God vs. Darwin

Since the beginning of time people have questioned how the world came about and how it works. Everyone wants to know the truth and the argument often comes down to science versus faith. But what if the foundation of truth is faith? Before one can truly decide where they stand on this it is important to accurately understand the meanings of these three words; truth, science, and faith. According to Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary, truth is defined as "the property (as of a statement) of being in accordance with fact or reality". Science is defined as "knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method" and faith is defined as a "firm belief in something for which there is no proof."

In many instances science and religion can work together quite well, for example; in the fields of medicine, much of astrology, botany, etc. One of the most common instances where we see a separation between science and religion is when we begin speaking of creation and how the world came to be. For this the vast majority of the world's population divides itself amongst two theories. The first is evolution (Darwin's theory) and the second is the Creation theory (also known as Intelligent Design). The problem is that both of these are simply theories and neither can be proven or disproven. A theory (according to Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary) is "an unproved assumption".

The battle is commonly considered to be faith versus fact. I however, do not believe this to be true. I believe that both take a certain amount of faith, whether you are instilling your faith in a scientist or in an Intelligent Designer is irrelevant. Since neither theory can be proven both must be considered a system of beliefs. Some might argue that evolution cannot be a belief since there is no worship involved, but it is not necessary, just as you need not worship an Intelligent Designer to believe that one created the universe. Since both theories could be considered feasible I would hazard to state that in the instance of the creation of the world, the foundation of truth is faith.

What a person believes changes all of their worldly views. It can affect how they vote in an election, where they stand on world-wide issues, and even how they view history. For example, during the 1600's-1800's the Church underwent some changes that would have a permanent effect on religion all around the world. Up until this time the church had controlled all forms of government and was the center of all aspects of life in Europe. When scientists ("humanists") started to pop up and brought in new theories ("ideas") the Church tried to enforce laws against them. The Church simply did this to protect the lifestyle that they had all come to know as right and to keep a handle on rebellion. We see this with Galileo and Nicholas Copernicas. The general public viewed these matters as attempts made by the Church to keep them from discovering these new concepts.

Many people view this as a time of "enlightenment" and believe that science brought a light into what had formerly been the darkness. Many Christians however, would disagree with this statement and argue that what we had formerly had was a time of light and that these scientific "ideas" were just tiny seeds of darkness that were being planted within society. Unfourtunatly these seeds were only destined to grow larger.

Today America seems to be just the opposite of what Europe was during the "age of enlightenment". In Europe during that era, Catholicism was the main belief system and science had to undergo a major battle to survive from day to day. The tables have now turned. Today science is a system that is widely recognized and Christianity and other such religions must struggle to hold their own. We see this almost everywhere. Perhaps the most frightening place of all is in our public schools.

Most parents realize as they send their young children off to school that they will be subjected to some biased material in their science classes. However, those same parents are rather naive if they believe that it simply stops there. For example, if a parent were to further investigate their child's sophomore honors history class they might find several things alarming. The worst being extremely biased reading material, videos, and class discussions. As an additional example, parents may even find that copy's of Medici Money written by Tim Parks are just randomly passed out and chapters are assigned weekly. Tim Parks is a very biased writer with no fears of incorporating his own speculations and beliefs into his books. His book Medici Money is a sickeningly biased book and is in no way in favor of the Church. Parents may actually be forced to ask themselves "when did our Constitution begin working against our children's rights?"

An online video that discusses much of this and brings up some interesting controversy (though is biased in the favor of "science" and could easily be recommended by a history teacher as well) is called Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/). From this (biased) video one could perhaps see the "science" portion of the argument in a well portrayed manor. One could also draw several conclusions as well as questions from it. In the video the narrator states "The fight culminated in 1987, when the Supreme Court decided that teaching Creationism in public school science classes violated the separation of church and state mandated by the Constitution in the Establishment Clause which prevents the government from promoting or prohibiting any form of religion."

This is an interesting statement. What makes evolution a science as opposed to a belief? Can the Intelligent Design theory not be taught in the same manor? There is a difference between promoting a religion and promoting the education of a theory, that is very much a part of our modern society. Even so, the video later contradicts itself as it discusses a text book that was examined, that not only discusses Darwin's theory but the Intelligent Design theory as well. The book is called Of Pandas and People and the video states "But in the materials God is never mentioned, the designer is called an intelligent cause or an intelligent agent." Thus showing that it is simply a theory and singling out no religion in particular.

Perhaps, the most eye opening statement in the entire video is "Does science education have to be so narrow, so technical, so differential to existing paradigm that we can't even introduce students to what may be the next great theory?" As previously discussed teachers can cross over into a dangerous area if they try to incorporate their own beliefs into the lesson plan laid out by the state. This can cause general discomfort in the classroom for all children, regardless of their beliefs. Our public educators are largely influential people in the eyes of our young and unprotected children.

So is it that "the power and beliefs of the Church contradicted and in some cases censured emerging scientific discoveries." as stated by a 10th grade honors history teacher in an essay question? Or is that the emerging "scientific discoveries" contradicted the power and beliefs of the Church? Even our presidential candidates state whether they believe in evolution or Intelligent Design and it often plays a role in whether or not they are elected and which states they win the electoral votes for. So will our nation (or world for that matter) ever stop fighting over the differences between science and religion and the foundation of truth? It is highly unlikely. That is, unless our Intelligent Designer decides to take a mid afternoon stroll across the Earth and introduce Himself to each person that He passes or unless someone catches an ape magically "adapting" into a man on a video camera and posts it on YouTube (and maybe even Godtube).

Ashley Nichols

Consilience

Consilience is “the linking together of principals from different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory” (Merriam Webster Online). This word comes to mind more often than not, when I begin thinking of the Renaissance. Some might say that perhaps the greatest example of this would be the linking of Martin Luther’s 95 theses, the printing press, and the church. I do not believe this to be so. Martin Luther may have greatly impacted the church but that is where his power ended. I believe that the greatest form of consilience throughout the renaissance was that of Galileo, the printing press, and the church. The combination of these three things created such a large impact that it even affected the ways in which people viewed themselves as humans.

Printing Press

“A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring an image” (Wikipedia.com). It was invented in the 1430’s by a man named Johann Gutenberg. This was revolutionary because for the first time people could mass produce copies of articles and get them out into the public. This was a critical invention for materials such as books, newspapers, flyer's, and the development of scientific journals. This was a critical piece in the spread of literacy and in the decline of Latin. This discovery redefined the term public knowledge.

Galileo

“Galileo Galilei was a Tuscan (Italian) physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, who played a major role in the scientific revolution” (Wikipedia). Through his sketches and looking through his telescope he proved that the sun has sunspots, that Venus and the moon both go through phases and that the Earth revolves on its axis. He drew several pictures of the phases of the moon and he wrote several books about the astronomical laws behind it. He was a devout Roman Catholic but reached a point of great controversy with the church, due to his scientific discoveries. He was a man that helped redefine what it meant to be a human.

Catholic Church

“The Catholic Church is the largest Christian church, representing around half of all Christians, and is the largest organized body of any world religion” (Wikipedia). The Catholic Church was the political head of everything during the renaissance. For the most part what was considered religiously correct would be considered politically correct. It was socially, politically, economically, and religiously accepted. People connected with one another through religion, the head of the government was the pope, and instead of paying regular taxes alone the citizens would pay a 10% tithe to the church.

Galileo's drawings of the moon

These three elements all link together in many different ways. Galileo made great discoveries through his telescope and made sketches of them and wrote several books about them. The printing press came along and allowed Galileo’s drawings and books to be published and mass produced. This invention made his knowledge more accessible to the general public. Galileo’s theories disagreed with certain aspects of the Catholic religion. So in effect, Galileo produced works of art that when mass produced changed the public’s idea's of religion and how they interacted with the church.

This affected the political and economical aspects of people’s lives drastically. Politically speaking, the citizens had been under the rule of the pope and when they began to see that everything did not revolve around the Earth, that they were simply just men on one tiny planet, they started to stray from the church. People that disagree with the teachings of the church, will not allow themselves to be ruled by such a power for very long. Economically speaking, people began to spend their money in other places. People do not want to give their money to a foreign power anymore than they want to be ruled by one.

This piece of consilience had a great impact on people socially and intellectually as well. Socially people began to interact with each other more outside of the church setting. People began to interact with one another in ways that the church would have found outrageous. It became a more accepting society all the way around. New ideas were no longer a forbidden evil. Intellectually people blossomed because of the impact that this had. The people in the hierarchy of the church were no longer the only ones accepted as brilliant. More people began to read and due to the printing press they could gain access to one of Galileo’s books and fill their minds with ideas that would have formerly been considered wicked.

The last and perhaps most important factor that Galileo, the printing press, and the church had a any significant impact on was aesthetics. All of what people believed had been turned upside down. Up until this point in time, everyone had faith in the concept of the sun revolving around the Earth. When it became public knowledge that the Earth was one of many planets and simply revolved around on its own axis and that we were simply one of many it did harm initially to many people’s psych. The church immediately jumped into war with this idea because it states in the Bible that everything revolves around the Earth. For example: Psalm 104:5 “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever”, Psalm 93:1 “The Lord reigns, He is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved” and 1 Chronicles 16:30 “Let all the earth be moved at His presence: for He hath founded the world immoveable.” This theory would potentially mean hard core evidence proving the Bible wrong. This was majorly devastating and mind boggling during this era. The people believed at this point in time that it may be hypocritical and contradictory to the Bible, the word that they lived by, but they could not ignore foolproof evidence.

The printing press, Galileo, and the church together had a huge impact on the renaissance and even on our world today. It redefined how people saw themselves and even how they viewed others around them. This is one undeniably important piece of consilience. It reshaped what was considered politically and socially acceptable during this era and even affected peoples psych. It boosted the rate of people’s expected intellectual capabilities and influenced how they spent their hard earned cash every week. Overall it affected people’s beliefs and what they chose to be most valuable in life. It revolutionized every aspect of that time period and forever changed the world as they knew it.

Ashley Nichols

Revolution

The word revolution means a drastic change in the ways that people think and act. A revolution can be caused by many different abstractions. Perhaps, the three largest causative factors are religion, politics, and economy. All of these generally tie into large changes in one way or another. However, I believe the largest of them all to be politics. Whenever you have some large changing factor there is almost always a shift in government or power of some kind.

Take the time period of the renaissance as an example. It was a time of great revolution or change. Up until that time and even during that time the people listened to the words spoken by the church. They were all careful to follow under its rulings. The pope for the most part ruled over everything. He was considered to be a god on earth. People did their best not to sin because the main goal of the era was to simply keep moving through your life and make it to heaven. Not to mention that the ways of the church were wholly accepted by society at that time as well. It would be considered social suicide to go against the grain.

The people of this time period underwent major changes that effected how they viewed daily life and even themselves as human beings. This was all due to politics and alterations that they underwent politically. They had been under the rulings of the church for many years and this was their big breakout. The church began to lose its control as new ideas began to reveal themselves. The three greatest men of that era that encouraged this change were Erasmus, Martin Luther, and John Calvin (in that order). They helped people to see other ways of life and brought the fall of the churches rule. As the political power began to shift ultimate change began to occur.

This was not a one time occurance by any means of the word. Politics has always played a big role in revolutionary time periods. Without political change revolutions could not occur. They would simply be ideas that were never acted upon. For example it was not until Hitlers take down that the Jews could begin to breath easier again. If he had continued to hold such great military power many more could have been persecuted. Even today we see similar examples all around us, such as in Iraq. They were under the rule of the terrible and cruel Saddam. It was not until the Americans invaded and took over and even tour down his statue that they began to see anything revolutionary occurring.

Some might argue that it is economy or religion that bring about revolutions. They would have a valid and arguable point. Economy does play a big role. During the Renaissance they were giving 10% to the church and could not do any banking because it was considered to be a sin (usury) so when this switched over into what we have today it would be considered revolutionary. However this would not have occurred without changes politically. If the church was still in power, than people would still be paying their 10%. The economy generally does under go change as does everything else when revolutionary ideas hit. It is not however, the main causative factor.

As for the religious aspect of revolution, one would perhaps have an even more arguable point. It is very true that what people believe in at the time is a large part of change. Like politics it is almost always present during revolutionary time periods. For example, during the renaissance it was not until people began to see things from outside of a Christian viewpoint that change occurred and people basically worshipped Hitler during WW II. However, unlike politics it can not simply cause a revolution by itself. If the Americans had not lent a hand secret Hitler worshippers may have still been in existance today. It takes a shift in power before vast majorities of people will band together to be different.

A final argument perhaps may be that people will only do what is socially acceptable. That social is the main causative factor of revolution. This is far from being true. It is true that people like to do what others are doing and that people slowly catch on to the spread of an idea. Political still holds its domain over this idea though because something can not be fully socially accepted until it is politically accepted. People did not want to be shunned from their families or churches during the renaissance and therefore refused to be different. During Hitlers rule soldiers did as they were told and followed his orders and it was socially accepted at that time. Though many of them may have had doubts they never really bonded together and brought about any change until Hitlers take down.

Though others can be justified it is easy to see that politics is clearly the most causative factor of revolution. It most likely will continue to be for many years to come. It has reshaped and changed history into what we have today. Revolution brings about ideas and how we react to them, as the general public, will reflect on our current government. Without politics where would we be today? Perhaps still under the complete rule of the church? Would we have banks throughout every state or simply in the back room of stores where money is passed under the table? Personally I feel politics to be a crucially important factor in all cultures and a part of every piece of society.

Humanism and the Flat World

Almost every era has its own revolution, one that will bring with it a key that unlocks the door to the following era. During the time period of the Renaissance, the revolutionary concept that took place was the acceptance of Humanism. Even today we have revolutionary ideas that are still randomly reflecting off of our globe. One that appears to have made its way through our atmosphere and is here to stay is globalization. Our world appears to be getting flatter by the second, and if we are not careful we may just tumble our way into orbit. Revolutions occur when people begin opening up their minds and toying with the unknown. They almost always help to further the development of the known society.

The flat world is revolutionizing how we view ourselves in society today. No, the world is not really flat this is just in a metaphorical sense. Technology is supposedly making our world a flatter place because today we can contact our pen pal in Japan just as easily as our next door neighbors. In this “flat world” our middle class jobs are being bumped up a level and the competition with our foreign countries is becoming more intense. Due to this competition and these recent technological developments we will have to put twice as much effort in as our parent’s generation did and certainly more then the generation before them. In short, the flattening of the world is revolutionizing what we find socially acceptable.

Humanism revolutionized how people living during the time period of the Renaissance, viewed themselves and the world around them. Humanism began when humanists started popping up amongst the population. Humanists were people that refused to accept the status quo at the time. This brought chaos, division amongst what had been one body of people, and essentially revolution.

During the Renaissance everyone was grouped together as one large body under the Catholic Church. People lived in fear daily of committing a sin such as usury and not being allowed into Heaven. Humanism brought an end to this fear for many people. They started living for today and not what tomorrow might bring. Many people did decide to stay in the church body, but even that began to divide within its self. Humanism is a huge piece of what caused the church to start to split off into different denominations. The entire world changed with this concept. People no longer viewed themselves and each other as simply people on the journey to Heaven, but as individuals living each day to its fullest.

Humanism had an amazingly large impact on society as it was previously known during the Renaissance. In fact, without it we would not have the current society that we have today. The amount of beliefs and many forms of art simply would not exist. Without Humanism, our world would be more circular as opposed to the pancake that it is rapidly becoming. The revolution of the flat world revolves around technological advances where as the revolution that Humanism has influenced revolves around religious and philosophical life meanings. Change cannot occur until someone dares to be different and think outside of the box. We have more than our fair share of right brain thinkers in America today. Does the flat world have as much in store for us and will the outcome be as positive? We can only hope.

Hero Essay

Mr. Viles said to post this in the blog so that he could read it.. so well here it is...

Lisa Neal: Superwoman or Teacher?
Everyone should have a hero. We all need someone in our lives that we can look up to and respect. I, myself, have one such hero. In fact, some might even go so far as to call her a superhero. Yes, I know that when we think of a superhero we find ourselves picturing the generic comic book idea of a person that wears funny pants, a cape, and can fly. Though to my knowledge she can not fly, she has been known to wear some pretty funny pants and I bet that if you asked her nicely she would even model a cape for you. My hero, that just happens to be super, is Lisa Neal.
Lisa Neal, from a distance appears to be an ordinary 7th grade teacher that is involved with many extra curricular activities within the district. She has a fairly large family and spends many of her summers on the stage at a local theater. Thus, she appears to be a fairly decent person. However, take the time to meet her and you will soon find that she is anything but an ordinary woman. She excels on every stage that she chooses to set foot on, whether it be at the local theater or in the classroom. I, personally, have seen her perform on both stages and do not believe that there is another person out there that could fulfill either role as well as she does.
Lisa Neal was my 7th grade social studies teacher. No one student could even begin to accurately describe the first impression that this woman will have on you. Perhaps, the most memorable moment in her classroom was when she showed up to school dressed as Ben Franklin. She acted out a small skit and wrapped the entire class into how dangerous it was for these men to be participating in the signing of The Declaration of Independence. Another wonderful trait that she possesses is the ability to have her class hanging on her every word. Up until that year if anyone had asked me “do you believe it to be possible for a teacher to have complete control over a classroom without yelling?” I would have responded with “nope it is not possible”. She makes it possible. Just one disappointed look from her and even the worst of the worst immediately cease all that they are doing. As a teacher, Lisa Neal makes an everlasting impression on all of her students.
I believe that the biggest impression she has ever made on me occurred during my 8th grade year. I began experimenting with things of which children in middle school should never experiment with. As the year progressed, the level of hope amongst my friends, family, and teachers only seemed to drop further and further down the scale. She alone seemed to be the only one still standing that had any hope left. Without this woman I honestly believe that I never would have turned my life back around to the extreme extent that I have. I know for certain that I never would have taken honors classes at the high school. Whatever the situation a student of hers may be in, she will appear by their side with an infinite amount of hope.
At our 8th grade graduation she sang Mariah Carey’s song “Hero”. It could not have been more appropriate. At the end of my 8th grade year she made me promise to email her twice a week until I graduate. Though at the time I thought her to be utterly insane, everyone knows better than to contradict her of all people. By the beginning of 9th grade the emails had already flourished from twice a week to twice a day. To this day her quiet expectations still produce motivation and her lines of non-judgmental communication still remain open 24-7-365. This means more to me and so many others than could ever be stated in a single essay.
Lisa Neal is by far one polychromatic woman. She is a talented thespian and a truly amazing teacher. You will never meet anyone as pliable, veracious, and considerate as her. She prefers to wear her heart on her sleeve and compassion flows from her like water from a creek in the spring. She is a complex woman of many trades but above all she is my hero.
Ashley Nichols

The World is Flat post 6

I found this to be a truly amazing book. I learned a lot that I had heard rumors about or had seen on the news but had never had any real knowledge of. The flat world has a huge impact on everyone, even me and how I communicate with friends after and during school. According to this book I am pretty much on the right track as far as my future plans go. If I stay on my current path my career choice should be fairly "untouchable". All in all I find the flat world at the present date to be an amazing place and I believe that it will continue to be just as amazing as long as we do not begin to take matters too far.

All in all I found this to be a really informative and useful book. I am a better informed American citizen because of it. Friedman seemed to remain unbiased the entire book and it seems as though he definitely wants people to embrace the flat world. I found it to be rather insulting that he just skipped over all of the American people that had lost their jobs to outsourcing without a care. But other than that it was a decent read.

Everyday I take advantage of the flat world. I enjoy the cell phone service and it is a major way to keep in touch with all of my friends through text messaging. You can accommodate almost all of your needs through a computer. After school and extra-curricular activites, I can come home hop on the computer, look up my assignments, complete them all through Microsoft Office, send an email to my mentor, and then log on to instant messenger to chat with all of my friends that are bound to be doing the same things. During the day if I need to briefly inform my mother of some sort of news I can send her a text message from my phone to hers so that we are both on the same page. Lets face it, the two and half hours that I spend on a bus every day would be simply torturous without my iPod, providing me with access to all of my favorite songs and games at my fingertips.

According to Friedman my future should be fairly "untouchable". He uses the word to describe jobs that can not be shipped overseas to foreign countries for their workers to do at cheaper rates. He says that any "specialized" job can not be shipped over to China for their laborers to do. He says that these are people such as Michael Jordan and J.K. Rowling. While I will most likely never fall into this category I probably will fall into another he describes as being "untouchable". I plan to get my bachelors degree in teaching and go on to get my masters in school counseling so I can be a middle school guidance counselor. Friedman says that "untouchable" careers are also careers that are "localized and anchored. This category includes many, many people. They are untouchable because their jobs must be done in a specific location, either because they involve some specific local knowledge or because they require face-to-face, contact or interaction with a customer, patient, colleague, or audience". Being a middle school level guidance counselor does require face-to-face contact and interaction with all of your students, therefore someone in China or India would have an awfully hard time filling the position.

In short I believe that the flat world is something that we should embrace. Without technological developments we would stay in the same mind state forever and human interaction would never grow. Now it is just as simple to have a best friend in Japan as it is to have one two states away. I would be beside myself without all of my small pieces of technology that I carry around. Sometimes development in this area can be taken too far and you can lose sight of the purpose, but for the most part growing and learning together as a world instead of a country I believe can and will be very beneficial.

The World is Flat post 5

The question on the minds of most readers from the very beginning of this book is, is the flat world a good thing for America? This is a complex question that we see even Friedman struggle to answer and the answers that he does provide us with are purely speculation. The flat world will have a different impact on each American family. The question that seems to be asked the most is "what will happen to our jobs?" Everyone would like to hear that they will be safe in the future and will always be able to provide for their families. However, due to outsourcing, many of our digital or factory jobs are being sent overseas. Due to their weak economies and huge populations China, India, Europe, and Japan are willing to put in the time and labor for a fraction of the price of American workers.

Friedman tells us that this is a temporary problem. He says that "as the Chinese economy opens up to the world and reforms, the wages of Chinese knowledge workers will rise up to American/world levels." So Friedman believes that overtime these economies will open up and their labor prices will rise to that of ours long before Americas economy could ever possibly come crashing down. He also notes that as Americans we may lose some of our jobs to them now but that it is essential to just keep moving through because it will all change soon enough. This puts the mind of the average American to rest. They have now been reassured that we will all have jobs in the future and that our economy will not be taking a nose dive any time soon.

However, for several family's this does not provide any reassurance at all. Many people have already lost their jobs and been thrown out on the streets with a simple "nice working with you". My dad worked at Dexter Shoe for 20 years and they threw him and everyone else at the factory out so they could ship the company over to China. At this point my dad was 40 and forced to go on to college to simply be able to provide for his family. The state pitched in and in the end it worked out okay. For my grandmother however, things were not quite so great. She had worked at the factory for 36 years and was now too old to go back to college. By the time she could graduate it would be close to time for her to retire. So though Friedman's speculations are enough for most people, for some it is not nearly enough.