Analysis Of The Great Influenza By John Barry

2008 AP english lang question 2 In the passage titled The great Influenza written by John Barry he talks about how scientists conduct scientific research and what it takes to be a scientist. He uses rhetorical strategies such as repetition, allusions and rhetorical questions. In the first paragraph Barry uses repetition numerous times with the words such as “certainty and uncertainty”.

There is hyperbole in almost every sentence in Dave Barry’s “Science: It’s Just Not Fair” The two examples I chose are the paragraph about the display board. The first being, “This is a big white board that you fold into three sections, thus giving it the stability it needs to collapse instantly when approached by humans”(307). “The international scientific community does not recognize any scientific discovery that does not have an Official Science Fair Display Board teetering behind it; many top scientists fail to win the Nobel Prize for exactly this reason. Anyone, no matter the age, who has ever had to participate in a science fair can relate to the first

Majority of society believes in the myth of a noble scientist; taking no consideration that scientists are just as human as your average employee. It’s in human nature to make mistakes, to rationalize actions, and to make hard decisions to benefit themselves or others. Science has never been perfect, and most results that are known in the field come from failure. Moreover, it is difficult to meet the expectations of a perfect scientist because conflict occurs when trying to handle the responsibilities of research. There are a plethora of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that may have an effect on an individual.

The more we know, the more we have to be doubtful about. The movie “The Big Short” opens with a quote supposedly from Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” It tells that the more knowledge you have causes you to overthink. Knowledge, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, is the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.

Consensus and disagreement are equally important to obtaining large amounts of knowledge, but are the two also responsible for hindering someone’s access to correct knowledge? I believe consensus can be described as an agreement among peers and a disagreement would be the inverse, a disagreement among peers. Too often, people that have a limited knowledge on a subject are able to discuss it, and without proper research, or even a well-structured peer review, the conclusions that can be made about a subject are skewed and incorrect- leading to a gain of incorrect knowledge. This is seen very often throughout history in dictatorships and in the natural sciences where peer reviews take place.

Influenza virus Influenza, also known as “flu” is a viral infection that affects the respiratory system and classified as a pathogen. This common virus is highly contagious; the bacteria permeate through coughs and sneezes of an individual. Some of the symptoms of the influenza virus include high temperature, cold, fatigue, etc. In some cases, there are severe, seldom complications to this virus include bacterial pneumonia, congestive heart failure, dehydration, diabetes or asthma. The influenza virus may not be that grievous but it’s infectious.

Modern Science is largely rooted in ancient traditions. Despite this fact, I saw the difference between the modern and ancient Science while watching the videos in class. First, modern Science strictly follows the scientific method during experiments. Thus every conclusion derived had a scientific validity. For example is in the case of Astrology.

From long time ago, humans have already desired to understand the origin of the universe and explore its operation. There are many brilliant philosophers or scientists help us to understand the universe, for example, Plato, Aristotle and Isaac Newton contribute a lot in the physical world. In my major course which is life sciences, Charles Darwin, who paid much effort on the biological world, is an important scientist. He suggested the evolution of species was conducted by natural selection, which seemed that it disproved Plato’s theory. Actually, there is no conflict between Plato’s theory and Darwin’s and Newton’s theory.

INTRODUCTION Influenza viruses constitute the genus Orthomyxovirus belong to the family Orthomyxoviridae, which consists of three species: A, B, and C. They are negative, single stranded RNA viruses. These viruses cause influenza also known as flu. Influenza is contagious acute respiratory disease that is marked by fever, chills, headache and feeling tired.

Structuring Science “In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.” A quote from Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist and historian of science, explains that science does not consist of facts, but statements that are waiting to be corrected. In science there has been and always will be continuous reorganization of theories, evidence, experiments, and facts. Looking through different scientific topics, theories, and thought processes, a specific tool gives great cases of why science continuously needs restructuration.

In an excerpt from The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, many rhetorical devices are used to fully represent the process of a scientist. Some of the most commonly used devices are metaphors, anaphoras, and imagery, these three devices help the reader understand the main ideas of the story. The metaphors allow the reader to perceive the process of a scientist in more simplistic ideas such as science being an undiscovered wilderness. The anaphora used in the beginning of the passage emphasises that the world of science is full of uncertainty and is constantly changing, this drives the idea into the mind of the reader. The imagery is used alongside the metaphors to assist the reader in grasping the foreign ideas.