Sara Davidovic

Evolution vs. Creationism

Evolution vs. Creation, an argument being debated for years. But why are they debated for so long? When will we figure out the true story of the creation of our world? A question that has not been answered and I have doubts that it ever will. But what is this debate all about. In this essay you will find out a definition of both debated sides, and of course my opinion and what I strongly believe of what created Earth. Although both sides will always have non-explanatory questions that no one has answered until today’s date. Well, here is a tiny introduction.
Debaters are using politics to advance what is essentially a religious gull that is the heart of the evolution verses creationism issue. This controversy is now national news in the debate. This debate is about how our earth originated, including, life, the universe, the Earth and humanity. Researches lead to different conclusions. Some say the answer of the debate is in the bible, some say Darwin’s theory is correct. But as years pass by, scientific research of the evolution theory are advancing, when creationists, are yet still left with the Bible.

God is a pretty popular man in the world of creationism. He was said to have created everything we see and are in this world. Air, trees, animals, water, humans etc. Many creationists claim that there is not enough evidence to the Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, when to be honest they don’t have enough proof themselves right. Although they have a couple of questions I don’t think Darwin could have even answered: Where did this energy/matter come from? How reasonable is it to assume it came into being from nothing? And even if it did come into being, what would cause it to explode? (http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/quest.htm) Creationists find it unusual that the big- bang eventually created stars, the earth other planets, and finally us, they do have scientific back up, but I have heard some false fact from the side of the creationists. Scientifically proven wrong, they claim that the world is a complete, and perfect sphere, to claim their wrong fact correct they used a scientifically proven right fact which is: anything natural is not completely symmetrical. Then as creationist scientists said the world is a perfectly symmetrical sphere, which is wrong, it is slightly oval. There theory for the symmetrical earth is said to be created by God. I must say that as I researched there was much information and “supportive” theories that were not scientifically aprooved correct.
Many literal creationists claim that the theory of evolution has no proper explanation for our history, diversity, and complexity of our Earth.

Evolution. One word, yet a whole theory debated for long years, and most likely always will be a part of a large debate it is today. But why does the majority think evolution is the correct theory? Hopefully this paragraph gives enough reasons. Did you ever ask yourself how cloning works? We take a single gene from a man (*single gene*), what do we manage to create with it? A new complete human being. Interesting right? It is also correct. Darwin’s theory of evolution states that all living things are related also that complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time, and it is thought Earth started from a big-bang, and life began with a single prokaryotic cell, that evolved to make us. Another aspect of claiming the evolution theory correct are the fossils. They found there relations, and how they evaluated over years. Another good fact on the side of evolution is the “natural selection” process. What is natural selection? Natural selection acts to preserve and accumulate minor advantageous genetic mutation. Suppose a species grew a functional mutation, for example a bird has a fatter beak and is unable to eat the tree worms without a thinner beak, as time passes by natural selection happens and everything switches up, giving the bird a thinner beak in order for it to survive, this theory of natural selection was proved correct. So don’t you think you just maybe formed by natural selection? For example the monkey had some other necessities in life in order to survive, and slowly evolved onto us. This is good they developed new traits to help them survive. Who knows maybe one day natural selection will enable us to fly as well, if our environment changes, and our chances of survival. The polar bears are getting more used to the warmer weather because of global warming, and thanks to natural selection they are still alive today. Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a theory shows the tremendous advances we've made in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics over the past fifty years. These advanced researched the we built upon is nothing that would be recognized as such in Darwin's day. Darwin confessed, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

The fact that I’m more in the side of evolution does not mean I will lose my beliefs and religion, I am not an atheist, and neither is my family, but I have many family members that studied science, my background is more of a scientific.  Many people are born as believers, I must say that I was born around a pretty religious family, except for my parents, the rest of my family on the other hand believes in the theory of creationism. As I grew older my learning progressed, and I was taught in a school that told me to think outside of the box. And when I think of it, I somewhat realize that the only reason the belief in God was created because people were more lowbrow and naïve, they needed something to believe in and they needed an explanation for the Earths creation, due to their un-education. Religion grew and became a big part of the world which it is now. We are also growing, changing, and becoming more intelligent by the year; many of us came to realize that science is a new thing, new theories, not a cultural thing anymore. To me it seems as a new “religion”, something many of us follow, believe, and research about similar like we do to religions. I think religion was a cultural thing for us to believe in something, and we kept it because we want to keep some beliefs from our past, I respect that, but I wouldn’t claim the world was created from a man above our heads punishing us, and deciding what to do after our deaths. So I pray to the new Gods, scientistsJ!

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Where will we be in 2031?

 Dear Sara,

when you read this on the 28, of February 2031, you willprobably go far (at least i hope)!

Right now i know i only have plans, and that i havent yet decided what i will be doing in the future, i suspect a lawyer, doctor, model, or volleyball players. HOPEFULLY doctor, or lawyer, the others would just be your part- time job. I know you wont stop playing sports. STAY ACTIVE! Stay in shape. Hopefully you have your days where you sit down with your husband and your 3 children and talk about your day at work, and/or school. I would love you to have a large family, and a big house as i used to imagine it. Do you have a big family, well at east 3 kids? Hopefully, i would like you to have three children NOT over 4. Having three children is a big responsibility, and i know that if you chose a lawyer or a doctor, you will have less attention to give them, and that could be a problem t them growing up. But dont quit from having your own family, i know you want that, dont give up on it, from the stories i heard, having a child is the most wonderful thing that has every happend to them, i want you to have that pride and feeling too. So get yourself organized, you have to get serious now! Hopefully, you have a diploma for a doctor or lawyer, maybe even become a famous fashion designer and create your own perfumes, bags, etc. We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving. And we all have some power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.

Keep believing. Good luck!

Sara Davidovic

8A

Robot+ Coffee

Source: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20101117/Note1.asp

Author: Stephen Omes

Date written: November, 17, 2010

               

If you think coffee is only for drinking, well, you’re wrong. Coffee has one of the most important uses that will benefit our future. Coffee is made up of one of the smallest particles. And as you know for small particles its easy to absorb, and copy the shape of another object and be able to perfectly fit in, just like Play-Dough. Coffee helps robotic arms work the way they do. An example is if you put sand or coffee in a bag and put the bag down on a cup it will slowly fits around the object, somewhat holding it, that is the way a robotic arm simulates. Now with this information scientists were capable of interpreting this into the newest robotic arm. How does this work your asking? Simple, this robotic arm has a very strong rubber material that is contained with coffee particles. These particles as I said before form and fit around a specific object and than a vacuum contained inside the metal part that keeps the rubber bag together sucks and pulls the object. Scientists have tested this and it has worked on many different objects. Even a glass cup was picked up by this arm. Scientists have created this because they believe there are some objects we are not capable of picking up in the correct way unlike this robotic arm that was specialized to pick up an object at a perfect height and perfect pressure. Because people at times tend to put on much pressure on an object and on some to little pressure, but this robot can pick it up without damaging the object.  Right at the moment this robot is small, but because they made so many tet they have decided to make a bigger one and be capable of picking up on object of even 2,000 pounds! But to fill up thi rubber balloon and pick up that weight, there is going to be a whole lot of coffee!

Reflection:

Many of you should already get the impression that this can be very useful for us and our future. Mythbusters, Brainiacs etc. they are all showing how we should improve our life using robots. Imagine having a useful hand like this with you, if something heavy and big comes in your way, well no problem all you need is a rubber bag, a vacuum and some coffee, and the 2,000 pounds are out of your way. This is also very important in emergencies where help can be nowhere to be found you can always use this to move things around in case of a weak or broken hand. I chose this article because I never knew our world can become so advanced with a simple bag filled with coffee and a vacuum, can do everything [and more] then we can with our own hands. This current event was my favorite of favorites!  Seeing our world growing up seems it will never get old…

Current Event6 =]

Sara Davidovic

8a

14/November 2010

Hot Temperature!

Author: Anonymous

Source: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100303/Note3.asp

Date Written: March 3, 2010

Today, many people have different interests. Sports, business jobs, and breaking records! In the book ‘Guinness World Record 2011’ this temperature rate was included. But not all the records are about the hairiest man on earth, or who has created a 6 ft. tall cheeseburger in a short amount of time, but a record pulled off not so far ago, meant a lot to scientists! They have reached to the point of the highest temperature in their lab! This is amazing, something that should be written down as part of history. Because, record keeping can always help us compare to our past. We can tell how much we improved over the years, and how it can help that we have made this discovery! As I heard that’s what most successful people do when they get a job like a lawyer, scientists, archeologist etc. Now you’re probably asking yourselves, so give it away what is the highest temperature? Well, ladies and gentlemen, the magic temperature is 7.2 million degrees Fahrenheit!!! This is an amazing discovery! Another question you might ask while reading this is-so what can this do to help the world? Scientists for a long period of time had been trying to discover how our earth was actually created. Many of us believe in the theory of the super nova, or big bang. Both of these “bangs” need high temperature, in order to melt off and create something. By this “hot temperature discovery” so to speak, can help us understand about how planets were created. The temperature our scientists have created is 250,000 hotter than our sun. What actually creates the hot molecules? This plasma is called quark-gluon. This plasma creates the warmth of this ‘mini explosion’. This is in a way a type of explosion, these atoms inside have so much energy that they disperse and they create enough heat to melt; this might reveal  the creation of our earth known to us.

Reflection:

I think that this event will affect us as a whole mostly from all the other current events I write about. I mean after all these years we might’ve finally found out the truth of human creation! Imagine it, that we were all born from an atom, it is amazing. The info that we are getting from these scientists is crucial, and they might be experiments we might not be able to try again in the future. But since this is a reflection I do have a couple of questions: what can this really lead to? How big was the actual energy [plasma] explosion? With this are we capable of creating another planet? With this can we predict when a new planet or universe is made? But I believe I will be researching  this theory for a long period of time, I am avid to know if this info is valid, and if it is true, and I will see if I can get these answers to my questions!

Current Event5 =]

Sara Davidovic

8a

Science Class- Mrs. M

A Material can Remember!

Author: Anonymous

Source: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100331/Note1.asp

Date of Article written: March 31, 2010

A very unpopular material called Nafion is one of the most used materials in the world. We have been using this material from the ‘60’s. A chemist named DuPont was the founder of this very useful material. This material uses fuel cells. A fuel cell is a cell producing an electric current directly from a chemical reaction. These fuel cells are often used to power up satellites and produce energy for hydrogen. But now in Michigan they have recently discovered the real quality of Niforn. Nifron can supposedly imitate three different shapes. For example if you twist this Nifon material into a oval shape, later on it will remember this and make the same shape that you have shaped it into before. Nifon can’t be tested anywhere, its memorization all depends on the temperature of the place it has been bended, twisted, etc. This material is called what the synthetic polymer and this material cannot be found in nature, this is a man-made material that is made up of different molecules that connect . The molecules contained in this synthetic polymer are found in various weights and sizes. A scientist named Tao Xie has reported that Nafion is a scientific version of Silly Putty. Now, you might ask yourself how has this proven to be valid. Well, as I said the scientist named Tao Xie has reported that this was another scientific version of silly putty, not quite. Xie had tested his hypothesis. The first step he had made to his new discovery was that he heated this material to 140 degrees Celsius. Once the material was heated he made a shape out of it, cooled it off, then did the same thing two more times, but with different shapes. He let it cool of after changing the shape three times .Then he finally decided to test it again, he  heated it back to 140 degrees Celsius and noticed that the material Nafion  changed back to all three shapes slowly. It combined the three shapes together and created a new shape. This brings us to the fact of exploring, and discovering new shapes. What if maybe one day we discover that the shapes we think are impossible to create are easy to make with Nafion? Maybe one day we will actually  create a Penrose triangle! Overall nafion is not the only material that is capable of remembering the shapes it was formed into, but it is one of the latest ones.

Reflection:

This is a very important material we have discovered. It’s funny though, how this material is over 40 years old and we have only discovered its use in the year of 2010. This year has definitely been a successful year for scientists and architects. As we make new foundries and we improve our technology we are capable of discovering new things. This can take us to the top and we might get to our goals that we probably never thought we would be able to accomplish. Now that we have found a material like Nafion, we can discover new shapes, make impossible objects possible, and maybe even come to the discovery of its possible daily use. Maybe this material can be used in our daily lives. Foundries like these can lead to new discoveries! 

 

^^^^The molecules this Nafion is made up of!

Current Event4 =]

Frog Mutations
Source: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100324/Note2.asp
Date Written: March 24, 2010
Author: Anonymous

Recently there has been a discovery that is related to frogs. They have tested and observed many different reactions of frogs in different substances. This all started out as a college experiment, with a group of students testing different substances and different hormones on frogs. Many of there hypothesis were correct, and as they suspected, but there was one substance that reacted just a couple of days after it was hypothesized to react. In fact one day a college student had found out that something very unusual was happening in the tank that a hormone called atrazine was put in. Definition: A weed killer used on most corn crops, atrazine can cause organ and cardiovascular damage and is a suspected hormone disruptor. It is also suspected to cause deformities in frogs. See Hormone-Disrupting Compounds. As the students observed they have thought back to what they put into the tank to made sure they have not put in any harmful chemicals. They have figured what was going on. All the tank had was: water, atrazine, and *male* frogs, but the unusual happening was that the male frogs had female frog behavior. Now, since they only had these three parts in the tank they have found out that the reason that is causing these frogs to act female was because of the atrazine. Now some of you might wonder: how do they now they have acted like females? Well first of all these males were attracting frogs the same gender, which is a female feature, it was confirmed that they have found 30% of the males that were put into the tank had adapted female behavior.
As I said, atrazine is used as a weed killer, you might expect these weed killing chemicals in some streams, rivers and lakes. This is very harmful for our environment, now the affected male frogs, now some male frogs are *becoming* female! It is not affecting only the frogs behavior in these lakes rivers and streams, but it is also affecting other animals that live in the water. Being raised in a highly polluted river lake or stream of atrazine it lowers the males’ level of testosterone, which causes them not to attract females. Not only do males loose there hormone but also gain a female hormone called estrogen. These students took to two male frogs and examined them. It happens to be that the male frogs had also produced female reproductive organs, which cause them to mate with other male frogs, and produce baby male frogs.

 Reflection:

            This is very shocking news. To know that so much pollution can cause such a mutation in our eco-system. Some day frogs might become extinct because there will be too many males mutated into females, and not enough males available for reproduction. As I said extinction might be on its way. I found this article very interesting, to think that only a chemical can change a whole frogs life into another direction. When I am older I wish to examine some animals, and find out what the causes of there mysterious extinctions and mutations. Hopefully gaining more knowledge of mutations, and pollution it will help prevent further extinction!