Intelligent design

The Intelligent design is basically a religious theory. I found this Ken Miller guy rather interesting because he held a prayer right before the whole thing. Unlike many other people, even though he was a believer in science and evolution, Miller talked about how science is not always 100% correct. For once someone actually was talking about science and how these are all theories which leaves room for misconceptions and inaccuracies in the world of scientific deductions.

I liked the fact that he was able to find flaws in science, this goes to show that he is actually trying to seriously see things from both perspectives even though he has his own thoughts. Another thing is that he was okay with religion and that he was not totally bagging on it. Even though I’m a religious person and I support it, I still think its not a good thing to remove the Theory of evolution in schools in Kansas. Even though it conflicts with religion evolution is still a part of science and science is a required subject for schools especially lower grades.

The Physics behind four amazing demonstrations

Wow I would definitely love having a professor like this guy. When he says “get your attention he really means GET YOUR ATTENTION.” Seriously, I have a weak tolerance for looking at these sorts of crazy /painful looking “demonstrations” how much better can it get to show a physics demonstration by actually acting it out yourself. I mean just looking at the little pictures on the right makes me cringe, but since he knew exactly what he was doing then by all means more power to him haha. Everything that was demonstrated really reminded me of something you see on Ripley’s believe it or not or Guinness book of world records.

The walking on broken glass is a simple act of demonstrating weight distribution. Obviously he did his research and clearly knew what he was doing. The Nails on the bed were like what those guys do in India I figured if those magicians knew how to do it then what more a physicist. All Ii could say is it definitely got my attention.

Should skeptical inquiry be applied to religion?

Once again the topic of Science vs Religion stirs up. For years people have been researching the truth behind religion and science. The idea of skepticism was presented more as form of scientific research, idea, or hypothesis. Yes I know it is more sensible to be skeptical about religion because like people say religion is believing without seeing, and there is still the possibility of “what if I am believing something blindly?” but there are still many things in science that have not been explained.

So in the long run people should still give religion more credit than it’s usually given because even though some things about religion have not be really proven as fact, there are alos things that have not been proven totally false as well. Those shows on like the History Chanel would not feature topics like “The Story of Jesus Christ” if there was absolutely no truth behind it at all. I mean it IS the HISTORY channel.

A Field Guide to Critical Thinking

This whole excerpt goes under thinking logically, and realistically. After all isn’t a great deal of science about rationality? Lett believes that most of his younger college students are the ones that fall victim into not being able to think logically. This would be due to a lack of maturity, and experience etc which is why he mentioned that all they’ve learned was from high school, and what do you think of when you think high school? Don’t you think something to the degree of s like “typical stupid teenager?” Naivety would definitely lead to this.

Here he talks about several different things referring to critical thinking. There’s Falsifiability, logic, comprehensiveness, honesty, replicability, and lastly sufficiency. All six of these are the basic guidelines to what it takes to be a good critical thinker. Falseifability would let you see that something is truly false especially when it is not conceivable for example flying pigs. Logic is definitely essential because logic would determine the rationality of the situation. It simply lets someone deduce whether something makes sense or not for example and young boy does not turn in his home work from yesterday and the teacher asks him why. The boy says that his dog ate it, although the teacher recalls over hearing the boy talking to a friend of his the other day that he was going to come over his friends house and play video games all day. Coincidentally the boy’s homework is not done (surprise surprise) What could have happened? Obviously the boy was lying about the dog eating his homework. Comprehensiveness, would mean that you have to understand what you’re deducing. Honesty has to come into play because logical thinking would mean realistically which would mean truthfully. Replicability would leave room for the idea that there are possibilities of error present and sufficiency would support that the claim is adequate.

The Himalayan connection

The Himalayan connection discusses the issues of possibilities of U.F.Os existing. Now just like many other topics people are skeptical about, this is one of them. I understand how convincing the human mind can be or more of how scattered as well. There are so many incidents when someone is in a deep sleep and they truly believed that what they were dreaming was real, because it felt so real. This is why people sometime people cry when they wake up or sometimes people even die in their sleep because they are so scared. Although with U.F.O’s that people claim to witness, are these really hallucinations? Maybe so..but what if they are not? I mean the universe is such a huge place for JUST us humans to live in ALL BY OURSELVES? After all we have only been able to probe around our own solar system barely the entire galaxy let alone other outer reaches of space, so we don’t really know what’s out there. Anything that would have to do with aliens/ U.F.Os would be another theoretical aspect of science.

Beyond Belief-

Week 3

Dyson

What I like about Dyson is that he is not down talking religion like many other scientist he is actually mentioning that religion and science cannot always fight with each other because they are actually compatible with one another. I can see why he thinks this way, because after all, is not science mostly theoretical? Meaning that a lot of these ideas are THEORIES.

I know there is a difference between a hypothesis and a theory but never the less they are still forms of assumptions. Having assumptions present create a leeway for some facts to be questionable and not actually plain evidently true. A lot of these deductions are made by mathematical computations, what if they are not all accurate? So in a way religion and science lie on the same plane that they both have their side of the story that is not seen clearly by the public or understood yet.

Pretext, text, context

This was a little confusing for me bust I generally got the gist of it. Pretext like it was mention is the alphabet. It also all goes under to reasoning and rational thinking. Pretext in my opinion is before the story like a prologue of a story and the text is the actual story itself, (rise and falling action) and context is the actual understanding of the story. I could totally be rambling on here but this is all my understanding and a different analogy I can make as to other people’s understanding of this excerpt.

Pretext,text context 2

Once again I believe this is all a discussion about comprehension, because it talks about consciousness and in order to be conscious you have to comprehend the situation you’re in. The context would also be our ability to ingest the experiences we have lived through as well and understanding and learning from them. Consciousness does not come from only the brain but from the body as well. The brain needs the body to function and vice versa. The text and context are similar because they complement each other. You need to comprehend the text physically and mentally in order to understand the context. Although understanding the pretext of a brain can actually alter the way the mind functions.

Faquir chand

Understand the basic idea of this video. They are once again disproving religion because according to them we make our own religion. Our religion is a reflection of who we really are. I don’t know if it was just me but I was a little disturbed by the scene when they kept showing photographs o all these religious figures and saying that they weren’t real..It just kind of got to me because it’s like they’re trying to give you the idea again that religion brainwashes you where in fact it seems like to give the idea of disproving religion seems to be brainwashing.

As far as religious aspects are concerned with gurus and such I’m not surprised that Faquir Chand did not know all the answers to everything. I found it kind of interesting how he was willing to admit it as to other people that would keep acting like they did. I mean he is just an ordinary man, no “higher power” or anything. I’m not the least bit surprised he didn’t have all the answers. I understand what he means when he says that we need something to believe in something in order to basically keep our sanity, because if no one believed in anything then what do we have to look forward to? There would be nothing to keep us in line and make us want to better ourselves. What are we living for? There has to be a purpose, explained or unexplained there is definitely a purpose to why we exist.

“Why I am not a Christian” by Bertrand Russell

This guy could believe what he wants but this is his opinion just like many of the other scientist/researchers that are skeptics about religion. Russell has all these disbeliefs in religion because of the lack or sources, potential contradictory in the stories etc etc. And what is the explanation for this? SCIENCE of course proves everything right? Yes true science proves everything but are there not flaws in science as well? Don’t things contradict each other all the time? If science proved everything we’d have a cure all medicine for everyone by now. Not to mention that science and religion can actually be coexisting with each other. So instead of people trying to find something wrong with either one I think people should actually sit back and think logically for once. Science as well is also not perfect either because lets face it both Science and religion are interpretations made by men meaning there is room for flaws on both sides but I think there is no right or wrong answer with science and religion they are both right!

11. Why does Richard Dawkins consider religion a "virus" of the
mind? Do you agree or disagree? I disagree, because like I discussed before religion is to each is own. It is the person’s choice whether to follow the religion or not. First of all the term “virus” has a negative connotation to it. If we are talking about generic religions like Buddhism, Christianity etc (nothing out of the ordinary like Oprah’s religion or David Koresh). One is to believe that they are practicing the religion for the purpose of being a good wholesome person. People practice religions because they believe there is a higher force out there that controls us all and he wants us to operate our lives in the best way possible. This is why we make, sacraments, pray, go to masses or seminars and try our best to be kind to one another. If we do not follow these rules we believe that will be punished for the bad that we have done. This leads people to be God fearing. And on the other hand if we do good in life we are rewarded with a happy after life (whatever the religion’s interpretation of that may be). So why should we refer to religion as a “virus” is a virus is a bad thing and religions help inspire us to want to be good?
Substantiate your view.

12. Give an example of a "cargo cult" belief and critically analyze
it from a scientific perspective? Hint:
think of something that people believe in that lacks overwhelming evidence to support it. Something that would be an example of a “cargo cult” is people believing that the world is going to end between the year 2010 and 2012. A lot of people these days are talking about Armageddon approaching us slowly, but how do we know for sure that the worl id going to end on this exact date? First off the are contradicting years some say 2010 some say 2012. Even in the Bible it does not give a precise date. All it says is what going to happen when the end is here but not necessarily the date and time. Some believe it because it is what the Mayan calander predicted, but how did the Mayans magically know this information? Did God himself tell them? Who knows? It could all be a bunch of guesses and word of mouth that got out of hand.As A catholic I heard about what the Fatimas people are saying what the Virgin Mary told us about the world ending. At first they said The virgin mary did not say the exact date no they are sayin gthat she did in full detail. You can’t tell if a person just made this all up or not but some of it appear like a man nmde up this evidence because we have no real proof. In the long run we really wont ever know at least until it happens

13. How does one do "science" according to Richard Feynman. Why is
this form of science so important to
human beings? How can such a view of science help enrich one's
appreciation for beauty? Be sure to give
YOUR own example of Feynman's point (no "flowers" allowed).

Like any scientist or genral educated person would think, Richard Feynman believes that in order to do science you must go through steps. This is probably why there are systems such as Scientific method which teaches you how to concuct and experiment using the hypothetical process. This process is important for us people because it give us an organized stricter of how to figure things out and solve problems. If ther were not steps t follow then what kind of guideline would be use as a gage? A person’s view of science could help enright one’s appreciation for beauty by being able to see details of how something is formally constructed do matter what it is. There is a start and find and a foundation to where a plan comes from, and the beauty is knowing what the main support is.

14. Give your interpretation of the movie "Karma." My interpretation of the movie Karma is that in the long run everything comes back to “bite you in the ass.” If you want to make a physics analogy you can say that it goes under Newtons 3^rd law of “for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction. Basically whatever you do comes back to you, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. In the Video, the Karma is teaching the people a lesson, like the guy who hit the girl. After hitting her he got shot. So after hurting her he got hurt to but ten times more. This video was to teach us about the consequences or rewards for our actons
15. Explain, in brief, Darwinian evolution and why John Maynard
Smith's contribution is important in
thinking differently about survival of the fittest. John Maybard smith’s interperetation of “survival of the fittest” was not necessarily “different” but it gave a clearer ecplanation to the meaning because he discussed the idea that survival of the fittest did not mean to bring each other down. Although I am a little baffled in a way because I never thought of survival of the fittest to be destroy each other, like an actual completion. He makes it sound like the idea of survival of the fittest is misinterpreted by many people as some sort of competition among a species but I never got this persuasion. As far I’ve known to believe, survival of the fittest insinuates the concept of “everyman for himself” and that we look out for ourselves because we have to in order to survive and only the strong survive.

16. What are Freeman Dyson's views on the "design" of the universe
or the purpose of humankind? Out of all the philosophical ideas of these great minds I think Freeman Dyson’s is my favorite. His idea of how the universe came to be, or is the way it is today is not just scientific, but is also supported by God. He belives that the universe is designed in such away that it was formed by science, but in the end it all leads up to God’s doing. In other words, God created such a thing as science to give explanations to what his miraculous works are. Even though he is an agnostic, I respect the fact that he is defending the idea that a God really does exist.
17. What IS the "secret" that Faqir Chand discovered about religion
and its founders? The idea Faqir Chand delivers is that people are entitled to their own opinions of religion. People are responsible for what they think is right or wrong and that we are not controlled by and “higher power” or God and that it may just be an excuse. It is you’re initiative to decide whether you think something is right or wrong. Even though he is not preaching and saying that what he is saying is gospel truth he is just trying to prove a point that people need to learn how to believe in themselves instead of always depending on a higher power to hold them by the hand.

18. Explain the movie Eleven and what is YOUR interpretation of it?
In other words, what is the underlying message that the
director is trying to convey? In this film, a very disturbing an ironic message is being delivered. In a nutshell without rationality and proper control over your “rage” one would find themselves falling deeper and deeper into a calamity that they did not intend to embark on. In the story, the gang Eleven went out for revenge in favor of the 911 incident. Okay, heroic? Maybe…but then the vengeance and emotions got out of control, up until the point that an innocent person was killed. Why? Just because he wore a turban? If Samaya was more in control of his emotions then he could have settled his issues much better. He didn’t have to take the life of an innocent by stander.

19. Why is distinguishing the message from the medium so important?
Use the Da Free John article as your context. It is important because you must not underestimate things or judge something just because of its outside exterior. A lot of times people tend to under or overestimate things. For example, you have a heroic “cool guy” character in a movie played by a very popular actor that is loved and adored by many people for his role on television, where in actuality this actor could be the complete opposite of what he plays on T.V. John Lennon of the Beatles was adored by many people because of his beautiful music, yet at times he was not the nicest person. He made rude remarks, some were racial, and one of the biggest ones was blasphemous. So yes, just because a person’s work may be wonderful does not mean that the person themselves is really the epitome of perfection because otherwise, your name would be Jesus Christ now wouldn’t it?

20. What are Bertrand Russell's reasons for NOT being a Christian?
Do you agree or disagree with him? GIVE RATIONAL
ARGUMENTS FOR your position (pro or con). Russell’s ideas for NOT being a Christian is that it’s hard to believe religion because it’s hard to determine whether the stories really were completely accurate or not. This may be because there are certain things in religion that contradict each other therefore leaving things unclear of what is should actually be scientifically proven. I highly disagree with Russell because, the reason that scientific reasoning DOES exist is because of God aka he “higher power.” Many people would say, PROVE IT! I don’t exactly know how but think about how things operate in the world, why they are the way they are. You can’t tell me that humans organized everything on this planet let alone the universe? Now maybe I’m just disagreeing because I have to be biased for the fact that I am catholic. It may or may not make sence to some but that’s just what I believe. Russell is a brilliant man and has a lot of good points but still not convincing enough to me ;D

21. Give a summary of Jim Lett's field guide to critcal thinking (in
your own "300" words, no more). Don't use quotes but write it like a
letter
to a friend explain how to think critically in light of Lett's
numerous points.

Dear friend,

I’ am going to tell you about the six reasons on how you can consider things to be true, known facts, a guide to critical thinking by Jim Lett. Reason number one is Falsifiability . This is important in order to determine that facts are right and right facts are wrong. Of course in order to live a decent successful life you must know both right and wrong in order to avoid he wrong with would be something that I completely farce. Reason number two is logic. In this world we need a great deal of logic in order to help guide us into thinking rationally and clearly. Without logic nothing would make sense in the world, there would be no order. Thirdly, you have comprehensiveness which plays a very important role as well, because in life we people need to understand why things are going on. Comprehensiveness reflects on knowledge. Fourth is honesty, which is naturally good practice to most people so that they could feel relieved of what the truth is. Replicability is also important it mostly has to do with coincidences and miraculous things happening and the 6^th reasoning is sufficiency, and extent every person in the world should have a sense of sufficiency from time to time to build confidence.

22. Why does Kurtz believe that skepticism should be applied to
religion? Do you agree or disagree? Kurtz believes that skepticism should be applied to religion in the same manner that a lot of other skeptics believe. I believe that to an extent skeptism should be accepted but not question everything that is to be done in life. It is understandable why there are so many skeptical views of religion because there is not too much evidential proof floating around in the world. There are many things that still cannot be explained but we just believe in it because of having a strong faith. Faith by definition mea believing without seeing.

23. Why is pretext, text, and context important in analyzing a book
or an argument. Provide your own example. Those three things are very important because the pretext would give you a guide of what contents to be looking for. The actual text would be most important because this is the main source of information you’re looking for. Context is important because you have to know what the frame work is behind everything.

24. What is a "transformative" UFO encounter and does the author of
the Himalayan Connection really believe in UFOs as genuine
extraterrestrials? He does not believe that the UFO’s are real but that the concept is all in our mind’s and the power of the human brain is very strong and influential because if it wants you so strongly to believe something, the chances are you will due to influence.

25. How does one think more critically when using online sources?
(hint: think of one of the required articles). Substantiate your
views. Its is hard to think critically when dealing with the internet sometime because the information is all spoon-fed to you first of all, and most people are lazy to go anywhere like travel to the own library so they decide to believe whatever source they looked up online cuz it sound “reasonable” plus where is the evidential proof that online sources are bullshit and fatly?

26. What are Steven Weinberg's views on religion? Do you agree or
disagree?

27. Why is Sam Harris an atheist? Explain his reasons. Can you argue
against his views? If so, how? The reason Sam harris is an atheist is because he finds a lot of contradictions and flaws w within the facts and stories of religions. His Idea is the same as any other doubting scientist out there. I would have to disagree with him first off because I am a catholic and plus he gives the persuasion that science is the answer to everything. Well let me ask you this Sam Harris…who invented the idea of science anyway? You couldn’t tell me that as people we are that perfect that we invented science in it’ entirety. I think not…plus the way everything the world works in a and orderly fashion

28. Of the first five installments of BEYOND BELIEF which speaker
did you find most persuasive? Explain why. I believe that Steven was the most persuasive of all the speakers because how people want to solve the problem by recognizing different insights for science and religion. The fact of the matter is that this religious/scientific debate will never come to an end unless like God himself come down to earth and tells us “Hey look it’s me I’m real” the that case most people should believe in God, and EVEN in that scenario there will STILL be doubters for some odd reason.

29. Ken Miller argues against Michael Behe's notion of irreducible
complexity and the notion of intelligent design in biology. Is he
right? If so, explain. If not, give your reasons why not.

30. In the conference BEYOND BELIEF, which speaker did you find to
be the weakest in terms of substance? Explain. I think the lady Joan was the weakest speaker of all of them because some of the things she was saying did not make sense and some of it contradicted what her main point was. She herself seemed to be unsure of what she was talking about.

31. What constitutes a scientific education according to Huxley? I believe that Huxley is trying to say that we humans learned as much as we can so far about science and that repetitious practice is what keeps us learning more, because with successes and mistakes we learn from them all together because they are all experiences and many of these experiences are repeats of one another.

32. Why is the book BELIEVER-SKEPTIC so critical of Ken Wilber and this thinking? Be specific in your answers

This is touching upon a very sensitive topic yet again because it is discussing the truth behind religion and that people tend to easily follow the ideas and beliefs of religions. Even people that are strong believers in their religion, sometimes they too have moment when they question certain things or have certain doubts. A person born into a religion always has the fear of one day being proven wrong that what he or she has been believing in all their lives was not “true.”

Admittedly as a catholic sometimes this does cross my mind, and I can’t help it being human. I mean I’ve seen those documentaries about the Indian elephant statue “drinking milk” though it’s snout, where in fact it was just all a process of evaporation. It made me think of the people that believed in this, it must have crushed them deeply. I now it would crush me if I were them.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Midterm

Viruses of the Mind

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