Homework 10...or should it be 9?!?

Q1)

There is no such thing as scientific proof, because science does not seek to prove things.   It seeks to explain things or how they work.  With those explanations, science can disprove or state how things don’t work.  Whereas math is concerned with proving things, science is concerned with gathering evidence.  But having evidence is not the same thing as having proof; proofs are final, and evidence can change (better evidence can be found, evidence for a different theory can be found, etc).

Q2)…I will email you this part…

Q3)

Increased access to information or computing has led to a decrease in privacy and security.  With an increasing number of activities being done via computers (email vs. writing traditional letters, banking or purchasing items online), we open ourselves up to loss of privacy and/or security because we rely on the computing systems to be secure.  This is unfortunately not the case at all times.  Security is lost because personal information such as account numbers, log-ins, and passwords can get into the wrong hands if the systems have been compromised.  Before using computers for these activities, it was much harder to obtain this type of information.

  Privacy can be lost because personal information can be distributed much easier than ever before, essentially with the touch of a button.  A lot of information we deem private, such as emails, photos, etc. can be viewed by millions of people once someone posts it on a blog, their Facebook, etc. and once it is posted, and someone else downloaded it, it is essentially public forever (taking it down from the original site does not guarantee that someone does not have a copy somewhere else). And oftentimes we do not think about the consequences when we send things to our friends.  It is much harder to distribute information in a way that cannot be undone without computers.

I think computing has definitely increased quality of our activities.  It has made things much more convenient and easier.  Instead of having to write and send a letter, getting stamps, and going to the mailbox, all we have to do is sit at a computer, and write an email.  Instead of having to drive to the bank to deposit a check, we can scan it in and send and deposit it electronically.  Instead of having to go to the mall, we can shop online.  The savings in terms of time, and money saved by not having to drive as much, definitely would contribute to an increased quality of live.

I think computers have also contributed to an increase in social connections that one is able to make.  With a computer, one can instantly communicate with people in different locations, some of them far away.  One also can meet people (via Facebook, for example) that ordinarily one would never have been able to meet (people in different states, countries).  Sometimes, these social connections can also lead to new and different job opportunities, or access to education that one would not have gotten otherwise (think online classes, WIMBA, etc…)

Homework 8

1)

I think the show Earth 2100 takes the current (and currently predicted) problems as a basis to present a worst-case scenario vision of the future.

My predictions on things will be up to 2100 would certainly include things like global warming (and the resultant climate change), the scarcity of currently abundant resources, increased population growth, etc.  However, I don’t think that all of these issues are going to come to a head, all at once, and all to the worst degree possible.  I think that all these things might eventually happen, but it will be at a little bit slower pace than the show predicts, since I don’t think it will happen all at once.  I think some of the scenarios they showed, such as the future of Las Vegas, will happen, but this is localized to areas that are already in distress.  I think that other areas will be able to hold on longer than predicted in this show.  Also, I think (or rather, hope) that by that time we will come up with some better solutions to all these issues than are presented in the show.  I think that, as the last part of the show indicated, we will develop and implement some better ways of creating energy and thereby avoiding the worst-case scenario.

2)

This show actually relates to my topic very well, since it is predicting what the future might be like, and that is the same thing I had asked the people in my survey to do.  Of the scenarios proposed by this show, I think most of them were at least mentioned once by the participants in the surveys.

  For example:  several of the 9^th graders predicted that houses would have to be able to float in order to cope with increased flooding in the future.  Also, some mentioned that houses have to be built stronger in order to withstand the more extreme weather (hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.).  So the concept of climate change in the future seems to be a very familiar one, at least to the younger group of survey takers. 

The older groups focused more on the need to be energy efficient, and more reliant on alternative resources.  A large portion of people predicted that houses in the future would all be energy efficient, or “green”, the same way this show predicted the apartment Lucy and her family lived in in New York.  Also, the concept of growing your own food was predicted by a couple of survey-takers. Some of the participants also predicted that society might change as a result of scarcity of resources and the extreme and devastating change in climate.  A couple of people mentioned that there would be wars over resources and food, as seen in the show, and that we would live underground to avoid the extreme climate, etc.  Some also proposed that societies would de-volve due to the lack of resources (such as using animal-pulled vehicles).

Several people also had a more positive outlook, comparable to the last portion of the show.  They predicted that in the future, we will be relying on “green” technology, and imply that we will have found ways to create our energy that are sustainable and do not involve fossil fuels.  They talk about how houses will be self-sustaining (using waste to make energy, for example), and smaller.

It seems that people are aware of the problems we will be facing in the future.  Some people are more aware of the difficulties that lie in solving these, and therefore predict a more “bleak” future.  Others are more optimistic and assume that at some point we will have the technology to overcome issues such as resource depletion and energy crisis, and that we will be able to focus our technological advances on providing comfort and convenience.

Homework 7

1.

For this homework, I decided to take a closer look at the butterfly effect. It “bugs” me the most, and  I wanted to learn a little bit more about it because all I knew so far came from different movies that used these phenomenon (and the additional time-travel aspect) to create crazy stories about scientists that travel back in time and (accidentally) step off a laid out path, step on a butterfly,  and then, after they came back to the present, they realize that their future (and present, and past) is changing in waves… (the movie was “A sound of thunder”, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318081/).  This really disturbs me, not because I intend to travel back in time and step on random insects, but it got me thinking about the everyday things in life that you don’t even think about, and how something very tiny and seemingly unimportant could lead to devastation in the future. (I guess it could lead to peace and prosperity, but that seems hardly anything to worry about).  If you hold the door open for someone, could that somehow lead to a world war in thousands of years?  And not only actions, but how do inventions affect the future?  Did the “invention” of the pencil (or the wheel, buttons, ice cream, car,…) somehow cause WW II???  Or has the effect not yet happened but will, soon?

I looked at several websites to research a little more on this topic, and found interesting information on Lorenz’ wheel (the one we saw videos of in class).  Turns out that when you graph the actions of this seemingly unpredictable wheel, you get a graph that is a spiral or a loop – so the behavior seen in the wheel was not as random as it appeared.  Before this, there were only two kinds of order that were known: periodic behavior and steady state.  The spiral/loop behavior was neither, but since it was still ”order”(it always did the same thing), he discovered a new type of order.  The site goes on talking about other instances where there is some order found in seemingly disorderly situations (e.g. growth rates, cotton price fluctuations,…) (http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.html).

So my realization is that one really shouldn't worry too much about what they do and how they do it...because you never know what little thing might set of a chain of events in the future, and maybe by trying NOT to do something, you do exactly the ONE thing needed to set off that event...So I learned that the future is unpredictable, in a very unpredictable way.

Some other sites that I looked at were:

http://www.stsci.edu/~lbradley/seminar/butterfly.html

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-butterfly-effect.htm

http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.html

2.

The main principle that would affect my project is (obviously) the observer effect.  Just by me asking the participants, I might have affected how they answer.  Or maybe they write down answers that are not really what they think, but what they think that I want to hear.  I tried to counteract that particular concern by telling them that there are no “right” or “wrong” answers.

I think the butterfly effect might also be applicable:  Maybe by asking a certain person a certain question in this survey today, this could lead to some event in the future that would not have happened otherwise? Maybe the person went home, talked to someone else about the questions and how they answered, which then that person told someone else, who then got the crazy idea to invent a hover-board for us to use for traveling short distances?

External perturbations applies, also, in that the “predictions” for my survey were made not completely knowing “where things are now” and what “outside influence will impinge on the system between now, and next”.  So the predictions are inherently faulty, since not all things were sufficiently taken into consideration (and I was so hoping for those hover-boards to become available soon…).

Homework 6

1) I found that it was hard to locate information specifically geared towards the question of how people of different age groups view the future.  So I ended up searching for future predictions in general, to see what people overall are coming up with when asked, and to get an idea of what kinds of questions to ask.

http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/tl1.html

http://www.lasvegastribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=395:civilization-2500-life-500-years-into-the-future&catid=61:future-talk&Itemid=128

http://www.diceproject.org/pdf/Keynote%20Address%202%20Contesting%20the%20future.pdf

http://www.futureforall.org/whatspossible.htm

http://www.csudh.edu/global_options/IntroFS.HTML#RangeFSViews

2)
Abstract: General Overview of the project and outcome
Introduction:  discuss age groups, state hypothesis/prediction about the outcome of the surveys
Materials and Methods: Discuss the questions i chose (mention related web-sites), who and how i chose the survey group.
Results: discuss answers given in survey, compare answers given by the different groups. Add data table containing all answers
discussion: relate differences/similarities in answers to age groups.  accept/reject hypothesis.  discuss the outcome, possible flaws, other things to consider, extensions possibilities for future projects

3. I incorporated the background research  that I did in the Materials and Methods section, since that is where I will be discussing the questions and the survey groups I chose in more detail.

I might incorporate and cite the resarch in the discussion section, as well, as it applies to my findings. 

Abstract: General Overview of the project and outcome
Introduction:  discuss age groups, state hypothesis/prediction about the outcome of the surveys
Materials and Methods: I have chosen to ask 7 questions about the participant's view of the future.  I chose an open answer type set-up, as to minimize the degree to which I was leading the answers.  I did not want the participants to chose which one of "my scenarios" they thought most likely.  I researched on the internet the types of views about the future.  I wanted to chose topics in my questions that people might already have an opinion about.  I wanted them to be able to relate to the questions so they could give their actual opinion.
I used several internet sites to get a better understanding of what questions to ask, and what I should expect from the answers.
http://www.csudh.edu/global_options/IntroFS.HTML#RangeFSViews discusses ranges and characteristics of different views of the future.
http://www.diceproject.org/pdf/Keynote%20Address%202%20Contesting%20the%20future.pdf mentions that women have different views of the future, and talks about student's preferred futures.
http://www.lasvegastribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=395:civilization-2500-life-500-years-into-the-future&catid=61:future-talk&Itemid=128 gave me general ideas what topics people might be thinking about when they think about the future. 

Results: discuss answers given in survey, compare answers given by the different groups. Add data table containing all answers
discussion: relate differences/similarities in answers to age groups.  accept/reject hypothesis.  discuss the outcome, possible flaws, other things to consider, extensions possibilities for future projects