Can Experts Disagree on the Same Facts?

Can Experts Disagree on the Same Facts? Prescribed Title 5: Given access to the same facts, how is it possible that there can be disagreement between experts in a discipline? Develop your answer with reference to two areas of knowledge. For centuries scientists and historians alike have debated topics within their field of study. Whether it be the structure of an atom or the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, experts in these fields often disagree despite having access to the same exact facts and information. These separate interpretations of data leads to the question of how it is possible that the same facts do not always point to the same general truths. Although experts in the fields of science and history have access to the same facts, the experts who analyze and interpret these facts are human beings, whose thoughts are impacted by the different cultures, experiences, and perspectives in which they were raised. One important question that needs to be raised is what makes someone an expert? Better yet, what is a fact? An expert is someone who has an extensive background in a certain subject and is recognized by others as having a comprehensive understanding of a specific topic. This means that they have a great understanding of the subject matter of which they are an expert, and others can attest to this proficiency. Facts are known truths that are commonly accepted and verifiable. A fact must be verifiable in order to be legitimate. Understanding these terms allows us to truly understand the nature of historians and scientists and their interpretations of information. One of the most important, yet most debatable, tasks that a historian must complete is weighing evidence after reviewing historical facts. Historians make decisions based on many different pieces of evidence. They decide how important each piece of evidence is to the way that history played out. This brings up the question of the extent to which the weighing of evidence by historians in relation to events in history is subjective or objective. The weighing of evidence tends to be subjective simply because of the often multiple different causes of certain events in history. This can be seen in the analysis of almost every historical event in recorded history, but especially in the analysis of the cause of World War II. Many different factors played into the cause of World War II. Between the economic sanctions imposed by countries such as the United States and Great Britain, political tension between the major powers, or expansionist foreign policies of Italy, Germany, and Japan, no single cause can be seen as the only one to start to war (History.com staff). However, deciding which cause had the greatest impact on war is what historians debate over and weigh evidence over, yet they often come to separate conclusions. The different cultures, experiences, and perspectives of the historians leads to their different interpretations and evaluations of evidence in history. Although these experts analyze the same data, the lenses through which they view the evidence are different. Historians do their best to analyze facts and their impact on history with total objectivity, yet the nature of the weighing of evidence is very subjective. Historians have to use their own personal values and emotions, based on their own personal culture and experiences, in order to evaluate evidence and make decisions based on these evaluations. This also brings up the question of the extent to which the upbringings of a historian has an impact on their analysis of historical facts. All historians grow up in unique situations and so their view on the world and the way humans interact with each other is slightly different. Furthermore, their opinions on the interactions of foreign powers can often be impacted by their nationalities and the education they received. This personal opinion is most prominently seen with debate over differing political ideologies and their impact on foreign nations. I saw this debate first hand in my history class. The topic of the discussion was Cuba and the rise of Castro as a communist dictator. As the child of a Cuban exile, I have heard anecdotes from people who lived and suffered under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. My family has seen the thousands of people who were killed under his command and the conditions of the Cuban people because of his policies. Undoubtedly, because of my personal upbringings, I am biased against Castro and communism in general. This extremely negative experience with communism has swayed my opinion about the political ideology to a great extent. However, in class, my history teacher argued that Fidel Castro had a great, positive impact on Cuba and the Cuban people. My teacher claimed that Castro reduced the unemployment rate and generally improved the average living conditions of the Cuban people. Just like historians, both my teacher and I were analyzing the same facts about the same country, yet were drawing drastically different conclusions. We were weighing evidence based on our own personal cultures and beliefs and drawing conclusions about the general nature of the regime. This personal example gives insight to the debates that historians go through in order to come to conclusions about events or topics in history. Historians attempt to decipher data in an objective way, yet the weighing of evidence is subjective and easily influenced by the culture of the historian. In this way, historians rarely come to the same conclusions based on the same facts simply because each individual historian is weighing evidence based on their own unique personal experiences. These experiences and aspects of their culture give each historian a predisposed idea about topics in history that causes them to evaluate events in history in different ways. In the field of science, the different types of data often leads to disagreement and separate conclusions based on this data. In science, the two main types of data are quantitative and qualitative; quantitative data being data that can be measured in numbers while qualitative data being data that can be observed and described. Quantitative data tends to not only be more precise, but also easier to reproduce. On the other hand, qualitative data is measured based on the scientists interpretations of a certain quality within an experiment. For example, when performing titrations, scientists often use color indicators to show when the titration is complete. However, they must decide for their own when the color has changed sufficiently for the titration to be considered complete. This leads to a large amount of room for error. This same experiment can be performed around the world several times by experts in the field of science yet they may all come to different conclusions about the d ata. This imprecision of this data leads to the question of the extent to which the preconceived ideas of scientists affects the way they interpret data. Often times in science, data is either difficult to describe, as in the exact color of a solution when a titration is complete, or in instances where an experiment cannot be conducted in order to test a theory. For example, String Theory was proposed by scientists years ago and many scientists continue to support it today. In the words of Richard Dawid, On one side of the divide stand most of those physicists who work on string physics and in fields like inflationary cosmology or high energy particle physics model building, which are strongly influenced by string physics. Yet, many other experts disagree and refuse to support the theory. They, consider string theory a vastly overrated speculation, and without being able to conduct an experiment to prove the theory, it is not valid. They refuse to consider the evidence proposed by scienti sts who support the theory simply based on this single idea. The nature of a scientists research can help explain why many scientists can come to different conclusions when analyzing the same data. When a scientist sets out to conduct an experiment, they often have a goal in mind. Whether they are trying to prove a theory correct or make a new discovery, scientists often have preconceived ideas about the topic of which their experiment is concerned. In other cases, scientists are being supported financially by investors who are looking for the scientists to come to certain conclusions, especially in relation to medicines where investors are looking to create a new drug in order to make a profit. Because of this, scientists often have biases when conducting experiments. This leads to them analyzing data in a way that will support their goals. They will often disregard or assign insignificant value data that contradicts the claim they are trying to support. This is generally the source of disagreement between scientists when analyzing the same d ata. Every day, historians and scientists alike are analyzing undisputable facts. They look at these facts and come to completely separate conclusions. As human beings, we all are subject to interpreting facts through the subjective lenses of our cultures and personal experiences. Although experts in both the fields of history and science may try to be objective as possible, certain elements of research in these fields require subjective analysis that can vary from expert to expert. This gives way to differing conclusions among experts in the fields of science and history and, in general, disagreements between experts in a certain field despite having access to the same facts. Works Cited Dawid, Richard. String Theory and the Scientific Method. Cambridge: Cambridge U, 2015. Print. History.com Staff. World War II History. History.com. AE Television Networks, 2009. Web. 15 Feb. 2017. .

Problems of Conducting Research Into the Causes of Stress Essay

One problem when conducting research into the causes of stress is the generalisation of the sample, if the sample is restricted; this has limitations in terms of generalising the results to the total population. In the study by Johansson, a sample of only 24 workers was used and from a specific job type. This sample is unreflective of all job types and is too small to be applicable to the general population. Conclusions made may only be relevant to this sample. However it could be argued that the factors that cause stress in jobs such as deadlines and the dependence of others on you are common in all types of jobs and therefore using a sample of the specific job type becomes less restricted and applicable to other people in jobs with common stressors. A second problem when conducting research into causes of stress is the validity of measurements. Validity refers to whether the results measure what they are supposed to measure and this is often affected by the research method. The self report method is often questioned in terms of validity as participants have the ability to give socially desirable answers and steer away from the truth. In the study by Kanner, questionnaires were posted out to participants and a Hassles and uplifts scale was asked to be completed every month for 9 months and the Berkman life events scale after 10 months. This study, due to the use of self report lacks in validity, as researches are unsure as to whether data obtained reflects the true opinions of participants, which is an issue when trying to apply to everyday life. However the self report method is useful, despite it lacking in validity. It gives participants the freedom to write about their own subjective feelings and due to stress being individually perceived differently, it is useful in tailoring treatment to individuals to meet their needs. A third problem is reductionism, studies often reduce many factors that cause an individual stress to one factor, such as in the case of Johansson study, it was concluded work was the source of stress. However individual factors such as personality could play a role, researchers do not know that stress prone individuals are more likely to be in a high risk job. By failing to take into account other factors, resources and time may be used in the wrong area. However reductionism is useful as it does pinpoint an area that causes stress and allows in-depth research to be carried out to help participants.

Whale rider

The Whale Rider by Witt Alhambra has many important themes that are represented by several characters in the text such as Koru Farina, who struggles to put aside traditional values and struggles to input moored values. We have Nanny Flowers who has that everyday struggle with her husband over who gets that last say in what but Nanny Flowers takes peoples feeling into consideration as Koru Farina lacks that quality in him. Koru Farina is old and a very precise man.He is the type of person that follows the rules and lives out his life without any type of change to his agenda. In this story he has a big head for the old Maori traditions and he likes to keep them in tact. â€Å"A girl?. I will have nothing to do with her. She has broken the male line of our decent in our Hannah. AAU†. Koru Farina was not a happy man whilst he had been informed about the birth of Kaka, Koru Farina wasn't very keen on Kaka. He was always very distant of Kaka and didn't show a whole lot of affection towards Kaka but Kaka still tried her hardest.Nanny Flowers has definitely got her winning sides In most of the argument, â€Å"He Isn't any chief, I'm his Chief†. This line Indicates that Koru Apron Isn't In charge In he house and In fact Nanny flowers Is the boss of him and not the other way around. In majority of the chapters what ever Nanny Flowers says, It goes. â€Å"He's sleeping in the bunkhouse tonight† and that's what happens. Lets not to say the Nanny flowers wears the pants In their relationship because from what I've read most of the time Its Koru Farina.Nanny flowers Is a strong headed woman and won't let people change her mind quite that easily and she definitely won't let Koru Apron do so. Kaka has to overcome Okras resistance when Koru rejects her at the very start of her rite because she Is not a male and so according to the tradition, cannot be the new chief of the tribe. He considers her â€Å"of no use to him† and â€Å"a disappointmentâ₠¬  simply because she Is a female. Despite trying to prove herself to Koru, he refuses to accept her. She has to patiently win his love over time .Kaka also has to overcome Koru forbidding her to learn the ancient and tribal warrior techniques. She trains In secret and quickly learns faster than the other boys In Corks trailing. Kaka shows, persistence, courage and simple hard work to be better the the rest of the boys that Koru Apron was trailing. By libidinous The Whale Rider by Wit' Mineral has many important themes that are represented Nanny Flowers has definitely got her winning sides in most of the argument, â€Å"He isn't any chief, I'm his Chief†.This line indicates that Koru Farina isn't in charge in the house and in fact Nanny flowers is the boss of him and not the other way around. In majority of the chapters what ever Nanny Flowers says, it goes. â€Å"He's sleeping in wears the pants in their relationship because from what eve read most of the time its Koru Far ina. Nanny flowers is a strong headed woman and won't let people change her mind quite that easily and she definitely won't let Koru Farina do so.Kaka has to overcome Cork's resistance when Koru rejects her at the very start of her birth because she is not a male and so according to the tradition, cannot be the new because she is a female. Despite trying to prove herself to Koru, he refuses to accept forbidding her to learn the ancient and tribal warrior techniques. She trains in secret and quickly learns faster than the other boys in Cork's training. Kaka shows, Koru Farina was training.

The eNotes Blog 3 Important Ways to Brighten the Future of Reading in theU.S.

3  Important  Ways to Brighten the Future of Reading in theU.S. Reading a great book for pleasure can be a magical experience for kids. It takes them to new places, lets them relive history, and teaches them about worlds they would never encounter in real life. Unfortunately, a study on the state of reading in the United States has recently revealed some disheartening statistics: did you know 66 percent of 8th graders tested below proficient in reading, according to The Nation’s Report Card? The problem: reading is one of the most important skills for a child to have- it will follow them through the rest of their schooling and career, in every way. Luckily, as an educator, you have the power to change these statistics, teaching your students a love of reading that will carry through their entire lives. 83% of kids say they love when parents read a loud to them. In our online world, books are collecting a thick layer of dust, including those in your students’ houses. Start a reading incentive program for students and their parents- the student that reads the most at home each month gets to choose a free book of their choice. Reading together as a family not only helps students build their own love of reading while developing important reading skills, but it also helps to establish a bond between parent and child. The average child spends 7 hours a day in front of a screen. EdTech is the new normal for teachers- and for a good reason. Technology helps you engage students and reach those who are struggling. However, reducing the amount of screen time in the classroom, even once a week, will motivate students to sit down with a book. Not to mention, limiting screen time can have a variety of other non-reading benefits- children who spend more time in front of a screen have more behavioral problems, sleep disorders, and higher rates of obesity. Encourage students to use technology to find the books they want to read- looking up titles on the library’s website- and then sit down in the classroom library to read it. Encourage parents to limit screen time by swapping a TV night for a family book night, where the TV stays off and everyone grabs their favorite book to settle in for a night of reading great stories. You could do this independently or read aloud together as a family. 52% of students love class reading time; only 17% of teachers do this. The best part about this statistic is that kids want to read more in the classroom, independently and as a group. Despite the focus on testing and teaching to the test, there are many ways to build more reading time into the school day. For example: Encourage more students to read aloud  during lessons. Give students 30-minutes of silent reading time once a week. Build reading into other lessons- reading non-fiction books is a great way to explore history, science and geography topics. Assign a weekly current event, requiring each student to read one non-fiction article at least once a week. If you or your school can’t afford more reading materials for the classroom, buy discounted books and magazines when there are small budget openings- the more there is to read, the more likely students are to do it. Reading is one of the most important skills a student can have, and you are in a powerful position to make a change for the better. Consider how you can make a difference in your classroom and motivate parents to do the same at home. This is a guest post from contributing writer, Jessica Thiefels.  Jessica Thiefels is the editor of Whooo’s Reading and an education blogger, who’s been featured in publications such as EdTech Digest and Daily Genius. Her favorite books growing up were My Side of the Mountain and The Giver, and she hopes to inspire a similar love of reading in students and educators.

The influence of Italian Art upon the work of Peter Ruben essays

The influence of Italian Art upon the work of Peter Ruben essays Peter Paul Rubens, a Flemish Baroque painter of the sixteenth and seventeenth Century focused his work namely upon the nude, a typical fixation, especially with Italian based artists during the Renaissance and Mannerism periods. Italy - particularly Florence and Rome was at the heart of the Renaissance A period of New Learning and the rebirth of Classical Art and Literature and therefore produced many prominent artists who inevitably influenced the work of many aspiring young followers of the Renaissance era. However, as the Catholic Church became increasingly unsatisfied with the mannerists work as it no longer honoured the spirituality the Church required. Therefore a new form of art was created Baroque A style of which Ruben was renowned for due to fact that he fundamentally revitalized and redirected Northern European painting as Renaissance art gradually began to lose popularity with secular authorities, yet kept its freedom and classical themes. The Renaissance was a period of great creative inspiration, from which many artists used as a motive to move away from the restrictive methods of Byzantine - a style that framed itself primarily upon the glorification of God. Throughout the 15th century artists studied the natural world, perfecting their understanding of such subjects as anatomy and perspective. The High Renaissance was of the great explosions of creative genius in history, and produced many masterpieces still thought of as irreplaceable to date. Despite this, Rubens was one of the earlier Baroque artists who realised the intricate and over-complicated style of mannerism and late Renaissance work would not achieve any strong emotive outcome. Rubens, raised initially as a Calvinist, taught by humanist scholars and finally re-baptised into Roman Catholicism was inevitably to become an artists who devoted much of his talent into the glorification of religion, which was ...

The Difference between Originality and Plagiarism Essay

The Difference between Originality and Plagiarism - Essay Example Literature review is a must before we can put relevant description on the topic and research question. Our literature review should follow the concept of unity and coherence so that our discussion remains focused throughout. The description that we make out should be well structured and organized. These details are necessary for our analysis part. Analysis is a process systematically employed to arrive at certain deductions logically and scientifically. Description is like a foundation of the building on which whole construction of analysis rests. For a good and meaningful analysis, detailed but pertinent review and description is necessary. Data selection Data selection is an important part of correct analysis. Many scientific researches are not possible without a proper set of data available to researcher. Thus, data collection becomes an important part to steer meaningful research. Data collection becomes more important particularly when research has some quantitative measures to investigate. Depending upon the research question, data could be of either operational in nature such as inventory, cost, payroll, accounting or nonoperational types related to macroeconomic issues. Data also give us the information about past trend. The study of the past trend based on the available data can be extrapolated to give future indications and outcomes. Since the outcomes and results are derived from the collected data, it becomes even more important for us to remain double sure about the authenticity of data. Many marketing issues and strategies are based on several set of data that are collected across wide section of community, their buying behaviors, the demographics and many such factors. The data mining thus becomes important. Authentic data... In order to arrive at the conclusion whether US housing price has any correlation with unemployment rate, we need to have data revealing unemployment rate in last 10 years.Above data when studied in detail reveals a lot regarding some correlation between unemployment rate and housing prices. The U.S. housing price has been on rise since the year 2000 until 2007. The average price rise is found to be about 5% percent or more. The unemployment rate between 2000 and 2007 was hovering between 4 to 6 percent. This unemployment rate had no effect on the uptrend of housing price.  It is a well known fact that market moves up and down as per the demand and supply parameters. It is a fact that during the period a cheap credit was available to borrowers and that fueled the demand. Speculators did enter the market taking advantage of the easy availability of finance. Demand of the housing during the period was made of genuine consumers and speculators; however, as usual speculator’s so le objective is profiting from the deal and they are never long term holders of the commodity and they dump the good as soon as they see the first sign of weakness in the market. Once they became sellers supply increased manifold with demand reducing drastically. That is what happened in the housing market during 2008 and onwards when subprime mortgage crisis surfaced and everybody got in panicky.The whole event culminated into a crisis when economy took downturn and people started losing their jobs.

Why You Should Adopt dogs and not buy them Assignment

Why You Should Adopt dogs and not buy them - Assignment Example ally many benefits that can be enjoyed by both the person in question and the dog that will be adopted if the individual chooses to acquire a pet from a shelter. For example, adopting a pet is more cost effective than buying one. Many rescue groups and city shelters tend to spend a great deal of money on aspects such as regular visits to the veterinarian, boarding costs, and grooming. Many people also do not realize that adopting a pet leaves them with many options in regards generating support groups that help them to live in harmony with their new pet. If an individual buys a dog from a store, he or she assumes all responsibilities for that pet, even with the absence of any past records on the animal. The process of adopting a pet enables the new owner to be furnished with critical information with regard to the animal’s history. Adoption centers such as rescue groups are also more likely to help the new owner with responsibilities through the familiarization period as they are as interested as the owner in ensuring that the dog finds a good home. Service enterprises, such as the Beagle Freedom Project, that deal in the sheltering of dogs are worth researching to discover the different aspects involved in adopting or purchasing dogs. Such organizations tend to keep records on each of their pets, their acclimatization to their new surroundings when they are adopted, and the extent to which they are successfully integrated into their new families. Sarah Kalnajs - Certified Dog Behavior Consultant with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, who also works with shelters provided by associations such as the Beagle Freedom