Berry, W. (n.d.). Charlie fisher. In W. Berry (Author), The way of ignorance and other essays (pp. 29-36).
Wendell Berry's essay discusses the far reaching consequences and
effects of the participants within an economy as well as the benefits of
ensuring a renewable and long lasting economic model by talking about
Charlie Fisher and his logging business. A lot of time is spent talking
about how Charlie's business effects his local economy through direct
purchases (like buying trees from a land owner) and indirectly such as
paying the men who work for him or all the people involved in making a
bulldozer. I felt the essay was very enlightening when it came to just
how much of an impact every person plays upon an economy. Taking a small
town and a small business and demonstrating all the ways it affects the
whole communities economy is a microcosm of the larger global economy.
Unfortunately, "the mechanical skidder siphons money away from the
community and into the hands of corporate suppliers" (Berry, The Way of
Ignorance, pg 33), reflects on the ways in which large corporations by
outsourcing their workforce actually siphon money away from the people
here at home.
Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). From Jerusalem to Jericho. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 100-108.
In this article Darley and Batson dicuss a study they did at Princeton
Theological Seminary. They wanted to find out if level of religiosity,
feeling of need to hurry, and what the subjects were thinking about
influenced their choice to help a person in need. The result was that the
only thing that had any significant effect was whether the subject was in
a hurry or not (p. 277). I found it interesting that how and what type of
religious the subjects were did not matter at all (p. 275). To me, good
morale and helpfulness is not something that depends on a person's
religion, so this supports my opinion. In a fast-paced society as the one
we live in, I'm not surprised at the stories of people not being helped,
since we're almost always on our way to somewhere else. However, the
article briefly mentions that people "hurry because somebody depends on
on their being elsewhere" (p. 278), which could be used as an excuse for
not stopping.
Sokal, A. (2008). What is science and why should we care? Third Annual Sense
About Science Lecture.
This lecture, from the Third Annual Sense About Science Lecture series,
focuses on the role of science in creating an evidence based world view.
Sokal (2008) uses an operational definition of science as, “a
worldview giving primacy to reason and observation and methodology aimed
at acquiring accurate knowledge of the natural and social world.” (2)
Sokal sees there being four main opponents to science: Postmodern social
constructionists (3-5), Homeopathy (6-10), advocates of religion (11-14),
and propagandists (14-19). Social constructionists hold that,
“science does not in fact constitute objective knowledge of a
reality external to ourselves.” (Sokal, 2008, 3) Homeopathy, in effect,
is nothing more than a placebo. Homeopathy is not an acceptable
alternative to traditional medicine, it is simply, “water and
starch” (Sokal, 2008, 8) and it is taking funding away from real
medicine. Religions are fundamentally based on circular logic that cannot
provide evidence for its beliefs and therefore, relies on faith. Sokal
(2008) goes on to say that, “’Faith’ is not in fact a rejection of
reason, but simply a lazy acceptance of bad reasons.” (12) Propagandists,
or spin doctors, are sokal’s fourth and most dangerous enemies of an
evidenced based worldview. Sokal uses the Iraq War as a clear example of
politicians lying to the public in an effort to gain a desired outcome.
This was a fascinating read, and I agree with sokal about the nature of
science. Science is not a mental light switch that one can turn on for
physics and then turn off when reading scripture. Science represents a
way of understanding life, all of life, there are no limits to where
scientific principals can be applied. In summary, Sokal (2008) states,
“The scientific worldview inevitably comes into conflict with all
non-scientific modes of thought that make purportedly factual claims
about the world” (19). (This reminds me of a lyric by Aesop Rock,
“This goes out to my people, who grew up thinking faith was a
surrender of reason, but not a reason to surrender.”)
