Biology Spencer
Cox
Current events #2 12/8/12
For this current events report I
listened to a seminar from Dr. Scott Calvin about why the world will not end in
2012. This seminar was about the various
reasons why the world will not end in 2012 despite others beliefs based on the Mayan
calendar which ends on the date December 21st 2012. In this seminar Dr. Scott Calvin thoroughly explained
the various reasons behind why the world will not end in 2012. The reason that I believe was the most
popular and questioned was about asteroids.
What many people do not know is that we have already found all the
asteroids that could cause damage to the earth and we are able to tell very far
ahead of time whether or not they will hit the earth. This wipes out one of the most common beliefs
that the earth will be hit by an asteroid.
The second and most scary end of the world scenario explained was a
solar flare. A solar flare is when the
sun releases a massive amount of rays that can destroy electronics. The thing about this is that it hasn't occurred
in over two hundred years and we would have twenty four hours notice before it
would occur. It's also very easy to deal
with because in order to counteract it all you have to do is turn off the power
around the world for a day and wait for it to pass so that it would cause no
damage. Its due to the fact that
scenarios that could cause the most damage to the earth and could kill the most
people. Essentially the seminar summed
everything up by giving facts the proved that the world will not end anytime
soon.
The relevance of this article to
what is currently happening in the world is the fact that December 21st 2012 is
approaching very quickly and many people were very curious including myself
about what the verdict was about what was going to happen on this date. Furthermore the fact that there is a lot of controversy
and different opinions surrounding this topic and making it a very touchy
subject for some people just like stem cell use.
I personally believed that this
seminar was flawless. There was nothing
that wasn't supported or backed up by research and facts that make the seminar
more strong due to the fact that there was nothing that wasn't true being taught
and explained to us in this seminar, all key points were covered and nothing
that was presented in the seminar was just a theory.
Harry Pyle 12/10/12
ReplyDeleteBiology I Current Events Comment
I enjoyed reading the review of Dr. Scott Calvin’s lecture about the end of the world by Spencer. I thought that Spencer did a good job of summarizing the lecture and its key points. These include the points about asteroid collisions with the earth and solar rays and their damaging effects. Spencer did a good job of analyzing the facts that were presented and using them to back up the points stated by Dr. Scott Calvin. His examination of what Dr. Calvin said and his understanding of the reasoning behind why the world is not going to end on December 21st enhanced my comprehension of the topic at hand and helped me to learn some new insights about asteroids and solar rays. I also enjoyed reading this review by Spencer because I thought that his explanation of the lecture’s significance was particularly well presented. This lecture gained a lot of popularity because of the upcoming date that the world is supposedly going to end on. Spencer did a good job of explaining this and tied it into global significance well. I personally thought it was fascinating that we have the ability to tell if a solar ray is on its way to earth 24 hours in advance. The development of technology has truly saved the world from a great disaster. However I believe the most captivating piece of the lecture was the point about asteroids; that we have actually mapped every single asteroid around the earth and we can tell years in advance which ones will hit the earth at some point. It is almost unbelievable that we have this sort of ability and we can actively use it to prevent asteroids from hitting the earth. This was very interesting for me to learn because I previously had wondered how we could know if asteroids were going to hit the earth. I thought Spencer could have improved his review by explaining the relevance of the lecture a little more in depth and developing his analysis on the main points of the article a tad bit further. However, overall I thought it was an interesting lecture and a good summary by Spencer.