4 l:i:i:Eii:iiEI VLADAGAISINA opinion@technewsiit.com TechNews I TuesdayMarch 1,2011 Does wealth always mean “success?" By Malav Manek TECHNEWS WRITER Is money really everything in this world? Are the top ten richest people the only success, ful ones from the entire globe’s population? Have they even been called successfiil once? Unlike the majority of today’s generation, I do not believe that success is all about having the most money and the highest luxuries around you: In my opinion, success is simply about being able to achieve “positivism," “happie ness," “simplicity" within oneself, and “a good social life" Success, in other words, is about having all friends and no enemies; this can be achieved by unity It should be eliminated from our thoughts that only the rich can attain suce cess or can be called successful The definition of success may vary from person to person, but I believe that successful people are not the ones who have the best of all, but rather those can appreciate whatever may come their way and learn to accept it as an achievement: The four main factors that constitute success, as mentioned above, carry a deep meaning behind them: One can uni doubtedly note a downfall in the quality of life, if one of these factors is compromised or not maintained to the required standards To begin with, positivism means having the right attitude towards one’s aims and ob, jectives in life: It is essential to have a well, organized routine that would aid in tackling your shorteterm and longeterm objectives: As one works with an organized procedure, suce cess is bound to knock on your door; the self, confidence within yourself increases as you tend to realize your objectives: This builds up a sense ofpositivism within oneselfthat leads to further attainments and success: Moreover, if one is “determined" to achieve a goal within the boundaries of available resources, success is meant to be the obvious outcome: Hence, without a positive mind, happiness, simplice ity or a good social life are dificult to achieve; without all these qualities, there is no success: Apart from that, happiness is a positive psye chological state of mind characterized by love, satisfaction, pleasure or joy Happiness could be the cause of an achievement or the outcome cessful people, since an absence of happiness can harm you spiritually and mentally and you would spend the same wealth that you earned to treat the consequences of stress (damage to yourself): Alternatively, having just what you require in combination with a much happier life would be the best way of living anyone could choose: Hence, without happiness, posie tivism, simplicity, or a good social life are hard to achieve; without all these qualities there is no success: Simplicity, in the context of success, is the act of following a straightforward approach one want, to attain ed: When an objece you have “ '_ tive with them”, an absence of happl .h. dam, but you - - positive dono.g.. ness can harm you spm- outcome. any joy in II The simpler shssssssss tually and mentally... s ssssss of earn, the easier ing that it is to fol, money, the low and wealth earned would be useless: This is sup, ported by Albert Schweitzer, who said, “Suce cess is not the key to happiness: Happiness is the key to success: If you love what you are doing, you will be successful" A happy person with nothing to worry about can be categoe riz,ed as a successful person, since it leads to a longer and troubleefree life: Earning money involves a lot of stress and pain to the human body When looking at the lives of the rich, it is visible that they sacrifice their happiness and quality of life to earn the wealth: In my opine ion, they should rather be classified as unsuce perform, and the higher the probability for it to be successful: In the case of the need for an organized routine I mentioned earlier, for example, one does not require an expensive laptop or palm pilot to do so: The traditional peneandepaper style is the simplest and most convenient way to help oneself organize: The quote by an ancient Chinese political leader, Deng Xiaoping, “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mice," explains my emphasis on adapting simplicity One must not choose any procedure on the ba sis of its modernity or prestige, but rather on its simplicity, so that one is positive about the result: The fruit of this path is the achievement of easy and quick success: Hence, without sime plicity, positivism or happiness are diflicult to achieve; without all these qualities, there is no success: As I mentioned in my introductory para, graph, success is all about all friends and no enemies; this is directly related to a person’s social life and relationships with fellow human beings: When you have a strong bond with eve eryone around you, there is a strong sense of unity and oneness: In my opinion, this is an es, sential quality of life that everyone must strive for to be successful It is very evident inlife that a group of people tend to be more successful in accomplishing a task than a single person Apart from that, if you maintain a good rela tionship with everyone around you, you would be respected and welcomed in that environ, ment, which itself is an achievement This is important, since everyone is destined to go through rough times at some point and only if you have a good social life would you be sure to be supported by a community, so that you do not lose hope and maintain your positive ism, happiness and hence success: To conclude, it is clearly visible that suce cess is equal to having all the four important factors in life, since they are interdependent My argument is strongly acknowledged by Jim Rohn, who said, “Success is not so much what we have, as it is what we are" Wealth should be considered the least important factor when accounting anyone’s extent of success since money cannot buy positivism, happiness, sime plicity, or a good social life: Is itjust me, or... Should ||T start teaching science? By Chris Roberts TECHNEWS WRITER Disclaimer: This article stems from my con, cern that Rebuttal to “Rationality vs: faith" and On objectivity were written by a student at a university which focuses on science education: My problem is not the religious aspects of the writings or that the articles were published, but that an adult writing about science would apparently know so little about it as to create articles that are largely nonsensical I hope people appreciate the humour of this article; it is fairly heavyehanded: Most importantly, I intend neither hostility toward Timothy Smith nor to incite an overthrow of HT Do I have your attention? Good: While reading Timothy Smith’s article “On objective ity" in a previous issue of TechNews, I had a troubling epiphany: IIT does not provide sci, ence education: That may sound shocking, but stay with me on this: IIT advertises itself as a university that is particularly skilled at educate ing its students in science and technology, even offering undergraduate research opportuni ties: The ignorance expressed in Smith’s write ings leave few other reasonable conclusions than IIT is clearly not doing its job: Smith called the response to his first article of this semester, in which he made such claims as that in order for noneIudeoeChristians to use the scientific method they must convert to Judaism or Christianity or else their work will not make any sense (so much for Greeks, Muslims, Chinese, and Mayans) and let us not forget his claim that the perceived predictabile ity of gravity somehow invalidates the theory of evolution, was “interesting and instructive” I would prefer that it had been inspirational, as in inspiring Smith to attend classes that could address the, frankly worrisome, ignorance that he expresses about the numerous subjects which he writes about: These claims veer into outright hostility to knowledge and proper definitions in Smith’s comment that evolution is “an intolerant and unsustainable “scientific" but unexplainable worldviewnf' This is truly a remarkable state, ment: First of all, the theory of evolution is not a “worldview" It is a credible and strongly, substantiated explanation of the properties of a specific phenomena: biological life: As such, it is an idea which can be integrated into a worldview, but the idea is not a worldview in and of itself It seems that Smith is under the impression that a worldview is a static mono, lith that cannot be changed or reevaluated, that new information is observed through an ime mutable perspective rather than being capable of changing said perspective: Second, evolution is sustainable: It has not been successfully refuted; it explains life as it is, was, and offers predictions of how it will con, tinue; and, contrary to Smith’s earlier article, there is a nonesupernatural explanation for the origin of life on Earth: abiogenesis: What’s that, you say; a scientific explanation that is not dependent upon worldviews based on talk, ing snakes, raising the dead, and transmuting women into sodium chloride? Yesl Third, evolution is explainable: It is taught to students worldwide; yes, even at IIT It is not even a diflicult idea to grasp and Smith offers no arguments to the contrary Again, I can only understand Smith’s claims being made by a college student who is not being educated: Returning to his recent article, I believe Smith seriously needs to reevaluate his defini tion of objectivity Dictionaries help tremene dously For a thing to be objective means that said thing has properties and behaviour which are independent of a sentient observer: Objece tivity, as a tactic in an argument, is simply an intellectual tool used to filter thoughts through a narrow set of parameters, much like logic: Said parameters, in this case, are that the only valid ideas are those which can be verified by observation of the physical world and do not rely upon subjective interpretation: Put simply, objectivity limits consideration of any topic ex, clusively to sensory input: If someone claims to be making an objective argument while deviate ing from that, their argument is not objective: It may be rational and/ or logical, but it is not objective: Next, Smith uses the longequashed argu ment that “diamonds contain measurable amounts of the radioisotope Carbon 14," therefore Earth must have have come about in less than the billions of years that current scientific understanding argues: I could go into an extensive explanation of the limitations of specific dating methods, why C 14 dating is not used to on diamonds in the first place, and how carbon 14 is created in nature: However, then I would be cheating Smith, as he is likely pay, ing a rather large amount of money to attend a university and he should get his money’s worth by attending classes and visiting the library “Thepointl am trying to make is that we all View the world through the “lens” of our world, View...” Smith mentioned the term “ad hominem" is his most recent article as something to be avoided: I believe Smith should be acquainted with another term: “non sequitur," an argu ment in which the conclusion has nothing to do with the statements building up to it: The six sentences which preceded the above quote not only comprised the largest paragraph of Smith’s article, but had nothing whatsoever to do with lenses or worldviews; they were about Smith trying to refute the theory of evolution, without expressing any knowledge about or fa, miliarity with the theory All of this begs the question that Smith said we should all ask: “Does my worldview comport rationally with ohjectiyefact?” Well, let us see: Does Smith’s view, judging by his articles, agree with apparent reality? I say that it does not: People can work within the bounds of the scientific method regardless of their religious beliefs: Stephen Hawking is an atheist, Ahmed Zewail is a Muslim, and Ben, jamin Franklin was a deist: Individuals’ per, spectives are not “inherently religious" if no religion is adhered to: Theories of gravity, as in plural, do not refute the theory of evolution and nor do diamonds: These are all facts that should be very easy to come by at a university, especially one supposedly focused on science: By the way, readers may have noticed that I have changed my writing style by directly addressing Timothy Smith’s writings using his name: I was originally prepared to write this article from a detached, objective point of view Then I read the following passage in Smith’s article: “In fact, those who claim objectivity are most likely to lack it.” Since the majority of people who claim to use an objective approach are, according to Smith, liars, I wanted to avoid that approach: Therefore, instead of being detached, using passive voice, and referring to “the author," I opted for an involved and subjective approach: On a side note, Smith’s baseless suggestion is deeply flawed in treating objectivity as a quane titative attribute that can be lacked, as opposed to a method, much like the scientific one, which can be learned and honed: Take joure nalists as an example: Objective news coverage is not based on journalists being inherently objective in their personal perspective; in fact, journalists can be some of the most passion, ate, stubborn, and opinionated people on the planet: Objective coverage is possible because journalists can learn a method of removing themselves from the stories they write: The point I am trying to make is that Shimer College should assimilate the science departments at IIT Not only does Shimer ad, dress the historical progression of science from numerous perspectives, including religious, but it also focuses heavily on making students articulate their thoughts into effective and in, formed arguments, something that I believe students like Timothy Smith would greatly benefit from: Then again, maybe it’s just me“: