Blog 21

                In part five of the book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character, some of the most significant and interesting events during Feynman’s time as a physicist after the war were discussed. The first story that Feynman tells about his trip to Japan after the war shows quite a few of his scientific virtues and how they translated into social situations. His desire for unity and diversity in science was shown through his efforts to learn about the Japanese culture and to work with Japan despite everything that happened during the war. After getting to Japan, Feynman wanted to stay at a Japanese hotel instead of an American one and had to spend almost an hour in total to try and convince the host to let him stay at one, which shows his persistence. When he got to the Japanese style hotel, his intellectual courage to face failure helped him to want to try speaking the Japanese phrases he learned and experience some of the social customs, even though that did mean he had to experience some social failure along the way when he went into the Japanese bath too early and Professor Yukawa was still in there. Despite events like with the bath occurring, he still wanted to live as a Japanese person as much as possible which included eating fish though he hated fish. Not only does this show his respect and open mindedness for experiencing cultural differences but it also again shows his persistence since he was willing to eat fish over and over. Overall, Feynman shows that the virtues a scientist has can be used in other situations other than science, especially in social situations. Most people today think that scientists are not sociable and even though they may be intelligent when it comes to science, they have little idea of how to socialize with others. Feynman not only shows that one can rise above this stereotype but also can be used as a model for scientists to encourage them by showing they can use what they already know to socialize instead of having to learn an entire new set of virtues. If scientists today used their virtues in adaptable way such as Feynman, this would shorten the gap between scientists and society or even between one scientist to another.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog 8

                I chose to read an obituary of the scientist Louis Pasteur, who died the 28 th of September in 1895. In the obituary, the cause of his death was described, a short biography of his life was given, and a recount of the state wide funeral held for him. Most notably though, the obituary discussed how Pasteur impacted science, especially with the medical field by laying a scientific foundation for it which moved it from the realm of pseudo-science to a factual branch of science. He accomplished this by not only debunking the theory of spontaneous generation but also by creating the first vaccines. One thing interesting with the obituary is the fact that his virtues related to science were somewhat directly described. Some of the characteristics mentioned were his passion and savant hood in science, his desire to learn as well as teach, and his work ethic. His characteristics are similar to others of high scientific standing to the point that in the obituary, he and his co
Read more

Blog 24

                Chapter seven, “Creative Conflict,” of Dr. Pennock’s book discusses the differing view points and stances on science between different groups, specifically science and religious groups. When talking about these view points, he puts them in context of different eras such as when both groups display dogmatism. He brings up the fallacy that both ends often used of using one’s authority or power to proclaim what is true, instead of letting the truth speak for itself. This again brings up the importance of the virtues of humility to the evidence and skepticism towards authority, not just for the scientific community but also the religious community. This shows that some of the scientific virtues are usable in other fields and are therefore fluid in a sense. This fluidity and shared characteristics may help bridge the gap between these two groups and allow for civil discord instead of authoritative notions and violent efforts, something that Dr. Pennock also mentioned is a f
Read more

Blog 22

                Chapter eight, “Scientific Vices,” of Dr. Pennock’s book is about the importance of a scientist keeping their virtues in balance and not have it in too much or too little of excess in order to not have them become vices. He also discusses what certain virtues becoming vices looks like and the results of having these vices have on the scientific community or on one’s research. The main virtue of Dr. Pennock’s focus is curiosity since it is the pivotal virtue of all other scientific virtues. He shows the destructive effects of when curiosity becomes a vice instead, both mentally for the scientist and on science as a whole. The section that caught my attention the most was “the vice of excess curiosity.” Although the entire reference to Oppenheimer and his reflection on the Gita seemed miss placed in a section about curiosity becoming a vice, it still describes the point that focusing only on one virtue or allowing fulfilling scientific duty to swallow one’s life prevents
Read more