liamharvey's blog

-        Seed Example: Pavlischek then brings up the question of how much a man must support a child beyond its basic needs, as well as what is society’s responsibility when the man cannot provide. In context to the seed example, Pavlischek states that Thomson tries to broaden her defense of abortion from the violinist example, which represented cases of rape. In the seed example, Thomson attempts to suggest that abortion should be permissible when consent is given but an unexpected contraceptive failure took place. In this argument, Thomson argues that pregnancy due to a contraceptive failure bears no “special responsibility” to the parents (345).

Introduction: In this experiment, two pictures were taken of flowering plants; methods were written, and the methods were followed by a peer. Knowing how to write methods effectively is essential because for scientific research to be valid, it must be able to be replicated. This experiment was also important in learning to distinguish the difference between an observation and an inference. Another goal for this experiment was to consider potential factors in the methods and how to control for them. The flowering plant selected was Camellia Japonica. C. Japonica was selected as it was a large tree and was in the first room of the Durfee Conservatory. Ease of access to the subject of the experiment seemed to be an important factor as it would be difficult to replicate the methods if the person following them could not find the plant. Also, this experiment was performed in the winter, so using flowering plants outside was out of the question. Choosing a plant in the Durfee Conservatory meant that the plant would be there for the replicator in the same location and in a location easy to find.

-        Pavlischek’s Focus: Pavlischek states that his focus in his argument is on child abandonment and neglect. More specifically, Pavlischek focuses on child abandonment and neglect. He argues that a man should be able to opt out of child care if a woman has the free will to opt out of a pregnancy (342).

1.      Analysis of Thomson’s View: Pavlischek examines Thomson’s analogies in the context of his argument for male choice in parental care.

-        Violinist Example: Pavlischek refers to Thomson’s violinist example where a woman wakes up to find herself providing life support for a famous violinist against her will. Pavlischek then points out 5 major components of the pro-life argument. With the pro-life argument in context, Pavlischek points out that Thomson does agree that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception. However, with the violinist example, Pavlischek shows that Thomson does not agree that a person’s (fetus’s)r right to life outweighs a woman’s right to choice (343).

-        Corollary: Pavlischek states that following the view that an abortion is the killing of a human being; when abortion is permitted it can lead to further abuse to other susceptible and vulnerable members of society. These members are namely children, the disabled, and elderly. Pavlischek goes further to explain that this corollary is often dismissed as a slippery slope fallacy (341).

-        Child Abandonment and Neglect: Pavlischek explains that children are the most vulnerable in our society and argues that if we are not concerned with the protection of our most vulnerable that we will tend to have a similar attitude to other vulnerable people, like the elderly and disabled (342).

Summary of Pavlischek, “Abortion Logic and Paternal Responsibilities: One More Look at Judith Thomson’s ‘A Defense of Abortion’”

In this article, Pavlischek analyzes Thomson’s argument and analogies from her paper “A Defense of Abortion” to support his theory on the relationship between abortion and paternal care. Pavlischek believes that if women should have the option for on demand abortion, then men should not be legally required to care for a child which they declared they did not want.

1.      Central Pro-life Argument and Corollary: Pavlischek begins by discussing the central argument in the pro-life view, which is that from the moment of conception the fetus is a human being. A fetus being a human being upon conception thus means that an abortion is taking a human life and the legal system should thus protect against such an act.

Study 2: Alcohol-induced performance impairment: a 5-year re-examination study in heavy and light drinkers.

This study compared 86 heavy drinkers to 69 light drinkers in their early adulthood to test if greater experience with drinking can lead to less impaired cognitive and psychomotor performance. The individuals in the experiment were brought in lab and either given a placebo or alcohol, then tested with a grooved peg board (fine motor skills) and a digital substitution test (short-term memory) in 620 laboratory sessions. The researchers found that heavy drinkers did indeed show less impairment in the peg board test, but not in the digital substitution test which tested for short term memory. The light drinkers did not exhibit tolerance on either task. This study shows that both heavy drinkers and light drinkers experience memory impairment from drinking and no signs of tolerance with increased alcohol use.

Article: Mashed Up Memory: How Alcohol Speeds Memory Loss in Men

In this article, the claim is that middle aged men were found to have accelerated memory loss when they drank 2.5 drinks per day. The article said that women were found to not have the same memory loss affect, but were found to have decline in organizational and planning skills. The study was performed by researchers at University College, in London, over 10 years with 5,054 men and 2,099 women. The study described did the first memory test when participants turned 56, and then two more over the next 10 years.

Study 1: Effects of alcohol-induced working memory decline on alcohol consumption and adverse consequences of use.

There were 41 participants, 57.3% of which were men, with a mean age of 39.2 with three sessions of testing which were done in lab. The subjects were found through a previous study on smoking and so were all smokers and drank >5 drinks for men and >4 for women at least twice a month.  The subjects working memory, past 30-day alcohol consumption and consequence of alcohol use was all measured at baseline. After each administration of either a placebo or alcohol, working memory was again measured. They found that as subjects drank more, their working memory declined with it, showing a correlation.

The two pictures are different in that in one picture, the picture was taken from above where in the other it was taken from the side. The differences between the two photo angels causes the shadows in each picture to be very different. The first picture has much larger shadows. In the first picture, the apple is on its side. In the second picture, the apple is upright. These differences are both due to the author of the methods failing to mention the angle of the picture that they took. As well as not mentioning the orientation of the object that were taken pictures of.

The two pictures are different in that in one picture, the picture was taken from above where in the other it was taken from the side. The differences between the two photo angels causes the shadows in each picture to be very different. The first picture has much larger shadows. In the first picture, the apple is on its side. In the second picture, the apple is upright. These differences are both due to the author of the methods failing to mention the angle of the picture that they took. As well as not mentioning the orientation of the object that were taken pictures of.

You can observe that someone is running across campus. An inference would be that they are late to class and running there.