Quality Of Science Students example essay topic

1. What was Galileo's achievement? Galileo's achievement was to discredit, once and for all, the long - cherished view that the earth is the centre of a universe whose sole purpose is the sustaining of human life. The world, Galileo claimed is not always as we see it. He went on further to suggest that overnight we humans became bit - part players in a drama whose stage dwarfed us by its magnificence, in a plot for which we were at best a minor footnote. Galileo marked the end of a long haul up from the first glimmerings of a conscious thought in the mind of some prehistoric human ancestor a quarter of a million years ago to the triumphs of fully fledged modern science.

2. What is the reason why we should be concerned about the minority that espouses anti - science sentiments? The reason why we should be concerned about the minority that espouses anti - science sentiments is that many of these individuals are often educated, more articulate and more committed to their particular views than the average citizen. A significant number of them are university - educated (though, of course, they tend to hold degrees in the humanities). More importantly, they frequently occupy influential positions within the social, educational and political power that is out of all proportion to their number.

3. In its most extreme forms within the social sciences and the humanities, how does the Postmodern influence present itself? In its most extreme forms within the social sciences and the humanities, the Postmodern influence often presents itself as the claim that there is no standard against which the validity of any idea can be tested. Its proponents cannot agree on a common agenda (because to do so would privilege some ideas above others), and the general thrust of the movement is self - consciously towards intellectual anarchy. In the social and historical sciences, it quite commonly takes the form of a wholly uncritical presentation of alternative views, irrespective of how rational or coherent these views might be. The reader is left to make of it what he or she will.

4. What common element is shared by the startling growth in fundamentalism, the spawning of numerous cults and Postmodernism? Yes the common element shared by the startling growth in fundamentalism is the spawning of numerous cults, Postmodernism, and an information gap of potentially disastrous proportions. Neither the proverbial man - in - the - street nor many of those who avow Postmodernist views in the humanities have any real understanding of what scientists do or how science works. Science has become a form of magic practiced by an elite priesthood whose members have been subjected to a long and arduous apprenticeship in secret arts and rites from which the layman is firmly excluded. These two phenomenal characteristics of the late twentieth century are either self - consciously anti - science, actively seek to constrain in activities in radical ways or marked by the emergence of philosophies of despair among intellectual elites within the humanities.

5. What two mis - conceptions have crept into public debates on science? The two mis - conceptions that have crept into public debates on science is the public's actual knowledge and understanding of it and an ambivalence tinged with a growing sense of alienation, of no longer being in control of our destinies. Robert Dunbar believes that there is growing evidence to suggest that this antipathy towards science has if anything, deepened as the humanities have perceived themselves to be increasingly beleaguered by the sciences.

What he found to be most disturbing was that people, particularly those of school age, are being turned off science either because they find them to be to difficult or because they find them to boring. He goes on to state that if the quality of science students is poor, then the quality of science teachers in the next generation - as well as the quality of industrial research and development - will also be poor, for it is these same students who must fill these roles in the years ahead. We simply cannot do away with science because the global scale of the populations of the industrialized world will result in upheavals and social chaos which would dwarf our past experiences of war, plague and famine.