Discoveries are sculpted by an individual’s attitude towards confronting or provocative discoveries which may challenge the current world and existing values. In addition, these new world or values can be life-changing, inspiring and transformative, that may shape the individual emotionally, physically and spiritually. The Door written by Miroslav Holub and Bill Bryson’s scientific novel A Short History of Nearly Everything both explores the transformative abilities of a provoking discovery in arousing a re-evaluation of the perception of the world. These two texts invite the reader to comprehend the profound ramification of confronting and provocative discoveries. As with epiphany comes denial, discoveries can comprise distressing ramifications. Bill Bryson successfully examines this in A Short History of Nearly Everything through scientific exploration, which uncovers the nature of human life and the potential of this world. For …show more content…
The poem The Door presents that discovery requires taking chances and the ambiguity of the consequences. Miroslav Holub conveys discovery as an individual’s curiosity to change and embrace new perspective, leading to a new perception of the world. The dual metaphor and symbol, ‘the door’, represents an obstacle that’s preventing us from instigating a discovery as well as a pathway for new possibilities. If the individual chooses to take the initiative, then new opportunities awaits behind ‘the door’. However, the deployment of anaphora, ‘maybe’, emphasise the uncertainty of the outcomes once you have overcome the obstacle and take a leap of faith. The outcomes may lead to the rejuvenation of an individual’s world and value or it may provoke an individual’s knowledge and reshape into a new world. Holub clearly demonstrates that discovering a new world may not always be a pleasant experience be in fact can be confronting and
The most significant journeys are always the ones that transform us, from which we emerge changed in some way. In Paulo Coelho’s modern classic novel The Alchemist, and Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken, the journey that is undertaken by the central exponents leaves both with enlightening knowledge that alters their lives irrevocably. In stark contradiction to this, Ivan Lalic’s poem Of Eurydice , delves into the disruptive and negative force of knowledge, in contrast to The Alchemist which details an antithesis of this point relative to knowledge. In all journeys, the eventuality of knowledge is a transformative one.
In the past couple centuries, many achievements resulting from mistakes uphold Thomas’s claim of useful human discovery precipitated by chance. For example,
“If this book had a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here...” (478). Bill Bryson’s writing might not be liked by many people, however, I found it to be enticing, and a wonderful read. Along with his mind-blowing facts, Bryson throws in humor to make the text even more engaging. A few facts were outdated, such as when Bryson is explaining the discovery of Pluto as a planet, when it is now classified as a dwarf planet. However, this just proves one of Bryson’s point, which is that sciences is always moving forward. Continually, I would recommend this book to people. It had opened my eyes to the wonders of the world, and the incredibly long and interesting journey to human existence. Furthermore, I would later gush about the facts for days, because I couldn’t quite believe what I had read.
Mario Livio, the author of Brilliant Blunders once said, “The way we march to truth is not on a straight line, but rather on a zig-zag path finding one blunder after the other to guide us to the correct way and correct scientific theory.” This quote is the premise of his literary work. All people make mistakes—even those who were credited to be the greatest minds in human history. Livio’s goal is to change the paradigm that scientific discoveries are solely success stories.
The most significant ramification of discovery is change. Change can be seen in Shakespeare’s play ‘The Tempest’ and Ken Kesey’s book ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ as a result of discoveries both about the characters themselves and the others around them.
Discoveries can be unexpected and sudden or they can transform from a process of careful and calculated planning evoked by curiosity, and wonder. These discoveries can lead individuals to search for meaning through a series of experiences. Simon Nasht’s documentary Frank Hurley - The Man Who Made History (2004) captures the experiences of adventurer, Frank Hurley as he explores the importance of discovery through the challenges that evoke individuals to transform through a process of journeys of discovery and exploration. John Keats’ poem ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ (1816) portrays the persona discovering Chapman’s translation of Homer’s epic poems evoking a transformative process from a passive reader of literature to be stimulated
Atwood takes many of today’s potential scientific developments and illustrates the worst possible outcome of what may happen if we continue the unregulated pursuit of knowledge. In reality, the scientific advances of today will yield a higher standard of living for the majority of the world tomorrow. We will continue to push for the best in everything including science, medicine, and technology; we will not allow any single person to make the sole decision to develop an idea. Scientific progression will save many lives; therefore, it should and will always be there for us.
...vercome, there is more of a chance to capture such great discoveries. People need to realize that if they never take the time to stop and look around, appreciate the small things in life, they might miss out on important details and or moments that the world has to offer. Scientist didn’t obtain their greatest discoveries by looking at the world with a closed mind. During the months of September through Novemeber, the leaves start to fall off the trees. It is obvious its fall, but what else is occurring? Gravity. Albert Einstein discovered gravity by watching and ordinary object fall. At that moment he became a scientific unscrupulous observer.
Some information is universal such as facts about a person’s birth or death. Our reading this week, points out that the work of researchers can have a worldwide impact on people’s lives (Committee on Science & Engineering, and Public Policy (U.S.),
He concludes that recognition, or realization, is the only defensible option. 2. The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.
Dr. Michael Shermer is a Professor, Founder of skeptic magazine, and a distinguished and brilliant American science writer to say the least. In His book The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People he sets out to embark on the daunting task of convincing and informing the reader on sciences’ ability to drives the expansion of humanity and the growth of the moral sphere. Although such a broad and general topic could be hard to explain, Shermer does so in a way that is concise, easy to understand, and refreshing for the reader. This novel is riddled with scientific facts, data, and pictures to back up shermers claims about the history of science, humanity and how the two interact with one another.
...ups of people neglect or refuse to look at the consequences of their actions. Pride gets in the way, or ignorance, or what have you, but each time people reach too far, they fail, and they are set further back than they began. Well, nowadays scientists aren’t just reaching too far; they set their limits at infinity. Modern science nurses the popular belief that everything can be learned, and that with enough effort, everything will be learned eventually. They set maximum good at knowing as much as possible, as opposed to knowing as much as we need to. Now, scientific advancement is not a bad thing, and progress should not be seen as negative. However, reckless advancement and progress for the simple sake of progress can lead to problems, particularly when we don’t have the full picture.
Something that is unknown or unfamiliar is commonly something that people fear, but what happens when intelligent individuals dare to uncover the facts within? The answer to this question is that remarkable discoveries are made that change human knowledge, technology, and health forever. The most beneficial of these discoveries are the ones involving the betterment of human health. Doctors and scientists are viewed as the people with the highest intellect in the world’s communities, but they are still human and therefore prone to error. However, Morton A. Meyers’s book Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs explores the various positive outcomes that arose from human error. Specifically, in this book Meyers writes about
Of all the scientists to emerge from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there is one whose name is known by almost all living people. While most of these do not understand this mans work, everyone knows that his impact on the world is astonishing.
I learned that it is possible to discuss social issues looking into History of Science and vice-versa, and it matters to me because it means that scientists may not be giving enough attention to the History of Science – I was in my 5th semester of College in Brazil and this is the first time I am really looking into History of Science. More like a continuation of my two last papers than only one paper, I made a review with what I learned previously and this last section. If someone would ask me why, I would say that is because I learned that sometimes we can solve the problems of tomorrow looking right back to the past.