Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Rx for Survival: The Forgotten Link Between Health and Wealth

Globally nations have begun to promote an increase in aid beginning with the Millennium Development Project, though little action has actually been taken since.  According to Adam Smith the government has three main duties: providing for its own defense, development of a justice system, and the construction and maintenance of public facilities and services.  Britain was the first to really get the building of public works aspect with its construction of the sewage and water system, which put a stop to the cholera epidemic that swept the European continent and Britain in the 19^th century.  The Asiatic cholera had decimated the port towns of Germany and Russia, having proceeded up the Caspian from India in previous years.  Cholera was a disease alike none other than had been seen before in the Isles; it was a quick killer, acting at a furious pace and spreading quickly.  During the epidemic nearly half of those who became infected died.  It first appeared in the port town of Sunderland, which would later order the port closed and the city quarantined.  Locals, denying its existence, revolted against the quarantine.  Only six months later more than 20,000 throughout England had died from the cholera that had spread from Sunderland.  It took much time and work, but thanks to the efforts of Edwin Chadwick and John Snow it was proven to the powers that be that the disease was transmitted through the water, specifically the water which was becoming contaminated by the sewage.  They proposed to Parliament the construction of a great water and sewage system.  Though they had sufficiently proven that source of the illness was not that the people were poor and bad off, it was that the conditions they were forced in to – poor housing and sanitation – was only making things worse, Parliament did not act until the stench of the open sewers forced them to evacuate the Parliament building.  The construction of the system was perhaps the most expensive public works project in the world’s history at the time, but the results were instantaneous with the cholera epidemic ceasing.  After this the rest of the industrial world soon followed suit in their public works efforts.  The wellness of the nations created a huge economic boom.  The link between health and disease prevention and the economy was lost after the Second World War.  After WWII the World Bank was created with the motif that if a company is going to grow economically, then it is required to have great capital for investment in industry, transportation, and business.  From this idea it was expected that the leading nations would aid the poorer nations with copious capital enabling them to pull themselves up.  The idea of human capital, the health and wealth of the people, was overlooked in the formation of these development projects.  Too much money had been dedicated to building roads and factors and not enough to the health of the population. 

Investing in Health

With the 1993 publication of Investing in Health by the World Bank, the idea of investing in the health and education of the people as a way to stimulate economic growth in the poor nations of the world was relit.  Much of the progress which humanity has made is due to the creation and distribution of wealth, but health and wellbeing plays a large part as well.  The easiest way for governments of poor nations to improve the health of its citizens is to spend less money on the bigger, more ineffective measures like hospitals and to focus more on smaller services such as immunizations and prevention combined with clinics.  The economic-health link has been restated with data collected that shows, all other things being equal between similar nations, the country with a longer life span will have an economic increase of .3 to .5 percent in addition each year.  A healthier population is more productive and misses less time from work due to illness, often strive for higher education or knowledge, save and invest money for old age, and has less children as a whole.  Recently a trend has developed to shift from the old ways of analysis, the Gross Domestic Product, to newer statistics such as full income and DALY.  The full income includes a figure for life expectancy to the data set, while the DALY is the disability-adjusted life year, which allows for a measure of those between health and death, where before there was none.  The central issues for why investment into human capital is necessary are that without assistance these poorer countries could become trapped in a situation that they could not revive themselves from, disease is the greatest barrier to economic growth, and the simplest or most easily treated diseases are the ones which wreak the most havoc.  The failure of poorer nations is best forecasted by partial democracy regimes and most notably high rates of infant mortality.  Human health is a great issue for national and international security and stability and as such needs to be addressed financially in order to avoid catastrophe. 

If Not Now, When?

The Global Fund, recently created, is a new type of aid organization: it collects funds from donor nations and private parties and gives them out as grants, not as loans which can cause a burden on the receiving nation.  It analyzes the proposal projects, developed within the nations themselves, monitors the spending of the project’s funds, and measures the efficiency of the projects.  The Global Fund is what new aid organizations should use as a template for their activity.  Since the end of World War II, specifically the end of the Marshall Reconstruction Plan, foreign aid given by the United States has fallen from 3 percent of the GDP to .16 percent, though many U.S. citizens believed that we were spending much more.  According to a 2001 study by the WHO currently the world is spending about $6 billion on aid, while it sees that $27 billion is the minimum to cover the most basic of necessities.  This increase would only be about .1 percent of the GDPs of the world’s wealthier nations.  The nations of the world have agreed that more money is needed, but have not acted as such.  The major nations need to commit to large sums of money for aid purposes and the world’s aid agencies need to be reformed and made more transparent.  The most recent globalization is at a point of strife; if action is not taken soon against the plagues of the poorer nations, it could spell disaster just as the globalizations of the 19^th century led to World War I and the failure to address those same issues led to the re-ignition of the European fire that was World War II.

Conclusion

Studies and research has shown that health aid projects can be successful.  The projects must be large, national or global in scale, address major public health problems, with the effects being obvious, be very cost-effective over a long time period.  It is possible to achieve success in even the most poor of nations, regardless of the corruption in government.  The governments, while poor, are still very important in the utilization and creation of health means.  Technology and modern medicine is great, however the simplest of ideas can create a great change in people’s wellbeing.  The governments of poor nations and nongovernmental organizations can work together on projects of their own without the assistance of donor nations. 

 Readings above may have been drawn from the following sources:

Six Modern Plagues and How We are Causing Them, Mark Jerome Walters; Shearwater Books, 2003, ISBN 155963992X

Life Support, The Environment and Human Health, Michael McCally, editor, MIT Press, 2002, ISBN 0-262-63257-8

Rx for Survival,  Philip Hilts, Pengquin Books.  ISBN 0-7394-6974-6

Emerging Infectious Diseases,  Stuart A. Hill, Pearson Eductation Inc., publishing as Benjamin Cummings.  ISBN 0-8053-3955-8

Under the Weather:  Climate, Ecosystems and Infectious Disease, National Research Council, National Academy Press.  ISBN 0-309-07278-6

This article originally written December 8th, 2008 for OU IPE 3913 - Human Health, Disease, and the Environment.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Under the Weather: Key Findings and Recommendations

            Many infectious diseases are influenced by weather and climate change as can be seen by the varying distribution of different diseases.  Temperature, precipitation, and humidity directly influence the behavior of diseases and their carriers.  Other factors including government health services, clean water and properly maintained sewage, population variations and travel, as well as land use can affect diseases.  Many models for studying the dynamics of disease have been developed, however they are not intended to be used as predictive or early warning systems.  It is not currently known for certain what impact global climate change could have on disease: while global warming could alter the range of current diseases, other factors such as improved housing, sanitation, and public health systems could offset any negative impacts from climate change.  New diseases may emerge from the increased rate of evolution in pathogens due to climate change, though this is highly uncertain.  It is an extremely slippery slope when attempting to extrapolate the data from one time and region to a larger scale; global climate change may have an effect on regional or seasonal climate patterns that is unforeseen.  The ever-increasing technological backing will only help to increase the accuracy and speed with which models and predictive systems can be developed. 

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Under the Weather: Toward the Development of Disease Early Warning Systems

Until now there has been very little progress made in the development of early warning systems for infectious disease.  However, just like weather forecasts, earlier warnings are usually much less certain.  The simplest and most used warning system is the use of sentinel animals in regions of high risks: these practices give highly predictive results but leave officials with very little reaction time for prevent further spread of disease.  The best method to be used is through ecological observation and climate forecasts issuing disease watches in order to minimize its transmission.  These watches can be used to determine which areas need to be most carefully surveyed for disease outbreaks, much like watches and warnings are used in the informing of communities on the potential of severe weather in an area.  Early warning systems should be used as devices which will enable national and local institutions as well as individuals to make decisions regarding a potential threat and to improve the coordination between them.  An early warning systems consists of watches and warnings about a particular risk, combined with vulnerability assessments which determine which groups are most susceptible to a disease, and risk analysis which will help determine the potential fallout of a disease on an area or group.  A good system must end with a response strategy and public communication system to quickly inform the public about the risks, potential outcomes, how best to be prepared.  The systems need make use of the epidemiological surveillance systems that are currently in use and follow a standard method of practice and allow for quick analysis and dissemination of information.  Up until now most surveillance methods have focused on the particular effect and end result of a disease, but need to include changes in vector populations which may employ using sentinel animals for analysis.  The systems will need to make use of new remote-sensing technologies for the analysis of ecology.  The vulnerability assessment is a description of how sensitive a population is to a particular disease and should be combined with surveillance systems thereby allowing the development of control strategies.  Risk analysis provides the probability that a particular hazard will affect an area or population.  Usually the development of scientific prediction methods greatly outpaces the development of warning systems which use this information; from this response plans need to be developed which consider the costs and potential pitfalls of possible response plans for local communities.  The people and organizations disseminating the system information need to have good credibility and trust by the persons within the community and must be sure to properly explain and educate the public on the risks in order to prevent overreaction and panic. 

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Under the Weather: Temporal and Spatial Scaling

Though climate varies naturally over time, recent global warming is of great concern.  The many parts of an area’s ecology such as soil fertility, species variability, and organic growth rates and reproductive cycles vary with changes in altitude and latitude; these differences are known as the spatial climate gradients.  Too cold nights and winters and too warm days and summers have drastic impact on the populations and geographic range of disease carriers and can also have an effect on the organisms of disease as well.  Climate variability taking place over the time frame from biyearly to every decade is due to atmospheric, oceanic, and cosmological influences, such as sunspots.  These changes can result in multi-year droughts, monsoons lasting for decades, and vastly different hurricane activities, which have all been shown to affect productivity of plant life, likelihood of bird reproduction, and an increase in insect population.  Longer time scales such as that of the little ice age can cause great population range shifts or possibly extinction.  The recent global warming has resulted in earlier springs, declines in the populations of birds, mammals, and amphibians, and a change in geography for butterfly, bird, and marine invertebrates.  While the average temperature has been increasing globally over the last century, of greater concern is the extreme temperature increases, higher in mid-day and lower in mid-night, which has been shown to have a greater impact on animal and plant species’ population and range.  Recently experimental manipulation has been used in either localized outdoor environments or in laboratories to analyze what effects climate change could have on the ecosystem by altering the temperature of soil and air and type and amount precipitation or combination of the alterations: the growth rates of plants, invertebrate organism population, plant reproduction, and soil organism and chemical make-up have all been shown to be affected.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Linkages Between Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease

Weather and climate are different ideas in similar fields of study.  Weather is the measurement of temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind daily whereas climate measures these factors over a long period of time.  Climate is an average and varies with geography and time.   The average temperature of an area decreases by 6.5 degrees C with every 1000 meter change vertically and decreases 5 degrees C with every 1000 kilometer change from the equator.   The range with which temperature fluctuates due to the seasons is greater towards the poles, with much less change experienced near the equator.  There are many climate cycles occurring from yearly to millennially and some occurring as little as every 100,000 years; these oscillations can cause temperature shifts as high as 10 degree C.  Since the Industrial Revolution, and more notably in the last twenty years, the global average temperature has begun to increase yearly and is predicted to continue increasing several degrees in the next century.  The basis for good predictive weather and climate models does not rest solely on the atmosphere but also in surface variations, especially the oceans.  Currently weather prediction is only effective on a timescale of less than two weeks, while climate models are limited to seasonal or greater timescales.  Including the effects of ocean, atmosphere, and land may make climate models sufficient for shorter timescales and weather prediction for greater timescales.  With infectious disease, the number of cases that indicates and epidemic will vary with each particular disease, region, and time.  Emerging disease can be due to climatic or ecological change, which causes a greater number of people to come into contact with a natural reservoir of infection.  Diseases can be transmitted either directly, due to contact with an agent, or indirectly, through a natural reservoir or host.  Many studies of infectious disease use the SEIR framework:  S. The proportion of people who are able to become infected E. Within that same group, those who have had contact with the agent but who have not become infected I.  The number of people within S group who have contracted the disease R. The number of people who have been removed from the original group S due to either death or immunity.   SEIR attempts to account for the many different factors in disease studies such as population size and density, demographics, connectivity patterns, and immunity.  Diseases and natural reservoirs have environmental conditions that are both favorable and not for the spread of particular diseases which include precipitation, temperature, humidity, and ultraviolet radiation.  Most diseases are sensitive to changes in temperature with regards to their dissemination, replication, and movement.  Climate change over the long-term may result in increased intensity and occurrence in extreme weather events, where the direct impact is obviously more deaths due to disasters, though potentially and indirectly an increase in infectious disease outbreaks.  The diseases associated with flooding are well known while droughts are not nearly as studied, though a disease would not affect a crisis area should it not have been present in the system before the extreme event and had not be introduced.  There are many other factors that influence disease dynamics including land use, migration of disease and hosts, the societal makeup of populations, and public health services.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Under the Weather: Executive Summary

Changes in climate can affect the movement pattern of infectious diseases due to the fact that the microorganisms and their carriers are equally prey to changes in temperature, moisture, and other environmental changes, though other diseases such as HIV or Hepatitis do not have the same causal relationship with the environment because they are transmitted through direct human interaction.  In 2001 the National Research Council was asked to study the issue of the environment, its change, and the possible effect on human health and disease.  Specifically they reviewed: 1. possible connections between the variations of time and space with respect to the climate and the transmission of disease 2. Studying the possibility of creating warning and surveillance systems for climate affected diseases 3. Investigating possible future studies on the relationship of disease, climate, and human health.  Multiple disciplines, whom usually do not work together or in similar fashion, were required for the project due to the multidisciplinary nature of the issue.  Temperature, precipitation, and humidity directly and indirectly change the life of many infectious diseases and their vectors, though they are also affected by the sanitation and health services provided within a region, the density of human or vector population, changes in ecology, and organism travel habits.  Many studies have been conducted on the effect of climate change on disease however they have not been able to account for the many variables that lie under the function of diseases and are not reliable for predicting future change.  The impact of climate change on disease has yet to be well sorted out, though many believe that global warming could have an adverse impact, however human adaptations and health services could potentially prevent or reduce such impacts.  New diseases may emerge or old diseases reemerge in newly evolved forms due to ecosystem changes.  Studies of the relationship are dependent on local, small scale which make it difficult to enlarge the results to a larger scale relationship.  Long term climate change could have a vastly different effect than short term climate change such as ENSO.  Advances in technology will allow for the analysis and more detailed studies.  Historically the strategy has been to survey and respond to disease threats, but in the future hope is for a predict and prevent strategy.  Climate forecasts and observations could be used in identifying high risk areas and preventing the or reducing their occurrence.  A general understanding of the relationship may allow for some form of early warning system at a low cost, but some may require a more costly prediction system, depending on the particular disease and region.  Systems will only be beneficial if the operating agency has the sufficient resources to act upon their results.  Climate forecasts must also be combined with meteorological, ecological, and epidemiological systems to work properly as an advanced warning system.  Public health officials and government agencies must work in conjunction with one another for the systems to have their desired effect.  The research into these relationships has only just begun and has a long road to traverse before it can become effective.  The data set involving disease, climate, and geography need be greatly increased for prediction models to even be a possibility.  The interdisciplinary collaboration in universities and private institutions need be greatly increased.  New disease will always have the upper hand in the battle, however the goal should be to reduce people vulnerability to disease.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Life Support: Environmental Endocrine Disruption

Chemicals found in the environment have effects on fetuses much more than on adults because even the slightest of changes in the hormone levels of the undeveloped human can have very drastic consequences.  These chemicals are able to directly bind to or block the hormone receptors making gene transcription initiated by the hormone receptors erroneous.  Similar exposure levels in adults do not show nearly as great physiological changes.  Possible abnormalities include feminization of males, abnormal sexual behavior, birth defects, altered sex ratio, lower sperm density, decreased testis size, altered time to puberty, cancers of the mammary glands or testis, reproductive failure and thyroid dysfunction.  Studies that have been conducted have difficulty in consistency due to the time between exposure and the resultant effects, such as cancer showing decades after first exposure, and finding a control population, since any control population is going to already have some degree of exposure.  Organochlorine contaminated food has been shown to affect the brain development of lab animals and children exposed have shown delayed psychomotor development and increased distractibility.  Some pesticides result in decreased brain density of some nerve receptor types and hyperactive behavior.  Because hormones act at such low levels even the slightest of chemical exposure can result in very bad developmental effects.  One of the main failures of past studies is their focus on the individual rather than the population as a whole, though the size and seriousness of the health threat is still uncertain.  Work by the International Joint Commission, United States and Canada, has begun striving towards the elimination of volatile chemicals.  They hope for zero discharge of chemicals from human activities, analysis of chemical effects from creation to destruction and afterwards, and reversing the burden of proof from showing that a chemical is harmful to showing that a chemical is not harmful before it is allowed to be used.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Life Support: Urban and Transboundary Air Pollution

Since the Industrial Revolution people have been studying the effects of pollutants on lung disease.  During the Industrial Revolution entire communities of North America and Europe fell seriously ill or died from air pollutants.  These episodes were a result of air stagnation, which increased the concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere, more specifically those of sulfur dioxide and suspended particulates.  Because of these episodes scientists and governments began studying the adverse effects of pollution – identifying the sources of pollutants, and discovering exposure-response relationships, eventually leading to controls against pollution.  Because the air cannot be contained pollution is able to travel across borders.  Poorer nations generally have a greater problem with pollution than wealthier ones, especially due to the heavy use of coal for power and heating.  The countries which have found ways to reduce the emissions of pollutants from industry, power plants, and automobiles have created new problems via the formation of acids and ozone from their outputs.  The most common adverse health effects due to pollution are caused by sulfur dioxide, particulates, photochemical oxidants, ozone and nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide.  Sulfur dioxide is a result of the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal and crude oil, generally affiliated with power plants and oil refineries.  Great reductions in the measurements of sulfur dioxide and related pollutants were achieved after the Clean Air Act of 1970s America.  However, the tall stacks which were implemented merely send the pollutants higher into the atmosphere where they are able to change into acid aerosols.  Particulates are the result of industrial activity which put off particles into the air which do not easily dissipate.  Particulate counts have been shown related with an increase in mortality rates.  Finer particles have been shown to be much more detrimental to respiratory systems than more coarse particles. In areas with high particulate levels deaths in children from respiratory illnesses is equally high.  In the developing world only infant diarrhea accounts for more deaths in children under the age of five.  Ozone and nitrogen dioxide are most commonly produced by sunlight on the output of automobiles.  When the amount of sunlight is greatest during the summer the greatest amount of ozone is produced.  The safest area to avoid exposure to ozone is indoors because ozone seems to be unable to contact surfaces chemically unchanged.  Carbon monoxide is another major automobile emission.  Many major U.S. cities have exceedingly unhealthy levels of carbon monoxide.  Carbon monoxide impairs the transport of oxygen throughout the cardiovascular system, the effects of which can be headache, dizziness, fatigue, and even death.  Poorer nations who use wood, crop residues, animal dung, and other carbon based fuels for cooking and heating are especially at risk for indoor pollution.  The government has failed greatly in studying the problem of pollution indoors.  Nations need to work together in finding solutions to the ever-growing pollution problem, as it is a global issue not only local one.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Meat can be Murder…

Vegetarianism has potential health benefits such as a lowered risk of heart disease and cancer, however vegetarians are not the only ones who can achieve these advantages.  As far as public health is concerned, simply reducing the intake of saturated fats would have a great impact.  The total meat consumption of the average American was fifty seven pounds more in 2000 than in 1950.  The foods that contain unhealthy amounts of saturated fats raises the risk of heart disease and stroke and increases cholesterol.  Also, cooking some meats at high temperatures, required for the elimination of some bacteria, can produce chemicals believed to be potential human carcinogens.  High intake of well cooked meat has been shown to increase the risk of developing colorectal and breast cancer.  Eating much charred or burned meat is very likely unhealthy.  Consuming more meat than is necessary for the human body will merely cause the body to eliminate it through the urinary tract putting additional strain on the kidneys in order to metabolize it.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

The Fatal Harvest – Industrial Agriculture Will Feed the World

Around 800 million people go hungry daily, and even in the United States where we export more food than we consume 33 million people go without food.  The industrial agriculture corporations want the public believe that this hunger is due to the fact that there is not enough food produced in the world to supply all its populace.  They purport the lies that increased chemical agriculture will provide for an adequate increase in food surpluses so that there will no longer be any starving people.  However, in reality, the rate of food production has actually been adequate for the population and in the last 35 years has actually outpaced the growth of the worlds population by 16 percent per capita.   There is enough food produced throughout the world to provide for 4.3 pounds of food per person daily: many times more than necessary.  The true cause of starvation and world hunger is poverty.  After large conglomerates began buying up farm land the people who once depended on this land for their sustenance no longer had a source of preservation.  Many of these people then moved towards the industrialized cities to fight amongst the masses for low paying wages in dangerous factories.  “If you don’t have land on which to grow food or the money to buy it, you go hungry no matter how dramatically technology pushes up food production.”  Those who are still able to farm the land must pay greater costs for the technologically infused seeds and machinery and end up getting less for their crop than they once would.  This price is not however reflected in the base cost of the consumer due to the large mark-up from the middle man.  The large corporations could help the situation in their local communities by growing staple crops but choose instead to grow luxury high-profit crops which will fetch a greater amount of money when exported to the rich. 

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Diet for a Dead Planet

Farming, while once thought of as one of the kinder industries to the environment, is now finding itself more destructive than many of the more feared industrious wasters.  Farmers have failed to follow pollution controls long established in other industries.  Pesticides, fertilizers, and animal waste combine in the farming industry’s toll on the environment.  No longer do most farmers practice crop rotation which keeps the topsoil fertile and prevents any one species of insect from gaining any advantage.  Instead, due to government subsidies for individual crops, farmers practice monocroping which drains the soil of its nutrients and allows particular pest species to become dominant.   This requires the farmers to apply fertilizers to the soil in order for the crops to have sufficient nutrients and pesticides to the plants and area to rid of the pests.  The pests who survive the chemical invasion reproduce and become all that much more virulent as the new population finds itself immune to the previous pesticides.  Thereafter the farmer must implore alternative, sometimes stronger pesticides.  All of these chemicals seep into the ground, sometimes spoiling water aquifers, wash down into nearby streams and creeks, become lodged inside the crop itself, and evaporate into the atmosphere.  Probably the biggest criminal of agribusiness though are the animal factories.  Here, thousands of hogs, chickens, or cows stand day after day in a pen just large enough for their frames eating protein-laden foods and ingesting antibiotics, while the urine and feces rains down through slats in the floor.  All this waste flows like a river into a large tub sitting nearby where it gets taken into nearby waterways and absorbed into the sky.  Research by the EPA has shown that this animal waste is the largest contributor to pollution in American waterways. 

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Six Modern Plagues,  Chapter 5:  A Spring to Die For: Hantavirus

                Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a disease that has existed in the American Southwest since, at the very least, the time of Columbus’s exploration.  It invades the lungs of its victim and causes them to drown in their own fluid.  The disease is transmitted by the urine or saliva of mice.  When there is a great increase in the mouse population of the area there is a proportionate increase in the number of Hantavirus cases.  This was especially the case when in 1993 there was a great outbreak of the virus which has since been attributed to the recent heavy rains caused by El Nino.  Though the Navajo had knowledge of the disease for centuries before, what emerged for the rest of Americans was “a powerfully new, encompassing view of humans not as a stand-alone species but as just one species among many in a web of climate, ecology, and intertwined fates.”  The spring of 1993, just as the months before previous outbreaks, had seen a huge explosion of the mouse population in nearby rural areas.  The abundance of mice thereafter ventured into the cities and residential areas where the spread the disease to humans.

Selected Readings on Human Health, Disease, and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Human Health, Disease, and the Environment. 

Six Modern Plagues: Introduction

Fifty years ago the people of the west believed that humanity was nearing a point where no longer would we need to worry about sickness.  Medicine had developed to a point where it seemed that it had an answer for every infectious disease in existence.  In reality, though, the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries were merely the calm before the storm.  Today new diseases are being discovered at a rate faster than any previous time in history.  Many of these are diseases which have long existed in other species but due to humanity’s changing of its environment they are now jumping ship from their previous bodies to us.  This change is occurring because people are now invading land which they have never before occupied; forcing bacteria and viruses to evolve and adapt to their newfound hosts.  Evolution usually occurs naturally over long periods of time but in today’s age the great ecological change being caused by humans is speeding up this process.  Not only are these new diseases on the rise, but old diseases which have been lying dormant are beginning to re-emerge.  Diseases such as small pox and leprosy were not long ago thought to have been completely eradicated but they are beginning to return and in strains which the old cures and vaccines have no affect on.  The problem is that the speed with which our microbial enemies evolve and adapt is increasing and humanity is directly responsible.  Our ever increasing destruction of natural habitat, invasion of areas where we have not previously inhabited, and shift from a sedentary lifestyle to daily transcontinental travel is merely speeding up this process.  A change in dominators has already begun.  We will lose the ability to regain upper hand if we do not soon change our ways.

Selected Readings on Food, Agriculture and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Food, Agriculture and the Environment. 

The Eco-Foods Guide: Foreword/Introduction

According to the experiences of Lappe, the better food you choose for yourself, the more pleasurable eating becomes. The greatest downfall of people’s eating habits today is making the quick and easy choice of fast-food restaurants or processed foods from the supermarket.  These kind of simplicities are the root cause of our nation’s greatest epidemic, obesity.  The key factor in the explosive rate of obesity is the processed, sugared, salty, fatty, meat-centered diet of the majority of Americans.  It is a diet unlike anything our species has encountered before.  We are the only species that knowingly consumes food that will eventually result in its own destruction.  Humans are able to eat a lot of sugar and fat in a single sitting; this trait served people well before agriculture, when food was needed to be stored internally after a big kill or find, but is now our bane.  What we eat has a great effect on the environment as well, though most academics would have dismissed such ideas until recently.  The best food for us is the food that is best for Mother Earth and people generally want to purchase the foods which are good for them as well as good for the Earth: it is only a matter of the availability and knowledge of product. 

Selected Readings on Food, Agriculture and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Food, Agriculture and the Environment. 

Diet for a Dead Planet: Killing Fields

Farming, while once thought of as one of the kinder industries to the environment, is now finding itself more destructive than many of the more feared industrious wasters.  Farmers have failed to follow pollution controls long established in other industries.  Pesticides, fertilizers, and animal waste combine in the farming industry’s toll on the environment.  No longer do most farmers practice crop rotation which keeps the topsoil fertile and prevents any one species of insect from gaining any advantage.  Instead, due to government subsidies for individual crops, farmers practice monocroping which drains the soil of its nutrients and allows particular pest species to become dominant.   This requires the farmers to apply fertilizers to the soil in order for the crops to have sufficient nutrients and pesticides to the plants and area to rid of the pests.  The pests who survive the chemical invasion reproduce and become all that much more virulent as the new population finds itself immune to the previous pesticides.  Thereafter the farmer must implore alternative, sometimes stronger pesticides.  All of these chemicals seep into the ground, sometimes spoiling water aquifers, wash down into nearby streams and creeks, become lodged inside the crop itself, and evaporate into the atmosphere.  Probably the biggest criminal of agribusiness though are the animal factories.  Here, thousands of hogs, chickens, or cows stand day after day in a pen just large enough for their frames eating protein-laden foods and ingesting antibiotics, while the urine and feces rains down through slats in the floor.  All this waste flows like a river into a large tub sitting nearby where it gets taken into nearby waterways and absorbed into the sky.  Research by the EPA has shown that this animal waste is the largest contributor to pollution in American waterways. 

Selected Readings on Food, Agriculture and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Food, Agriculture and the Environment. 

Against the Grain: Hog Heaven

Human beings have a need for agriculture, or at least for its byproduct food, however agriculture hasn’t a need for human beings in the sense that it evolves regardless of the needs of humanity.  For thousands of years people had a deep connection with the food that they consumed, but with the appearance of the industrialism on the scene food became seen less as a link to nature and more as a detriment to human advancement.  This change in thinking required for our food to become more processed in order for it to no longer appear natural.  The beginning of this process was with the fad diets of the mid 1800s which had the goal of bettered bowel movements through the consumption of the necessary processed foods, many coming solely from grain.  Grain made the perfect crop for this process, for in its natural state it is not able to be consumed.  Wheat requires, at a minimum, hulling, grinding, and cooking.  This is distinctly more complex than the simple consumption of most vegetables and fruits, of which man had been accustomed to for millennia.  Grains have as a primary ingredient starch, which is a complex carbohydrate.  Starch can be processed into sugar, and from this idea was born the entire industry of processed foods and the conversion of crop foods into commodities.  From this eventually came corn syrup and in the 60s high fructose corn syrup, which is a key ingredient in nearly every packaged food to this day.  These foods gave people a convenience and appearance of status never before afforded to the lower classes of society.  These ideals still permeate our culture to this day in the wealth of fast food available throughout every town and city of America.  The mass marketing and processing of grains as commodities has provided people with “cheap” and “easy” calories, though at the great cost of our own health.

Selected Readings on Food, Agriculture and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Food, Agriculture and the Environment. 

Against the Grain: Hard Times

The movement of Europeans to the lands of the New World extended the average life span by decades.  One of the chief reasons for this drastic change was that those new to the western world were actually eating healthier.  The Americas had greater food, both in quantity and quality.  The first recorded famines occurred some six thousand years ago, a phenomenon Manning directly attributes to agriculture.  Most of the great nations of the colonial age were able to alleviate many of their famine problems with the expansion and movement of the population outside of their borders.  China, however, did not become imperialistic – at least in the colonial sense of the word – and so many of the same famine problems persist today. Famine is the one of nature’s solutions to the population explosion inherent with agriculture: the other being expansion.  The argument that Manning and many others would make, of why famine still persists to this day, is that the problem rests with the hierarchical structure of agriculture; while we have reached a point where our technology and tactics are sufficient to feed the world, the poverty of the hungry is the greatest cause.  Famine in Europe finally began to see a downturn with the introduction of New World crops into the agricultural system there.  While most of the poor throughout Europe were feeding daily on wheat, the potato took hold in Ireland, a land where virtually no edible staple crops could be grown.  The potato took root on the island and by the eighteenth century was the sole food of most Irish, most eating up to six pounds a day.  This surplus of food saw the usual trend of population explosion with it doubling by the mid nineteenth century. In 1845 a catastrophe took place on the island – the same that any monocrop society will eventually face.  The potato began fighting a great plague, without success.  Over the next sixty years almost half of population, that gained from the potato boom, would succumb to starvation or emigrate out of the nation.  The potato forever left its mark on Ireland and the Irish people.

Selected Readings on Food, Agriculture and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Food, Agriculture and the Environment. 

The Fatal Harvest – Industrial Agriculture Will Feed the World

Around 800 million people go hungry daily, and even in the United States where we export more food than we consume 33 million people go without food.  The industrial agriculture corporations want the public believe that this hunger is due to the fact that there is not enough food produced in the world to supply all its populace.  They purport the lies that increased chemical agriculture will provide for an adequate increase in food surpluses so that there will no longer be any starving people.  However, in reality, the rate of food production has actually been adequate for the population and in the last 35 years has actually outpaced the growth of the worlds population by 16 percent per capita.   There is enough food produced throughout the world to provide for 4.3 pounds of food per person daily: many times more than necessary.  The true cause of starvation and world hunger is poverty.  After large conglomerates began buying up farm land the people who once depended on this land for their sustenance no longer had a source of preservation.  Many of these people then moved towards the industrialized cities to fight amongst the masses for low paying wages in dangerous factories.  “If you don’t have land on which to grow food or the money to buy it, you go hungry no matter how dramatically technology pushes up food production.”  Those who are still able to farm the land must pay greater costs for the technologically infused seeds and machinery and end up getting less for their crop than they once would.  This price is not however reflected in the base cost of the consumer due to the large mark-up from the middle man.  The large corporations could help the situation in their local communities by growing staple crops but choose instead to grow luxury high-profit crops which will fetch a greater amount of money when exported to the rich. 

Paradigm Shift of the Hellenistic Period

Prompt: Many historians characterize early Greek science, from the Presocratics to Aristotle, as a golden age of physics (despite the fact that early Greek physics was not quantitative in character). For the Hellenistic period, in contrast, the discoveries of mathematicians (including mathematical astronomers and mathematical geographers) stand out more than those of the physicists. Do you agree that there was a general shift from physics to mathematics in the Hellenistic period? If so, what might have caused or contributed to it, and why is it significant?

Selected Readings on Food, Agriculture and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Food, Agriculture and the Environment. 

The Eco-Foods Guide: What Does IPM Mean?

IPM, integrated pest management, is a middle ground between organic and conventional agriculture.  IPM uses complex planning and processes that are biologically, chemically, and culturally different than organic and conventional growing.  IPM attempts to rid crop fields of pests, only using chemicals as a last resort.  IPM is a multidisciplinary approach involving agronomy, pathology, entomology, weed science, agricultural economics, and much more.  Much of the work involved in IPM is in planning: preparing for the coming pests and making attempts to prevent their inhabitation.  A commonly used mechanic is the use of insect pheromones to confuse a population.  The pheromones can distract the insects enough to keep them from destroying a harvest.  Also, with using “bait” crops and inserting predator bugs into a field, an even greater reduction of chemical use is achieved.  Though IPM seems to preach the reduction of pesticide use, it seems that often its practitioners merely try to limit the negative effects of its use such as the use of planting vegetation along stream banks to prevent runoff.

The Aristotelian Teaching Method

"Aristotle prevailed through persuasion, not coercion." (David Lindberg, 1992, p. 68; 2007, p. 66.) 

Arriving at the first day of class most students, having not previously encountered their professor, will likely not know what the class will be like or how it is going to be taught.  I believe that there are three methods of teaching which one can expect as being the primary form of the class.  The professor may, upon entering, go right on in to lecturing his personal beliefs or that of the majority consensus without mention of opposing views.  A second possibility is a professor who does not really lecture at all.  You may find this teaching method used in many of the philosophy classes on campus.  The professor will often bring up a subject and then require the class to proceed to teach themselves with the occasional prod or redirection via designed questions.  While this method does have its benefits, it has often-times seemed like a much better approach would be method three in which the instructor presents his own and other varying viewpoints and allows the students to make up their own minds on the subject.  It is my belief that people cannot be taught like the contents of a high school history book.  “It is this way” or “This is how it happened”.  When people learn in that context they lose the capability to reason for themselves and they never acquire the ability to question the norm.

What's Science Ever Done For Us?

            The science that appears in the episodes of The Simpsons is often times a dumbed-down, simplified, or petite version of “real world” science.  The Simpsons is not a substitute for classical education, an AP Physics class or an astronomy lab, it is merely an open door to a new world of experience and perhaps even providing the push necessary towards a formal learning.  The Simpsons has, until recent years, been pushing the boundaries of the television censors.  It pretty much perfected the social commentary and political satire that saturates every adult themed cartoon. 

Selected Readings on Food, Agriculture and the Environment

The following are responses and summaries of various readings related to Food, Agriculture and the Environment. 

The Eco-Foods Guide: Don’t Worry Buy Local

The further our food travels, the more costly it is to both us and the environment.  With the advent and widespread use of transit technology farmers, in the 1800s, began to see the financial benefits of producing for the major metropolitan areas in the northeast.  As this sector grew, so too did the number of hands which the food went through before reaching the consumer.  With the passing of NAFTA in the early nineties more and more farming operations are being moved south into Mexico and other Latin countries where the chemical restrictions on farms are much less strict.  Often food bought from the supermarket has taken weeks to reach the shelves, whereas purchasing from a local vendor can see product that is only hours to days off the plant: with more time comes less flavor.  The support of local farmers also keeps that land from falling prey to urban developers.  Once it’s been turned from farmland into housing or business, there’s no way to change it back.  The cash which we use to purchase local produce often stays within the community; going to local shops, utilities, and banks. 

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Stem cells are cells that can be found within all multi-cellular organisms and which have the ability divide and turn in to an array of specialized cells.  In other words, stem cells are blank pieces waiting to be stamped with a purpose.  While all human bodies contain stem cells, in some number, the majority within the developed person lie in the bone marrow and in afterbirth and birth-organs, though it is believed that skin cells may someday be used as stem cells.  Most adult stem cells, which include those cells removed from juveniles, are of the multipotent brand.  Potency is the potential for a stem cell to differentiate into different cell types.  Multipotent cells are limited in that they may only differentiate into the cells of a closely related family (Scholer 28).  So adult stem cells derived from muscle tissue would only be able to differentiate into those cells which are closely related to the tissue from which they were derived.  However pluripotent stem cells have a much greater potential as they are able to differentiate in to any cell of the three major germ layers: those being the endoderm, ectoderm, and mesoderm which are the basis of development in almost all animal groups more complex than worms (Scholer 28).  The greatest source, according to most, for pluripotent stem cells are from the undeveloped fertilized human embryos.  These embryos are often obtained from in vitro fertilization clinics due to their excess or soon expiration and as such are planned to be destroyed anyway.  “The embryos from which human embryonic stem cells are derived are typically four or five days old and are a hollow microscopic ball of cells called the blastocyst.  The blastocyst includes three structures: the trophoblast, which is the layer of cells that surrounds the blastocoels, a hollow cavity inside the blastocyst; and the inner cell mass, which is a group of cells at one end of the blastocoels that develop into the embryo proper” (U.S. DHHS).  The inner cell mass is removed to divide in a culture dish; if successful the dish will fill and the fresh cells will be divided up to be placed in new dishes for further ‘subculturing’.  “The original [few] cells yield millions of embryonic stem cells” (U.S. DHHS). 

The Flat Earth Falacy

Who really thought that the Earth was flat?  Although Aristotle’s physics fail to make mention of what gravity exactly is or why it functions in the way it does his belief is that the Earth is the center of the universe, because that is the most natural of places for it, and that all earthly material comes towards this center from all sides necessarily implies that the earth would form in to a three dimensional rotund shape, though not necessarily a sphere (Magruder Page 7).  If the Earth is flat is taken quite literally, then there can be no up and down, or no left to right.  We must all exist in a plane; we are all elements of two dimensions, with no depth.  Is only the underside of the Earth flat?  If so, then why? Why do these unearthly objects fall from the stars? Do they not reach the other side?  And, also, can we dig through the Earth to the other side?  If up and down are absolute then could we eventually dig a well into the abyss or would there be turtles all the way down? 

The Body Electric

The following is an analysis of the book The Body Electric.

            At the beginning of the 19^th century society was still mostly split between the upper-class elite and the working class, but as machines became more and more prevalent in places of industry there became less and less of a divide between the two classes.  The white-collar worker became a reality as machines began replacing what had previously required the work of men.  So with machines now doing the work there was a great increase in production at factories.  Increases in production lead to a need for an increase in sales and marketing and from there the widespread of the white-collar job was initially formed.  These white-collar business workers no longer had to spend upwards of twelve hours a day shoveling coal, molding iron, or working in textile mills.  This left them and their families, who were now making a greater salary than their ancestors had received, with much leisure time: a concept that had not even crossed the minds of the generations before.  No longer did the patriarch arrive home after a long day and immediately seek the sanctity and comfort of the bed.  Families went out together, socialized with other families, and mostly shopped.  They had acquired all this money with which they had previously not be privy to and what better way to rid oneself of excess than to exchange it for the goods which one desires.

The Chemicals of Karma & Effect

            Many of the greatest threats to human health today are products of our own creation.  Chemicals in our water and foods breed cancer.  Air pollutants clog our lungs and deplete the ever ominous ozone layer.  Our ever expanding cities and industries encroach on areas never before inhabited by man, potentially holding diseases which could spread as a pandemic across the world.

Ayurvedic Medicine

Ayurveda is an alternative medicine deeply rooted in the Hindu religious tradition of northern India and established over 5000 years ago.  According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, “Ayurdevic medicine continues to be practiced in India, where nearly 80 percent of the population uses it exclusively or combined with conventional (Western) medicine” (Ayurvedic Medicine: An Introduction).  While it is a tradition of medicine with a long history, it is believed that much of Ayurveda’s practices were lost, at least in the West, until the early 1980s when they were reborn through the work of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Barrett).  Ayurveda is a combination of two Sanskrit words: ayur, meaning life, and veda, meaning knowledge; so Ayurveda is the knowledge, or science, of life.  The Ayurveda is completely based on the Vedic literature and as such is very much spiritual.

The Presocratic Scientists

“Philosophy began with Thales” – Bertrand Russell
The fundamental questions persist today: What is everything made up of, or what is matter?  Why does matter move or appear to move in the way it does?  What causes it to move?  Does matter really move or is this merely a trick of the mind or senses?  These are the fundamental questions the presocratics sought to answer.  They created many of the philosophical arguments which continue to this day: Monism vs. Pluralism, Materialism vs. Idealism, Plenism vs. Atomism, Chance vs. Necessity, and Finite vs. Infinite.  (Magruder).  The presocratics are important because they laid the foundations of modern scientific thinking.  They had grown tired of the application of divinity to the functioning of the world and as such decided to begin thinking not so much in a religion as applied to science context but science as a fundamentally necessary being all in itself.

Seeing in the Dark

The following is an analysis of the book Seeing in the Dark. 

            “The foundations of modern astronomy were laid largely by amateurs” (Ferris, Seeing in the Dark, p. 33).  Most of the men whose work in astronomy is found throughout the history books saw it merely as a pastime not something that could pay the rent, including Copernicus, Kepler, and Halley.  For one to study the skies he usually needed to have a large bank account and not until the twentieth century did astronomy become a career.  Yet, “even in the twentieth century, while they were being eclipsed by the burgeoning professional class, amateurs continued to make valuable contributions to astronomical research” (Ferris, Seeing in the Dark, p. 35).  The amateurs lagged behind the wealth and technology afforded to the professionals until the 1980s when, specifically, the Dobsonian telescope, developed by an American Buddhist monk, much cheaper CCD light-sensing devices, and the Internet.  The Dobsonian allowed amateurs to view nebulae and galaxies that otherwise before would have only been accessible to the wealthy and the professionals, and at merely a few dollars cost combined with much labor, should one be so inclined.  The affordability of charge-coupled devices, which can absorb light much more feint than is possible with photographic plates, and their ability to digitally store images of the universe allowed for much more exchange of information.  Combine CCDs with the Internet, along hundreds of millions of people instantaneous access to information and images, and the age of the amateur had returned.  The Internet also enabled much more collaboration between amateurs and professionals than ever before.  Although, “the amateur approach had its limitations.  Amateurs insufficiently tutored in the scientific literature sometimes acquired accurate data but did not know how to make sense of it.  Those who sought to overcome their lack of expertise by collaborating with professionals sometimes complained that they wound up doing most of the work while their more prestigious partners got most of the credit… But many amateurs enjoyed fruitful collaborations, and all were brought close to the stars” (Ferris, Seeing in the Dark, p. 41).

Disease, Its What's for Dinner

No human practice, other than the overuse of antibiotics and international travel, has a greater effect on disease transmission than agriculture and food processing.  Many of the disease related byproducts created by the agriculture and food processing industries could be easily avoided through the application of the practices of the old ways.  Throughout the pre agricultural revolution era, disease existed in our food supplies, just not on the scale that is seen today.

White's Science v Religion

A.D. White’s War upon Galileo

            The premise behind Andrew Dickson White’s argument is that the Church conducted a Holy War against the works of Galileo and against the man himself in order to keep secure its socio-political position in the hierarchy of seventeenth century Europe and to prevent the spread of anti-papal and Reformist sentiment.  White believes that the Church stands for all that is superstitious and against logic and reason, while Galileo, and his contemporaries, represent the March of Science through the use of rational, philosophic thinking.  White believes that the Church has intentionally attacked “almost every man who has ever done anything new for his fellow-men” through the use of weapons such as “infidel” and “atheist” (White 135).  According to him, the betterment of man has been continually betrayed by the Catholic Church and that the story of Galileo’s silence is the pinnacle of this dark treachery (130).

What Quantum Theory says about Physical Reality

Is there a physical world, and if there is, what is it like? In other words, what is the nature of physical reality? Although this may seem like an obsessively philosophical question, our best current scientific theory about the basic stuff that makes up the physical world, quantum theory, seems to force us to try to answer this question. Even the scientific founders of this theory were driven to address this issue.

There is no quantum world ... only an abstract quantum description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.  (Niels Bohr)

This may look like an attempt to avoid engaging in “metaphysical speculation”. But it does states a view about the nature of physical reality. It seems that no one who takes physics seriously as an attempt to account for what the world is like can avoid such issues.

Scientists Images

            The standard operating image of a scientist is that of an introspect.  The scientist is often times a loner.  When he does have a supporting cast they are often times just as quirky, if not more, than he.  The scientist keeps to himself, most of the time, unless his work requires him to venture outside.  He prefers to work in a laboratory with few or no distractions.  These labs, it appears, usually lack any sort of window to the outside unless applicable to the work, even further reinforcing the scientist isolationism.  In the images, the scientist is often times doing chemistry related work; perhaps even alchemy!  White lab coats seem to be the clothing of choice among our scientists, however those without lab coats are not well dressed; perhaps because they’d rather spend time with their work over extra time dressing in the morning.  In half of the images our scientists appear to have spiked or greatly disheveled hair, maybe because they haven’t had time for anything other than work or sleep in quite a long while.  Eye glasses are also a common theme throughout many of the images, and of course spectacles have long be associated with educated persons.  So from these images we can conclude that at least the common University of Oklahoma student has the following common ideas of a scientist doing science:  They keep to themselves while working, feel that their work is much more important than their looks and hygiene and sometimes sleep, and can sometimes be driven mad.  Their experiments often involve chemistry and they are almost all very learned individuals. 

Planes, Stains, and Cattle Brains

            People are doing more today than ever before in our history that is having a negative impact on our environment.  The most worrisome effect of them all is the recent, rapid increase in the number of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.  Agriculture, land use and development, and mass globalization are all playing significant roles in this recent trend. 

Geber's Alchemy

            Jabir ibn Hayyan, or Geber as he is more commonly known in the Latin west, was, according to Henderson, the first practical alchemist (11).  It has been speculated by many scholars that Geber, if he existed, did not actually complete most of the works that have been attributed to him because there is too much disparity in the style and content of them, but that writers of the Ismaili group may have themselves created much or all of the work under the Geber pen name (Linden 80).  If the Geber of alchemical fame did indeed exist, it is believed he was born in modern-day Iran around 721 C.E. and eventually died while under house arrest in Iraq around 815 C.E. (“Abu Musa”). 

Pole in the Barn Paradox

            According to the special theory of relativity an object that is in motion relative to a givenframe of reference contracts – becomes shorter in length – along the direction in which it is moving.  But this seems to lead to a paradox.  Consider a pole that is 15 meters long when at rest, and consider a barn that is 10 meters long when at rest.  Suppose that the barn has a door at each end.  Clearly the pole should not fit inside the barn with both doors closed.

The Radioactive Boy Scout

The following is an analysis of the book The Radioactive Boy Scout

            David’s most well used source for what it meant to do science was The Golden Book of Chemistry of Experiments.  While decades outdated and full of potentially dangerous experiments it did not fail to provide David with the instruction in how to do science.  The Golden Book  also provided David with his first image of what it means to be a scientist.  The book painted a romantic picture of the Curies working day in and day out to find answers to the questions which perplexed them.  David grew up imagining the scientist as an entrepreneur of knowledge.  He wished to see himself in tomes of history next to the Curies, Otto Hahn, and Van Brahn.

Walkabout

            The ideal world, for me, lacks most of the conveniences of modern life that permeate western society.  No cars, fast food restaurants, telephones, etcetera.  Cars pollute our air with their exhaust and our homes with the noise of their engines.  Fast food pollutes the health of our society with their quick fix hamburgers and milkshakes.  The telephone and other modern forms of communication are destroying the personalization that has evolved through the interaction of man amongst himself over the past three millennia.  My ideal life is myself living alone in a cabin in the wilderness far from modern civilization, minus electricity and telecommunications.  I have an infinite library of books, grow my own food, and my only contact with the outside world is through letter writing.

Experiments on Blood, Air and the Brain

In A Treatise on the Heart Richard Lower attempts to posit explanations for the movement and color of the blood in the body and for the mechanisms for which chyle passes into the blood from the ingestion of food, as well as defining the transfusion of blood and its potential uses.  His goal is to further explain the makeup and difference between the venous and arterial blood, specifically how, and with what functions, they acquire their differing colors, how transfusion of blood can be most easily and efficiently obtained between two, living beings, and what path the chyle makes from the stomach to the blood.

The Hunter and Cynicism

Dio’s The Hunter promotes an ascetic lifestyle congruent with the Cynic philosophy of Antisthenes and Diogenes and criticizes the materialist and hedonist lifestyle of contemporary Roman society.  The Hunter does not strictly mention the gods, how knowledge should be obtained, or what makes up the universe (religion, epistemology, and cosmology respectively); it is solely an outline for what makes up the ethical life.

The Island of Dr Moreau

            From the beginning of the novel Wells is attempting to address what the nature of humanity is.  The attempts at cannibalism that take place after the shipwreck between Prendick and the two other men reveal the baser animal instincts within the human mind.  When they have been driven to the edge they must revert back to the oldest, simplest part of their cognitive systems.  “The lot fell upon the sailor; but he was the strongest of us and would not abide by it, and attacked Helmar with his hands.  They grappled together and almost stood up.  I crawled along the boat to the, intending to help Helmar by grasping the sailor’s leg; but the sailor stumbled with the swaying of the boat, and the two fell upon the gunwale and rolled overboard together.  They sank like stones.  I remember laughing at that, and wondering why I laughed.”  Even though the sailor’s human side agreed that one of the three of them dying was the better for the whole, his animal side would not allow him to sacrifice his own life. 

Environmentalism Ethnography

The following is the analysis of a pair of interviews conducted on environmentalism and culture.

Analysis

            Mankind lived in partnership with nature for millennia.  Not until he began to move from small tribes or clans into large gatherings did he start considering nature as something that needed to be dominated.  Cities inherently conquer their surroundings.  Manhattan began as a mere town on a big island, but eventually filled the entire island edge to edge.  It is inevitable that as long as the builders remain blissfully unaware of the consequences they will continue to build.  Though cities do more harm than good: “It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state.  The reason is that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth is cultivated.” (Paine 1797)  When America was discovered by Columbus the area supported less than a million natives; the same area now supports more than 250 million.  Tribes can still be seen today where nature is cared for and in all actions the consequences for nature are first considered.  Although small, these groups of people allow us to see how all of man once behaved.  From the first agrarians to the dawn of the age of cities man existed in relative harmony with his environment.  He was not yet large enough and powerful enough to have much of an affect on it.  The advance of technology by humans has allowed for the natural resources to be exploited more and has eased the risk from natural hazards.  Despite the progress made by man in this field, civilization is still closely connected to change in the environment.  There is a very complicated feedback-loop between the advance of technology and changes to the environment. (Torn 2006)

Technological Innovation: Of Abundance and Want

The existence of a leisure class and the want for change are two key societal factors necessary for technological innovation. There are surely other things that factor in, such as the availability of materials, relative usefulness, and supranational interactions among many others, but the most important for the evolution of technology are the creative minds provided by a leisured class and the lesser limits that are imposed by a society open to change.

A leisure class is any group of people, within a society, who do not labor for a living: either in the fields or in the market. Therefore, farmers, merchants, and artisans do not strictly qualify as existing within the leisure class; however they may make their own contributions to technological innovation given enough free time from their daily work. While aristocrats may fall within this sect in the strictest sense of the definition, since they do not labor in the fields or the market, their main focus is often times a labor of social duty; they spend much of their time, and money, being social and fulfilling their social obligations, either to the court or to other aristocrats. The scholars are the people of leisure that we are looking for. In Medieval Europe the scholar would be found below the royalty and aristocracy and above the artisans, merchants, and farmers in the social pyramid. At times the scholar performs the duties of the merchant, the artisan, and the aristocrat, in marketing his ideas and creating them, but the majority of his time would be spent as a philosopher, mathematician, engineer, or astronomer.

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" Review

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” is akin to the comedic satirical reimaginings of archetypal theatrical and romanticized situations that were commonplace in both Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” and “Monty Python & the Holy Grail”, et al. of the 1970s popular cinema.  With a plot based upon Plautus’ Pseudolus of early Roman dramatic theatre, Richard Lester manages to incorporate modern stereotypes into a quite ancient setting.  However, as Dr. Kyle Harper has mentioned, comedy is, in essence, sex and poop jokes from its invention in circa fourth century B.C.E. Greece through to modern times.  Therefore much of the leg work has already been done by Plautus in the early script with merely a modern spin put on the otherwise wholly complete play.  Of the changes which occurred in the modern reimagining of the Pseudolus what stands out are: 1. The conversion of many lines of dialogue into musical format, 2. The creation of many additional speaking roles, most importantly the removal of the leading ladies muteness, 3. The shift in plot emphasis from the three main characters: the boy, the slave, and the pimp, to the group of characters as a whole.  In the end the movie manages to garner a few laughs while still getting the original plot across in whole.  However, a part of this viewer is left feeling as if the original musical, which the movie’s screenplay was adapted from, would have been much more satisfying and that Pseudolus performed in its original contextual situation holds much more than water.


Originally written February 16, 2010 for OU C LC 2613 - Survey of Roman Civilization

Bone Wars

The following is an analysis of Bone Wars: The Excavation of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur.


Value as described by Webster is the relative worth, utility or importance of an object or ideal. The dinosaur bones of the nineteenth century had educational, social, political, religious and obviously economic value. The $22,000 that Carnegie offered the University of Wyoming for the rights to its Diplodocus bones would be around $500,000 today. So in the grand scheme of business it doesn’t really seem as though Carnegie’s offer was really all that substantial when we are able to look back and see the great effect that these bones have had on the lives of so many people most especially those in the scientific community.

Alternate Food Sources

Living in Norman, a college town, albeit a large one, I have many choices for how and where to obtain organic, natural, or otherwise non-commercial food. To begin with, up to this point the majority of my food related shopping has taken place at large corporate supermarkets, mostly Wal-Marts. Since I viewed the documentary The High Cost of Low Price, a detailed investigation into the practices of the world’s biggest corporation, I have cringed a bit each time I thought about doing my shopping there. Even with this I have continued to give over my money to the monsters: this is for the most part due to the fact that my bonuses I receive from my job are paid out in Wal-Mart gift cards. Until recently I was unaware of the many alternatives that abound my small city and the great benefits to my body, my community, and most importantly to my environment that come with doing my shopping in them.

Colonial Reformation and Science

How did the social and political reforms instituted by European powers influence the progress of science in Southeast Asia?

Invading European powers into Southeast Asian nations employed a consistent set of social and political reforms on the local inhabitants’ culture which were intended to make for a transition of power requiring the least amount of military force and which had, in some cases, a significant impact on the development of scientific endeavors. Reforms included were social, political, cultural, academic, economic, and geographical in nature and what is listed here should not be considered a complete list by any means, nor is it the case that any particular method described is standard or requisite for every colony within the region.

Final Decree of the Senate

senatus consultum de re publica defendenda

The senatus consultum ultimum initiated by Cicero against Catiline was a necessary action for the preservation of the status quo, but was not justified as it violated the constitution of the Roman Republic. The core purpose of the republic in ancient Rome was to protect against the rule of a foreign government. By issuing senatus consultum ultimum the Senate gives the ultimate power, unchecked, to a single individual, Cicero, who may as well be acting as a foreign ruler by his membership in the aristocracy. The checks that remain in the standard republican rule of Rome, specifically the power of the tribunes, which had in fact been reduced by Sulla prior to Cicero’s ascension to the consul, are intended to protect the proletariat against the aristocracy. The institution of martial law necessarily prevents any but the elite from making a change within the government. Further, the elimination of the opposition can only lead to a greater divide between the aristocracy and the proletariat. The opposition is necessary for the advancement of the state in the direction which is for the good of the nation. Any action which is conducted against the core principles of the republic and is given legal precedent allows for the same action to be taken later without the consent, or issuing of legality, from the state, as Julius made so abundantly clear in his speech to the senate on the topic of the war with Catiline.

Religious Pluralism for the Modern Christian

Today’s Christian is bombarded with the existence of alternative faiths to his own through modern communications technology. While most adherents to the faith have little theological knowledge of the beliefs and practices of others, the relative closeness and openness with which they operate is strikingly new. From the foundation of the church up until the last century Christians, unlike Muslims and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, have operated, in the most part, in ignorance of the other faiths and their followers. It has been seen for centuries, by Christians, that the only way to salvation is through Christ and that those who practice amongst the other religions are in need of spiritual instruction to overcome their geographical deficiencies. However, the explosion of world-wide communications, especially through the Internet most recently, paired with the religious freedom movement experienced throughout much of the western world has opened the eyes of many Christian practitioners to the existence of other religions and to the idea that perhaps there are sufficient, quality alternatives to the Christian method.

Death in Confucian China

Death is an idea which exists in the cultural construct of all peoples. As civilizations grow in size, wisdom, and wealth the question of death becomes apparent: Some societies, such as the Greeks, fear death, while others, like the Egyptians, embrace death. The Chinese, however, fail to fall into either of these extremes. For the Chinese, death exists and that is all. There is no inherent good or bad about the mortality of humanity for death just is so. Following, I will show that this is consistent with the Confucian view of death and why this is the viewpoint that Confucius takes.

The Industrialization and Subsequent Destruction of Traditional Agriculture

The three problems of food which most negatively affect the environment are the practice of Confined Animal Feeding Operations, the change in agricultural practices over the last century, and the conversion from farming as a family oriented operation to what today exists as a corporate expedition into agriculture.

Confucian Filial Piety and Science in China

This essay will attempt to show that the Neo-Confucian ideal of the family structure and Confucian system of patriarchal domination, especially the practice of filial piety, in conjunction with the conservative approach with which Confucian practitioners take towards social change shaped the formation of scientific works and methods, and the public policies which govern them, within China prior to the European intervention into the empire.

Plinius, Reddo Humanitae

Plinius, Reddo Humanitae

Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) was an author and philosopher of first century C.E. Rome.  He is the nephew of Pliny the Elder, who is best known to us as having penned the Historiae Naturalis, the first true attempt at an all-inclusive encyclopedia of the natural world.  The majority of the Younger’s work comes to us from his compilation of letters.  The letters are arranged throughout ten books in chronological order.  However, the individual letters are not kept in any particular order as seen by his letter to Speticius Clarus: “I have now made a collection, not keeping to the original order as I was not writing history, but taking them as they came to my hand” (Pliny 1).  It is believed by many that Pliny’s letters are the first attempt at the intentional publishing of letters for public reading.  Many of his letters are merely asides between acquaintances, however there are portions of his letters which show the true history and culture of the Roman civilization throughout Pliny’s lifetime.  Much of what is known of Roman architecture of this time period is what has been learned through the letters.  Further