Thursday, January 30, 2020
The Origin of Childhood †National Geographic Magazine Essay Example for Free
The Origin of Childhood – National Geographic Magazine Essay The article talks about the discovery of the remains of a hominin child 3.3 million year back by an Ethiopian scientist Zeresenay Alemseged. The differentiating factor of this find is the fact that the child’s bones were intact and the find itself is like digging gold in the world of archeology. The find is able to give us an in-depth knowledge about the body structure and capabilities of the hominins, it also tells us how the babies were changing from chimps to what we are now. It also draws comparisons to Lucy, the fossil of a mother 3.2 million years old which was found in the 1970’s. with the finding of the child, the family of Australopithecus afarensis is now complete and scientists are able to make conclusions about how they lived, what they could and what they could not do.                        Based on the shape of its shoulders scientists can say that this child could climb tress, also the shape and size of its knee cap suggests that this child could walk on 2 legs.                        The article also talks about how Zeresenay is one of the few Ethiopian scientists involved in this field although this part of the world has been a treasure cove for finding many remains of animals and different species of mammals. Most of the expeditions in this part of the world had mainly been foreign before Zeresenay took the lead in 1999. the article talks about their struggle as there were a couple of findings of mammals in that area but no hominins and Zeresenay’s belief that they will be able to find hominins in that part of the world. Finally in 2000, it all came true when Zeresenay’s team found the remains of a child. However, to the contrast of making a skeleton out of hundreds of small pieces of bones their challenge was quite the opposite. The remains were found in a ball of sandstone and thus Zeresenay had to cut through it with a dentist’s drill to ensure that no part of the child’s’ body was damaged and they could recover everything there was in that ball of sandstone. The result of 5 years of that effort is a treasure that he says comes only once in a lifetime.                        The startling features being a full set of both the milk teeth and unerupted adult teeth; also a bone in the throat that is considered to be the main crucial part of human speech. Other findings include a curled finger which tells us their resemblance with chimpanzees and her ribs that tell us the size of the child.                        It talks about how the knee caps of the child were the size of the pea that tells us that this ‘man’ could walk on 2 legs. What is also worth noting is that the brain of this child was very small at 330cc compared to a 5 year old human child whose brain is over a 1000cc. this tells us that the growth of the brain was slow and there is resemblance with chimpanzees there. It talks about the feet of the child that were not like a chimpanzee but rather like us humans. This meant that the child could not hang on to its mother and had to b carried by the mother, this left the mother helpless and dependant for food and other things on her mate. The scientists say this should have been the time when the bonds became stronger and that is why humans are monogamous as compared to other apes.                        The article ends by telling us that this specie did not eat meat and a million years late when man started eating meat, which is when the brain size started getting larger as 40% of our food goes into sustaining our brain. For specie that is mainly dependent on vegetables and leaves, this would have been very difficult. The article ends by saying that as the brains of the humans keep growing bigger and bigger we will have more ‘intellectual power’ to find our roots. Why I chose this article                        I am quizzical about how human life started and how and why we changed from being Chimps to being who we are today and what lies beyond our planet and if there is life on other planets. I chose this particular article because it tries to tell us or rather the whole article is about that part in time where we were still dependent on our parents but starting to live longer than other ‘close’ members of our specie.                        The human child is very weak, it can’t talk, it can’t walk, it can’t express itself in any other way apart from crying and making face expressions. Basically, it is helpless. It someone does not take care of the child, the child cannot survive.                        This article tells us about the life of a 3 year old girl who lived 3.3 Million year ago. However, the special thing about this girl is the fact that she is in one of those defining moments of time where we as specie started to separate from chimpanzees and started having the physical capabilities to live as human beings.                        Another motivation to choose this article was the way they talk about the little child. It is almost magical and makes me felt hat I have been transported into a world where I can actually visualize this child and see how we humans came about to be who we are today. The way the author talks about the scientist who discovered and painstakingly got the bones from the sandstone vs. how he talks about the parts of the honninin baby body parts brings a sense of life to that child. The biological aspect is obviously enchanting but I will talk about that in the next section.                        The articles use of graphics is phenomenal in showing how the child looked and what were the limitations of his body compared to ours, it also clearly mentions the developments of this child compared to that of his and our ancestors. An important part is the development of the brain and the hands as discusses in the earlier section. Overall, the reason to choose this article is the impact that it has had on me about human evolution. My opinion of the article and how it relates to Biology                        As I just mentioned, this article has left a beautiful impression on me about the evolution of human beings and has in a way made me fall in love with the 3 year old child from our history. I feel the article is very well written because it brings along a vivid image about the life of the child in that era and the use of imagery is phenomenal in showing us how the child looks and how it has changed to how we look now. There is also a sketch of the mother in that era holding her child and it shows how the child in that era was beginning to be dependent on his or her mother for care protection and other needs.                        The relation to biology comes from the fact that it talks about the development of the body and how it had changed from that of a chimpanzee and starting to look like ours. For example, the fingers of the child were curved and that is more like a chimpanzee however the feet of the child did not have long fingers which meant that unlike children of chimpanzees this child could not cling on to this mothers’ body as there was no grasp. It also talks about the set of milk teeth and adult teeth and their placement in the jaw or rather the jaw line, this tells us about what the child could and what it could although the food habits are not specifically mentioned in the article. The article also gives a glimpse about how the hominins lived and survived.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Essay --
In mijn essay behandel ik het boek het Maatschappelijke verdrag van Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Ik heb voor dit boek gekozen, omdat Rousseau mij heel erg interesseerde toen ik hem tegenkwam in handboek 2, het oog in de storm geschreven door Ellen Geerlings. Ik was vooral aangetrokken door zijn denken over de staat, omdat ik mijzelf al lang afvraag waar het naar toe gaat met deze maatschappij waar wij nu in leven, en zo kwam ik bij het Maatschappelijke verdrag terecht. Rousseau is geboren in 1712 te Genà ¨ve. Zijn moeder overleed kort na zijn geboorte en zijn vader leerde hem lezen en schrijven op goed niveau. Op zijn 17e bekeerde hij zich tot het katholicisme. En hij gaat naar Parijs in 1742. Zijn interesse naar de filosofie kwam in zijn 37e levensjaar toen hij de opstelwedstrijd: â€Å"Welke bijdrage heeft de versterkte positie van wetenschappen en kunsten geleverd aan de verfijning der zeden?†won en daardoor in 1 klap een beroemde schrijver is. Zijn interesse voor de filosofie groeit. Hij keert terug naar Genà ¨ve en wordt weer protestants. De plotselinge aandacht die hij kreeg maakte het moeilijk om zijn visie weer te geven. Rousseau is een contractdenker, die de ongelijkheid in deze maatschappij ziet als een voortbrengsel van cultuurhistorische teruggang, doordat bezit en liefde naar onszelf toe ingang hebben gevonden in een meer oorspronkelijke natuurtoestand van samenleven. Er is een verschil tussen mensen die in de natuurtoestand leven en tussen mensen die leven in de maatschappij. Iemand moet de stad gaan bewonen en voordeel doen, en niet doen wat de rest van de stad doet. Rousseau zijn denken in het algemeen is dat de mens terug naar de natuur moet om helemaal vrij te zijn, maar hier bedoelt hij niet mee dat mensen weer in het wo... ...us gevormd door een ieder die zich aan dit Maatschappelijke verdrag houdt. De staat zijn dus dezelfde mensen als de Soeverein. Dus de burgers bepalen wat ze willen en dan zijn zij ook de onderdanen die doen wat zij zelf willen, dus die de algemene wil volgen. Hierdoor ontstaat er voor iedereen vrijheid, omdat iedereen doet wat hij/zij zelf bepaald heeft. Er ontstaat natuurlijk ook zelfbehoud, omdat iedereen bepaald heeft en het dan ook iedereen zijn verantwoordelijkheid is dat elk individu beschermd wordt tegen aanvallen. Datgene wat de burgers (soeverein) bepaald over het belang worden wetten genoemd. Hierin staat de vrijheid van het volk en dit zijn geen wetten die de vrijheid willen beperken. Dit is volgens Rousseau ‘’de enige menselijke vorm die de vrijheid kan aannemen wanneer men het zelfbehoud als uitgangspunt neemt’’ (blz.20 Het Maatschappelijke verdrag) .
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
The Effect of Exclusionary Rule and Fourth Amendment
The Effect of the Fourth Amendment is to put the courts of the United States and Federal officials, in the exercise of their own power and authority, under limitations and restraints as to the exercise of such power and authority, and to forever secure the people, their persons, houses, papers and effects against all unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law (Ronald 605). The Constitution does not tolerate warrantless, therefore illegal, police searches and seizures–unless there is probable cause. The rights which the Fourth Amendment states were strengthened when the Supreme Court preceded the Exclusionary Rule, and herefore, the rights of the people were strengthened as The Exclusionary Rule, first preceded in 1914, is the understanding, based on Supreme Court precedent, that incriminating information must be seized according to constitutional specifications of due process, or it will not be allowed as evidence (Schmalleger 273). Even the guilty have a right to claim innocence. Hence, this right would be worthless if incriminating evidence was allowed to be obtained, distributed, and used illegally. Furthermore, according to the Supreme Court, â€Å"If letters and private documents can thus be seized and held and used in evidence gainst a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring his right to be sure against such searches and seizures is of no value, and, so for as those thus placed are concerned, might as well be stricken from the Constitution†(Ronald 605). If that â€Å"tainted violence†can be used in court, then the 4th Amendment offers no real protection to a person accused of a crime (Magruder 524). The exclusionary rule was intended to put teeth into the 4th Amendment, and it has (Magruder 524). The Court further built upon the rules concerning evidence in 1918, with the Fruit of the Poisoned Tree Doctrine-a legal principle which excludes from introduction at trial any evidence later developed as a result of an originally illegal search or seizure (Schmalleger 274). The Fruit of the Poisoned Tree Doctrine was enforced after the case of Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States in 1918. Frederick Silverthorne and his sons were accused of avoiding payment on federal taxes. They were asked to hand over their company's books. The Silverthornes refused, citing their Fifth Amendment privilege against self- incrimination (Schmalleger 274). Shortly thereafter, some federal agents ignored their rights and without warrant, eized the wanted books anyway. Since this was an unconstitutional act, the Silverthorne's lawyer testified and asked for the books to be returned. The prosecutor granted his request, and the books were returned. Expecting all incriminating evidence to have descended, the Silverthornes where testified in trial. Much to their surprise, however, the prosecution had made photocopies of the books they seized, and used them as evidence against the Silverthornes. Hence, they were convicted in federal court. They appealed their conviction and their appeal reached the Supreme Court. The Court uled that just as illegally seized evidence cannot be used in a trial, neither can evidence be used which derives from an illegal seizure (Schmalleger 274). The conviction of the Silverthornes was overturned and they were set free. The illegal evidence reproduced from materials obtained by an illegal seizure dismissed the whole case because the prosecutors did not follow the Fruit of the Poisoned Tree Doctrine. Think of it this way: If you have a box full of apples, and then you put a rotten one in the bunch, they will all become rotten at some point. Hence, all the evidence–fruit–obtained from an illegal mean–poisoned ree–is not admissible even if the evidence itself is good†(Gomez interview). Even if a case is developed on years of police research, it may be dejected if that research and the evidence it revealed was obtained Like the Constitution, however, the exclusionary rule is not written in stone. It can be amended and exceptions can be installed to it. In the case of United Sates v. Leon in 1984, the exclusionary rule was first modified with â€Å"the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. †This exception states that law enforcement officers who conduct a search, or seize evidence, on the basis of ood faith (that is, where they believe they are operating according to the dictates of the law) and who later discover that a mistake was made (perhaps in the format of the application for a search warrant) may still use, in court, evidence seized as the result of such activities (Schmalleger 277). In the Leon case, the officers involved acted upon probable cause, a legal criterion residing in a set facts and circumstances which would cause a reasonable person to believe that a particular other person has committed a specific crime (Schmalleger 277). The suspect, Leon, was accused of trafficking drugs. He was placed nder surveillance, which showed evidence of large amounts of hidden drugs. This lead the investigators to apply for a search warrant. They believed that they were in compliance with the Fourth Amendment requirement that â€Å"no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause†(Schmalleger 277). Although Leon was convicted of drug trafficking, a later ruling in a federal district court resulted in the suppression of evidence against him on the basis that the original affidavit, or document demonstrating the probable cause, prepared by the police had not, in the opinion of the court, been sufficient to establish probable cause (Schmalleger 277). Shortly after, the government petitioned the Supreme Court to decide if the evidence gathered by the officers may still be admissible in trial. The Court decided: â€Å"When law enforcement officers have acted in objective good faith or their transgressions have been minor, the magnitude of the benefit conferred on such guilty defendants offends basic concepts of the criminal justice system†(Schmalleger 277). Due to this, Leon's It is no doubt that over the past few decades more and more justice agencies have become dependent upon computer technology for record management and other purposes (Schmalleger 282). Hence, the likelihood of omputer-generated errors will vastly grow When this trend continues. Computer-generated errors have become the base of another exception to the exclusion rule, the â€Å"computer errors exception. †It was first created in the 1995 case of Arizona v. Evans. Mr. Isaac Evans was stopped for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. With a computer check reporting an outstanding arrest warrant, he was taken into custody. Shortly after, Evans was convicted due to the police finding marijuana in his car. After his arrest, however, police learned that the arrest warrant reported to them by their computer had actually been quashed a few eeks earlier but, through the clerical oversight of a court employee, had never been removed form the computer (Schmalleger 282). The Court later decided that the officers who made the arrest cannot be held accountable for their unintentional disobedience of the exclusionary rule. They were simply acting in good faith according to the information that was provided to them at the time. Isaac The Supreme Court's articulation of the exclusionary rule came in Weeks v. United States, 1914. This was the first landmark case concerning search and seizure and it changed to Fourth Amendment forever. The defendant, Mr. Freemont Weeks, was convicted for selling lottery tickets through the US Postal Service. The evidence against him included various letters and documents that had been seized from his house during a warrantless search (Ronald 604). When Weeks moved for a return of the property due to the violation of the Fourth Amendment in the officers' part, only the non-incriminating evidence was given back. Hence, Weeks was convicted. However, shortly after, he appealed his conviction and it reached the Supreme Court. There, his lawyer reasoned that if some of his client's belongings had been illegally seized, then the emainder of them were also taken improperly (Schmalleger 273). The Supreme Court reversed: â€Å"The United States Marshal could only have invaded the house of the accused when armed with a warrant issued as required by the Constitution, upon sworn information and describing with reasonable particularity the thing for which the search was to be made. Instead, he acted without sanction of law, doubtless prompted by the desire to bring further proof to the aid of the Government, and under solor of his office undertook to make a seizure of private papers in direct violation of the constitutional prohibition against such action. Under such circumstances, without sworn information and particular description, not even an order of court would have justified such procedure, much less was it within the authority of the United States Marshal to thus invade the house and privacy of the accused†(Ronald 605). The Court held that the seizure of items from Week's residence directly violated his constitutional rights and that the government's refusal to return Week's possessions violated the Fourth Amendment (Oyez). Thus, the Supreme Court overturned Week's earlier convictions and the However, the Weeks case made the exclusionary rule pertinent to only the federal government. It was not until Mapp v. Ohio that it also became applicable to the States. Miss Mapp and her daughter by a former marriage lived on the floor of the two-family dwelling (Case 1). Police officers had been on her trail because she was suspected of obscuring, in her house, a man wanted for information on a recent bombing, and for the possession of lewd books and pictures, which was unconstitutional (Supreme 1081). When the officers insisted on entering her home for investigation, she refused, asking them to get a warrant first. The officers advised their headquarters of the situation and undertook surveillance of the house (Case 1). Some three hours later, a larger amount of officers arrived at the scene. When they asked her to come out once again and she repeatedly refused, one of the doors in her house was forcibly opened and the policemen commenced their illegal search in the house. Miss Mapp's lawyer arrived shortly after but the officers, having secured their own entry and continuing their defiance of the law, would permit him neither to see Miss Mapp not to enter the house Miss Mapp continued to protest this illegal act and demanded to see the search warrant. One of the officers help up a fake one, which was snatched from his hand by her and placed in her bosom. As a result, there was a big struggle and she was handcuffed. Afterwards, she was forced upstairs where the investigators searched her closets, dressers, rooms, the rest of the second floor, the child's room, the living room, the kitchen, and a dinette. During that widespread and illegal search, the materials which she was suspected of holding were found, Prior decisions by the U. S. Supreme Court had led officers to expect that the exclusionary rule did not apply to agents of state and local law enforcement (Schmalleger 275). Nonetheless, Mapp's conviction was overturned by the precedent-setting decision that the officers were acting gainst the Fourth Amendment's guarantee that the exclusionary rule should be applicable to the States: â€Å"†¦ or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. †(Schmalleger 275). The majority court's opinion, as Mr. Justice Black states, was that the constitutional basis of the rule announced by the Court in the present case was the Fourth Amendment ‘s ban against unreasonable searches and seizures considered together with the Fifth Amendment's ban against compelled self- ncrimination (Supreme 1081). Thus, the exclusionary rule The exclusionary rule's precedent brought forth two argumentative problems, however. One of these problems if that the present appeals system, focusing as it does upon the â€Å"rules of the game,†presents a ready-made channel for the guilty to go free (Schmalleger 273). â€Å"If you think about it, the evidence needed to prove a person guilty of a crime is, to my understanding, enough the confirm the person's culpability, and that person should be punished nonetheless. It shouldn't matter whether or not the arresting officer(s) acted unconstitutionally, in which ase, both the criminal and the officer both should be punished. A person's â€Å"guilt†can never be decreased because of the misconduct of another (Gomez interview). Weeks, Mapp, and the Silverthornes are all examples of this problem. The evidence used to incriminate them, whether obtained legally or illegally, prove that they are guilty of disobeying the law in one way or another. Even if the police knowingly violate the principles of due process, which they sometimes do, our sense of justice is compromised When the guilty go free (Schmalleger 273). As police officers, it is their duty to make sure that the guilty are punished. The exclusionary rule somewhat gets in the way of this responsibility. Of course officers should not take advantage and act recklessly, â€Å"but desperate times do call for desperate measures (Gomez Despite these problems, the exclusionary rules has obviously had some positive effects and changes on society. The Fourth Amendment is a very important and critical one in maintaining citizens' property and privacy theirs and the exclusionary rule has established real value to it. The Exclusionary Rule has been justified in part on the ground that it is essential to prevent the fourth amendment from becoming â€Å"a form of words, valueless and ndeserving of mention in a perpetual charter of inestimable human liberties†(Ronald 604). Also, the Weeks, Mapp, and Silverthorne cases are all examples of the exclusionary rules protection against police misconduct. â€Å"Just because they're the boys in blue does not mean that they can be the boys who abuse (Gomez interview). †As an American citizen, and thanks to the exclusionary rule, one has the right to object against illegal searches and seizures. The exclusionary rule In conclusion, the exclusionary rule totally revolutionized the power and rights against invasion of privacy and police misconduct.
Monday, January 6, 2020
A Critical Analysis Of The Theory Of Endosymbiosis And It...
A critical analysis of the Theory of Endosymbiosis and it’s supporting evidence Abstract Introduction The endosymbiotic theory is an evolutionary theory explaining the origin of Eukaryotic cells from Prokaryotic, and is at present; the most widely accepted evolutionary theory of the Eukaryotic cell. The theory explains the origins of mitochondria and chloroplasts and their double membranes, suggesting that chloroplasts and mitochondria represent formerly free-living bacteria that were taken into a cell as an endosymbiont. Molecular evidence suggests that mitochondria developed from proteobacteria and chloroplasts from cyanobacteria. It is thought that the Prokaryotes may have entered the host cell as a parasite or source of nutrient for the host, however avoided digestion. The primitive chloroplast may have provided the host cell with crucial nutrients, and the primitive mitochondrion may have aided the exploitation of oxygen for the extraction of energy. In return the host cell offered a protected environment for the Prokaryotes to live in. This was the beginning of a symbiotic rela tionship between the primitive chloroplast and mitochondria, and the Eukaryotic cell. The theory was ridiculed for years due its controversial nature, however in 1967 Lynn Margulis, a biologist from Boston University, developed the modern Serial Endosymbiosis Theory. Primary Endosymbiosis vs. Secondary Endosymbiosis Primary endosymbiosis involves the engulfment of a bacterium by another
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