Summary
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Response
As we have just done before, we will discuss Rogers and Zemach's question in blog commnets, which is likely to generate a wider variety of ideas in addition to giving us a more permanent record of our ideas while also getting in some practice writing for fluency in a less academic style, but still writing our ideas in grammatically complete sentences that clearly state our ideas.
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Question 1 — 10:00 minutes +
- Why do you think that lots of people did not believe John Snow?
- planning = 2:00 minutes
- writing = 6:00 minutes, and
- editing = 2:00 minutes.
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Question 2 — 12:00 minutes +
- Think about research you read every day, for example, the effects of a diet. Do you always believe the research? Why or why not?
Or (12:00 minutes is not enough time to do both)
- What is another example you know of where a theory or claim (we looked at three types of claims in unit 5) was not at first accepted? Why wasn't it accepted? Has it been accepted today?
- planning = 3:00 minutes
- writing = 6:00 minutes, and
- editing = 3:00 minutes.
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Reference
- Rogers, L. & Zemach, D. E. (2018). Skillful 3: Reading & Writing (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
People did not initially believe John Snow's theory about how cholera was transmitted because it was new and against tradition. If Snow was right, that would mean the more general theory about miasma (bad air) was wrong, so if Snow was right, that would mean throwing out a more general theory about many other diseases as well. This means people wanted a lot more evidence.
ReplyDeleteI think it was the same as when Darwin proposed his theory of evolution. If Darwin was right, that would not just mean we had a better theory of how different species arise, it would also mean that many traditional religious ideas were wrong: gods did not create living things, humans are not special, and so on. All of these are also wrong if Darwin's theory is right, so many people did not want to believe the science. In fact, despite the evidence, many people still don't want to believe Darwin.
Another example where people today do not want to believe a theory is about what reduces drug harms to society ... (sorry, out of time).
Many people still think that more strict laws are effective, but the evidence does not support the popular believe that strict law enforcement reduces drug use or drug harms to society. I think because believing this also threatens other general beliefs people have that are seriously wrong.
DeleteThere were some factors why people didn’t believe John Snow. The most effective cause might be that Snow didn’t have a piece of clear evidence to present his theory at first.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason was that the appearance of Thames looked nice and their daily activities had been related to this river for a period, leading to unaccepting a new theory.
The last one was that people weren’t award of industrial negative effects sufficiently hence they though that their environment still be the same as before.
I agree with you in that point, because he didn’t have a clearly evidence to proof his theory but other have their own evidence even is a wrong information. So, it make sense to people to believe. Such as the fake news that sent though Line which is Covid-19 is prevented by drinking hot water.
DeleteI agree with you that people at that time did not think that the Thames River could be a source of the disease as they were using water from the river in everyday lives. And the situation there was quite similar to Thailand, which many people infected with cholera and died because they have drunk water from the polluted river without acknowledged that the disease transmitted by bacteria in water.
DeleteI think that lots of people did not believe John Snow because at that time most of the theory believed that cholera can transmitted through the air. In fact, it’s a simple logic that people will believe in an information that was repeated. John is the only one who think differently so people are still believed that cholera transmitted through the air as a true. Even thought john can find the evident such as relative of cesspool and sickness but it still not make sense for other.
ReplyDeleteI like Bird's idea that people beleive things that are often repeated. As she explains, that is what everyone said, so being the majority opinion often repeated can persuade people it is right. That is actually a really bad reason to believe something, but I agree with Bird that it is a popular reason. I think that's why some of my relatives believe things that are silly. For example, some of my relatives in Australia believe that China is a threat economically, but actually, it helps our economy to trade more and to let China sell to Australia. But they often see other ideas on Facebook, or hear from friends, so they don't worry about evidence and critical thinking. They just think it must be right because many people say that. But many people also once said that the Earth was flat, even though it never was and there was never any very good evidence for such a belief. Actually, i don't think any educated did believe the Earth was flat for more than 2,000 years, but again, many people wrongly believe they did. But Aristotle and every educated Western person after him knew that the Earth was a sphere in space. But since the Church said it was the centre of the universe and did not move, everyone believed and said that, so it was hard for Galileo and Copernicus to change opinions to the true theory of how the sun and Earth move in space.
DeleteI agree with you
DeleteI think that being a minority is hard to convince the majority of people. Nowadays, there was a lot of similar causes which show the power of the minority. After reading your comment, I believe that we should focus on the evidence more than other factors in medical term.
I agree with your idea, a majority thought would leads others once there are minority oppose or question about it others may stand for majority side and people trends to follow the mass unless it really have a strong concrete poof.
DeleteA lot of people did not believe John Snow theory because there have not had any scientific proof of his theory since his theory is just a suspect idea about polluted water but there are no proof that what was cause the problem. For example, I had read a lot of article that share similar idea about Thai herb 'Fha Tha Lai Jon' can heals the Colona virus disease. In contrast, there are no medical report to confirm about that news. Later on, there are an article that proof what could effect our health if we having too much the herb. To conclude, this experience is pretty much the same with John Snow theory.
ReplyDeleteI like you idea, "Fha Tha Lai Jon" was the topic in my home too, my parents believe it can save us from Colona virus crisis, I have to sent many information from Ministry of Public Health that tell Fha Tha Lai Jon can't cure Colora virus disease, they don't trust me or the true, they trust only forward message from line application or "they" tell about.....
DeleteI think that lots of people didn’t believe John Snow because the first time that he presents his theory, he didn’t have the real evidence that support his theory. However, after his dead, the weather is warming make the true is come out and his theory is accepted. If he had easier to understand evidence or faster evidence to see the results, his theory will be accepted quickly and can save more people.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of people do not believe John Snow because at that time, as the germ theory was unknown, people still thought that the "bad air," which was obviously acknowledged, caused disease. Also, as mentioned in the text, many people, including doctors, still believed that water from the Thames River was fresh to drink, so they did not agree with Snow's theory that the disease could transmit through water. And it makes sense because people have drunk water from the river for a long time.
ReplyDeleteI like Tung's word "acknowledged." It was the official theory, and that made it sound right, even though it was wrong. His idea about "for a long time" also seems important - tradition is still a powerful force in life today, even though it is a bad reason to believe anything is true or right.
DeleteIn 2000. Portugal decriminalized all personal drug use, not just for marijuana, but also for heroin, yaa baa and every other popular addictive drug. The evidence is very clear: decriminalizing drugs reduces drug harms to society. There are less deaths from drugs. There is lower crime because of drugs. And less people remain addicted to drugs. ALso, a lot of tax money is saved. But many people, in fact almost every country, refuses to follow the example of Portugal, even though it is what experts now recommend. In Australia, even the police chiefs now want to reduce the punishment for many illegal drugs because they know that the laws do not reduce drug problems. Actually, making drugs illegal increase drug harms to society. The evidence for this has been strong since at least the 1920s, when America made alcohol illegal. The result was really good for mafia gangs, just like making heroin, yaa baa and marijuana illegal today is really good for mafia gangs. And it's bad for society because mafia gangs are not good people. Another result we know from making alcohol and other drugs illegal is that encourages corruption of police, judges and politicians, which is very bad for society. ANd because illegal drugs are more expensive, the users have to pay more, so there is more crime as a result.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why so many people still reject the evidence about drug harms to society, but the ideas you suggested in your comments above all sound helpful. If people were more objective and less trusting of tradition, perhaps we could make things much better by changing the law.
Actually, a few years ago, after Prayut overthrew Thailand's democracy, his Minister of Justice, General Paiboon Koomchaya wanted to reform the traditional drug laws to copy some of Portugal's successes, but he was pushed out into a less useful job for some reason, so things stayed the same and drug harms continue to be serious as before.
On Rogers and Zemach's question, I often think things I read might be true, but I want to get more evidence before I believe them. For example, some diets are popular wiht my friends, but I think they are probably not well supported by evidence, or the evidence is not good enough. And often new evidence shows that old evidence was wrong - for example, about human history.
DeleteI has read about the theory of developing city to livable city. One of perspective that interested me is about graffiti in city. First, opinion suggest that graffiti can be the easy way that the oppression in our society can has a space to share they opinion in public and express themselves. But the other theory said that public property is no one's canvas. So no one should be allowed to vandalize public property. For me I think I agree with the first one because in the city we have to has a dynamic and graffiti is the most easier to refection the people who live in the city.
ReplyDeleteThe one example is wearing a mask help prevent Colona virus more effectively than not wearing it. The action was just accepted by WHO recently.
ReplyDeleteBefore WHO will approve this fact leads to wild spread among western country. Many westerner believe that wearing a mask is only for illness people as for healthy people they do not need to wear it.
After a while, the statistic shows that people from Asian country like China, Korea, and Japan which wearing a mask all the time when they go out, and it help protecting themselves better than western.
This attitude among westerner is hardly to change at the beginning but after WHO approve this idea all the westerner become more aware about it and start to use mask more than before.
The theory which lacks clear evident or provides a strong contrast to the traditional one.
ReplyDeleteFor example, giving banana with milk to a newborn baby can be extremely harmful but some people don’t believe it. They think that the older generation used to give it to them when they were young. They were fine hence it’s OK to continue doing that.
The claim of value might the first one which was rejected. It contains opinions or a definition which is quite independent. For instance, talking about one photo can lead to various perspectives.
In my opinion, I believe the research that come from the government or trustworthy agency because this sector must check the reliable of news before, they post or public. However, the news that looks like stranger, I’ll check before trust such as the Ministry of Public Health public we can protect yourselves by social distance.
ReplyDeleteI think the theory that the world is round is the famous of theory which wasn’t at first accepted because it’s different from the religious or scripture and it’s has a long time to check this theory (in the past we have only ship to travel around the world and it use a long time than plane)
The story about Snow's cholera theory reminds me of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift. In 1912, Wegeners proposed the theory that the world's continents were once a piece of land called Pangaea. Then, Pangaea separated into several continents. He had several pieces of evidence to support his idea, such as the continental shape, which South American and Africa can be connected as the same piece of land. Also, the types of rocks and fossils in North America and Africa were the same. However, this theory was rejected by many scientists at that time because most of them still believed in the American theory of Geosynclines, which based on the case study of the Appalachians. Also, Wegeners was still unable to prove how the continents moved. His idea was interested again during World War II, in which the landscapes under the Atlantic were found, and the Seafloor Spreading theory was purposed. Finally, Wegeners' theory was just accepted by the 1960s.
ReplyDelete