Week 14 Chapter 12 Discussion 2

People often judge things based on their observations and later found out that they were wrong.  I am an intramural soccer official at the Recreation department. Last week, I was referring a fraternity game, and the game was intense. I started calling fouls and calm the players down. I thought both teams were mad at my partner and me because we called minor actions, even though we could let it go. I thought both teams disliked us because of our strict calls, so that I did not expect a handshake after match from neither team. However, one team did handshake with me and one player said he appreciated my effort during the match. I judged there would be no handshakes after match by observing players’ emotion, however, turned out my premise was wrong. We have to observe and experience it to see whether our premise is right or wrong, and that is scientific knowledge used in our daily life.

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Week 14 Chapter 12 Discussion 3

In this chapter, I would like to discuss the scientific method in depth. The scientific method helps us to analysis based on the observation. There are five steps to process the method, which are: identify the problem; make a premise; collect data and information; test the hypothesis; and evaluate the results. We can use the scientific method as often as we want in our daily life. For instance, if I do not know how to cook a steak, I will make a hypothesis of boiling the steak in hot water for 15 minutes. Then, I can find information and recipes online to alter my hypothesis. After altering the recipe and my hypothesis, I can try to cook a steak with different methods I found. Finally, I can evaluate which cooking method is the best by tasting the steaks. This is a simple example that would involve the scientific method in our life and there are plenty of them.

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Week 14 Chapter 12 Discussion 1

My birthday is in June, so my horoscope sign is Gemini. I read two online daily horoscope updates for Tuesday, November 13. Turns out it is pretty accurate, even though I have just started my day. I have work tomorrow in early morning and I have to process quite a fair amount of paperwork. Moreover, I have been worried since last week, because I have to present a project to my boss tomorrow. The two daily horoscope websites suggest me to take more breaks from working and be brave to say whatever I want. Along with some irrelevant information such as let my personality shine. People take those words in because they either need advices or think it is truthful.  I do not believe in daily horoscope, even though sometimes it is pretty accurate and could predict what would happen. Those horoscope updates make a very broad statement to describe your fortune, which has no supporting scientific evidence to back where did those words come from.

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Week 13 Chapter 11 Question 3

After reading chapter 11 about mass media, I have found out that the usage of Internet have a lot of pros and cons. To be honest, I spend at least 12 hours on my computer everyday. Internet can have positive impacts such as helping people with learning materials, looking for jobs, and getting live feeds of news. However, Internet can also have negative impacts as procrastination, gamble, and social networks. Some college students miss their assignment because they spend too much time on their social networks, which is not a good sign. I think computer and Internet can bring positive impacts to people, but we really have to choose what is our priority since the platform is so broad and it can distract you with some interesting topic while you are working. Moreover, the media can spread out information that you do not want people to know. For example, people lose their jobs because of posting comments about their companies or employers on social networks. Just like what the book said, we have to think about who is going to see this post before publishing on those sites.

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Adrian

Week 13 Chapter 11 Discussion 1

Chapter 11 discusses about mass media. Media play a big role in receiving and learning values for everyone. Technology becomes more and more approachable to the world. We can learn information through Internet, newspaper, Television, etc. whenever we want. I cannot estimate how much time I spend on media everyday. When we see something on the media platform, we tend to learn or get away with something by watching. For example, in the previous presidential election debates, we learn about the policies made by each candidate. Therefore, we get to know them more and what is going on with the country. I was not familiar the situation of America’s foreign policy, but I learned more after the debate. Also, if you believe in something, you can explore it with media. That helps people to reinforce the values because we have a choice on choosing what to see.

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Week 13 Chapter 11 Discussion 2

Many colleges, including San Jose State University, prohibit students from submitting plagiarizing work to their classes. Two professors, Brook J. Sadles and Russell Hunt, argue on the issues and identify plagiarism is beneficial for students or is harming the students and even the society.  Saldes has a list of ten points stating the disadvantage of plagiarism, including students who submit plagiarized work are shutting down their educational opportunity and lowering the value of the bachelor’s degree. Saldes also suggests that students who plagiarized should serve a more serious penalty than just failing the assignment. Hunt, on the other hand, provides 4 points to support plagiarism. He believes as long as students are citing the sources appropriately, they may use works from others for brainstorming and ideas. I support Sadles stance because he gives an idea of what are the impacts of plagiarism to students and the society.  Hunt only provides his stance but not explaining why plagiarism should be tolerated and allowed in college.

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