Last week we had (probably one of my favorite) an extremely interesting talk with Dr. Carin Berkowitz who spoke on the anatomy and how it relates to art. Dr. Berkowitz referenced and used works of art that incorporated anatomy, all works of Charles Bell. Through his art, Bell was able to incorporate the meticulous details of the human anatomy while using emotion to bring life to the organs. These pieces of art were all apart of a theme of the human body and its innate expressions through human emotion. A rare mixture of art and science that captures artistic beauty within anatomically accurate human organs.

After showcasing and explaining many of Bells’s works, Dr. Berkowitz switched focus to the comparison between the work of Bell’s and the work of Henry Gray. These two artists both depicted their essence of the human body through starkly different styles. Gray’s work lacked any semblance of emotion and chose to create his pieces as scientifically accurate as possible. Completely void of emotion or bias, what you see is what you get. Nonetheless each artist chose to focus on the human anatomy but diverged  through their expression of art. Gray’s work focusing on accuracies and dehumanization, Bell adding more humanity through his inclusion of life and emotion. Medical school textbook that deal with accurate anatomies of the human body are more aligned with the works of Gray. The interesting use of anatomically correct pictures in textbooks work on two different levels. The academic level being the first, you need accurate images so future doctors and medical professionals are able to understand exactly what they are working with and what it looks like. However, this more prevalent style seems to focus only on the meticulous nature of the human body and treats it more like a piece of meat, no different from animals or plants seen in other scientific textbooks. In reality, the rational for the use of these accurate pictures is obvious. Only when compared to other works of art that gear their modes more towards emotion and life that is depicted in humans.

This lecture was different from most other lectures in that it represented a theme that we as Colby students are fortunate to realize. Colby, a liberal arts  school, allows us to and even encourages us to take a plethora of courses that are in all different fields of study. These courses include science heavy courses as well as artistic courses that allow students to explore other forms of education. The importance of offering a curriculum that offers a multidisciplinary approach to education can make all the difference between a student following a hard discipline and exploring all different types of courses that allows the student to figure out what they actually have interest in.

I enjoyed hearing some of the questions from the audience, especially the question that was asked surrounding the ethics of using human bodies for science. Obviously this is for scientific purposes to improve our overall understanding of the human body and how it works. The response that was given was that medical professionals are taught to try to keep emotion out of their work because it complicates things further than they need to be. I think it is rather hard to keep human emotion out of your mind when you’re directly working with human bodies. Nonetheless i enjoyed this talk a lot and thought that it had some very important themes that would be useful for Colby students to hear.

 

Dr. Peterson’s talk about the idea of A Priori Knowledge  was incredibly interesting, and a topic I had never given much thought to before.  A priori knowledge, as I know now, is the knowledge of a certain thing whether physical or conditional, without having experienced that certain thing.  Conditionally, someone may not have experienced what prejudice truly is and feels like, but one can understand that it is a bad thing that must be eradicated from this world.  Physically, one may know that they don’t want to get punched in the face even if they haven’t been punched in the face because they have the knowledge that getting punched in the face would hurt.  I have always found these philosophical and slightly psychological terms interesting because I know that I have a priori knowledge without having experienced things that would give me that knowledge, but I never knew that this was an actual phenomenon that can be studied and discussed.

 

Dr. Peterson, like two of our other speakers, focused a sizable portion of his talk on a priori knowledge, or much of society’s lack thereof, and the reasons as to why some refuse to object to or even disregard climate change entirely.  We know through our other talks that climate change affects the less wealthy in our society in a greater way than those who do have great wealth.  Because of this, we see people that have never really had to deal with the effects of climate change argue that it is not a big deal or that it does not really exist at all.  These people lack a priori knowledge in that because they haven’t experienced it they have no knowledge of it.  This is similar to people not experiencing prejudice and then arguing that racism, anti semitism, or any of the like exist.  These people have never had to deal with extremely poor air quality, they have never had to rebuild after experiencing a “once in a five hundred year storm,” or they’ve never seen their crops dry up due to a lack of rain.

 

I believe that working to gain as much a priori knowledge as possible is a goal everyone can and should work towards.  It is impossible to experience everything, but it is possible to become knowledgeable about things that you will never experience.  People must work to understand what it is like to “walk in another person’s shoes.”  We must research, ask questions, and do anything we can so that we are not ignorant of things in this world.  Doing so will lead to a more connected society of people who understand each other whether they’ve been through the same things or not.  Even in today’s society, in which the world is so connected through the internet, social media, cell phones, and incredible transportation we see that people are still unaware of other people’s conditions.  By improving this, we will not only improve relationships between people in our society, but we will be able to accomplish great things such as fighting climate change.

Literature and Science to Understand Climate Change

I enjoyed the part of Professor Dimock’s presentation about vegetarianism because I have converted to vegetarianism in the past for similar reasons that were outline by Peter Singer. Mr. Singer spoke about all of the common ways in which vegetarianism was presented to the general public and all of the usual selling points that were given to people. These selling points would work in some cases, but there were still swathes of people who did not agree with him and his idea that all humans and animals should be held in the same regard. However, Singer presented the idea of approaching vegetarianism through the lens of climate change. The idea behind this was that the consumption of meat largely contributed to the greenhouse gasses that were being released and trapped within the ozone layer. This was an issue that was effecting everyone everywhere so it held a more appealing meaning than the latter methods used to persuade.

One of the biggest takeaways from this talk, similar to Professor Henley’s talk, is the need for us to take literature and science and find a better coexistence between the two. Climate changes is a highly complex issue that should not be approached through only one or two means. Up until this point, we as a global community has made huge strides and bounds in terms of our awareness and understanding of climate change. This trend will need to continue progressing if we want to hopefully bolster our efforts to mitigate climate change. In order to do this, we are going to have to start looking to other sources for understanding, one of which should be literature. Science is important in the context of climate change, however, the jargon used in science makes it difficult for the average consumer to understand and therefore find interest in. By making literature another facet through which average consumers can read and understand climate change, we will be one step closer to ameliorating this issue that is effecting us all. While we stand to improve in many areas pertaining to climate change, literature and science being combined more would definitely be a step in the right direction.

Once again, I was absolutely enthralled with last weeks talk.  Dr. Wai Chee Dimok’s speech brought to the forefront the idea that science and literature can be merged to give ourselves a better understanding of the world and the changes, mostly malignant, that are taking place in our environment today.  The speech brought me back to Dr. Hensley’s speech about the similar matter.  Once again, I was made to think that two things, environmental science and literature, that seem so different can actually work together to improve our knowledge and standards of living on Earth.

One issue in regards to the intertwinement of these two subjects is the fact that science often lacks a human element that encourages people to take a stronger interest in studying the effects of climate change, let alone believe that it is actually happening.  This reminds me of the study of the types of persuasion in rhetoric, namely ethos, pathos, and logos.  Science, while it is rich in its presentation of its findings in regards to logos, or logic, through numbers, scientifically written journals, and scholarly papers, it tends to lack pathos and ethos.  Pathos is an appeal to one’s emotions while ethos is an appeal to a person’s ethics.  These two rhetorical tools are what give an arguments its human element and not cold hard numbers and facts.  While numbers and facts are extremely helpful in presenting an issue to people, they do not do a good job of making people want to act to solve that issue.  For one thing, many people are incapable of understanding cold hard numbers and facts without the greater context of what they mean or what can be done to change them.  Making pathos and ethos an integral part of the presentation of scientific facts to the larger society will cause more people to care about major issues like global warming and will compel them to act because they will believe that it is the right thing to do.

Lastly, just to touch on some of the cold hard facts that Dr. Wai Chee Dimok presented, I found the fact that our world’s bodies of water are becoming more acidic to be fascinating.  This does not only come from the physical things we put in the ocean but also comes from the rising amount of CO2 in our atmosphere.  As CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere, it reacts with chemicals in the ocean to create carbonic acid leading to the oceans rise in acidity.  This is something I did not even realize before coming to the talk, and is just one more reason why people must be encouraged into fighting climate change.  I believe, based on Dr. Hensley’s and Dr. Wai Chee Dimok’s speeches that the addition of a greater level of literary tools into scientific reporting will lead to a society of people that will feel more compelled than ever to do what is right and keep our planet from destroying itself.  We don’t have much time, so we better start soon.

Projit Bihari Mukharji’s lecture focused on the techniques used to genetically classify people in India, many of which being very unethical and the process as a whole being very racist in nature. He gave other examples of this biological racism by showing images of a certain drug that was targeted at black males as if the drug would somehow perform differently when ingested into a black persons body as opposed to someone of a different racial background. He spoke on the idea of “genomic sovereignty” meaning that human genomic material is a valuable resource, for both the country and its people. Having the entire composition of the human genomes within your country and believing that they are not all 100% similar as a US scientist once suggested, gives both a symbolic and a material strength to the country. It does this by providing both a sense of belonging and community, as well as giving a representation of the population and their differences based on whatever demographic might be the case. However, the means by which these data are collected are sometimes, as with the India case, unethical and lack much regard for humanity.

This idea that you can perform genome sequencing on an entire nation to form a map of “collective bodies” as Mukharji calls them, is becoming a more prevalent idea in the present day thanks to improvements in technology. But the current methods of this genetic data acquisition are vastly different today than they were during the period Mukharji focused on. I recently read an article that spoke of a similar concept being played out in Iceland, but for a different purpose. There are talks in the scientific community that gene sequencing could be the future of medicine. It could help us locate genes that ultimately lead to higher risks of disease so we have time to treat them effectively, or locate genes that could give a carrier immunity to a disease or condition. In Iceland, researchers conducted a study in which over 2,000 residents had their genes sequenced. Iceland is a particularly good place to conduct a study like this due to its isolation: it is one of a few places with a founder effect. This means that the sample size used in the study can be scaled up to the whole population without much error, due to most residents being able to trace their genes back to a handful of ancestors. They have found genes that have been linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, to liver disease. The researchers hope that, one day, all human diversity will be able to explained through gene sequencing, and that our knowledge of disease and what causes someone to be predisposed to inherit or be resistant to it will greatly improve, if not be flawless in the future.

I find it incredibly interesting how much genes can tell us. Though it may have been an unethical practice at one time as far as how genetic information was collected in India as Mukharji’s talk showed, the information is invaluable today for scientists and doctors alike to make further strides in being able to save human lives.

 

Nichole McGee
17 March 2019
The Past of the Climate
The topic that I pulled from the discourse was the idea of climate change. Although climate change was relatively new both poems discussed its effects on the world. I looked into both Bishop and Blake writings. From their writings, I can see how both Blake and Bishop predicted the future of climate change. In reviewing both Blake’s work, “Auguries of Innocence” and Bishop’s the Sandpiper, I was able to conclude how both authors were able to articulate climate change although it was not developed as a term yet.
From looking at Bishop’s writing first, I saw many descriptions that concluded to the effects of climate change. In the poem, there’s a line that states “The roaring alongside he takes for granted,and that every so often the world is bound to shake”. I think that this describes an earthquake. Bishop is saying that the man notices the earthquake but sees it as something that is is just part of nature. He does not see it as something that is out of the ordinary. Therefore, just as many do today, he was taking for granted the negative surroundings of climate change as just an earthquake but that could obviously be on the bricks for something bigger. The world was living him clues that it was in danger, and he ignored those clues.
In the poem by Blake, he states that a dog starved at his Masters Gate predicts the ruin of the State. I think this goes to the world hunger epidemic. This is a direct effect of the climate change. This is because as the weather changes excruciatingly, crops began to fail and water begin to dry up. People can not eat. The saying “predicts the ruin of the state” means that starvation is the tell tell sign that something bad is bound to happen. Therefore, without even knowing what to call the future sinister disasters, Blake was speaking of the effects of climate change in his poem “Auguries of Innocence”.
Both poems were different in nature. However, they all spoke about similar things. These things were the negative effects of climate change. In the poem by Bishop, earthquakes were mentioned. In the poem by Blake, he spoke of world hunger. Both of these are the disasters of climate change. The most profound aspect from this is that climate change was not as spoke about or even a thing at that time as it is in modern times. Therefore, both poets were ahead of their time. Now in modern times, we can look back at the poems in their contents and see how they were impacted by climate change and how people turned their head to it. Hopefully, reading poems such as these would help to ignite a fire under people of today to help make a change before the world becomes progressively worse as climate change continues to shake the world as it did back in the days of Elizabeth Bishop and William Blake.

Dividing us by Blood: How Science Might Separate Us
Before this discussion, I didn’t quite understand the human genome project before this talk, but generally defined, it considered that all humans were equal when it came down to bloodwork. However, different studies throughout the year have attempted to show that different ethnicities have different blood. Studies such as the one done on Indian Blood, Henrietta Lacks, and the pharmaceutical company who directed their pill towards African American people have divided the human race even more.

A study done by scientist have concluded that Indians had a higher percent of B blood. This was a stark contrast from the genome project which argued that our blood is what made us equal. However, this finding disapproves this. Although it might be true, this might cause tension between Indians and their counterparts who also live in the area. One might have the opportunity to believe that one race is better than the next simply because their blood makeup is different. This will be the cause of much tension between the two.

The Henrietta Lacks story is very personal to me being a black woman. I believe that the way doctors went about collecting blood samples is what caused a big division. Also, at the time there was already high tensions between Blacks and Whites. So, for doctors to collect samples without even getting the verbal or written consent of Henrietta Lacks is devastating. Not to mention, her samples went on to do great things and become very profitable but Henrietta or her family never seen an ounce of this profit and were even in debt with her medical bills. The way the doctors took advantage of this poor, black woman was atrocious and shows just how the scientific work that revolves around blood attempted to separate us more.

Lastly, during the beginning of the presentation one of the first slides that was shown was of an advertisement for medicine. However, the advertisement was directed at African American people. The presenter made a comment saying something along the lines of the hearts of African Americans not being different than anyone else heart. I fully agree with this comment. Although, I believe that African Americans are more susceptible to different heart diseases because of the diet that most Blacks eat, I do not think that the underlying issue at hand is that the hearts of Blacks are just genetically different but that different outside forces such as diet might be causing a huge wear on the heart. When you make claims such as this, you are furthering diving Blacks from those of other races and might also be causing someone of a different race who have a heart problem to miss out on a medication that might actually be helpful for them because the pharmaceutical industry was only targeting African Americans.

With all the racial divide that we see today, I do not believe that we should go out of our way to find other ways of division. Therefore, my main concern from this presentation was how blood was playing an influence of separating us more. Aspects of this include the Henrietta Lacks story, the blood samples from Indians, and the pharmaceutical who promoted their medicine to a Black audience. Instead of going out of our way to find differences and ignite a divide, we should look at ways we are the same so that no one could ever feel the right to be superior because of their genetic makeup.

I thought Professor Mukharji’s talk was extremely informative and interesting.  The study of people has always been something I am extremely interested in, and any chance I get to learn more about how we find out who we are at a biological level is a chance I will take advantage of.  Studies about ourselves and our DNA help us to understand where we came from, who our fore-bearers were, and can be helpful in us understanding what type of medical issues we are susceptible to as a way to protect us into the future.

While this can be a positive, there are dangers to the study of such things.  The danger does not lie inherently with the study of who we are, but lies within the misuse use of the information we discover.  Professor Mukharji touches on the fact that the certain genetic studies carried out in India have been used as a way to prove that people with specific traits are better than those without those specific traits.  This is not a novel phenomenon.  The Rwandan genocide, for example, was in part a product of “genetic science” causing clashes between two groups of people.  Much of the justification for slavery hinges upon false assertions based on genetic science.  As someone of the Jewish faith, this issue is extremely important to me because it was also responsible for the justification of the holocaust and the anti-semitism that persists today.

The study of ourselves at a genetic level is and will remain important.  However, if we wish to avoid the atrocities of the past, it is vital that we use the information gained from the endeavor responsibly.  As a Jew of mostly Central European and Russian heritage this, unfortunately, is a concept my ancestors undoubtably understand far to well.

While there is a nefarious side to the study of genetics, there are also many positive aspects to the science.  There is nothing wrong in understanding that we are all different.  All of us come from different backgrounds, with different ancestors, and with different combinations of genes mostly based on where we come from.  No two people are truly the same, and for that reason no two people’s physical bodies are the same.  While this inherently applies to outward appearance, I am alluding to is something that is obviously far more important.  People from different regions and with different ancestors vary in terms of what illnesses they may be more prone to contracting, how they must fight these illnesses, and how doctors can understand what different patients need.

Dr Mukharji touches on this.  While it is evident that certain individuals have used information similar to what Dr. Mukharji discussed in ways that undermine groups of people, this science is key in helping our species as a whole remain healthy and treat our bodies as they should be treated.  While we are all equal, none of us are physically the same, and I believe that it is not wrong to acknowledge that.  By doing so, we accept that we all have different needs and can act accordingly in making sure those needs are met.

During Nathan Hensley’s talk about the climate crisis and the force of literature, I found myself struggling to see the connections he was trying to make. Switching between the science realm and the literary fictional realm throughout the talk made it difficult for me to focus on the central point or look at the bigger picture. The likening of the original Alice in Wonderland story and our modern day environmental issues is certainly not a conventional comparison. But the more I thought about it following the lecture, the more this strange simile — as well as the point Hensley was trying to make — began to make sense.

The juxtaposition of Alice in Wonderland and the current climate situation was obviously just one of many that could have been made, but it is particularly good for Hensley’s argument in many respects. It offers a depiction of two separate worlds: the real world and the wonderland. Alice is abruptly thrown into the wonderland after previously being in the real world for her entire existence. This new world, she learns, does not behave or operate in the same way that the real world she knew did. She attempts to continue acting as though she were in the real world when in reality, she needs to curb her thinking and adapt to this new environment. This is what Hensley is using as a commentary on our current struggles with a changing environment and climate, and how we must adapt our mannerisms and ideas to best suit our new, changing world. We, as humans, continue to act in a way that put us at risk in the first place, and now that serious problems have started to rear their ugly heads, we are realizing that it was and is a mistake to act as though our environment has gone unchanged or has not been affected as a direct result of us. We now live in the Anthropocene, an era in which humans dominate the planet and have the power to save or destroy it. We have created our own separate wonderland, with cities and cars and boats and plastic, things not found in the natural, or rather, “real” world.

We have people outright rejecting the idea of climate change, ones that are blind to the temperature changes, rising oceans, changes in weather patterns, or people that simply don’t care about the environment because “it won’t affect them.” These are our modern-day Alices who, for whatever reason, refuse to change their ways to adapt to the new environment we have brought upon ourselves and the necessary actions we need to take to keep us from taking life as we know it away forever.

Although I had mixed feelings leaving his lecture, I have come to understand the parallels Nathan Hensley was attempting to shed light on between the forces of past literature and their presence in contemporary society and the climate crisis. The talk has introduced a new way of thinking to me that I will be sure to think about next time I crack open a piece of literature.