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The Loch Ness monster
Many times we have been in a dilemma whether to believe or not someone who tries to persuade us for something and very often by listening his arguments and by having enough evidence we finally manage to get out of the dilemma. Nevertheless sometimes we cannot be sure about an event because although there is enough evidence, our minds cannot be persuaded. An example to justify that is the existence of the Loch Ness monster, or as it is widely known “Nessie”.
Nessie’s story begins from the first century A.D, when Romans first went to Northern Scotland and found carved, standing stones (which are still found in the region around Loch Ness) that represented animals, which were all easily recognizable, except one. The exception was a strange beast with an elongated beak or muzzle and flippers instead of feet (see photograph 1) Described by some as a swimming elephant, this beast is the earliest evidence that Loch Ness is home to a mysterious animal.
The earliest written reference that verified the existence of a mysterious aquatic animal in Loch Ness is in the biography of Saint Columba, who in A.D. 565 on his way to visit the king of Picts (the people who lived at the coast of Loch then), stopped along the shore of Loch Ness to rest and saw a large beast ready to attack a man who was swimming in the lake. He immediately raised his hand, calling the name of God and commanded the beast to “go back with all his speed”. The beast obeyed and the swimmer...
While many theories exist trying to disprove the existence of this elusive beast, many also exist proving its existence. The first reported sighting made by St. Columba, an Irish missionary, in the a.d. 500s. He was from Scotland and came to spread Christianity. He saw the beast attacking a man and saved him by making a cross and ordering the beast to be gone. The Loch Ness Monster is not just a beast from the Medieval mythology. Many people have reported sightings of a creature matching the description “of an ‘extinct’ dinosaur called the Plesiosaur”(“Myths and Legends of the World”). There have been many attempts to find this elusive creature ,but all have turned up unsuccessful neither proving nor disproving the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.
In today’s world there are always people trying to come up with a new way to explain something. There will always be people trying to pedal a new product or story about an innovative new way to look at things. Some of these ideas will really be ground-breaking, but many of these will be false ideas. Many of them will just be honest mistakes, but just as many will be ideas from people trying to trick other people. Carl Sagan recognizes this and writes about it in his article The Fine Art of Baloney Detection. Within it he describes how he has been vulnerable himself wanting to believe things that people have told him that didn’t seem true, but was what he wanted to hear. He then goes on to talk about how people need to be skeptical about what they are told/read. He has developed a system using the scientific which he calls “Tools for Skeptical Thinking.” These are things that people can do when evaluating a situation or idea to check for “baloney.” I have picked six of these tools to explain in further detail.
When all the evidence is noted (and there is even more beyond that which is stated here), one can not ignore the overwhelming presence of a
In Stephen Jay Gould’s essay, “Some close encounters of a mental kind,” Gould discussed about how certainty can be both blessing and dangerous. According to Gould, certainty can be blessing because it can provide warmth, comfort and secure. However, it can also be a danger because it can trick our mind with false information of what we see and remember in our mind. Gould also talked about the three levels of possible error in direct visual observation: misperception, retention and retrieval. According to Gould, our human mind is the greatest miracle of nature and the wicked of all frauds and tricksters mixed. To support his argument and statements, he used an example of an experiment that Elizabeth Loftus, a professor from University of California Irvine, did to her students and a personal experience of his childhood trip to the Devils Tower. I agree with Gould that sight and memory do not provide certainty because what we remember is not always true, our mind can be tricky and trick us into believing what we see/hear is real due to the three potential error of visual observation. Certainty is unreliable and tricky.
Is Bigfoot really a mythical creature roaming the world? Nobody can answer that question, not if our scientist today. Bigfoot is a large, hairy, apelike creature resembling a yeti, there are found in Northwestern America. There is another name that Bigfoot is called and it’s Sasquatch. Some people believe in Bigfoot and try to find it. Others who think it’s a ridiculous idea to be searching for something that no one can find. There are others who are in the middle and others who just don’t care. There are evidence from films, eyewitnesses, photographs, hair sample, and footprints.
Honberg, Ron, Sita Diehl, Darcy Grutatardo, and Mike Fitzpatrick. State Mental Health Cuts: A National
Human beings’ belief systems don’t always work according to evidence. Belief is made up of
Sarata, Amanda K. "Mental Health Parity and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010." N.p., 28 Dec. 2011. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .
Wang, Philip S., Olga Demler, and Ronald C. Kessler. "Adequacy of Treatment for Serious Mental Illness in the United States." American Journal of Public Health 92.1 (2002): 92-98. Print.
“Insurance companies often cover mental illness in a more limited fashion than physical illness” (Christensen). The lack of mental health care provided for the mentally ill has been a growing issue in the US during the previous years, and there has been some progress. For example, there has been the Mental Health Care and Parity Law of 2008 that was enacted so that the insurers would cover mental illness just as they would cover other illnesses. In addition, the Affordable Care Act was enacted to enforce that the insurers abide by the rules. Unfortunately, that hasn’t helped much, hence: the sneaky behavior of insurance companies. This sneaky behavior seems to be unnoticed by the government the majority of the time unless the patient or his family decides to file a lawsuit. Until then, insurance companies have been constantly bending rules and finding loopholes to not pay insurance for mental illness.
The culture of managed care for behavioral mental health is rapidly changing. In 2014, the American health care community saw new federal legislation requiring the inclusion of behavioral health in insurance plans (retrieved: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/your-money/understanding-new-rules-that-widen-mental-health-coverage.html?_r=0) . These legislations came at the heal of several debates about the gro...
Upon reading Will to Believe, there is no doubt we will all begin to question how we’ve gotten to our beliefs and why we believe what we do. William James argues against forced beliefs and expresses the importance of choice. The idea of choice is one I strongly agree with. Although we are easily influenced by others, when it comes to beliefs free will must come into play. As far as the science method, which I have discussed, a belief is just as valid whether there is evidence or not because most scientific methods will never be one hundred percent proven and they will change over
The NSDUH reports that individuals with a mental illness is more like to also have a chronic health condition and are more likely to use hospitalization and emergency room treatment (NSDUH, 2014). According to SAMSHA (n.d.), 50% of Medicaid enrollees have a diagnosable mental health condition. Individuals with a diagnosed mental health condition have health care cost that is 75% higher than those without a mental health diagnosis (SAMSHA, n.d.). For an individual with a co-occurring disorder the cast is nearly three times higher than what the average Medicaid
"Myths and Legends." Origins of A Mermaid and a Magic Comb. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
In any particular year, about 26.2 percent of adults in the United States have a detectable mental illness (“The Numbers”). Unfortunately, not enough hospital beds and places to stay are available for all of those people who need hospital care, so hospitals must move people out to make room for new patients. The space for mentally ill patients has always been low, but it has dramatically dropped in the past few decades. A movement involving deinstitutionalization occurred in 1965, and was advanced by society’s worries about civil liberties of patients. Courts then decided to regulate the amount of patie...