Reflection: Factors Influencing Environmental Racism

Reflection #1: Factors Influencing Environmental Racism In August of 1835, The New York Sun newspaper published a series of fantastical articles outlining the outstanding findings of famous astrologist John Herschel supposedly published in The Edinburgh Journal of Science. This series of articles falsely claimed that Herschel had constructed a new powerful telescope giving him the ability to observe life on the moon. Although this claim would immediately be dismissed as ludicrous in today 's society, it was actually widely accepted by the general public of its day. Afterall, society in 1835 looked very different than 2018 society. The fields of science, technology, and religion at the time seemed to attribute to the credibility of the Great Moon Hoax. In 1835, the scientific community did not hold a hard fast opinion on the possibility of lunar life. The supposed discoverer Herschel himself had entertained the possibility of moon life in his Treatise on Astronomy. This and other scientific aspects of the story gave it an apparent validity. At the time, the general public viewed scientific findings as fact, unlike now where new scientific findings (climate change for example) undergo extreme scrutiny. Science is no longer held in regard as an all-truthful source. Similarly, society today holds groundbreaking technology to a higher standard of proof. People of 1835 held unreasonable faith in the promise of technological advance (Boese). Afterall, huge inventions emerged with