The Philosophy Of Science And Science - 1030 Words

Before this class began, I thought of myself as a person who tended to lean towards science as fact-based and found it hard to believe in some philosophical and religious claims that were not backed up by experimentation and evidence. Five weeks later, my views haven’t changed drastically, but have instead been developed and broadened. I now understand the importance of the philosophy of science and why philosophy and science should be interconnected. The need to question things that may appear to be factual is something I now consider more than ever crossed my mind before this course. At the beginning of the course, starting in Lecture One, we discussed the problem of knowledge and the nature of scientific knowledge. The problem of†¦show more content†¦Examples like the theory of Plate Tectonics or the Alvarez Theory of mass extinction are cited as examples of theory acceptance and when it is appropriate. The overarching theme from Losee is that there are no rules th at can objectively decide the acceptance or rejection of a new theory. This is a confusing aspect of science, but is reflected in the history of scientific discoveries and those theories we still hold to be ‘true.’ Some theories are not necessarily confirmed, but are at the very least agreed-upon from empirical observations. By Lecture Four we covered multiple conceptions of method. Method is central to the scientific enterprise. The founders of modern science were looking for an impersonal, objective basis for their knowledge claims. This was coming at a time when science was separating from religion-based belief systems. Method is crucial to determining truth and developing scientific hypotheses. Without a method in place, the goal of objectivity within science is compromised. Method is discussed throughout the entirety of Losee’s book. Losee generously discusses theory acceptance, rejection, falsification, and replacement. He aims to show the method behind the se based on historical accounts in science, but as stated before, there is no set group of rules that govern this. Instead the development of hypotheses and theories that we take are integrated, comprehensive explanation of many ‘facts.’ These hypotheses and

Reflection of René Treviños Exhibition, Axial Precessions

Renà © Trevià ±o was born in 1972 in Kingsville, Texas and currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York, as well as his Master in Fine Arts from the Maryland College of Art. He is currently represented by the C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore, and had an exhibition from January 29, 2014-March 8, 2014 entitled Axial Precessions, hosted by the C. Grimaldis Gallery. The C. Grimaldis Gallery has a bit of history standing behind it. It was established in 1977 by Consantine Grimaldis and is the longest operating art gallery in the Baltimore City area. The gallery hosts exhibitions featuring American and European artists and works from the Post World War II, contemporary, and modern eras. The gallery has very high ceilings with white painted walls and pale wood flooring, allowing the artwork to â€Å"speak for itself† on display and to limit distractions to the viewers. It’s a very airy and comfortable place to be in, and it takes on a beautiful aura when displaying Renà © Trevià ±o’s artwork in particular. The name Axial Precessions did not come right away to Trevià ±o’s mind as a name for the collection, it instead came to him later on. The term itself refers to astrological bodies and their rotation as caused by forces of gravity, and Renà © felt it best described this series of paintings. The collection on display features a series of paintings inspired by historical art, astrology, and patterns. Trevià ±o’s

Charles Manson Methods To The Madness Essay Example For Students

Charles Manson: Methods To The Madness Essay On the morning of August 9, 1969, three LAPD officers arrived at 10050 CieloDrive (Bugliosi 7). The scene that awaited them was horrendous. In the driveway, in aparked car, the body of Steven Parent was found. He was shot four times and stabbedonce. Laying about eighteen or twenty feet past the front door of the house, VoytekFrykowski had been shot twice, beaten over the head with a blunt object thirteen times,and stabbed fifty-one times. Also discovered on the lawn was coffee heiress AbigailFolger, stabbed twenty-eight times. Inside the home, in the living room, were the bodiesof Jay Sebring and Sharon Tate. Sebring, a hair stylist, had been stabbed seven times andshot once, dying of exsanguination. Tate, who was eight months pregnant at the time ofher death, was stabbed sixteen times in the chest and back (Fillmer par. 2). The following evening, in a seemingly unrelated crime, Leno and RosemaryLaBianca were discovered in their home at 3301 Waverly Drive. Rosemary was foundface down in her bedroom, a lamp cord wound around her neck, in a pool of blood; shehad been stabbed forty-one times. Her husband, Leno, had a pillow case over his head, alamp cord tied around his neck, his hands tied behind his back with a leather thong, and anivory-handled, bi-tined carving fork in his stomach; he had been stabbed multiple times andhad the word ?WAR? carved in his flesh (Bugliosi 55-56). The murderers were members of a group led by Charles Manson called theManson Family. These people were completely controlled by Manson. He had themconvinced that they were the chosen ones and that they were only carrying out the ordersof a man they thought was Jesus Christ incarnate (Watson par. 3). They were willing torisk death and imprisonment to satisfy this man. Manson used borrowed ideas fromprosperous cults of the 1960s to achieve a complete control over his followers. In June of 1960, Charles Manson was sent to prison for forgery, mail theft, andpimping (Bugliosi 192-193). There, h e became involved with a cult called Scientology(195). Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard (?Cult? par. 45). It teaches that eachhuman has a soul called a ?thetan.? Scientologists believe that, many years ago, the thetanwas ?god-like? and that people fell from divinity and forgot their origins. People werethen trapped on Earth in ?delusions of mortality (?Scientology? par. 12).? Hubbardclaimed that he had found the spiritual way to finding the true way to man. He said thatone must work through many levels of self knowledge and knowledge of past lives to?awaken the primordial deity? until divinity is once again achieved (?Cult? par. 45). The highest level of awareness in Scientology is called ?theta clear.? Mansonclaims to have reached theta clear while in prison. He supposedly achieved this throughmany ?auditing sessions,? the method that Scientologists use to teach awareness, taughtby his cell mate, Lanier Rayner (Bugliosi 195-196). Most likely, he picked up many of hismethod s of mind control from these sessions, along with ideas such as karma andreincarnation (635). The Process Church of the Final Judgment, labeled a Satanist cult by the media,was founded in 1963 by Robert DeGrimston, a former Scientologist. The basis of thisreligion was the book of Matthew of the New Testament, and it began as a mixture ofZoroastrianism and Scientology. The name ?The Process? refers to the ?changesnecessary to avoid the end of the world with its associated judgment.? Processeansworship Jehovah, Lucifer, and Satan (?Process? par.17). Even though The Process fervently denies that Charles Manson was ever amember, many ideas from his philosophy parallel Process concepts. Both Manson andThe Process taught of a violent and unavoidable Armageddon in which all but the fewchosen ones would be destroyed, and both thought that motorcycle gangs would be the?troops of the last days.? One Process pamphlet described the second coming of Christas: ? ?Through Love, Christ and Satan ha ve destroyed their enmity and come together forthe End: Christ to Judge, Satan to execute the Judgment. ? Manson believed that, whenChrist returned, it would be the establishment that ?went up on the cross (Bugliosi 637).? Manson and The Process shared ideas on fear also; they preached that fear was the samething as awareness, and that the more fear one had, the more awareness and thereforemore love one had (320). There were so many similarities between Mansons philosophyand The Process that even if he was never a member, The Process must have been a greatinfluence on Charles Manson (638-639). A great many other ideas of Mansons came from the Beatles and the Bible. Thismay seem like an odd pair, but they fit together surprisingly well in Mansons mind. Manson had his own unique interpretations of almost every verse from Revelations 9. Hebelieved that the Beatles were the four angels spoken of in the Bible. When the Bibledescribes locusts emerging from the bottomless pit, he saw it as another reference to theEnglish rockers because locust and ?beetles? were one and the same. The locusts aredescribed as having the faces of men and the hair of women, which only reinforced hisopinion (Bugliosi 322-323). In Verse 15 of Revelations 9, the Bible says, ?So the fourangels were released; this was precisely the hour, the day, the month, and the year forwhich they had been prepared to kill a third of mankind.? Manson preached that the thirdpart of mankind was the white race that would die in Helter Skelter (Bugliosi 323). HelterSkelter was the name that Manson had given the race war between the whites and theblacks. He believed that the blacks would win but would be unable to govern and then beforced to turn to the Manson Family for leadership (Bugliosi 329-331). Manson believedthat the Beatles song of the same name was a prediction of this race war (?CharlesManson?). He would often quote whole Beatles songs and Revelations 9 to support hisviews (Bugliosi 300). Manson beli eved that the Beatles were spokesmen contacting himdirectly through their songs. He claimed that the White Album set things up for therevolution and that his album (to be released later) would ?really start things off(324-325).? Charles Manson had an uncanny ability to sense and use a persons hangups ordesires (Bugliosi 317). He prayed on young men and women who were vulnerable andlooking for any sense of love or belonging. Many of the members of the Family wereyoung females who had traveled to California in search of God or happiness (343). Heeven attracted a few men with LSD trips to ?open the mind (317).? What they found wasa man who would convince them of what they desperately wanted to believe: that theywere attractive and desirable, and that he was God. As he pulled in followers, Mansonbegan to preach his philosophy. He claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ and wasknown as both God and Satan. He taught that the United States was on the brink of ablack/white racial war called Helter Skelter. Manson believed that the blacks would beincapable of governing after being the inferior race for so long and would turn to theFamily for leadership (?Family? 2). He promised his followers that they would soonretreat into the desert to the Bottomless Pit, another concept shared with The Process,where they would live in comfort until they numbered 144,000 (Bugliosi 313). Then, theywould return to the upper world where they would rule (333). When Mansons followersnumbered twenty or thirty and Helter Skelter had still not begun, he decided to start thespark that would light the fire. The members of the Family had already proven that they were willing to kill andrisk their own lives for him, so Manson ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders. The intent ofthese murders was to cause Helter Skelter; they were supposed to appear as though blackshad committed them. For this purpose, the words ?DEATH TO PIGS? were written onthe living room wall at the LaBianca residence, and ? HEALTER SKELTER ? wasprinted on their refrigerator, both in the blood of the victims. The word ?PIG? wasprinted on the bottom half of the front door at 10050 Cielo Drive in Sharon Tates ownblood (Bugliosi 331-332). After Manson and the Family members who were involved in the Tate-LaBiancamurders were arrested, he continued to reveal his ultimate control over them. SusanAtkins, who was involved in both murders, agreed to testify for the Grand Jury in returnfor immunity. After the criminal trial started, however, and she had one meeting withManson, she repudiated her statement and was once again charged with first degreemurder (?Family? 11). Mansons followers who were not arrested held a vigil outside theHall of Justice everyday throughout the trials (?Charles Manson?). During the courtproceedings, when Manson refused to face the judge, the other three defendants did thesame (Fillmer 10). When he carved an X in his forehead, they mimicked him again. Andwhen he changed that X to a swas tika, they followed (?Family? 11). The defendantsrepeated all of Mansons outbursts in court in a ?chant-like manner (Fillmer 10).? Vincent Bugliosi says of the Family members in his book Helter Skelter, ?Theywere also young, naive, eager to believe, and, perhaps even more important, belong. There were followers aplenty for any self-styled guru. It didnt take Manson long to sensethis. In the underground milieu into which hed stumbled, even the fact that he was anex-convict conferred to a certain status. Rapping a line of metaphysical con that borrowedas much from pimping as joint jargon and Scientology, Manson began attracting followers,almost all girls at first, then a few young boys (222).? Manson used the peopleseagerness to implant his philosophy deep into their impressionable young minds. Hetaught that he was the fifth angel of the Apocalypse, the one that held the key to theBottomless Pit. What Charles Manson didnt teach his followers was that the translationof the angels name Abbadon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek is ?destroyer.? BibliographyBugliosi, Vincent. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. New York: Bantam Books, 1975. 7, 54-56, 196, 222, 300, 317, 320, 322, 323, 325, 635, 637-638. ?Charles Manson.? n.d. Online. AltaVista. Dec. 1997. Available AltaVista://www-scf.usc.edu/~kmho/O0OO0O00IllIlIIl/mansonbio.html ?The Church of Scientology.? n.d. Online. AltaVista. Sept. 1997. AvailableAltaVista: //www.webzonecom.com/ccn/cults/scien-05.txt ?Cult Catalog of the ?Other Jesus.? n.d. Online. AltaVista. Sept. 1997. .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 , .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .postImageUrl , .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 , .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32:hover , .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32:visited , .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32:active { border:0!important; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32:active , .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32 .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .ub5aab7edc719037fb53ba9f36cfc7b32:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Imagine what it would be like to live or work on a Essay Available AltaVista: //www.webzonecom.com/ccn/cults/fal10.txt Fillmer, Deborah K. ?Forensic Science and the Charles Manson Murders.? 26 Apr. 1996. Online. AltaVista. Oct. 1997. Available AltaVista: //www.cris.com/~dfillmer/Manson.html ?Manson Family Murders 1969-1971.? n.d. Online. AltaVista. 4 Dec 1997. AvailableAltaVista: //www.umi.com/hp/Support/K12/Great Events/Manson.html The New American Bible. Saint Joseph Edition. New York: Catholic Book PublishingCo., 1970. ?The Process Church of the Final Judgment.? n.d. Online. AltaVista. Dec. 1997. Available AltaVista: //limestone.kosone.com/people/ocrt/process.html Watson, Charles. ?helter skelter.? 10 Jan. 1998. Online. AltaVista. 11 Jan. 1998. Available AltaVista: //www.aboundinglove.org/helter.htm

Vladimir Lenin And His Rise To Power Essays - Old Bolsheviks

Vladimir Lenin and his Rise to Power Eventually, empires and nations all collapse. The end can be brought about by many causes. Whether through becoming too large for their own good, being ruled by a series of out of touch men, falling behind technologically, having too many enemies, succumbing to civil war, or a combination: no country is safe. The Russia of 1910 was in a tremendously horrible situation. She had all of these problems. Russia would not have existed by 1920 were it not for Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the only man capable of saving the failing nation. Russia in 1910 was a very backwards country. Peasants who lived in absolute poverty made up the vast majority of Russia's population (Haney 19). Russia's version of the feudal system had ended a mere 49 years earlier, but in effect it meant that peasants now owned the meager parcels of land upon which their survival rested. Their ruler, Czar Nicholas II, ruled aloof of his disorganized nation. His government of appointed officials and men in inherited positions did not represent the people (The Tyranny of Stupidity 120). Even though all of Europe had experienced the Industrial Revolution, Russia had precious little machinery. To obtain more advanced machines, the government traded grain to other countries in exchange for machinery, even though it meant that more people would starve (Haney 17). Compound this with the devastation and desperation brought on shortly thereafter by the First World War, and there was no confidence left in the government. Different political factions formed, and none got along (U.S.S.R. 63). Liberal constitutionalists wanted to remove the czar and form a republic; social revolutionists tried to promote a peasant revolution; Marxists promoted a revolution among the proletariat, or urban working class. The people were fed up with Russia's state of affairs and ready for change. Change was presented in the form of Vladimir Lenin, a committed, persuasive visionary with a grand plan. Lenin became hardened in his quest at an early age when his older brother Aleksandr, a revolutionary, was executed in 1887 for plotting to kill then-Czar Alexander III. ?I'll make them pay for this!? he said, ?I swear it!? (Haney 28) By 1888, at the age of 18, he had read Das Kapital by Karl Marx, a book about socialism and the evils of capitalism. A superb speaker, he could hold audiences at rapt attention with his powerful speeches (New Generation). People became convinced of his socialist views. He formed his own political party, the Bolsheviks, a split off of the earlier Marxists. Unlike other parties of his time, Lenin limited membership to a small number of full-time revolutionaries (Haney 41). This dedication and tight organization later proved both useful and effective. From 1897 to 1917, he traveled all over Europe writing propaganda, organizing strikes, and encouraging revolution among the working class, especially in Russia (Lenin, V.I. 191). Lenin knew what he wanted, knew how to get it, and was willing to wait. During World War I, the time was right and Lenin was the man. Czar Nicholas II remained totally focused on winning the war, and did not hesitate before committing more men and supplies to the war effort (Haney 65). But for an already starving country, every train that brought supplies to the front could not also be bringing food to peasants. With public sentiment and even the Czar's own army against him, Nicholas abdicated the throne in March of 1917 (69). A government by soviets (councils) was instated, but did not last long. After that, Alexander Kerensky seized power. In November, Lenin and his Bolsheviks, with help from armed citizens, stopped the revolving door. They took over St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) and later captured Moscow, meeting little resiezce along the way (Jantzen 613). Lenin took over the government and signed a treaty with Germany to take Russia out of the war. Immediately thereafter, civil war broke out between the Communists, called Reds, and the anti-Communists, called Whites, who had help from Western nations (Johnson 43). This help from outside Russia actually helped Lenin, as it drove public sentiment against the Whites. Russian troops, scattered and dispirited, had just been through World War I. Somehow, though, Lenin and his good friend Leon Trotsky organized these troops