How Progress Makes Us Sick
By now, Im sure nearly everyone has heard of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). If youve watched all news channels like CNN or Fox News over the past month with their alternating images of people hurrying through airports wearing surgical masks and bombs exploding over Baghdad, youd think there were only two news stories worth reporting: the growing body counts created by SARS and the Iraq war. However the attention that has been focused on SARS has startled people rather than educated them about the disease. Lack of information leads to fear. According to J. Michael Bishop in Enemies of Promise: We live in an age of scientific triumph. Science has solved many of natures puzzles and greatly enlarged human knowledge. And the fruits of scientific inquiry have vastly improved human welfare. Yet despite these proud achievements, science today is increasingly mistrusted and under attack. The parade of frightening new maladies continues, each on confirming that our species, for all its cleverness, still lives at the mercy of the microbe.
In May fifths issue of Newsweek, Geoffrey Cowley states: Many of the advances that have made our lives more comfortable have also made them more dangerous. Some thirty new diseases have cropped up since the mid-1970scausing tens of millions of deaths. What exactly is SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome? It is a respiratory illness that has recently been reported in Asia, North America, and Europe. SARS begins with a fever greater than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Some others symptoms may include headache, an overall feeling of discomfort, body aches, and sore throat. After two to seven days SARS patients may develop a dry cough and have trouble breathing. S...
... middle of paper ...
...the natural world. In consequence, we are admired but also feared, mistrusted, even despised. We offer hope for the future but also more conflict and ambiguous choice. The price of science seems large, but to reject science is to deny the future. Will there ever be an answer for SARS? Will there ever be a cure? Science is a process and I think that is what most people dont see. In order to make the right decisions, there is a process that scientists have to follow. Sometimes that process takes time. We cant unplug from what we believe, but we can meet somewhere in the middle and work together as a team.
Works Cited
Bishop, Michael. Enemies of Promise. The Presence of Others. Marilyn Moller. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2000, 237-243.
Shih, June. A City Masked in Fear and Distrust. U.S. News. May 5, 2003.
Cowley, Geoffrey. SARS. Newsweek May 5, 2003.
When this finding infringes on someone’s lifestyle or corporate interests, the reaction to the discovery becomes unfavorable. A contributing factor to the rejection of scientific findings is directly related to political affiliation. Since the 1970s, conservatives have experienced a continuous decay of trust in the scientific community. By 2010, the contrasting trust in the scientific community has become more evident, with liberals retaining more trust in them and conservatives reducing theirs. Climate science has contributed greatly to this conflict.
6th ed. New York: St. James Press, 1996. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Edin, Kathryn and Kefalas, Maria. 2005. Promises I Can Keep. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
This can take a turn for the worse: if scientists have to have their work follow what politics, religions, and people believe, we might limit what science stands for. Religion and politics should never have control over science, instead they should use science to help explain their own goals. Science should be used as a way to challenge old beliefs and help clear out fact from fiction. At the same time though, science should challenge itself so it can stay true to its main point of challenging old dogmas, as Carl Sagan said in his article.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
If it does become a pandemic our current political, demographical, and psychological state will surely be
Bishop, J. Michael. "Enemies of Promise." The Presence of Others:Voices that Call for Response. 2nd ed. Ed Andrea A. Lunsford and John J.Ruszkiewics. New York:St Martin's Press, 1997. 255-263.
Society seems to be divided between the idea if science is more harmful than helpful. We live in a world where humans depend on science and technology to improve important aspects of society, such as medical machinery, which supports the fact that science is more of a friend than a foe. Science is advancing every day. The United States has come a long way with its ongoing developments, giving individuals a chance to improve society as a whole. Not only does the United States benefit from such growth, but every modernized country does so as well. Through science and technology, individuals learn from past endeavors and apply it to present and future projects, paving the way for new discoveries and efficient enhancements
A database management system, or DBMS, gives the user access to their data and helps them transform the data into information. Such database management systems include dBase, Paradox, IMS, and Oracle. These systems allow users to create, update, and extract information from their databases. Compared to a manual filing system, the biggest advantages to a computerized database system are speed, accuracy, and accessibility.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an upper respiratory infection caused by a coronavirus. The etiological agent responsible for SARS is called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). SARS-CoV is a relatively novel mutated form of coronavirus, resulting in a virus capable of becoming infectious in a human host. Typically, coronaviruses express themselves much like a common cold. However, SARS-CoV can cause complications uncommon in other coronavirus strains. A host infected with SARS-CoV may develop additional infections, like pneumonia or respiratory failure6,7. According to the World Health Organization (WHO),37 SARS-CoV presents itself as an atypical cold but with similar symptoms, resulting in a virulent pathogen
The elusive Sydney Carton is depicted as a “man of habit” (Sims 229-220). Because Carton is such a habitual man, it gives his character a sense of stability and, therefore, gives the novel a sense of stability also. Some readers even conclude that Carton’s habitual patterns contribute to him sacrificing his life. When he takes the place of Charles Darnay, he “brings to light the stability and constancy of his character initially occluded by his socially inappropriate or ‘elusive qualities’” (Sims 221).
“Doctors told to prepare for global outbreak after Ebola victim was allowed on two planes” - - www.mirror.co.uk
The Fear of Science To live in the today's world is to be surrounded by the products of science. For it is science that gave our society color television, the bottle of aspirin, and the polyester shirt. Thus, science has greatly enhanced our society; yet, our society is still afraid of the effects of science. This fear of science can be traced back to the nineteenth century, where scientists had to be secretive in experimenting with science. Although science did wonders in the nineteenth century, many people feared science and its effects because of the uncertainty of the results of science.
SARS is a virus of an animal, from wild or domestic animals that were used for food supplies. This virus is from a coronavirus family. T...
The Database Management System (DBMS) is software that enables the users to define, create, maintain and control the access to the database. It is a software that interact with the user’s applications programs and it database. Meanwhile, information retrieval system is a system that involved the activity that the systems obtain the information. The obtaining information action need the information from it resources.