cbbailey's blog

Intelligent design advocates however are unable to provide true real flaws in evolutionary theory. For the Behe example, he uses the example of the flagellum as a irreducibly complex trait in an organism that therefore it must have been created by a designer. Even if it was even possible to be able to determine if a trait must have been created by a designer, scientist have found that when removing parts of the flagellum that it still functions just not in the same way. This addition on a different function or even addition on to no function can lead traits in organisms that arise naturally that have complex functions that seem irreducibly complex. Another argument we see to try to discredit evolution is in the Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate when Ken brings up how different types of radiometric dating contradict each other when trying to use them to determine the age of the earth. This completely ignores that fact the we understand that certain radioactive isotopes have different half lives and that after a certain amount of time decaying the quantities will be too small to continue to be able to provide accurate readings from and the we know this and factor these things in when we are trying to determine age. Even though that disproving evolution doesn't get the hypothesis of Intelligent design any closer we still dont see any legitimate arguments that are able to poke these hole in evolution and since there is no evidence that intelligence  must have been behind life as we know it there is no real reason to teach this in a science classroom as if it was a real "Controversy"

Intelligent design should not be taught in science classrooms today. The first argument which I have heard and was present in Behe's video comes from this ideal that some things in human biology are irreducibly  complex and therefore must have been designed by some sort of intelligence. The problem with this is that you cannot just propose that something must have been designed by intelligence just because we there potentially may be a flaw in a theory. At the very best even if all of Behe's arguments were proven to be impossible to explain due to evolution, he still hasn't setup the foundation of there must be some intelligence behind. This is a common misconception among people who argue for alternative views of origin of the diversity of life other than evolution, it doesn't matter how much you try to poke holes in evolution even if you were to completely disprove it, it doesn't help prove your theory at all. This fallacy is called a false dichotomy and states that either the theory evolution is true or intelligent design is true therefore if we can disprove one theory the other must be true. This simply isn't true in the real world, there are in fact an infinite number of equally plausible explanations to the theory of Intelligent design therefore in order to proposed ID as some sort of reasonable hypothesis we would need to gather data to prove that it ID matches reality better than any of the other countless explanations.

The last issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion was for the overall effects and benefits of GMO’s. Our first question dealt with if people thought they posed a risk to health or the environment they lived in, which around a 70% majority answered with agreement. This shows that a majority of people believe that at GMO’s have at pose at least some potential risk on their current lives. The last question of our survey asked if people thought the benefits of using GMO’s as food outweigh the risks. This question gave us the most varied response with an almost even split between agreement and disagreement.  This shows us the people still either have a large misunderstanding of either how dangerous GMO’s can be to us or the opposite of how helpful they can be to our lives.

The third issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion for was the level of general education for GMOs in food. Our first question for this was question 8 was to determine general knowledge on the prevalence on how common GMO’s are in our current society. This question showed us intesting results, while the vast majority of answers, 82.5% , agreed with the question that over 50% of processed foods contained Genetic modifications only 45% Strongly agreed that it was over 50%. This leads us with a majority of 55% percent that either thought the statement was incorrect or was not sure that it was correct. The second question for this issue was question 9 consumers on genetically modified foods. This question was answered with a OVERWHELMING majority with 97.5% agreeing with the question, 85% of that was strongly agreeing. This makes sense as more education on a topic leads to people having a better understanding of both the benefits and drawbacks of the situation leading them to be able to make a more informed decision non matter which side they land on.

The second issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion for was in what ways we should be allowed to modify organisms. In our survey we had 4 questions each tackling a different situation to see how people agreed with the used of genetic modification to solve the problem. Questions 4,6 and 7 showed a majority of agreement with 75%, 72.5% and 85% respectively of slight agreement or strong agreement. In contrast however, question 5 only had a 25% agreement rate with 0% of the voters strongly agreeing. Based on this data it seems that people agree with genetically modifying in situations in which there is a problem that needs to be solved but are reluctant in situations in which there is no urgent need to change something. This could potentially be due peoples uncertainty on what all of the side effects of modifying these organisms are. In situations such as question 4,6 and 7 were the effects that these modifications provide is the prevention of human deaths most people are fairy comfortable to accept potential side effects, however in situations such as question 5 were the outcome does not provide some major benefit such as saving human lives, people are much less willing to accept the side effects.

The first issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion for was for government regulation on GMO’s in modern society. Our first question brought up the issue if GMO’s should be required to be labeled on foods containing them which came back as over overwhelmingly agreeable. In general people would rather have the information of what is in what they consume or how it is made regardless of the effects of the product. For question 2 we asked a question regarding if companies should have to seek approval before creating new GMO’s for food which also came back overwhelmingly as strongly or slightly agree. In general it seems that people don't agree with notion that we should just be modifying whatever we see fit without proper procedures in place to protect consumers.

For the concept that these culturale ideas may onday free themselves from our us and begin to move away there may be a chance that something along the lines of this happens. While these ideas will most likely never be able to leave the realm of inside of intelligence due to the nature of them there is a possible that we, as humans may lose control over them. As our technological understanding increases and we get closer and closer to creating true artificial intelligence these ideas will eventually transfer to this other intelligence. This would result in us losing our monopoly over the environment that is these memes and result in us not being the sole dictators of how we wish to shape them. In communities that are completely separated from us human beings, we might see ideas arise that we are unable to comprehend as humans. In this sense I believe that these cultural ideas might be able to free themselves from us however due to the nature of their existence they will always be bound to the ecosystem that is inside some form of intelligence.

These Cultural ideas however are very vulnerable to being exploited by us for our own desires. While these ideas can have unintended consequences that cause them to have a major increase in replication such as the tide pods example, humans can also purposefully artificially craft memes to help spread an idea. In the “can we weaponize memes?” video its takes a very literal and humorous interpretation on how memes could be used as a weapon against a group of people, however these ideas today are already used in this way today due to shaping from human influence. The culturals ideas are commonly used in politics to express and spread one sides political agenda in absence of true data or facts or can seek to belittle or insult people who believe in the opposing view. This purposeful shaping of memes can lead to further decisiveness in ideological views and result in people ignoring alternate points of views due to repeat exposure to the same message and repeat degradation of the other messages.

It is very possible that our cultural ideas are using us to try and survive as best as possible in the ecosystem that is our minds. These cultural idea possess many different qualities that we can parallel to the real world with how life has evolved over time. As stated in the “Ecology of memes” article, these cultural ideas vary in a large number of different traits that can lead to different forms of how they replicate themselves and change overtime. Some examples of things these ideas can differ in for different replication effects would be in Adaptability, ability to assimilate other ideas, the ability be a parasite off of other idea or work together with other ideas in symbiosis. We see these strategies and many more used in cultural ideas trying to survive also long as possible. This use of these strategies to attempt to remain relevant in the minds of humans for as long as possible could be compared to the fact the these cultural ideas might be exploiting us for their own reproductive success. one examples showing directly negative effects from this exploitation would be from the tide pod video. This IDea went around at the expense of the health for many individuals but as a  result I became a huge and widely known idea. Even now, while the trend has died off a lot this idea still sits in the back of our mind due to the effects it has on some individuals in our community.

After acquiring our materials, we will check the local orchards in our area to see if we are able to get permission to obtain the samples. Once we have confirmation that the samples can be taken we have to arrange transportation. Of the 9 locations 3 of them, Kielbasa orchards, South Hadley farm and sentinel farm are accessible via the public bus system while the other 5 require a Car to reach. The exception to this is the sample taken from Orchard hill which is on campus and easily able to be accessed. If there is a lack of ability for us to transport to these locations then one possible alternative would be looking into borrowing the vans from the biology department.