Can Experts Disagree on the Same Facts?

Can Experts Disagree on the Same Facts? Prescribed Title 5: Given access to the same facts, how is it possible that there can be disagreement between experts in a discipline? Develop your answer with reference to two areas of knowledge. For centuries scientists and historians alike have debated topics within their field of study. Whether it be the structure of an atom or the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, experts in these fields often disagree despite having access to the same exact facts and information. These separate interpretations of data leads to the question of how it is possible that the same facts do not always point to the same general truths. Although experts in the fields of science and history have access to the same facts, the experts who analyze and interpret these facts are human beings, whose thoughts are impacted by the different cultures, experiences, and perspectives in which they were raised. One important question that needs to be raised is what makes someone an expert? Better yet, what is a fact? An expert is someone who has an extensive background in a certain subject and is recognized by others as having a comprehensive understanding of a specific topic. This means that they have a great understanding of the subject matter of which they are an expert, and others can attest to this proficiency. Facts are known truths that are commonly accepted and verifiable. A fact must be verifiable in order to be legitimate. Understanding these terms allows us to truly understand the nature of historians and scientists and their interpretations of information. One of the most important, yet most debatable, tasks that a historian must complete is weighing evidence after reviewing historical facts. Historians make decisions based on many different pieces of evidence. They decide how important each piece of evidence is to the way that history played out. This brings up the question of the extent to which the weighing of evidence by historians in relation to events in history is subjective or objective. The weighing of evidence tends to be subjective simply because of the often multiple different causes of certain events in history. This can be seen in the analysis of almost every historical event in recorded history, but especially in the analysis of the cause of World War II. Many different factors played into the cause of World War II. Between the economic sanctions imposed by countries such as the United States and Great Britain, political tension between the major powers, or expansionist foreign policies of Italy, Germany, and Japan, no single cause can be seen as the only one to start to war (History.com staff). However, deciding which cause had the greatest impact on war is what historians debate over and weigh evidence over, yet they often come to separate conclusions. The different cultures, experiences, and perspectives of the historians leads to their different interpretations and evaluations of evidence in history. Although these experts analyze the same data, the lenses through which they view the evidence are different. Historians do their best to analyze facts and their impact on history with total objectivity, yet the nature of the weighing of evidence is very subjective. Historians have to use their own personal values and emotions, based on their own personal culture and experiences, in order to evaluate evidence and make decisions based on these evaluations. This also brings up the question of the extent to which the upbringings of a historian has an impact on their analysis of historical facts. All historians grow up in unique situations and so their view on the world and the way humans interact with each other is slightly different. Furthermore, their opinions on the interactions of foreign powers can often be impacted by their nationalities and the education they received. This personal opinion is most prominently seen with debate over differing political ideologies and their impact on foreign nations. I saw this debate first hand in my history class. The topic of the discussion was Cuba and the rise of Castro as a communist dictator. As the child of a Cuban exile, I have heard anecdotes from people who lived and suffered under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. My family has seen the thousands of people who were killed under his command and the conditions of the Cuban people because of his policies. Undoubtedly, because of my personal upbringings, I am biased against Castro and communism in general. This extremely negative experience with communism has swayed my opinion about the political ideology to a great extent. However, in class, my history teacher argued that Fidel Castro had a great, positive impact on Cuba and the Cuban people. My teacher claimed that Castro reduced the unemployment rate and generally improved the average living conditions of the Cuban people. Just like historians, both my teacher and I were analyzing the same facts about the same country, yet were drawing drastically different conclusions. We were weighing evidence based on our own personal cultures and beliefs and drawing conclusions about the general nature of the regime. This personal example gives insight to the debates that historians go through in order to come to conclusions about events or topics in history. Historians attempt to decipher data in an objective way, yet the weighing of evidence is subjective and easily influenced by the culture of the historian. In this way, historians rarely come to the same conclusions based on the same facts simply because each individual historian is weighing evidence based on their own unique personal experiences. These experiences and aspects of their culture give each historian a predisposed idea about topics in history that causes them to evaluate events in history in different ways. In the field of science, the different types of data often leads to disagreement and separate conclusions based on this data. In science, the two main types of data are quantitative and qualitative; quantitative data being data that can be measured in numbers while qualitative data being data that can be observed and described. Quantitative data tends to not only be more precise, but also easier to reproduce. On the other hand, qualitative data is measured based on the scientists interpretations of a certain quality within an experiment. For example, when performing titrations, scientists often use color indicators to show when the titration is complete. However, they must decide for their own when the color has changed sufficiently for the titration to be considered complete. This leads to a large amount of room for error. This same experiment can be performed around the world several times by experts in the field of science yet they may all come to different conclusions about the d ata. This imprecision of this data leads to the question of the extent to which the preconceived ideas of scientists affects the way they interpret data. Often times in science, data is either difficult to describe, as in the exact color of a solution when a titration is complete, or in instances where an experiment cannot be conducted in order to test a theory. For example, String Theory was proposed by scientists years ago and many scientists continue to support it today. In the words of Richard Dawid, On one side of the divide stand most of those physicists who work on string physics and in fields like inflationary cosmology or high energy particle physics model building, which are strongly influenced by string physics. Yet, many other experts disagree and refuse to support the theory. They, consider string theory a vastly overrated speculation, and without being able to conduct an experiment to prove the theory, it is not valid. They refuse to consider the evidence proposed by scienti sts who support the theory simply based on this single idea. The nature of a scientists research can help explain why many scientists can come to different conclusions when analyzing the same data. When a scientist sets out to conduct an experiment, they often have a goal in mind. Whether they are trying to prove a theory correct or make a new discovery, scientists often have preconceived ideas about the topic of which their experiment is concerned. In other cases, scientists are being supported financially by investors who are looking for the scientists to come to certain conclusions, especially in relation to medicines where investors are looking to create a new drug in order to make a profit. Because of this, scientists often have biases when conducting experiments. This leads to them analyzing data in a way that will support their goals. They will often disregard or assign insignificant value data that contradicts the claim they are trying to support. This is generally the source of disagreement between scientists when analyzing the same d ata. Every day, historians and scientists alike are analyzing undisputable facts. They look at these facts and come to completely separate conclusions. As human beings, we all are subject to interpreting facts through the subjective lenses of our cultures and personal experiences. Although experts in both the fields of history and science may try to be objective as possible, certain elements of research in these fields require subjective analysis that can vary from expert to expert. This gives way to differing conclusions among experts in the fields of science and history and, in general, disagreements between experts in a certain field despite having access to the same facts. Works Cited Dawid, Richard. String Theory and the Scientific Method. Cambridge: Cambridge U, 2015. Print. History.com Staff. World War II History. History.com. AE Television Networks, 2009. Web. 15 Feb. 2017. .

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey Essay

Throughout history, the struggle of women to gain and sustain power in society has proven to be difficult, and has coexisted with a rivalry against the opposite sex. Women have been denied many throughout the course of history. They have been discriminated against, lost jobs, lost privileges. Women’s suffrage had not developed in the United States until the Nineteenth Amendment, which became effective in time to allow the voting by women nationally in the Presidential election of August 18, 1920. Stereotypical views of the ideal features of women are femininity, maternity, gentility, care, nurture, and dependency. Not matriarchy, independence, nor strength. Women are not generally associated with these traits, and society generally expects women to posses the assumed feminine characteristics. This is not the case in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, in which Ken Kesey shows a woman can hold a dominating, powerful role in society and be contrary to the stereotypical woman figure to depict the validity of the society’s views about women and their roles using the failure of the matriarchal female character to succeed at her role assumed by her occupation. The matriarchal female, Mildred Big Nurse Ratched, gains control over her realm in the mental hospital, but fails to fulfill her duties as a nurse of healing or helping her patients. The sexist description of her physical appearance provided by her patients are those typically associated with women, however, she completely contradicts the typical female. She is a matriarchal figure, not maternal. She is powerful, not dependent. And she manipulates complete power over the staff and patients of the hospital. However, her matriarchy does not fulfill her duties assumed by her occupation; to heal and help the patients. Instead, she worsens the situation by diminishing their strengths and exposing their weaknesses; which she does to gain control in a way which appeals to her senses. Big Nurse, or Mildred Ratched, attempts, and succeeds, to create her own world within the confines of the ward; one where she is completely in charge of all her subjects. This depicts her strong matriarchal role. Her desire to gain complete control over her environment uses several strategical moves.  After convincing her patients to confess their personal secrets, Ratched is understood by the patients to use the disadvantages of her patients to her own advantage in her accomplishment of gaining absolute power. Nurse Ratched is able to â€Å"smell out† the fear of her patients and â€Å"put it to use† (17) As the novel progresses, we also learn that Ratched’s powers within the ward extend to ludicrous measures as she is able to order harming of the relatively disruptive patients, which contributes to her extensive amount of power withing the ward. In numerous important scenes, we learn the extent of her power to prevent noisome independence: she can, in additio n to all the little arts of prodding the guilty recesses of her â€Å"patients'† consciences, order electric shock, even lobotomize the recalcitrant or merely disruptive patient. (Boardman ) She achieves control over the ward, as her patients, aware of her power, obey willingly or unwillingly. Mac, a patient at the hospital, promises to bug the nurse â€Å"till she comes apart at those neat little seams† (12). However, he learns that he can be institutionalized as long as the nurse sees fit. He immediately becomes cagey, satisfying, temporarily at least (Boardman)Nurse Ratched is able to establish complete control in the ward, and her patients recognize her ability maintain total control; a type of control that is parallel to a monarchy. In her own realm, Ratched is viewed as a very powerful individual, and the patients start to abide by her rules. Harding, a patient, explains, â€Å"‘We are victims of a matriarchy here, my friend, and the doctor is just as helpless against it as we are'† (54). This sentence is remarkably significant. It accredits the nurse as a dominant character in the hospital, and it also establishes the idea that the patients are not the only ones controlled by her, but the doctors as well. At times, Ratched refers to the sexuality of the men in the institute, making them inferior because of their inabilities. Ratched’s strength, and matriarchial character as a woman directly contradict the assumed characteristics associated with women; those of femininity and gentility. This contradiction is established in a way many by critics that look at the surface of the topic as a sexist description. In multiple occurrences throughout the progression of the novel, Ratched’s female characteristics are exaggeratively described by the patients such as McMurphy. McMurphy describes Ratched as having too red lipstick and the too  big boobs. (43) and as a a bitch and a buzzard and a ballcutter. Therefore, Ratched directly opposes the traditional gentle view of women as a matriarch but is given over-exaggerated female characteristics. Kesey’s purpose in creating this contrast between a stereotypical woman and and an ideal woman that is independent and strong is to establish the unsuccessful attempt at triumph of the ideal strong woman. The unsuccessful attempts of Ratched are depicted by her failure to meet the assumed role of being a nurse that consists of helping and healing her patients. Instead of helping, Ratched proceeds to make the state and situation of her patients worse and worse as she puts them down about their inabilities and maintains total control over them. Ratched is even viewed as evil. McMurphy explains, No, that nurse ain’t some kinda monster chicken, buddy, what she is is a ball-cutter. I’ve seen a thousand of ’em, old and young, men and women. Seen ’em all over the country and in the homes–people who try to make you weak so that they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. †¦ If you’re up against a guy who wants to win by making you weaker instead of making himself stronger, then watch for his knee, he’s gonna go for your vitals. And that’s what that old buzzard is doing. (58) McMurphy also refers to Ratched as impregnable and this sets her apart from the typical view of a female and the clichà ©d mother/whore dichotomy (Quinn) is established in the novel. There is an ambiguity that arises in the course of the novel, and the established dichotomy discussed by Quinn is expanded with a comparison of the two parts; the matriarch and the whore. Whereas Ratched uses power and control to accomplish her role of care and fails, the two whores introduced by McMurphy gain the trust and sympathy of the reader. They are viewed positively and as kind hearted by the patients in the institution. An excellent comparison captures the perception of the two figures; Strong women are evil and emasculating (Quinn) and The women viewed positively in the novel are the kind-hearted whores whom Mac introduces to the men and the sympathetic and very tiny Japanese nurse who works on the Disturbed ward. (Quinn) Through this direct comparison of the strong woman that is apart from a typical figure and the stereotypical woman that performers an act  directly associated with women, one can see that the typical woman is able to do what the other cannot; gain the affection of the male. While Ratched hides her female characteristics by wearing a white coat, the whores display their female attributes, and gain a positive view from the society made up of the hospital. McMurphy’s prior comment of Ratched being impregnable is linked to this comparison, since sexuality is a trait apparently missing from Ratched. Ken Kesey depicts the failure of a non-typical female figure to accomplish her goals as a dominating powerful figure by describing Ratched as evil, and comparing her to whores, who are viewed as kind hearted. This defiant comparison is uncommon since typically whores are viewed as a malignant part of society and nurses are viewed as purgatory. As a complete opposite, the whores are able to help amend the feelings of the patients, whereas Nurse Ratched fails miserably to accomplish her duty and even worsens the situation of her patients. Through the development of the female characters in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Kesey is able to convince the reader that the stereotypical woman is able to successfully help society, while the unusual matriarchal female is unable to fulfill her duties by gaining control and exercising domination. Works Cited (MLA Format)Boardman, Michael M. â€Å"One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Rhetoric and Vision.† Journal of Narrative Technique 9. No. 3. Fall 1979.: 171-83. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Quinn, Laura. Moby Dick vs. Big Nurse: A Feminist Defense of a Misogynist Text: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints. Ed. Nicholas J. Karolides. Lee Burress. John M. Kean. Scarecrow Press, 1993: 398-413. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Vol. 2. Zubizarreta, John. â€Å"The Disparity of Point of View in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.† Literature/Film Quarterly 22. No 1. 1994: 62-9. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism.

A Guide to the Purchasing Power Parity Theory

Purchasing-power parity (PPP) is an economic concept that states that the  real exchange rate  between domestic and foreign goods is equal to one, though it does not mean that the  nominal exchange rates  are constant or equal to one.   Put another way, PPP supports the idea that identical items in different countries should have the same real prices in another, that a person who purchases an item domestically should be able to sell it in another country and have no money left over. This means that the amount of purchasing power that a consumer has does not depend on what currency with which he or she is making purchases. The Dictionary of Economics defines the PPP theory as one that states that the exchange rate between one currency and another is in equilibrium when their domestic purchasing powers at that  rate of exchange  are equivalent. Understanding Purchasing-Power Parity in Practice To better understand how this concept would apply to real-world economies, look at the United States dollar versus the Japanese yen. Say, for example, that one U.S. dollar (USD) can buy about 80 Japanese yen (JPY). While that would make it appear that United States citizens have less purchasing power, the PPP theory implies that there is an interaction between nominal prices and nominal exchange rates so that, for example, items in the United States that sell for one dollar would sell for 80 yen in Japan, which is a concept known as the real exchange rate. Take a look at another example. First, suppose that one USD is currently selling for 10 Mexican pesos (MXN) on the exchange rate market. In the United States, wooden baseball bats sell for $40 while in Mexico they sell for 150 pesos. Since the exchange rate is one to 10, then the $40 USD bat would only cost $15 USD if bought in Mexico. Theres an advantage to purchasing the bat in Mexico, so consumers are much better off going to Mexico to buy their bats. If consumers decide to do this, we should expect to see three things happen: American consumers desire Mexican Pesos to purchase baseball bats in Mexico. So they go to an  exchange rate  office and sell their American Dollars and buy Mexican Pesos, and this will cause the Mexican Peso to become more valuable relative to the U.S. Dollar.The demand for baseball bats sold in the United States decreases, so the price American retailers charge goes down.The demand for baseball bats sold in Mexico increases, so the price Mexican retailers charge goes up. Eventually, these three factors should cause the exchange rates and the prices in the two countries to change such that we have purchasing power parity. If the U.S. Dollar declines in value to a one to eight ratio to Mexican pesos, the price of baseball bats in the United States goes down to $30 each, and the price of baseball bats in Mexico goes up to 240 pesos each, we will have purchasing power parity. This is because a consumer can spend $30 in the United States for a baseball bat, or he can take his $30, exchange it for 240 pesos and buy a baseball bat in Mexico and be no better off. Purchasing Power Parity and the Long Run Purchasing-power parity theory tells us that price differentials between countries are not sustainable in the long run as market forces will equalize prices between countries and change exchange rates in doing so. You might think that my example of consumers crossing the border to buy baseball bats is unrealistic as the expense of the longer trip would wipe out any savings you get from buying the bat for a lower price. However, it is not unrealistic to imagine an individual or company buying hundreds or thousands of the bats in Mexico then shipping them to the United States for sale. It is also not unrealistic to imagine a store like Walmart purchasing bats from the lower cost manufacturer in Mexico instead of the higher cost manufacturer in Mexico. In the long run, having different prices in the United States and Mexico is not sustainable because an individual or company will be able to gain an arbitrage profit by buying the good cheaply in one market and selling it for a higher price in the other market. Since the price for any one good should be equal across markets, the price for any combination or basket of goods should be equalized. Thats the theory, but it doesnt always work in practice.   How Purchasing-Power Parity is Flawed in Real Economies Despite its intuitive appeal, purchasing-power parity does not generally hold in practice because PPP relies on the presence of arbitrage opportunities — opportunities to  buy items at a low price in one place and sell them at a higher price in another — to bring prices together in different countries. Ideally, as a result, prices would converge because the buying activity would push prices in one country up and the selling activity would push prices in the other country down. In reality, there are various transaction costs and barriers to trade that limit the ability to make prices converge via market forces. For example, its unclear how one would exploit arbitrage opportunities for services across different geographies, since its often difficult, if not impossible, to transport services without additional costs from one place to another. Nevertheless, purchasing-power parity is an important concept to consider as a baseline theoretical scenario, and, even though purchasing-power parity might not hold perfectly in practice, the intuition behind it does place practical limits on how much real prices can diverge across countries. Limiting Factors to Arbitrage Opportunities Anything which limits the free trade of goods will limit the opportunities people have in taking advantage of these arbitrage opportunities. A few of the larger limits are: Import and Export Restrictions: Restrictions such as quotas,  tariffs, and laws will make it difficult to buy goods in one market and sell them in another. If there is a 300% tax on imported baseball bats, then in our second example it is no longer profitable to buy the bat in Mexico instead of the United States. The U.S. could also pass a law  making  it illegal to import baseball bats. The effect of quotas and tariffs were covered in more detail in Why Are Tariffs Preferable to Quotas?.Travel Costs: If it is costly to transport goods from one market to another, we would expect to see a difference in prices in the two markets. This even happens in places that use the same currency; for  instance, the price of goods is lower in Canadian cities such as Toronto and Edmonton than it is in more remote parts of Canada such as Nunavut.Perishable Goods: It may be simply physically impossible to transfer goods from one market to another. There may be a place which sells cheap sandwic hes in New York City, but that doesnt help me if I am living in San Francisco. Of course, this effect is mitigated by the fact that many of the ingredients used in making the sandwiches are transportable, so we would expect that sandwich makers in New York and San Francisco should have similar material costs. This is the basis  of  the Economists famous Big Mac Index, which is detailed in their must-read article McCurrencies.Location: You cannot buy a piece of property in Des Moines and move it to Boston. Because of that real-estate prices in markets can vary wildly. Since the price of land is not the same everywhere, we would expect this to have an impact on prices, as retailers in Boston have higher expenses than retailers in Des Moines. So while purchasing power parity theory helps us understand exchange rate differentials, exchange rates do not always converge in the long run the way PPP theory predicts.

Memories Are Highly Complex, Overly Malleable, And...

Saipriya Sagiraju Psych 392A-Section 7 Ben Pawlish November 16, 2015 Title Memories are highly complex, overly malleable, and immensely mistaken. Thesis: Children are un trust worthy because of this, this, and this. Main ideas Form childhood, people are raised knowing that lying to cover up their mistakes is unacceptable, and that they should always tell the truth. However, when children start attending school they also start developing white lies due to â€Å"anti- and pro social purposes.† This tendency to say white lies positively correlates with the age of the individual. Most people use the society they are surrounded by as a reason behind their white lies. People will be constantly fighting if it were not for white lies, which is†¦show more content†¦The only form of evidence is the child words. â€Å"Child sexual abuse can take place within the family, by a parent, step-parent, sibling or other relative†¦. When sexual abuse has occurred, a child can develop many distressing feelings, thoughts and behaviors†(Citation). Child sexual abuse is a traumatic event that a child will most likely reme mber for the rest of their life. Additionally, this autobiographical memory in children, Peterson and her colleagues conducted a study on 2-13year old children who had to be rushed to the emergency room due to a major injury. The children were interviewed after â€Å"6-months, one year or two years† immediately after the surgery. At 6-months children remembered 75 percent of the information correctly. At one year children remembered 57 percent of the information correctly. Therefore, even after a long gap between the injury and the interview children still recalled the traumatic event, so when a child tells his parent that his teacher sexually abused him then it an information that should be trusted. The beliefs that children are unable invent stories about sexual abuse led to the imprisonment of many innocent people. This outbreak of sexual abuse cases started of in the early 80s, where children claimed that their teacher, parent, doctor, or baby sitter sexually abused them. When a person is sexually abused one expects to see physical signs of â€Å"sexual penetration† that provide solid evidence to