Monday, April 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Gerard Toulouse Responds to PHELMA students
Many worthy and stimulating questions have been raised by your students,and I will attempt to provide constructive answers in orderly fashion.
Let me today answer the first initial objection, which I rephrase (a bit brutally, I admit) as:
"Ethics is relevant for scientists, not for engineers."
I made a Google search for the following expressions:
- scientific ethics: 41,000 references
- engineering ethics: 158,000
- medical ethics: 3,390,00
- business ethics: 4,770,000
These observations (crude as they are) provide food for thought. The Wikipedia notice for "engineering ethics" contains many interesting contents. However the French version is appallingly poor. Should not some of Phelma's students consider working to improve it? Perhaps in connection with students of Ecole polytechnique de Lausanne. Long ago, EPL produced a "Serment d'Archimède", Archimedean Oath for Engineers.
More later,
with best wishes
Gérard Toulouse
(see Students Comments)
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Human Spirit, the Enchantment in the Forest at Galleons Lap, and the Tao
Instructions
- Read three extracts presented below from Margaret Somerville's books The Ethical Canary and The Ethical Imagination, and ONE of the two extracts from Benjamin Hoff's work, The Tao of Pooh.
- Then answer just ONE question.
- Write no more than 100 -150 words.
- Use a neutral style as studied in class (i.e. with Anglo-Saxon words and contractions).
- When you have finished submit it as a comment to this blog post.
- Margaret Somerville has kindly agreed to have a look at your ideas.
"Our contemporary search for ethics shows, I believe, that we are becoming much more sensitive than have been to [the] threats to our human spirit - the deeply intuitive sense of relatedness or connectedness to all life, especially other people, to the world, the universe and the cosmos in which we live; the intangible, invisible, immeasurable reality that we need to find meaning in life and make life worth living. In short, the human spirit is the metaphysical reality (that which is beyond the physical) that we need to fully live fully human lives." (Somerville, 2000, p.2)
"One manifestation of the human spirit or human spirituality is the longing for transcendence - the strong desire to experience the feeling of belonging to something larger than ourselves." (Somerville, 2009 p.8)
I believe our most authentic selves are to be found in the complex interactions of knowing ourselves, relating to others, appreciating our place in the great web of life, and seeing ourselves as part of the earth, the stars, the universe, and the cosmos. Some scientists tell us that we came from stardust - the earliest forms of life on earth might have arrived in meteorites that crashed; to rephrase the Ash Wednesday liturgy, "Remember man thou art stardust and into stardust thou shalt return." That fact, assuming that it will prove to be correct, and the idea that science can verify it, is astonishing and wondrous. The acute and continuous awareness of a mind-blowing web of relationships - that is what I call the human spirit. (Somerville, 2009 pp 56-57)
***
"They walked on thinking This and That, and by-and-by they came to an enchanted place on the very top of the Forest called Galleons Lap, which is sixty-something trees in a circle; and Christopher Robin knew that it was enchanted because nobody had ever been able to count whether it was sixty-three or sixty-four, not even when he tied a piece of string round each each tree after he had counted it. Being enchanted, its floor was not like the floor of the Forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but close-set grass...Sitting there they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was in them in Galleons Lap."
Extract by A.A.Milne cited in Hoff (1982, p.152)
"To Lao-tse (LAOdshuh), the harmony that naturally existed between heaven and earth from the very beginning could be found by anyone at any time, but not by following the rules of the Confuscianists. As he stated in his Tao Te Ching (DAO DEH JEENG), the "Tao Virtue Book," earth was in essence a reflection of heaven, run by the same laws - not by the laws of men. These laws affected not only the spinning of distant planets, but the activities of the birds in the forest and the fish in the sea. According to Lao-tse, the more we interfered with the natural balance produced and governed by natural laws, the further away the harmony retreated into the distance. The more forcing, the more trouble. Whether heavy or light, wet or dry, fast or slow, everything had its own nature already within it, which could not be violated without causing difficulties. When abstract and arbitrary rules were imposed from the outside, struggle was inevitable. Only then did life become sour.
To Lao-tse, the world was not a setter of traps but a teacher of valuable lessons. Its lessons, just as its laws needed to be followed; then all would go well. ...What he saw operating behind everything in heaven and earth he called Tao (DAO) "the Way". A basic principle of Lao-tse's teaching was that this Way of the Universe could not be adequately described in words, and that it would be insulting to both its unlimited power and to the intelligent human mind to do so. Still, its nature could be understood ..."
Extract from The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
Questions
Answer EITHER question 1 OR question 2
1) What do the 'enchantment' in the forest described in Hoff (1989) and the the 'human spirit' defined in Somerville (2000) have in common?
2) Compare the Tao and the 'Human Spirit'. Do you think they are the same thing?
References
Hoff, B (1982) The Tao of Pooh. Egmount. London.
Somerville, M (2000) The Ethical Canary. Science, Society and the Human Spirit. McGill-Queen's University Press. Montreal
Somerville, M (2009) The Ethical Imagination. Journeys of the Human Spirit. McGill-Queen's University Press. Montreal
***
Student Responses:
For Margaret Somerville, in the Ethical Canary (2000), the human spirit is "the deeply intuitive sense of relatedness or connectedness to all life, especially other people, to the world, the universe and the cosmosin which we live". Even though the Tao explains that everything is related and in harmony due to the rules of nature, Lao tse cleary explains that being connected to other people is a mistake(unless no form of authority arises), because it leads to the loss of the path (Tao). Indeed, asking a question would be an insult to the laws of the universe, trying to explain them by words."The Way that can be described is not the true Way." (Tao Te Ching). At the same time, answering quesitons would imply reverting to the same level as the person that did ask, because Taoism states that everybody can achieve enlightenment, but needs to escape from the human world, that has put human rules to nature,therefore going further away from harmony and connectedness to the universe. Somerville's definition of the human spirit is more Confucianist than Taoist; indeed, in the Three Jewels of Tao, it is said that the way can only be found by a"refusal to assert active authority".
Sebastien
***
Dear Margaret,
I have read your writings about the Human Spirit, and also the ones of Lao-tse about the Dao. I would say that even if both texts deal with the idea of an intangible law which links all of us, they are not describing the same thing.
Lao-tse talks about it as if it was a divine rule that runs the entire world and out of which we should learn. Whereas, you see the Human Spirit as an achievement for human beings, finding the right way to lead our lives. I would say that according to you this law already exists for the human beings and it is our duty to respect it. However, in Lao-tse’s view: we should create our own way of life watching the world running around us.
Best regards
Richard
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Answers to Connections
Squirrel Wars
1.The news item concerns two species of squirrels, what are they?
The red and the grey squirrel.
2.Which one was introduced?
The grey squirrel.
3. What is the origin of the introduced squirrel?
North America.
4. What is the problem that the dominant species is causing?
The grey squirrel outcompetes the red squirrel for food and carries a virus that is passed on to the red squirrel.
5. What is the solution?
Catching and killing the grey squirrel.
6.What is the best way to catch a grey squirrel?
Use hazzel nuts as bait.
7. What is done with the carcasses?
They are butchered and the meat sold to the public.
8. Who is buying the meat and what class of people do you think it appeals to?
The meat is sold to "upmarket" or upper class butchers; the customers are probably rich people.
9. What is the RSPCA's (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) position on the culling of the grey squirrel?
The destructive management of the grey squirrel is a problem because it is now part of the modern English countryside and it would be extremely difficult to eliminate it. attempts to do so would likely fail and only result in undue suffering.
The Life of Brian
1. In the context "...you're putting us off ..." means: d) you're making us lose our train of thought
2. Why are you always on about women Stan? "...always on about women..." could be replaced by: d) always talking about woman.
3. What point is being made about gay/lesbian marriages and their fight for the right to have children.
That it is all rather silly because it is physically impossible to have children.
4. Do you think the point made by the sketch agrees or disagrees with Margaret Somerville on gay/lesbian marriages? Support your opinion.
Somerville opposes same sex marriages because implicit in the idea of marriage is the right to found a family; that is, to have children. She believes the idea of two women or two men having their own genetic children compromises the "human spirit". Loosely put, she defines the latter as the sense of connectedness to others and to nature. She is worried that the children from same sex marriages would be not quite human, and we do not have the right to put these children into a society where they may be physically or psychological at risk.
5.Where does the humour lie in this sketch?
According to Henri Bergson's essay Le Rire one of the reasons we laugh is to ridicule maladaptive or abnormal behaviour. By abnormal we could say 'unnatural' and Stan's desires to have babies is unnatural simply because he is a man. In Mikhail Bakhtin's study of the carnaval, he argues that laughter occurs when we shift from a highly stressed moral or idealistic state of mind to a carnal one. Stan's desire is purely theoretical, and it is Reg's attempts to bring him down to earth or down to reality that makes us laugh.
6.There is a common ethical theme in both listening exercises. Work with your partner and try to find it.
Common Themes
The strongest thematic connections between the two videos is the debate around the preservation of what is considered natural and the futility of struggling against an insurmountable reality.
- In 'Squirrel Wars' the red squirrel respresents the natural English countryside, the grey squirrel represents what is invasive and unnatural.
- The attempt to eliminate the grey squirrel is controversial. According to the RSPCA it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve, and a culling programme may only lead to unnecessary suffering. The reason being that the grey squirrel has become part of the modern English countryside which is simply too late to ever completely restore.
- In the scene from The Life of Brian, Stan desires to have babies. It is of course is impossible for him ever to realise his dream, so why should he desire it? The scene ridicules the aspect of the human condition of yearning for things that we can never possess or achieve; and what's more, fighting for the right to do this.
- The other theme, which is implicit in the idea of unrequited and unrealistic desires, is that these wants are foolish because they are going against what is natural; that is, it is silly for Stan to want to have babies because he doesn't have a womb. It is better to live within one's limitations.
- On the other hand, if students have already studied the the radio interview with Margaret Somerville (see: Is it Right -Introducing Margaret Somerville )they will know that in 7-10 years it will be possible for same sex couples to have their own genetic children. This throws a shadow over the humour in the sketch; maybe Stan's desire to have babies is not so absurd afterall?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Social Responsibility of Scientists - Initial Student Reactions
After listening to their classmates' analyses, they were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with Prof. Toulouse. In general, a third of each class agreed with the ideas in the extracts. Here is a summary of the three principal opposing points of view:
1) We are engineers not researchers, so the responsibility described by Toulouse does not apply to us. There is pure science and applied science, and engineering is applied science. Even though we use the scientific method we do not consider it "science". Science, for us, is uniquely research.
2) It is impossible to know what is right or wrong, good or bad, as everyone values differently. Therefore, it is impossible to judge whether what we are doing in science is ethically good or bad.
3) It is impossible to predict how the results of research could be misused. In fact, all inventions can be used for good or evil. If we yielded to the fear of grave misuse, there would be no research done at all. Students cited the public suspicion of nanotechnology in Grenoble. They contrasted the benefits such as finding a cure for blindness as a opposed to public misconceptions, such as the development of nanochips for government spying on citizens.
In the next lesson, this Thursday, students will elaborate and defend their points of view in the form of comments to this post. Gerard Toulouse will be kindly invited to view the comments and contribute.
Student Responses:
Anonymous said:
Toulouse (2006) quite exaggerates when he says: "Scientists have a duty of alert, because they are best placed to alert society to the possibly harmful consequences of their activities, discoveries and inventions[..]this continuing responsibility implies a duty of discernment and vigilance, sustained on the long term." I find that it is just too easy to always refer to misuse of new technology when talking about research.
For the most part, researchers are not looking for the answer to a question, but they are looking for the question itself. They try to discover new phenomenon, that means they sometimes have no idea of what they are going to discover.
However, I don't completely reject this idea of responsibility. Not every scientist should be responsible for his discovery, but it is the scientific community.
I am convinced that average citizen doesn't have the right amount of education /culture to understand and accept new technologies. They fear novelty and their first reaction is rejection, which inhibits possible applications of a scientific discovery.
I believe that scientists are responsible to their community. This is why they regularly meet to present the progress of their research. A closer collaboration may be salutary for preventing misuse of inventions, like by sharing their ideas in scientific newspapers, in a short way by communicating.
Laureline & Maxime said:
Every day in the national newspapers, national companies are involved in trials for having behaved in their own interest without taking into account the possible consequences for the whole society. We disagree with the first point.
Indeed, obeying blindly orders in a company may be very dangerous. Let us take the example of Monsanto in Argentina. Ten years ago, the firm developed a new GMO corn plant which was designed to resist to a very powerful weedkiller "Roundup" also produced by the same company. This seemed firstly to be a good point for the local farmers, because it helped to develop the economy, but in reality they were totally dependent on Monsanto. Furthermore, the consequences for the local ecosystems were disastrous.
We think that each engineer at Monsanto may be responsible and could have said "NO!" Nevertheless, we agree with the third point. Every theoretical discovery may be turned into a good or a bad technology. A well-known example is the use of the nuclear energy at the beginning of the 20th century. When Einstein wrote the equations, he did not think that it would be used in the atomic bomb. After the Hiroshima and Nagaski events, he wrote with Russel the Manifesto, in which they denounced the use of the nuclear energy in such an intention.
Coline said:
I agree with Prof.Toulouse about a duty of whistle blowing. It would be irresponsible to say nothing about a potential danger of a discovery.
However, I have some reservations. Firstly, I believe that there are morals and values inherent to science. Researchers are impassioned by their work, and they see science as an hope for mankind. We perfectly know that in France for example, salary is not the motivation for public researchers, since they are poorly paid.
Secondly, I would like to point out that whistle blowing can create fear, lead to moratoria and stop every research activity in a certain field; it is the case for steam-cell and GMOs. The public is only informed by the media, and therefore the message that they get is truncated by excessive simplifications and the temptation to create controversy. That is why we can understand the reluctance of scientists to give information about potential dangers. If we consider the example of GMOs, the FAO lists a lot of benefits that we could get from them, such as using less land for agriculture, or reducing the use of pests, which are health-threatenning and so on.
Considering all these facts, what about a duty of whistle blowing, but only within the scientific community? Maybe the decisions about science should be taken by commissions of scientists; that is to say, between people who can put the potential dangers into their context. Of course, I am not implying that the public should not get any information, which would be disinformation, and in a way a kind of totalitarism.
Damien, Clément and Ludovic said:
First of all, we totally disagree with the first argument. This is because engineers are the ones who decide if they will apply science in a good or in the bad way not researchers. Besides, engineers are directly involved in the design of a product for its commercialization.
One example of the influence of science on the future of the planet is biofuels. Once presented as the solution to global warming, they are now known to be deleterious. In Borneo for instance, the Indonesian government wants to destroy a part of the rainforest covering 10,000 square kilometers to grow palm oil (http://www.planete-urgence.com/).
How did that happen ? When it was presented to decision makers, probably the advantages were exaggerated and the drawbacks were not sufficiently explained. Proof of this can be found in a scientific article explaining that biofuels are good for the future of the planet (see Hourcade, 2008). As a result, biofuels were chosen by countries such as Brazil as a new major part of their economy.
For us the responsibility of scientists is to be able to explain clearly and entirely the consequences of an action to decision makers, without being blinded by the search for financial support.
References:
Jean Charles Hourcade, 2008 : “Biofuels and the Environment-Development Gordian Knot: Insight on the Brazilian Exception” http://www.centre-cired.fr/spip.php?article684
Alexandre & Matthias said:
Comment on no. 2)
It is surely a fact, and we support it, that knowing what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, is the basis for an ethical judgement. Although there certainly exist different values (or different priorities of values) that may lead to different judgements of individuals (depending on social and religous background etc), big efforts towards finding a common understanding have been undertaken since first societies were formed.
In the context of globalization, more and more approaches to agree upon a universal code have been and are made, such as - in a wider understanding - The Charter of Human Rights (UN 1948). Furthermore, more or less binding and specific codes are nowadays already implemented in different companies, laboratories, associations or even countries. For exemple, in the French CNRS, the COMETS (the ethics committee) oversee every scientific project to ensure its accord with a previously agreed, internal charter of ethics. On a larger scale, a universal code of ethics for sciences has been proposed by Professor Sir David King who stated that: "...if every scientist followed [it], we would improve the quality of science." (BBC News).
Stéphanie and Antoine said:
We have read all the principal points of view and we want to discuss some of them.
We do not totally agree with the first one “We are engineers not researchers, so the responsibility described by Toulouse does not apply to us”.
In fact, we think that researchers are responsible only for the direct effects of new discoveries. Moreover, according to us, they have the power and the duty to warn society against the harmful dangers of products but they can't prevent people using them.
On the contrary, firms and engineers are responsible for the use of products and have to decide whether a product is good or evil. Thus, ethics is a crucial point for firms. For example, when a new material is discovered, researchers have to know and warn of the real impacts of it, whereas firms and engineers have to judge whether the use is ethical or not . Therefore, there is a double responsibility in sciences: on the one hand researchers and on the other hand both firms and engineers.
Our point of view is commonplace in most fields of science but in some cases such as medicine, ethics has a more important role in experiments.
Intrinsic Value
Treebeard by Tom LobackAims
Reading a text out loud: sentence stress, intonation and eye contact; the second conditional - If I were you, I would be...; empathy for animals and plants; understanding the debate surrounding the intrinsic value of all life forms.
Introduction
In the previous section we looked at the notion of the instrumental value of nature as an argument to protect biodiversity. In this section we look at 'intrinsic value': that all of nature has worth irrespective of how useful it is to people (ten Have, 2006).
According to Meffe(2003) the word 'value' is related to the noun form of the word 'good'. Good is the same as 'interest'. Now, the interests/goods/values of an organism are the things it requires to attain its goals. The basic goals of any animal or plant is survival and reproduction. So the interests/goods/values of a gold crest (Europe's smallest bird) are to live in conifer forests, because this is where it finds its food and its nest sites. So, to say the gold crest has intrinsic value is to say that it has its own interests.
Referring to the Nobel prize winning physicist Ernst Shrodinger, Rolston (2006) argues that all organisms practise a kind of conservation biology; that is, they protect and conserve their own life. This is their prime concern, and it has been going on since life emerged over 3.5 billion years ago! He asserts that implicit in the idea of life is the notion of continuation or survival. In other words all living things have one thing in common, they all value being alive over being dead.
Understanding that all living things have this interest in common helps us identify with them; this leads to a mutual respect. I remember Brian Edwards, the former host of the New Zealand Saturday morning radio show 'Top of the Morning' reporting a listener's views on the the brutal culling of the brush tailed possum. Damaging as they were to the New Zealand native forest they were still in the end, not unlike us, "...just trying to survive."
The feeling that we should respect possums not only comes from our ability to empathise with them, but also our imaginations. We are capable of projecting ourselves into the skin of animals, and imagining what it must be like to be them. The following extracts do just that.
Listening
Go to Harper Audio. Find Part 1. Listen to J.R.R.Tolkien reading selections from The Two Towers, the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here the two hobbits, Pippen and Merry are being questioned by the ent Treebeard (see Figure 1 at the top of this post). Move the slider bar to minute 3:07 and listen to minute 4:05. While you listen identify which words Tolkien stresses. The text is provided below:
'An Ent? said Merry. 'What's that? But what do you call yourself? What's your real name? 'Hoo now!' replied Treebeard. Hoo! Now that would be telling! Not so hasty. And I am doing the asking. you are in my country. What are you, I wonder? I cannot place you. You do not seem to come in the old lists that I learned when I was young. That was a long, long time ago and they may have made new lists. Let me see! Let me see! How did it go?
Learn now the lore of Living Creatures!
First name the four, the free peoples:
Eldest of all, the elf-children;
Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses;
Ent the earthborn, old as mountains
Man the mortal, master of horses:
Learn now the lore of Living Creatures!
From The Two Towers by J.R.R.Tolkien p.453
Answers
Reading a text out loud - Sentence stress
Stress in English falls on the key words in the sentence. These words are called content words, and carry most of the meaning. If you were only to say these words the listener would be able to grasp the general meaning. The other words are not stressed, they are called structure ( also called function words), and they make the sentence grammatically correct. If you eliminated these words you could still understand the sentence (Beare, 2009). Here is a list of the types of content and structure words adapted from Beare (2009).
Content words:
Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Please note, that we do not systematically stress each one of these types of words but principally those which convey the most meaning.
Structure words:
Determiners (a, the, this, that, some, any, a few etc.), auxiliary verbs (do, does, can, have, etc.), prepositions (after, before, in, on, above, etc.), conjunctions (because, as, while, and, etc.) and pronouns (he, her, they, etc.).
Eye contact with the listeners is made to enhance understanding or put emphasis on certain words or phrases that speak about extraordinary or particularly interesting information.
Timing and Rhythm
English is known as a 'stressed timed language'. That means that the time between stressed words is kept more or less the same. This creates a rhythm of:
stressed-unstressed-stressed-unstressed, stressed etc: / - / - /
Consider the following lines from E.E.Cummings' poem, 'somewhere i have never traveled'. The words in bold are verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs. When they are removed from the text, notice that the essential meaning is still preserved.
or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;
wish be close
life shut beautifully
suddenly
heart flower imagines
snow carefully descending
The poem was featured in Woody Allen's movie Hannah and Her Sisters. You can go to Youtube and watch the clip. At the conclusion of the character Lee reads stanzas 3 and 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TSf8hsJTps
You will find that if you place stress in the correct places, and use correct eye contact while reading you will quite simply be better understood and appreciated by native speakers.
Reading Seminar
In small groups of 2 or 3 read one of the extracts and answer the questions together. Then split up and form a group with two other students who have read different extracts. In your groups exchange the information.
Now, each person in the group should have a speaking role. Divide the text you have been given into parts, and assign a part to a student. Identify the sentence stress, practise reading your passage out loud with your partner. Present your extract to the rest of the class in the following way:
Introduction: Explain briefly what your text is about. You could simply paraphrase the introduction to each extract if you like.
Vocabulary: Put on the board the vocabulary list and any other new words you have encounterd and give definitions.
Reading: Each student in the group should read part of the extract to the class using the speaking techniques above. The key words are coloured in blue.
Analysis: Answer the questions relating to your extract for the class
Extract 1
Siddhartha is the story of the son of a Brahmin. He leaves his home to seek enlightenment by himself, though accompanied by his loyal friend Govinda. The scene, you are about to read, finds him with a group of wandering ascetics called the Samanas. They practise extreme poverty and the mortification of the flesh as techniques to attain nirvana.
Instructed by the eldest of the Samanas, Siddhartha practiced the eradication of ego, practiced samadhi according to new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest - and Siddhartha received the heron into his soul, flew over forests and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of heron hunger, spoke in heron squawks, died a heron death. A dead jackal lay on the sandy bank - and Siddhartha's soul slipped into the corpse, was dead jackal, lay on the beach, grew bloated, stank, decayed, was torn apart by hyenas and flayed by vultures, became a skeleton, became dust, blew into the fields. And Siddhartha's soul returned -it had died, had decayed, become dust, it has tasted the bleak euphoria of the cyclical journey, and then, freshly thirsty, it waited, crouching like a hunter for the gap in the cycle where escape was possible, where the end of causality began, an eternity free of sorrow. He killed off his senses, he slipped from his Self to enter a thousand new shapes - was an animal, was cadaver, was stone, was wood, was water - and each time he awakened he found himself once more. The sun would be shining , or else the moon , and he was once more a Self oscillating in the cycle; he felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst .
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse p.14 . Translation by Susan Bernofsky
Extract 2
They made noises and at first he was frightened at them. Then moved. He placed his paw on one, and its movements were accelerated. This was a source of enjoyment to him. He smelled it. He picked it up in his mouth. It struggled and tickled his tongue. At the same time he was made aware of the sensation of hunger. There was a crunching of fragile bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste of it was good. This was meat, the same as his mother gave him, only it was alive between his teeth and therefore better. So he ate the ptarmigan. Nor did he stop till he had devoured the whole brood. Then he licked his chops in quite the same way his mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.
White Fang by Jack London p.72
The following extracts come from part two of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, called The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien. Here the two hobbits (hobbits are small human like creatures) have been sent to the forests to encourage the ents (ents are tree like creatures, see Tom Loback's illustration above) to join a fight against the forces of Saruman. Read the following passages which include a description of the ent Treebeard, and the elves attempts to communicate with the trees and ent drink.
They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, whether that it was its hide, was difficult to say...The lower part of the long face was convered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at that moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with green light. Often afterwards Pippin tried to describe his first impression. 'One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and, long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present; like the sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on ripples of a very deep lake.' (p.452)
Some of my kin look just like trees now, and need something great to rouse them; and they speak only in whispers. But some of my trees are limb-lithe, and many can talk to me. Elves began it, of course, waking trees up and teaching them to speak and learning their tree-talk. They always wished to talk to everything, the old Elves did. (p.457)
The drink was like water, indeed very like the taste of the draughts they had drunk from entwash near the borders of the forest, and yet there was some scent or savour in it which they could not describe: it was faint, but it reminded them of the smell of a distant wood borne from afar by a cool breeze at night. The effect of the draught began at the toes, and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment and vigour as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of the hair. Indeed the hobbits felt that the hair on their heads was actually standing up, waving and curling and growing. (p.460)
From J.R.R.Tolkien - The Two Towers - Book II of The Lord of the Rings
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Vocabulary *
1) Retell in your own words (i.e. paraphrase) the young wolf's first experience of eating live food.
2) Environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston III says all animals have interest (concerns or goods). What interests of both the ptarmigan and wolf are expressed in this extract?
3) Explain the writer's choice of the word 'chops' in the last paragraph.
sturdy, hardly, clad, bark, hides, weeping, bushy, twiggy, mossy, well, shimmering, ripples, to rouse, kin, limb-lithe, draughts, scent, faint, borne
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Images courtesy of Flickr
TREEBEARD - illustration by Tom Loback by Tom Loback
Links to related Nature Art & Language lessons:
Empathy and the Girl with Pearl Earring
Monday, February 23, 2009
The Passenger Pigeon
Extract 9
"Not a pigeon had arrived at sundown. Suddenly a general cry arose—’ Here they come!’ The noise they made, though still distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a close-reefed ship. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men. The birds continued to pour in. The fires were lighted and a magnificent as well as terrifying sight presented itself. The pigeons pouring in alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses were formed on the branches all around. Here and there the perches gave way with a crash, and falling destroyed hundreds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded; a scene of uproar and conflict. I found it useless to speak or even to shout to those persons nearest me. Even the reports of the guns were seldom heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters reloading.
Words. Reading time:
Question:
See 'Falling Bough' byWalton Ford
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Answers to Why Save Biodiversity?
- 'Goods' refers to the use of other life forms as fuel, fibre or medicine.
- 'Services', include pollination, nutrient recycling and global homeostasis.
- 'Knowledge' is the notion that every species has something interesting about it, and the extinction of an organism before it can be studied is like burninng a book or part of library that you have never read.
- Finally, the 'psycho-spiritual' value of an organism is what it contributes to our sense of well being.
Vincristine is a 'good' as it has value because it is used as medicine for the treatment leucemia.
Gaia is the earth's homeostatic system and the services that it provides.
The case of the passenger pigeon straddles both 'knowledge' and the 'psycho-spiritual'.The huge flocks of passenger pigeons have gone forever. We have lost something that could have been studied. In relation to the size of their flocks we have also lost something awe inspiring, something that makes us wonder, and in this sense we have lost something that could potentially add to our happiness.
The spiritual value of rare animals described by Wilson(2006) obviously belongs to the 'pyscho spiritual', as does the notion of biophilia (Wilson and Kellert,1990)and the transformative value of nature put forward by Norton(1987).
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Answers to Spirit, Intuition and the "Mystically tone deaf" (in prep)
Warmer
The extracts come from Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Alex Garder's The Beach respectively. Technically speaking they are of the same quality, but the writing style is of very different standard.
Brown's description is relatively complicated in terms of sentence structure and vocabulary. It is heavy, lacks flow and even sounds as though the author is trying too hard. Consequently, his description fails. It's failure can be attributed to the fact that the reader becomes aware of the writer and disbelief is not suspended.
On the other hand Garder is 'invisible'. He uses simple sentence structure that is unburdened by excessive descriptive vocabulary. It is easy to imagine the girl and her impact on those present in the cafe. Consequently, we are quickly drawn into the scene.
These two extracts are examples of how art can possess or completely lack 'spirit'. In the readings that follow the notion of spirit in art, and even people is investigated. The text comes from Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgement published in 1790.
Teachers should not the identity of the author at this stage. It is important for students to try to understand, without being intimidated by the idea, that they are reading what could be considered difficult philosophy.
Questions
Paragraph 1
1) What is the writer's objective in this essay?
He is going to investigate the idea of 'spirit'. It appears to be that certain indefinable something that makes an artwork, a piece of writing or speech or even a woman beautiful.
2) What do you think 'spirit' is?
This is an important question and the central theme of this blog. Most of us have an idea what 'spirit' is even though it is very difficult to put into words. The French expression d'avoir une petite quelquechose, ('to have a little somehthing') sums up the idea that we know what it is but cannot describe it. Suffice it to say that 'spirit' is that thing that makes something or someone moving, wonderful, inspiring, exciting, fascinating, and so on.
Paragraph 2
1) What is the function of the phrase 'the material it employs for this'?
2) Spirit employs a substance to affect the mind. Describe what it does to the mind?
Paragraph 3
1) What is the function of the phrase 'which prompts much thought'?
2) Why can't aesthetic ideas be properly expressed in words?
Paragraph 4
1) How does imagination bring freedom?
2) Who do you think is the author of this essay?
- The author is Immanuel Kant. The text comes from his work Critique of Judgement published in 1790
The Secular Sacred, Authenticity etc.
Somerville(2009 p.54), in her search for a universal ethics, defines the secular sacred as something 'authentic with a life of its own. This is reminiscent of Kant's spirit which 'prompts much thought', a kind of progentior of ideas and something that is almost self sufficient. In turn this is a reminder of Juliet's love for Romeo in that the more it is given the more it is produced:
The more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite. Act II.Scene 2
There is a circular relationship here, that Somerville compares to a snake swallowing its tail. Spirit engenders more spirt. authenticity engenders more authenticity. As Somerville (2009 p.55) puts it:
"We need to experience awe and wonder to access a sense of the sacred; but, in turn, that sense can be the doorway to awe and wonder."
The pursuit of authenticity is key for SCI, language acquisition of Krashen, and central to the NAL teaching concept. That is, having the mysterious ingredient of authenticity, spirit, a life of its own or the secular sacred is likely to enhance language acquisition. This is because it stimulates thought and in turn the speech necessary to attempt to describe it.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Spirit, Intuition and "the mystically tone deaf" (in prep)
Paris - Door Knocker by noriko.stardust
The following extracts come from quite successful contemporary Anglo-Saxon novels. Both are descriptions of individual French women. Read them and decide which one you prefer. Give your reasons.
Extract 1:
[He] turned to see a young woman approaching. She was moving down the corridor toward them with long, fluid strides… a haunting certainty to her gait. Dressed casually in a knee-length, cream coloured Irish sweater over black leggings, she was attractive and looked about thirty. Her thick burgundy hair fell unstyled on her shoulders, framing the warmth of her face. Unlike the waifish, cookie-cutter blondes that adorned Harvard dorm room walls, this woman was healthy and an unembellished beauty and genuineness that radiated a striking personal confidence.
Extract 2:
The French girl appeared without her boyfriend and without any shoes. Her legs were brown and slim, her skirt short. She padded delicately through the café. We all watched her. The heroin mute, the group of Americans, the Thai kitchen boys. We all saw the way she moved her hips to slide between the tables, and the silver bracelets on her wrists. When her eyes glanced around the room we looked away, and when she turned to the street we looked back.
Reading Comprehension 1
Of certain products that are expected to reveal themselves at least in part to be fine art, we say that they have no spirit, even though we find nothing to censure them as far as taste is concerned. A poem may be quite nice and elegant and yet have no spirit. A story may be precise and orderly and yet have no spirit. An oration may be both thorough and graceful and yet have no spirit. Many conversations are entertaining, but they have no spirit. Even about some women we will say she is pretty, communicative, and polite, but she has no spirit. Well, what do we mean here by spirit?
Spirit (Geist) in an aesthetic sense is the animating principle in the mind. But what this principle uses to animate [or quicken] the soul, the material it employs for this, is what imparts to the mental powers a purposive momentum, i.e., it imparts to them a play which is such that it sustains itself on its own and even strengthens the powers for such play.
Now I maintain that this principle is nothing but the ability to exhibit aesthetic ideas; and by an aesthetic idea I mean a presentation of the imagination which prompts much thought, to which no determinate thought whatsoever, i.e., no [determinate] concept, can be adequate, so that no language can express it completely and allow us to grasp it. It is easy to see that an aesthetic idea is the counterpart (pendant) of a rational idea, which is, conversely, a concept to which no intuition (presentaion of the imagination) can be adequate.
For the imagination ([in its role] as a productive cognitive power) is very mighty when it creates, as it were, another nature out of material that actual nature gives it. We use it to entertain ourselves when experience strikes us as routine. We may even restructure experience; and though in doing so we continue to follow analogical laws, yet we also follow principles which reside higher up, namely, in reason (and which are just as natural to us as those which the understanding follows in apprehending empirical nature). In this process we feel our freedom from the law of association; for although it is under that law that nature lends us material, yet we can process that material into something quite different, namely into something that supresses nature.
Questions
Note: For the vocabulary section, try to work out the meaning of the words in italics from their context; if you can't use a dictionary - Merriam-Websters- Online Dictionary:
Paragraph 1
Vocabulary : thorough
What is the writer's objective in this essay?
What do you think 'spirit' is?
Who do you think is the author of this essay?
Paragraph 2
Vocabulary: imparts, purposive momentum, sustains, strengthens
What is the function of the phrase 'the material it employs for this'?
Spirit employs a substance to affect the mind. Describe what it does to the mind?
Paragraph 3
Vocabulary: prompts, whatsoever, to grasp, counterpart,
What is the function of the phrase 'which prompts much thought'?
Why can't aesthetic ideas be properly expressed in words?
Paragraph 4
Vocabulary: mighty, strikes, though, reside, lends, supresses
How does imagination bring freedom?
Reading Comprehension 2
The following extract, from an article by Mark Sagoff, looks into the tension between something we know intuitively to be true and our inability to prove it empirically. It raises two questions relevant to undergrad and research students. Firstly, should we dismiss our intuitions and abandon any attempts to explain what we suspect to be true? Secondly, should we try to prove our intuitions to be true and accept that the problem may lie with our the inadequacies of our current knowledge and models?
Read each extract and answer the questions that follow:
Extract 1
Research in environmental ethics and environmental science takes as a premise the supposition that ecological or natural communities are governed by principles of organisation. While this assumption has not yet been proven it nevertheles draws compelling evidence from the aesthetic judgements that accompany our perceptions of the natural world, in particular of its most magnificient and glorious productions, such as old growth forest, clear -watered lakes wild savannas and ocean tipped estuaries. Few of us experience these kinds of places without becoming convinced that they possess an intrinsic form or unity, or an organisation mode.
1) What is central assumption on which environmental science and ethics is founded.
2) Even though there is no proof for order in ecosystems, scientists believe that is there - why is this?
Extract 2
One way to understand the free lawfulness or dynamic unity of an ecosystem may be to invoke the concept of an aesthetic idea which the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant introduced in his Critique of Judgement (1790, Sec. 49). An aesthetic idea in the perception of an object is a unity recognised by the imagination for which no cognitive concept is adequate. One can say that an asethetic idea exhibits an order that is always straining after a rational cognitive or causal explanation, even if no such empirical principle of organisation can be found. The unity of ecosystems as they appear to us- or the beauty of places in the natural world – in this view exists but cannot be reduced to rational concepts of the sort sought by empirical science.
3) The author tries to define the idea that when we see something beautiful we consider that it has order. He uses three different terms; what are they?
4) The word 'straining' could be best repaced by: A) seeking B) exercising C) striving D) searching
5) 'sort' and 'sought' are homonyms; that is, they have the same pronunciation but different meaning. Explain their different meanings.
ANSWERS
Links
Quality - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
References
Swan, Michael (1996) Practical English Usage. Oxford
Friday, October 3, 2008
Answers to The Social Responsibility of Scientists
a) Why is ethical reflection important now?
growing waves of concern about the connections between science and war
b) What is ELSA?
...any novel important research program should include an ELSA component (Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Science
c) As a science teacher what was his Gerard Toulouse's predominant worry in relation to his students?
For many years, a set of practical questions have persistently haunted me : At which conditions, can a student embrace a career in scientific research, without becoming or turning into a public hazard ?
d)What was Toulouse's vision for science?
" Science as salvation " was part of my youth dream...
e)What title or subheading would you give this extract?
Growing concern about science and ethics – a teacher's worry
Questions and Answers to Extract 3
a)Why should knowledge engender responsibility?
Knowledge brings responsibility, because knowledge is (a form of) power, and power brings responsibility.
b)Why should the responsibility of blowing the whistle on unethical practises in science fall on scientists?
Scientists have a duty of alert, because they are best placed to alert society to the possibly harmful consequences of their activities, discoveries and inventions ; they have competence, and capacity for early warning.
c) According to Andrei Sarharov scientists habitually refuse to take ethical responsibility for their research because they:
i) are frightened to rock the boat.
ii)have no social conscience.
iii) are only interested in the results of their research and this overrides risks to public safety. iv)concerned that they will stand out.
Every true scientist should undoubtedly muster sufficient courage and integrity to resist the temptation and the habit of conformity.
i) & iv)
d)What title or subheading would you give this extract?
Scientists as whistleblowers
Questions and Answers to Extract 3
a) Why do many science faculties find it hard to attract new students?
"I am convinced that science departments with a broad scope, integrating also societal concerns and questions of global relevance in their courses and daily discussions will succeed in overcoming the present difficulties of recruiting students..."
b)What kind of science course would Richard Ernst liked to have studied when he was a student? I have to admit that I myself would prefer, if I had to start again, a study that combines top science with societal concerns and global vision, rather than detached, stand-alone science,...
c)As a student who would Ernst have preferred to have as a guest teacher: a famous physicist or a local lecturer in sociology?
Probably a sociologist given the answer b)
d) Who, according to Ernst, in society should be responsible for providing the standards for success and safety in society?
Who else, if not the scientists, is responsible for setting guidelines for defining progress and for protecting the interests of future generations ?
e)What title or subheading would you give this extract?
Science studies connected to society
Return to
The Social Responsibility of Scientists
Monday, September 29, 2008
Answers - Writing definitions
- The human spirit (term) is a metaphysical quality (class) that enables humans to lead meaningful and happy lives (distinguishing characteristics).
According to leading ethicist Margaret Somerville (2006) the human spirit is a metaphysical quality that enables humans to lead meaningful and happy lives
- The shared story (term) is the history and beliefs (class) held by a society that gives meaning to the lives of its members(distinguishing characteristics).
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Teacher's Notes and Answers
Originally the structure of this lesson followed a Socratic inquiry in with combinaton jigsaw reading. It has been revised with Paulo Friere's 4 step learning process drawn from his seminal work The Pedagogy of the Oppressed as articulated to our class in 'Experiential Learning and Facilitation' by lecturer Chris Jansen of The Christchurch College of Education, of the University of Canterbury, July 2009. The 4 step process is as follows:
1. Own Story - students give their own opinion on an issue
2. Expert - students examine an expert's point of view on the same issue
3. Critque - students critique the expert
4. Evaluation - students process what they have learnt from steps 1-3
The starter activity was drawn directly a lecture given by Chris Jansen, 21 July, 2009 at the Christchurch College of Education.
Socratic inquiry
Teaching usually involves simply explaining things to students. The object of a Socratic Inquiry is to ask questions of the students and have them come up collectively with the answers by themselves.
The most effective way to run Socratic inquiries is to put students into small groups of 2-4, and circulate around the groups. Give the students about five minutes to come up with a definition.
Go from group to group and listen to their definitions. Get students to make their answers coherent and clear. For example, students tend to define ethics in terms of morality. In such a case ask them what they mean by morality and how it is different from ethics. In doing this students realize that the task is much more involved than they suspected.
Don't give answers to the students but put their responses on the board. Their answers will be verified in the reading and listening comprehension exercises that follow. Students are generally surprised that their answers are close to those given by leading ethicist Margaret Somerville.
Students tend to enjoy the the fact that the concepts are not so much difficult, but that they take time to explain. This has obvious value in that it creates discussion in class, but also requires the teaching of writing definitions; one method is presented after the reading comprehension.
What is ethics? Some definitions
Somerville tells her students ethics is firstly, ' Trying not to do the wrong thing', and secondly, '[trying] to do good things for other people'.
Ethics is the systematic investigation of questions of right and wrong, good and bad (UNESCO, 2003)
Ethics, in the empiricist view, is conduct favored consistently enough throughout a society to be expressed as a code of principles (Wilson, 1997 p.267)
Morality
The term “morality” can be used either descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or, some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
Bernard Gent - Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Comparison of Ethics and Morality
Ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos denoting customs. Morality comes from the Latin mores also meaning customs. Although they have the same original meaning, nowadays 'morality' has a religious connotation whereas 'ethics' does not.
'Ethics' can be considered as the study of what is right and wrong and this would naturally encompass the study of 'morality'.
(philosophyblog.au.com)
2. Consider the following issues and decide whether they are right or wrong:
Make sure students to define these things before they embark on deciding whether these things are right or wrong. For example, it is necessary to discuss the meaning of marriage before deciding whether same sex marriages are right. The answers to this question are revealed in the ABC radio interview with Somerville. She opposes these kinds of marriages because inherent in the notion of marriage is the right to have children, and is concerned about the impact them.
As for discussing the issues of cloning, nuclear power and genetically modified organisms, the effectiveness of this relies on their general knowledge of the procedures and the risks. In some classes students feel they can't form an opinion owing to a lack of knowledge.
To resolve this problem you could set up a pre-class homework task in which groups of students investigate the pros and cons of one of the issues. In class they form groups with representatives from each research group and share the information of risks and benefits.
Gay/lesbian marriage
pollution
the extinction of the polar bear
nuclear power
cloning
genetically modified crops
3.Why is it hard to decide whether these things are right or wrong?
There has been a breakdown of what Somerville calls the 'shared story'. That is, in modern secular multicultural democracies no single world view dominates. Therefore, it is hard to make ethical decisions that will satisify all members of society. Somerville explains this in Extract A in the reading comprehension. You will find that most students come to this very quickly.
4. Nowadays people seem to be preoccupied with ethics, both in the sciences and in the rest of society. Why do you think this is so?
Somerville explains in Extract A in the reading comprehension that science and technology has brought us to a position where we can change the nature of humanity and destroy ourselves. There is an urgent need to restrict research for our own protection.
References
Distinction between morality and ethics -philosophyblog.au.com
Gent, B http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/
UNESCO(2003) COMEST -Report of the working group on the teaching of ethics. pp.29
Return to :
Is it Right? Introducing Margret Somerville
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Answers - Socratic Enquiry and Readings
See teacher's notes
2. Consider the following issues and decide whether they are right or wrong:
There are no right or wrong answers at this stage - only points of view.
3.Why is it hard to decide whether these things are right or wrong?
This question is answered by Margaret Somerville in the extracts provided, but first here are some answers provided by students:
- Because the consequences of these things are hard to predict.
- Because societies are multicultural and ther is no one standard.
- The individual counts, and as everyone values differently it is very hard to decide.
There has been a breakdown of what Somerville calls the 'shared story'. That is, in modern secular multicultural democracies no single world view dominates. Therefore, it is hard to make ethical decisions that will satisify all members of society. Somerville explains this in Extract A in the reading comprehension. You will find that most students come to this very quickly.
4. Nowadays people seem to be preoccupied with ethics, both in the sciences and in the rest of society (Toulouse, 2006; Somerville, 2006). Why do you think this is so?
Somerville explains in Extract A in the reading comprehension that science and technology has brought us to a position where we can change the nature of humanity and destroy ourselves. There is an urgent need to restrict research for our own protection. Students answers are often close to those given by Toulouse and Somerville.
Readings
Somerville proposes that a universal ethics can be created by accepting two universal values:
"First, we must always act to ensure profound respect for all life, in particular, human life; second we must protect the human spirit."
Return to:
Is it Right? Introducing Margaret Somerville
References
Distinction between morality and ethics -philosophyblog.au.com
Gent, B http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/
UNESCO(2003) COMEST -Report of the working group on the teaching of ethics. pp.29
Monday, September 22, 2008
Answers: Listening - Interview with Margaret Somerville
Her ideas are very controversial, especially those relating to the fact that she doesn't believe that same sex marriages are a good idea. A Canadian university wanted to give her an honorary doctorate for her work in ethics but there was a national campaign to block this. There were protests and the body guards were there to protect her.
2. What is her stand on gay rights? 1:40-2:00 mins.
She believes that gays have suffered terribly from discrimination, and that we should recognise their rights. However, she opposes same sex marriage because of its effect on children. She talks about this in greater detail later in the interview.
3. How does she feel about pain? Explain why she opposes circumcision of infants. What are some benefits of circumcision? 3:06-4:14 mins
She believes there is a fundamental human right not to be left in pain or to have pain inflicted on us, unless it is absolutely justified. She opposes infant circumcision because it is painful. There is apparently some evidence that circumcision prevents to some extent transmission of HIV in Africa. However, this, she says, should not justify practising circumcision on children.
4. Margaret Somerville was accused of anti-semitism because of her opposition to the practice of circumcision on infants. However, five Jewish rabbis defended her. Why? 4:13-4:42 mins.
It became an issue not of whether her arguments were right or wrong but of freedom of speech.
5. Why has she become the most cited academic in Canada? 5:03-5:30 mins
The issues of circumcision or same sex marriages were not really the concern for the media or the public at large. What was more important was her right to express her views; that is, the central issue was freedom of speech.
6. Why is Somerville always in the media? 5:57-7:05 mins
In Canada academics are in 'the public square'. She explains that this was something that was traditionally looked down on by some academics. However, she feels she has an obligation to explain her research to the general public for the reason that they, as taxpayers, are funding it. She says she gives from 500-800 interviews a year, and finds it a learning experience to engage with the public.
7. Somerville has a taste for controversy. Retell her run in with her teacher Sister Rosemary at the age of seven, and then explain why she may like being in controversial situations. 7:05-9:45 mins.
Her father was an athesist and communist, her mother was a practising catholic and took Margaret to mass on Sunday mornings. Naturally, her father refused to go. Margaret said she didn't see why she had to go if her father wasn't going. Her mother told her that he would go to hell for this. The following morning at school her teacher Sister Rosemary at the catholic school she attended asked the class if they wanted to go to heaven. Margaret was the only child who said she wanted to go to hell. She wanted to go there because that's where she thought her father was going and she wanted to be with him.This made her feel 'out on a limb'. She feels she enjoys controversy partly because of the attention it drwas to her, but also because it is her way of finding out what is right.
8. What is Somerville's definition of ethics? 9:45-10:12 mins
Somerville tells her students ethics is firstly, ' trying not to do the wrong thing', and secondly, '[trying] to do good things for other people'.
9. Explain why she opposes same sex marriage. 11:01-16:30 mins.
-What does she mean by "Can the future trust us?"
Somerville's central ideas are contained in two books The Ethical Canary and the Ethical Imagination. She advocates there should be respect for all life especially for human life.
Her question for her students is 'can the future trust us?' By this she is referring to the health and well being of future generations which could be altered through genetic engineering and the new reproductive trechnology which can change who we are fundamentally as human beings.
-Talk about the definition of marriage
Marriage is for men and women and it automatically includes the right to found a family. Marriage therefore is not for homosexual couples.
-Mention advances in medical science to enable homosexual couples to have their own genetic children
Recently researchers have managed to create a mouse baby from two female mice. She says that this technology will soon be available to humans. What is done in animals will in 5-10 years be possible in humans. Somerville is concerned about the impact on the children born to same sex parents. In the Ontario Supreme Court it was decided that gay couples could have the right to benefit from this new reproductive technology, and to do otherwise would be discrimination. She also talks about the fact there are now children with three genetic parents.
What are 'the civil unions' in the UK and le pax civile in France and why were they created?
They are contracts that gay couples could make a public declaration of their love for one another, as well as protect them financially enabling them to inherit fromone another. Civil unions don't carry the right to have children and for this reason Somerville is in favour of them.
10. What is transhumanism and what are her views on it? 16:35-20.00 mins.
Transhumanism is the belief that modern day humans are obsolete.
She opposes this because changing what we are would compromise our 'essence of humanness '. She admits that she does not have a complete definition of this and it is her main project. Nevertheless, she explains that this essence deserves protection because it has developed over 4 billion years of evolution.
She is also concerned about the production of robots for whom transhumanists claim will deserve more respect owing to their superior intelligence. She is also worried about the production of 'cyborgs', part human part machines, that are able to experience emotions, and the questions of how much respect is owed these creatures.
-What is her major project?
It is to identify the essence of humanness described above, and tied to this is the concept she calls the 'secular sacred'. This basically means finding points for which all parts of society can agree are sacred and therefore inherently wrong to change. This involves 'building bridges between science and ethics, science and religion'. She also says she is looking at alternatives to reason which she calls 'other ways of knowng'. She is looking also to bring the major religions together by finding common values that they can all share.
11.She claims that the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins the author of The God Delusion is "mystically tone-deaf", what does she mean by this? 20:02-21:35 mins.
This means that he cannot appreciate the mystical or the artistic in the same way that someone who has no musical ability cannot hear different notes in a scale.
12. Richard Dawkins blames all the evils in the world on religion. What is Somerville's response to this? Do you agree with her reasoning? 21:35- 22:48 mins.
She thinks this is very unfair. He blames 9/11 on religion. You could argue that science is the root of evil.She argues that the airplanes were created through science. Religion can be used for good or evil and science is the same.
13. What are Somerville's thoughts on the existence of God and an afterlife? 22:49-25:33 mins.
She doesn't really answer this question directly, and certainly her anwser is both vague and difficult. Nevertheless, she says that what is more important than the existence of God or an after life is that we exist in a great mystery that is not explicable in our language and we can only have a 'sense of it'. (It is ironic that this is Richard Dawkins' view too! See Richard Dawkins book Unweaving the Rainbow published in 1998). She gives an example of research being carried out that shows that our minds are far more complex than we know, they contain mechanisms to detect up to now 'unknown realities' which are more mysterious and awe inspiring than we can imagine.
14. Somerville cites a Japanese saying, explain what it means and why she said it.
"As the radius of knowledge expands the circumference of ignorance increases."25:33-26:00 mins.
She sees science as uncovering more and more mysteries instead of satisfying our curiosity. This she says is a kind of a miracle.
Return to:
Is it Right? Introducing Margaret Somerville
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