The Life and Theories of Charles Darwin Essay -- Biography Biographies

The Life and Theories of Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin was the fifth child of Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgewood. He was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England where his father practiced medicine. He attended Shrewsbury Grammar School which was a well-kn own secondary school which concentrated on teaching classic languages. Even as a boy Darwin loved science and his enthusiasm for chemical studies earned him the name "Gas" from his friends. The headmaster at Shrewsbury, Dr. Samuel Butler noted, "Here's a boy, plays around with his gases and the rest of his rubbish and works at nothing useful." He was also an avid collector. Anything he could get his hands on- shells, eggs, minerals and coins interested him. Darwin was expected to follow his father and become a doctor and in 1825, at the age of sixteen, his father removed him from Shrewsbury and entered him in the University of Edenburgh to study medicine. He found all of his classes except chemistry dull. After two years at Edenburg, he quit school and went to live with his Uncle Josiah Wedgewood. After he abandoned medicine, his father urged him to attend Cambridge University to study to be a clergyman. At Cambridge he met John Steven Henslow who helped him regain his interest in nature. It was Henslow who was influential in getting Darwin the position of naturalist on the boat The Beagle. In April of 1831, he graduated from the University. In the fall following his graduation, the government decided to send the H.M.S. Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, to complete an unfinished survey of Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego to help map out the shores of Chile and Peru. Th e voyage w... ...rstand or explain whatever I observed and group a ll facts under some general laws..." On April 19, 1882 Darwin died of a heart attack. The family wanted Darwin to be buried in his home, the village of Downe. However, Parliament requested that he be buried in Westminster Abbey, a cemetery for Britain's kings and queens and intellectual giants. This was an indication of how far Darwin had come towards universal acceptance and respectability. Darwin's coffin lies next to Issac Newton which is only fitting because Darwin has been called "The Newton of Biology." Darwin was modest of his monumental achievements to the very end and said of himself shortly before his death,"With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points."

Mankiw Chapter 1 Solution

The answers to the Quick Quizzes can also be found near the end of the textbook. 1. The four principles of economic decision making are: (1) people face trade-offs; (2) the cost of something is what you give up to get it; (3) rational people think at the margin; and (4) people respond to incentives. People face trade-offs because to get one thing that they like, they usually have to give up another thing that they like. The cost of something is what you give up to get it, not just in terms of monetary costs but all opportunity costs.Rational people think at the margin by taking an action if and only if the marginal benefit exceeds the marginal cost. People respond to incentives because they choose activities by comparing benefits to costs; therefore, a change in these benefits or costs may cause their behavior to change. The three principles concerning people’s economic interactions are: (1) trade can make everyone better off; (2) markets are usually a good way to organize eco nomic activity; and (3) governments can sometimes improve market outcomes.Trade can make everyone better off because it allows countries to specialize in what they do best and to enjoy a wider variety of goods and services. Markets are usually a good way to organize economic activity because the invisible hand leads markets to desirable outcomes. Governments can sometimes improve market outcomes because markets may fail to allocate resources efficiently due to an externality or market power.The three principles that describe how the economy as a whole works are: (1) a country’s standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services; (2) prices rise when the government prints too much money; and (3) society faces a shortrun trade-off between inflation and unemployment. A country’s standard of living depends largely on the productivity of its workers, which in turn depends on the education of its workers and the access its workers have to the necessary t ools and technology. Prices rise when the government prints too much money because more money in circulation reduces the value of money, causing inflation.Society faces a short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment that is only temporary. Policymakers have some short-term ability to exploit this relationship using various policy instruments. 2. 3. Questions for Review 1. Examples of trade-offs include time trade-offs (such as studying one subject over another or studying at all compared to engaging in social activities) and spending tradeoffs (such as whether to use your last 15 dollars to purchase a pizza or to buy a study guide for that tough economics course).The opportunity cost of seeing a movie includes the monetary cost of admission plus the time cost of going to the theater and attending the show. The time cost depends on what else you might do with that time; if it is staying home and watching TV, the time cost may be small, but if it is working an extra three ho urs at your job, the time cost is the money you could have earned. The marginal benefit of a glass of water depends on your circumstances. If you have just 2. 3. Chapter 1/Ten Principles of Economics 2 un a marathon or you have been walking in the desert sun for three hours, the marginal benefit is very high. But if you have been drinking a lot of liquids recently, the marginal benefit is quite low. The point is that even the necessities of life, like water, do not always have large marginal benefits. 4. Policymakers need to think about incentives so they can understand how people will respond to the policies they put in place. The text's example of seat belt laws shows that policy actions can have unintended consequences.If incentives matter a lot, they may lead to a very different type of policy; for example, some economists have suggested putting knives in steering columns so that people will drive much more carefully! While this suggestion is silly, it highlights the importance of incentives. Trade among countries is not a game with some losers and some winners because trade can make everyone better off. By allowing specialization, trade between people and trade between countries can improve everyone's welfare.The â€Å"invisible hand† of the marketplace represents the idea that even though individuals and firms are all acting in their own self-interest, prices and the marketplace guide them to do what is good for society as a whole. The two main causes of market failure are externalities and market power. An externality is the impact of one person’s actions on the well-being of a bystander, such as from pollution or the creation of knowledge. Market power refers to the ability of a single person (or small group of people) to unduly influence market prices, such as in a town with only one well or only one cable television company.In addition, a market economy also leads to an unequal distribution of income. Productivity is important because a country's standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services. The greater a country's productivity (the amount of goods and services produced from each hour of a worker's time), the greater its standard of living will be. Inflation is an increase in the overall level of prices in the economy. Inflation is caused by increases in the quantity of a nation's money.Inflation and unemployment are negatively related in the short run. Thus, reducing inflation entails costs to society in the form of higher unemployment in the short run. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Problems and Applications 1. a. A family deciding whether to buy a new car faces a trade-off between the cost of the car and other things they might want to buy. For example, buying the car might mean they must give up going on vacation for the next two years. So the real cost of the car is the family's opportunity cost in terms of what they must give up.For a member of Congress deciding whether to increase spending on national parks, the trade-off is between parks and other spending items or tax cuts. If more money goes into the park system, that may mean less spending on national defense or on the police force. Or, instead of spending more money on the park system, taxes could be reduced. b. Chapter 1/Ten Principles of Economics c. 3 When a company president decides whether to open a new factory, the decision is based on whether the new factory will increase the firm's profits compared to other alternatives.For example, the company could upgrade existing equipment or expand existing factories. The bottom line is: Which method of expanding production will increase profit the most? In deciding how much to prepare for class, a professor faces a trade-off between the value of improving the quality of the lecture compared to other things she could do with her time, such as working on additional research. d. 2. When the benefits of something are psychological, such as going on a vacation, it is not e asy to compare benefits to costs to determine if it is worth doing.But there are two ways to think about the benefits. One is to compare the vacation with what you would do in its place. If you did not go on vacation, would you buy something like a new set of golf clubs? Then you can decide if you would rather have the new clubs or the vacation. A second way is to think about how hard you had to work to earn the money to pay for the vacation. You can then decide if the psychological benefits of the vacation were worth the psychological cost of working.If you are thinking of going skiing instead of working at your part-time job, the cost of skiing includes its monetary and time costs, which includes the opportunity cost of the wages you are giving up by not working. If the choice is between skiing and going to the library to study, then the cost of skiing is its monetary and time costs including the cost of getting lower grades in your courses. If you spend $100 now instead of saving it for a year and earning 5 percent interest, you are giving up the opportunity to spend $105 a year from now.The fact that you have already sunk $5 million is not relevant to your decision anymore, because that money is gone. What matters now is the chance to earn profits at the margin. If you spend another $1 million and can generate sales of $3 million, you'll earn $2 million in marginal profit, so you should do so. You are right to think that the project has lost a total of $3 million ($6 million in costs and only $3 million in revenue) and you should not have started it. That is true, but if you do not spend the additional $1 million, you will not have any sales and your losses will be $5 million.So what matters is not the total profit, but the profit you can earn at the margin. In fact, you wouldd pay up to $3 million to complete development; any more than that, and you will not be increasing profit at the margin. Harry suggests looking at whether productivity would rise or f all. Productivity is certainly important, since the more productive workers are, the lower the cost per gallon of potion. Ron wants to look at average cost. But both Harry and Ron are missing the other side of the equation? revenue. A firm wants to maximize its profits, so it needs to examine both costs and revenues.Thus, Hermione is right? it is best to examine whether the extra revenue would exceed the extra costs. Hermione is the only one who is thinking at the margin. a. The provision of Social Security benefits lowers an individual’s incentive to save for retirement. The benefits provide some level of income to the individual when he or she retires. This means that the individual is not entirely dependent on savings to support consumption through the years in retirement. Since a person gets fewer after-tax Social Security benefits the greater his or her 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. b.Chapter 1/Ten Principles of Economics earnings are, there is an incentive not to work (or not work as much) after age 65. The more you work, the lower your after-tax Social Security benefits will be. Thus, the taxation of Social Security benefits discourages work effort after age 65. 8. a. b. When welfare recipients have their benefits cut off after two years, they have a greater incentive to find jobs than if their benefits were to last forever. 4 The loss of benefits means that someone who cannot find a job will get no income at all, so the distribution of income will become less equal.But the economy will be more efficient, because welfare recipients have a greater incentive to find jobs. Thus, the change in the law is one that increases efficiency but reduces equity. 9. By specializing in each task, you and your roommate can finish the chores more quickly. If you divided each task equally, it would take you more time to cook than it would take your roommate, and it would take him more time to clean than it would take you. By specializing, you reduce the total time spent on chore s. Similarly, countries can specialize and trade, making both better off.For example, suppose it takes Spanish workers less time to make clothes than French workers, and French workers can make wine more efficiently than Spanish workers. Then Spain and France can both benefit if Spanish workers produce all the clothes and French workers produce all the wine, and they exchange wine for clothes. 10. a. To produce the right number of CDs by the right artists and deliver them to the right people requires an enormous amount of information. You need to know about production techniques and costs in the CD industry. You need to know each person's musical tastes and which artists they want to hear.If you make the wrong decisions, you will be producing too many CDs by artists that people do not want to hear, and not enough by others. Your decisions about CDs will carry over to other decisions. You have to make the right number of CD players for people to use. If you make too many CDs and not enough cassette tapes, people with cassette players will be stuck with CDs they cannot play. The probability of making mistakes is very high. You will also be faced with tough choices about the music industry compared to other parts of the economy.If you produce more sports equipment, you will have fewer resources for making CDs. So all decisions about the economy influence your decisions about CD production. b. 11. Countries that have corrupt police and court systems do not enforce individual property rights, including the rights over the goods and services produced by households and firms. Firms will not choose to produce products and individuals will choose not to work if there is no guarantee that they will receive payment for their efforts. Therefore, these countries end up with a lower standard of living. . b. c. d. e. Efficiency: The market failure comes from the market power of the cable TV firm. Equity Efficiency: An externality arises because secondhand smoke harms nonsmok ers. Efficiency: The market failure occurs because of Standard Oil's market power. Equity 12. Chapter 1/Ten Principles of Economics f. 13. a. 5 Efficiency: There is an externality because of accidents caused by drunk drivers. If everyone were guaranteed the best health care possible, much more of our nation's output would be devoted to medical care than is now the case.Would that be efficient? If you believe that doctors have market power and restrict health care to keep their incomes high, you might think efficiency would increase by providing more health care. But more likely, if the government mandated increased spending on health care, the economy would be less efficient because it would give people more health care than they would choose to pay for. From the point of view of equity, if poor people are less likely to have adequate health care, providing more health care would represent an improvement.Each person would have a more even slice of the economic pie, though the pie wo uld consist of more health care and less of other goods. When workers are laid off, equity considerations argue for the unemployment benefits system to provide them with some income until they can find new jobs. After all, no one plans to be laid off, so unemployment benefits are a form of insurance. But there is an efficiency problem? why work if you can get income for doing nothing? The economy is not operating efficiently if people remain unemployed for a long time, and unemployment benefits encourage unemployment.Thus, there is a trade-off between equity and efficiency. The more generous unemployment benefits are, the less income is lost by an unemployed person, but the more that person is encouraged to remain unemployed. So greater equity reduces efficiency. b. 14. Because average income in the United States has roughly doubled every 35 years, we are likely to have a better standard of living than our parents, and a much better standard of living than our grandparents. This is mainly the result of increased productivity, so that an hour of work produces more goods and services than it used to.Thus, incomes have continuously risen over time, as has the standard of living. If Americans save more and it leads to more spending on factories, there will be an increase in production and productivity, because the same number of workers will have more equipment to work with. The benefits from higher productivity will go to both the workers, who will get paid more because they are producing more, and the factory owners, who will get a return on their investments. There is no such thing as a free lunch, however, because when people save more, they are giving up spending. They get higher incomes at the cost of buying fewer goods.To make an intelligent decision about whether to reduce inflation, a policymaker would need to know what causes inflation and unemployment, as well as what determines the trade-off between them. This means that the policymaker needs to unders tand how households and firms will adjust to a decrease in the money supply. How much will spending decline? How much will firms lower output? Any attempt to reduce inflation will likely lead to higher unemployment in the short run. A policymaker thus faces a trade-off between the benefits of lower inflation compared to the cost of higher unemployment. Answers will vary. 15. 16. 17.

Amy Tan, Two Kinds Essay

This story’s main events take place in Chinatown throughout the 1950s and perhaps early 1960s. The main character of the story, who is also the protagonist, is the author herself: Amy Tan. The antagonist happens to be her own mother, who is always pushing Amy to discover some hidden talent and be someone she is not. There are a few other minor characters in the story. There is Lindo Jong (who she calls Auntie Lindo), who is a close friend of Amy’s mother. Waverly Jong is Auntie Lindo’s daughter, who is close to Amy’s age. Amy’s piano instructor, who she calls â€Å"Old Chong†, plays a small role in the story. Amy’s dad is included in the text, but does not play much of a role. In â€Å"Two Kinds†, the exposition is clear in the first couple of pages. The story begins by explaining that Amy’s family moved to America when she was a baby, in 1949. Her mother is clear in her goals: she wants Amy to be a child prodigy (a person with exceptional talent) and famous. Although in the beginning Amy seems accepting of her mother’s goal, there are some undertones which are clear to the reader that her mother may go too far. Symbolism in literature â€Å"might include visual or sound elements as well as language†. Amy’s piano was the main symbol of this story. In the end of the story, the fact that she had it tuned and actually sat down to play shows us that she really cared about her mother-and the piano-after all. The songs that she plays at the end are also a symbol of the story, itself. She mentions playing two songs. The first is titled â€Å"Pleading Child†, and the second one: â€Å"Perfectly Contented†. These are songs that she had played when she was a child. She notices for the first time, after all of these years, that these two songs are actually two halves to the same song. The song represents Amy’s life. This is how the story ends. We get a pretty good idea of what Amy’s story is about and the theme behind it. She regrets not trying her best, and the way she has taken her mother for granted in her life. A strong message like this makes us reflect on our own lives and relationships with the ones we love. Amy constructs the story in a way that makes the plot flow, and we are interested in what will happen to her next. Some of us may even feel like she is too hard on the protagonist-her mother. The ending resolves these feelings, because we discover she feels this, too.

The Importance of semantics and syntax in sentence recall essays

The Importance of semantics and syntax in sentence recall essays This study was set to examine the importance of semantics and syntax in the brains ability to process and correctly recall content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) in sentences (Miller, Isard 1963). The sample involved 140 first year psychology students attending a compulsory laboratory at the Australian National University. The experiment was conducted similarly to that of the Miller and Isard study (1963), in which subjects were presented with 60 different sentences. 20 of which were normal grammatical sentences (normal); 20 were semantically anomalous sentences that were syntactically sound (sem-syn+), and 20 were syntactically invalid sentences that were also semantically incoherent (syn-sem-). In attempts to support the results concluded from the Miller and Isard (1963) study a memory task was used that required subjects to accurately recall the constitute words in a sentence a short period after they were initially exposed. This task tested participants memory func tions and recall abilities whilst supporting the argument that claimed when sentences are both semantically and syntactically sound, the content words that make up the sentence will be recalled after a short duration of time more accurately than when the words are strung together in an ungrammatical fashion. The importance of semantics and syntax in sentence processing and retrieval When it comes to understanding the human ability of reconising integral words in sentences and then recalling them back after a short duration of time, one must acknowledge the important roles that both syntax and semantics play in this process. Many studies have been conducted in attempts to gain more information on the semantic processes, syntactic processes, and their coordination in sentence comprehension (Hahne & Jescheniak, 2001). Because the mechanisms underlying recall of meaningful sequences of words are not well understood, it has yet to be discovered...

Ethical Dilemma Essays

Ethical Dilemma Essays Ethical Dilemma Essay Ethical Dilemma Essay Fowler, M. D. , Aroskar, M. A. (1997). Ethical Dilemmas Nursing Practice. (5th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc. Desjardins, J. (2009). An Introduction to Business Ethics. (3rd ed. ). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Ghillyer, A. (2010). Business Ethics: A Real World Approach. (2nd ed. ). Boston: Mcgraw-Hill Higher Education. Klein, E. R. (2003). People First! Professional and Business Ethics without Ethics. Oxford, UK: University Press Of America. MacNiven, D. (1993). Creative Morality. London, UK: Routledge. Narveson, J. (1998). Egoism and Altruism. In R. Chadwick, Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics (pp. 15-21). London, UK: Academic Press Limited. Preston, N. (1996). Understanding Ethics. Sydney, NSW, Australia: The Federation Press. Shaw, W. H. , Barry, V. , Sansbury, G. (2009). Moral issues in Business. (1st Asia-Pacific ed. ). South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Cengage Learning Australia Pty Limited.

Black Death

The Black Death according to many historians does not narrow down to one cause. There have been several interpretations of what has caused the plague. But there have not been different opinions on the effects of the Black Death. The plague has caused a decrease in population; drop in food prices, religious conflicts, and land lost. Historians can conclude with the aftermath of the plague that it was a significant event in which many people were affected.Besides the fact that the Black Death devastated Europe in the medieval times, it also had a powerful impact on population, culture, religion, and economy. The population decreased due to the thousands of deaths caused by The Black Death. The population â€Å"did not recover from the plague, did not resume the skyrocketing demographic curve of the late 13th century† (Cantor 88). It seemed to be estimated that almost 35 million Europeans died from the plague. Late marriages were also a factor that caused the populations not to bounce back from adversity due to the long periods of bachelorhood. Therefore, childbirth was at a smaller percent and if a woman were to be pregnant she would die due to old age. Also, some of the people who were affected by the plague thought it was God punishing them for their sins and how they deserved it. Culture was another aspect of the plague. Many cultures had changed and land was lost. The plague had affected people’s land because of the spread of the disease was already onto the animals. Farmers could not cultivate their farmland or animals because they were dying and then the plague had spread to the landowners. Religion, people viewed the plague as an evil deep inside themselves. They viewed it as God punishing them for their sins so they must ask for forgiveness, donate to the church, and live better lives. Those who were punished by God â€Å"turned to better things in their minds. They abstained from all vice during that time and they lived virtuously; many divided their property among the poor, even before they were attacked by disease (Cantor 247). Flagellants whipped themselves and scourged themselves as penance for their and society’s sins in the belief that the Black Death was God’s way of punishing them. Another thought came across that the Jews had poisoned Christian community wells badly to persecute Jews. This did not help Europe bolster their community back to normal. The economy; due to the shortage of land and people, people were out of pay and prices of food went up. Due to many deaths, there were shortages of goods and then a rise in prices. The prices on wheat, cheese, and meat went up. Majority of farmland was left with no farmer so the food was there to rot. Due to that, people could not provide food for themselves and they had to buy food even though the prices went up; the consumption of meat went up as well. The plague affected Europe’s community so much that people were living different lifestyles, from growing there own food to surviving on high priced food while sick. Cantor writes from a Political history view as well as a Cultural historical view. Political History is â€Å"the narrative and analysis of political events, ideas, movements, and leaders. It is distinct from, but related to, other fields of history such as Diplomatic history, social history, economic history, and military history, as well as constitutional history and public history† (Wikipedia n.p.). Cantor writes from a political history view because he focuses on the impact the Black Death had on Europe. Cantor also writes from a Cultural history view; Cultural History is building on materialism but focuses on language as a historical view and borrows from anthropology and linguistics of people in the past. Cantor writes from this view partially because he analyzes the people that deeply impacted the Black Death and how the cultural world was affected by it. But his main focus was to convey the difference in cultural backgrounds and how they affected the Black Death. It was believed/said that the cause of The Black Death and majority of the plagues that struck Europe were epidemics of the bubonic plague. (CJ Duncan, Scott S). One historian believes that â€Å"the disease was a viral haemorrhagic fever, characterized by long incubation period of 32 days, which allowed it to be spread widely even with the limited transport of the Middle Ages.† It was spread by being emerged from its â€Å"animal host† and then attacked Europe/Asia communities over and over. The Black Plague spread quickly, believed to being spread by animal host, because fleas and rats would transfer it to other animals. Another prediction was that a fleabite would an infected rat; Yersinia Pestis grows in its gut. The Black Death is believed to have started to spread from the human to human with no rats and or fleas involved because places where the plague hit there were no rats. In conclusion to The Black Death and how Cantor wrote in his perspective, it is hard to say what is the deciding factor in what caused the plague all together. Since the plague has many reasons as to what caused the spread they all eventually lead to what happened after, tragedy. The plague affected how people lived their lifestyles, farms were lost and lots of people died. As well as food prices going up because many animals got infected with the plague causing them to die; the farmers weren’t able to provide for themselves or families. Cantor wrote his book with historical facts and key people who set the tone for the book. Other historians did the same but had a different opinion on what caused it. Concluding this The Black Death left the world with open eyes to show how a sickness will affect not only people but religion and money too. Bibliography 1. Black Death.

Fine and Gross Motor Skills Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Fine and Gross Motor Skills - Research Paper Example Childcare means ensuring that the environment the baby is growing up in is safe and healthy enough for the child and this is the work of parents, guardians, grandparents and other relatives, babysitters or even nanny, licensed child care centers as well as older siblings. Even when the parents are working and have to leave the child with other people who are capable, they should still ensure that the environment is safe and healthy for the children and communicate the same to those taking care of the children. What should be considered before leaving the child with just anyone is the interaction of that person with the baby, the cleanliness and safety of the environment, activities the child can participate in, the food and beverages being provided and whether they are healthy enough as well as how the person engages in activities with the children. If the staff or individual does not look happy to interact, then the child will not have enough development with that person.  What so me parents do not realize when it comes to reading to children is that it is never too early to do so. The earlier the reading and frequency the more the baby starts learning vocabulary as well as getting their brain cells stimulated to grow. The baby also starts getting and strengthening listening skills as well as gaining memory skills. Reading also promotes bonding with the child with the soothing sounds of a parent’s voice. The baby also starts getting awareness of the world in addition to beginning a reading culture in them. Different age groups have different reading books as well as capacity they can understand. Their concentration span increases with age and hence only a few pages should be read at a time and increase as the child develops. The presence of animals and drawings in a baby’s book helps in learning while encouraging them to repeat as you read along with them builds their confidence and reading skills as they grow up and start pre-school.