13 Reasons Why?

KQ
To what extent can emotion be contagious?

To what extent does authority matter in delivering an opinion?

To what extent can arts be justified by science?

In the article, it is overtly mentioned that the TV series, "13 Reasons Why" brought a reverted consequence to its original purpose of reducing suicide rates by worsening the rate. It also mentioned that this is because teenagers tends to copy what they think to be true. Therefore, it is worth questioning whether emotion can be contagious or shared among people.

Emotion is something that every single person has, but its transferability is something to be questioned. It is quite true that people

Ethical guidelines

Ethical guidelines in Human Science

First, let's define human science. So, what is human science? According to Wikipedia, human science is a term applied to the investigation of human life and activities by a rational, systematic and verifiable methodology that acknowledges the validity of data.

In this long definition, I want to highlight certain words that I think are significant in understanding the true meaning of human science. The words are, 'investigation', 'human activities', 'methodology', and 'data'. The reason why I chose these words is because human science is an investigation which looks at human activities using appropriate methodology and data. I think this definition links to the question of 'to what extent investigation of human science is considered ethical?'
In the field of human science, particularly psychology, requires many investigation because they specifically look at human behaviors in certain situations. However, is it right or just to look at human behaviors? or is it right to experiment on humans? If it is, is there any boundary psychologists shouldn't go over? To answer this, I want to look at some past cases where experiments were considered unethical.

The first example I want to see is the Robbers cave experiment, where a number of preteen kids were brought to a summer camp without being informed that they are subjects of a psychology experiment. To summarize the experiment, the boys were divided into 2 groups where they were only allowed to meet up only when competing in a game. As the game intensified and the boys became harsher on each other, the experiment had ended. The problem in this experiment was engraved in the root of it. The psychologists had not informed the boys and deceived them that it was a "normal" summer camp, thus this was the reason why hostility between the boys arose.

Another example is the Stanford prison experiment, an experiment which happened at the basement of Stanford University by a professor and his group of students who agreed to be experimenters. To summarize the experiment, half of the students were selected as prison guards and the other half were assigned as prisoners. Each of the group of different role had to be serious with the experiment and had to act or even impersonate as prisoners and guards. At last, although the experiment was planned to last 2 weeks, it ended early 2 students with the role of prisoners dropped out. So, what is the problem with this experiment? I think that the problem is also in the root and procedure of the experiment. The fact that non-prisoners are acting like prisoners do not make them behave like prisoners in anyway because they are undergoing different environments. Also, the experiment divided the group into 2 groups where one was at the upper-hand of the other;this right away creates a psychological difference, thus making the experiment unethical.

To conclude, nowadays, due to external factors such as the Internet, where information and news fly around the world rapidly, experiments like those above have reduced, but what is it us for to say Yes, and No? Without any boundary or bar defining the adequacy and ethicality of experiments, it is never possible to determine it.

Models in Natural Science

Without models, there is no science -Kyu-

This quote that I just made might sound absurd, but I am telling you, I am being serious. When we learn sciences (bio, chem, physics, etc) in school, we encounted models everytime, but we are so indifferent with them. These models are like conduits that allow knowledge to pass through and to be delivered to us. Also, these models are like maps that guide us through the obscure world of natural science.

For example, this diagram below which illustrates the circulation of water omits so may external factors such as pollution, omits individual droplets, and how each droplets can have variations. Despite these many downfalls, we cannot say this model is wrong or inaccurate because it sure is accurate and useful when looking at the big picture. I want to highlight the word, 'big picture' and go in depth. In natural science, where millions of theories exist and not a single can be told wrong; if each theory were to be incorporated in a model, that model wouldn't be a 'model' anymore as it loses its true meaning-which is to be guiding and easily comprehensible.

Another example is one that I mentioned before:Circuits. In class, we are asked to construct a tangible circuit by looking at an intangible circuit that is drawn on paper. How are we able to do this and are those intangible circuits wrong because they don't so many things into account? Instead of trying to define whether it's wrong or right, we should be thankful of these models as they are maps and conduits of the knowledge we currently have.

Connection between personal knowledge and natural sciences

Of many other fields of study, I can't agree more that Natural science is the most difficult to have personal relationship with. It is almost impossible to create a personal connection between our personal knowledge and natural science In most cases, knowledge from natural sciences results from a very complicated and planned-ahead procedures. The main reason why we cannot relate our personal knowledge with knowledge of personal science is because due to the nature of personal knowledge. To define personal knowledge, it means any knowledge that is acquired from our experience thus without any given background knowledge; because in the case of natural science, it is so abstruse and broad that is impossible to comprehend without any background knowledge. However, I also think that there is a connection between personal knowledge and natural science, but only to a certain extent.

In everyday life, we go through so many things that we never keep track of every single things we do, but there are things that our brain does remember more than others. For many people, things resonate with them more when they have contact or to be scientific, 'tactile connection'. For example, when we touch a boiling water for the first time, we subconsciously link something boiling with hotness. Later on, this creates a robust foundation when learning thermal physics. Another example is when we bleed. Let's say you fell down from a staircase, and you start to bleed. Despite the pain, we learn that a scab replaces the blood, and that is when the pain starts to relieve. Again, this creates a foundation when we learn thoroughly about biology.


In conclusion, it is wrong to say there is no connection or contribution between personal knowledge and knowledge of natural science. Instead, we should be grateful of our personal experiences, as they lay as foundations and enable us to comprehend the complexity of natural sciences.

Metaphors in Natural Science

In the field of science, it is almost impossible to comprehend and express anything without the use of metaphors. Science itself is so abstruse that we humans cannot understand most of the things with our brains, but with the aid from metaphors we are able to do so. In this blog post, I will go over some examples.

First, Let's look at the perspective of physics. In physics, there are millions of assumptions involved, however we tend to ignore them completely and create a diagram that enables to ignore those assumptions. An example of this is the Free-body diagram, a diagram that shows the forces acting on an object. This image below shows all the forces acting on an object sliding from a slanted surface. The forces are: Gravitational, normal, and frictional force. However, in this there are many assumptions included. For instance, it is assuming that the object is sliding in a linear line, whereas in reality is it more likely to slide off diagonally and not at a constant velocity.
Hence, it is not right at the first place to present the diagram on a flat surface, meaning that it is impossible to present something 3D into 2D. Likewise, you can see the same for how physicist universally agreed upon the method of representing circuits. Universally, people share and use the same symbols and notations. Nothing is wrong with these symbols and notations, but what is "wrong' is how physicists casually represent tangled, complicated, and 3-dimensional circuits into untangled, simple, and 2-dimensional diagrams.

Secondly, let's look at the perspective of biology. Normally, if we 'google' human body diagrams, we see a general trend of an average human body with same looking internal organs across images. However, we clearly know that this is not the case. Everyone has different external appearances and probably different-looking internal organs too. Also, when we look at veins, we also see blood. Scientifically, isn't it right to show the sustenance and chemicals in blood? However, we tend to metaphorically ignore them and generalize them to be pure blood.


To conclude, we have seen some obvious, yet great examples of how metaphors are used widely accross physics. Through these examples, we have also learnt that, without these metaphors there is nothing we can comprehend and express in the world of science. Also without these metaphorical and univeral representations, the scientific knowledge we know of wouldn't have existed at all.

Blog Entry: Ethical limitaion of Science

I think there is a perfect example that will help me guide through the 2 questions written below.

1.       To what extent should scientific knowledge open to the public

2.       To what extent does science owe responsibility to the society that finances it

I am more than assured than everyone has heard about nuclear energy and its growing popularity as an alternative source of energy of finite energy sources such as oil over the globe. However, there are some downsides to nuclear energy. Despite the high productivity and environmental-freeness, there is no doubt that this source is by far the most dangerous and unpredictable among other sources. This leads us to the first question: To what extent should scientific knowledge be open to the public. I personally think that, in the case of nuclear energy, scientific knowledge should not be open to the public for many reasons. But the main reason is that, people might use the knowledge for their own benefits. In extreme cases, they might build their own nuclear power plants. However, I believe that there is an exception in this; Scientific knowledge that are minor and useful in the people’s daily lives should be open. Next, the second questions states to what extent does science owe responsibility to the society that finances it. To take a firm stand, I strongly believe that science owe utter responsibility to the society. In the case of nuclear energy, it is apparent that the citizens of a country must pay more tax in order to raise finance to build the nuclear power plants, and the costs of building a nuclear power plant costs $4 billion on average. Even after the power plants are built, the citizens are not guaranteed safety. As I have mentioned before, nuclear power plants are unpredictable and disastrous, and if it once explodes, a whole city, or perhaps a country can vanish. For example, the Chernobyl incident, which happened on 2 April 1986, was a catastrophic and shocking accident that started as one of the power plants exploded. The poor residences, who had to pay immense amount of money, died due to extremely high radiation. Like this, because science doesn’t result in positive outcomes, the society should always prioritize the people as they are the ones financing and undergoing the leap.