A Comparison Of Lewis Thomas 'The Medusa And The Snail'

615 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Lewis Thomas and The Medusa and the Snail

All through the history of mankind, many important inventions discoveries have been made, and they have helped the human race advance towards a more happy and healthy lifestyle. This success was not achieved by solely doing the “right” things all of the time. Many times, mistakes are made, and these mistakes often lead to the greatest scientific discoveries. Lewis Thomas, a biologist and author of The Medusa and the Snail, argues that making no mistakes will not get anything useful done. Thomas’s argument is valid and it should be considered correct because a great quantity of major inventions and discoveries were created when people made mistakes. Nearly every successful individual has made multiple mistakes throughout their entire lives,

Show More
Related

  • The Unnecessary Paranoia of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Seeing by Annie Dillard and Our Perception of the World

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    ” There are many small details that are only visible to the unscrupulous observer. When the obstacle of narrow-sightedness is overcome, 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 moments that the world has to offer. Scientists didn’t obtain their greatest discoveries by looking at the world with a closed mind. During the months of September through November, the leaves start to fall off the trees.

    Read More

  • Why Do Mistakes Lead To Discovery

    393 Words  | 1 Pages

    People may say that mistakes just hold scientists back and provide obstacles. John Denker says, “scientists worked to avoid mistakes.” He says that scientists did not just make one mistake that led to a big discovery, but they invented their products little by little, trying to make it perfect. Mistakes may hold you back sometimes,

    Read More

  • A Close Reading of Euripides' Medea

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    Medea's first public statement, a sort of "protest speech," is one of the best parts of the play and demonstrates a complex, at times even contradictory, representation of gender.  Medea's calm and reasoning tone, especially after her following out bursts of despair and hatred, provides the first display of her ability to gather herself together in the middle of crisis and pursue her hidden agenda with a great determination. This split in her personality is to a certain degree gender bias. The lack of emotional restraint is "typical" of women, and the strong attention to moral action is a common trait of heroes. Medea actually uses both of these traits so that her wild emotions fuel her ideals, thus producing a character that fails to fit into a clear mold.

    Read More

  • African American Contributions in Science

    3146 Words  | 7 Pages

    All fields of science affects the lives of many people, but the inventors are left out. Inventors make many lives more comfortable and convenient. George Edward Alcorn, Jr. was a not so well-known inventor, but he...

    Read More

  • Technology In Ronald Wright's A Short History Of Progress

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    He applies his findings to examples throughout history and makes the point that we do not learn from our mistakes. Wright claims that “as cultures grow more elaborate, and technologies more powerful, they themselves may become ponderous specializations – vulnerable and, in extreme cases, deadly.” Humanity progresses too fast and ends up doing more damage than good. In the Stone Age humans went from killing 2 mammoths to 200, we went from the arrow to the bullet in a number of decades. These advancements are called “progress traps”, and inevitably threaten our whole species with extinction. Humanity has reached a point where we must slow down our advancements and look at what is really necessary. All of these advancements are bringing up more problems than they are solving. We have to start reversing our current problems, and prepare for the future. We are coming to a point of no return from the consequences to our actions and as Wright says “if we fail – if we blow up or degrade the biosphere so it can no longer sustain us – nature will merely shrug and conclude that letting apes run the laboratory was fun for a while but in the end a bad

    Read More

  • The Enlightenment and the Electric Battery

    2606 Words  | 6 Pages

    This paper is a discussion of the role played by the ideals of the Enlightenment in the invention and assessment of artifacts like the electric battery. The first electric battery was built in 1799 by Alessandro Volta, who was both a natural philosopher and an artisan-like inventor of intriguing machines. I will show that the story of Volta and the battery contains three plots, each characterized by its own pace and logic. One is the story of natural philosophy, a second is the story of artifacts like the battery, and the third is the story of the loose, long-term values used to assess achievement and reward within and outside expert communities. An analysis of the three plots reveals that late eighteenth-century natural philosophers, despite their frequent celebration of 'useful knowledge,' were not fully prepared to accept the philosophical dignity of artifacts stemming from laboratory practice. Their hesitation was the consequence of a hierarchy of ranks and ascribed competence that was well established within the expert community. In order to make artifacts stemming from laboratory practice fully acceptable within the domain of natural philosophy, some important changes had yet to occur. Still, the case overwhelmingly shows that artifacts rightly belong to the long and varied list of items that make up the legacy of the Enlightenment.

    Read More

  • Xenotransplants - Animal to Human Organ Transplants

    1402 Words  | 3 Pages

    When asked how he feels about the advancement of science to places that were once notions to be the job of the creator, Dr. Martin Luther King replies by saying, “Cowardice asks is it safe? Expedience asks is it political? Vanity asks is it popular? But the conscience asks is it right?”

    Read More

  • Ethical Dilemmas in Psychology

    1795 Words  | 4 Pages

    Francis Bacon helped to pioneer the new science steering people away from Aristotelian teachings. He helped to bring the scientific method to a place of learning from observation and experimentation. He felt that science should be judged by the usefulness of the results (Greenwood, 2009). Bacon projected that many great things might come out of this empirical approach, but what has ensued in the centuries that followed, Bacon and others might not have predicted.

    Read More

  • Paradigm The Paradigm

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    In modern days, scientific discourse between ‘normal’ and ‘revolutionary’ scientists has raised questions about what they should or shouldn 't give proper attention and further study. One example of this, is the orthodox narrative of modern human history shared by geologists and archaeologists around the world, which tells us that the first technologically advanced human civilizations started in Mesopotamia around 3,000-5,000 BC. However, a series of evidence brought forth by two science skeptics and scientists suggest that the current narrative of our history could be inaccurate. They argue that it’s possible that a lost, technologically advanced ancient civilization mapped and explored the globe with great accuracy millennia before orthodox human history tells. From this debate arises a question: Should scientists focus exclusively on driving the current paradigm to its limits and not bother challenging it, even if other theories and scientific evidence defy the paradigm?

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Worst Mistake in Human History by Jared Diamond

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    Diamond, J. (1987). The worst mistake in the history of the human race. Discover, 8(5), 64-66.

    Read More

  • Human Control Over Nature: The Computer Revolution and Medical Research

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history, human beings have struggled to achieve control over nature. Now, in the twentieth century, with all of the scientific advances in computers and medicine, humans have come closer than ever to reaching this ultimate goal. However, along with the benefits of these new and rapidly increasing scientific advancements come moral, ethical and social issues that need to be given consideration. The Computer Revolution has not only vastly improved communication and produced amazing amounts of information, but has raised questions of human rights, privacy and social implications. While medical research has achieved medical benefits not even conceivable in the past, it has also raised major ethical and moral issues. Humans must consider all of these things when making decisions or judgments about human control over nature.

    Read More

  • Human Beings and Their Control Over Nature in the Twentieth Century

    1744 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout the history of western civilization, the human race has had a continuing relationship with nature and the environment. Progress has improved the way in which human beings use natural resources and the ways in which they work together to improve the quality of life. Developments in science and technology of the twentieth-century have greatly improved the way that humans interact. As the technological advancements of the twentieth-century progressed from the discovery of vaccinations to computer age technology, humans have learned to take a considerable amount of control over their lives and the environment as compared to the past, in which humans had very little control over nature. These progressions have had positive and negative effects on society. Positively, medical research has been able to allow the human race to lengthen life span and improve the work of genetics. Science has connected the globe through computer technology. The negative aspects of progression have some far-reaching consequences, such as new forms of imperialism, the atomic bomb, and destruction of the environment.

    Read More

  • Humas Overcoming Nature

    1475 Words  | 3 Pages

    Up until the sixteenth century, people believed that God could explain all actions. In general, science did not really exist. People simply looked to the Bible for reassurance about then unexplainable phenomenon. With the development of a scientific method and the industrial revolution, people began to recognize reason in their world through science. In the present day, the general public in their quest to discover all of natures secrets depends on science and its reason. Rogets Dictionary declares that science includes the observation, identification, experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Science tries to describe nature through all of these methods. It seems that every day a new study is published about the relationship between nature and humans. Scientists have explained and improved many aspects of human health and the human body, especially in the twentieth century. In 1936, Dr. Alexis Carrel developed the artificial heart. In 1937, insulin began to be used to control diabetes. In 1943, penicillin was discovered. In 1954, Jonas Salk inoculated children with the polio vaccination. In 1970, scientist at the University of Wisconsin completed the first complete synthesis of a gene. In 1978 the first "test-tube baby" was born in England and finally, in 1980, the Wor...

    Read More

  • Essay About Medusa

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    Once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a beautiful girl named Medusa. Medusa lived in Athens, Greece. Although there were many pretty girls in the city, Medusa was labeled the most amazingly dressed and structured.

    Read More

More about A Comparison Of Lewis Thomas 'The Medusa And The Snail'

Open Document