Excursion Report Semester 3: Global Warming

Jared Ober

What Skeptics Need to Know About Postmodernism:

Youtube on May 27, 2018:

The title of my first excursion is What Skeptics Need to Know About Postmodernism presented by NACS. (Link Here). The speaker is Bob Blaskiewicz.The speaker is Bob Blaskiewicz, is an expert in critical thinking and gives a lecture discussing skepticism, science, and humanities. His main argument is that prominent scientists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking dismiss the humanities and focus on how philosophy is important for critical thinking, understanding science, and having diverse perspectives. While discussing the root of this problem, he brings up how economics is a major cause. With the cost of living increasing and salaries of jobs in the humanities fields not really increasing people have started to dismiss the value that the humanities bring to society like understanding human nature/experience, promoting societal discourse, challenging ideas, etc. He also notes how postmodernism and philosophical movements open new doors into history and science that undermine our current understanding, which people don't like.

His points to argue the importance of the humanities and critical thinking are convincing. Blaskiewicz includes some great arguments, for example at around 18:05 he makes the point that critical thinking is taught by the humanities at universities, “The place where we explicitly teach it is the humanities.” This is a great point because it is a known fact and it sets up the counter to Stephen Hawking’s claim that “philosophy is dead” Furthermore, as science keeps evolving and there are more discoveries there will be more need for the humanities to help understand and interpret these discoveries, thus keeping them alive. He also attacks some of the biases that scientists have about the humanities. One that I thought was convincing was when he quotes Neil deGrasse Tyson saying, “scientists by and large are actually quite knowledgeable in areas outside of science” and responds with "Just because you see a book on a shelf doesn’t mean its owner has read it.” Not only did I think the response was funny but it was also convincing. Scientists can be knowledgeable in other fields liberal artists cannot? Blaskiewicz is calling out the sentiments that scientists have about liberal artists and how their claims seem to be meaningless words with no facts or data to support them. However, because they are said by regarded scientists the words are not interpreted as meaningless. Through his use of facts and sufficiently refuting claims by prominent scientists Blaskiewicz made the point that the humanities are important in understanding science. One thing that made Blaskiewicz arguments less convincing was his use of the strawman fallacy to defend his positions. For example, he groups many people who are against postmodernism as being against the humanities as a whole as well even though that isn’t necessarily the case. Another thing I think he could have done to be more convincing was bring up more examples of modern day advancements in the humanities to show that they are useful and still alive. An example that would have had a lot of impact is the debate around ethics in Artificial Intelligence. He also could have maybe put out some metrics and numbers to quantify some of the things he was saying but it's also hard to quantify the usefulness of the humanities so that is definitely easier said than done. When AI comes up there is always the debate of the Terminator and how AI is evil vs. how good it is and the protection being put in place. Overall, I think he made some good points and as someone who didn’t think highly of the humanities before the video I definitely now can see that they do have more value than what immediately meets the eye. I do think Blaskiewicz is obviously a little biased towards his own viewpoint but the information he put out was still reliable.

Plastics and Microplastics: An Emerging Global Issue Webinar:

Youtube on April 20, 2020:

The title of my second excursion is Plastics and Microplastics: An Emerging Global Issue Webinar presented by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. (Link Here). The speaker is Dr. Fred C. Hobbs. Dr. Hobbs is the Chair of Old Dominion University's Department of Ocean, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences discusses how our use of plastics and microplastics affect the environment. He explains the why and how plastics are used and their environmental impact (mainly focuses on the ocean). He then goes into microplastics and explains what they are and how they impact the environment. After establishing the effects of plastics and microplastics, Hobbs addresses the issue on a global scale and challenges addressing the effects. On a brighter note he ends his segment with some potential solutions to the issue and ways people can reduce their plastic footprint.

Hobbs’ argument that plastics are bad for the environment is convincing because it’s something that pretty much everyone agrees with. His evidence further solidifies his argument as convincing by further showing how bad they are. For example, he cites a statistic that only 1% of plastic floats to the surface meaning the horrible pictures we see of floating trash is only 1% of the issue. He also notes, “We’re finding plastics in our beer, tap water, and salt.” which adds to the argument's credibility but also shows how this argument is important in our daily lives. A piece of information that he could have added to strengthen his argument is that according to Earth.org 100,000 marine animals are killed a year due to plastic. His argument about the inadequacy of recycling and current waste management systems is also convincing however not as much as the latter because Hobbs claims that only 9% of all plastics ever produced have been recycled but this piece of info is misleading because a lot of those not recycled plastics are probably still being used and aren’t necessarily thrown away. So without further information the 9% doesn’t mean much. A piece of info that made the argument really convincing was when he cited the real life example of China’s National Sword policy where China stopped accepting trash from other nations which caused 111 million metric tons of trash to be displaced, clearly displaying inadequacies in waste management. The argument that microplastics negatively affect human health wasn’t convincing. Hobbs did a good job of explaining how microplastics get into our food, clothes, and other everyday use products however he didn’t provide a lot of evidence as to why ingesting microplastics is bad for. Although one could assume that ingesting small amounts of plastic isn’t beneficial to the body, is it really enough to be harmful? He did a good job at using humor and keeping the audience involved. One quote I found to be pretty funny was when he said, “we are finding plastics in our beer… this is serious business.” A major point that I think he should have brought up and went into detail with is how plastics contribute to climate change. Plastics are created using fossil fuels and the process of making them and disposing of them releases greenhouse gases which as we know cause global warming which as we also know is extremely harmful to the environment. This would not only strengthen his arguments because it further shows the negative impacts of plastics, but also demonstrates how even if plastic is recycled or properly waste managed it will still have a negative impact on the environment.