My Chosen Topic

I will be researching the domestication of animals. I will be researching this topic because I like animals and I am interested in the topic and the history of it and really any aspect of it. I am also interested in the history of animal domestication. My guiding question is: "What does the literature reveal about the domestication of animals?"

3 potential research topics

1-  What does literature say about genetic engineering today?

2- What does the literature reveal about the architectural abilities of the ancient Egyptians in regards to building the pyramids?

3- What does the literature say about the domestication of exotic animals?

Law enforcement and weed

In the article "when misguided cops turn the war on weed into a war on growing things," the author, Nick Wing, writes about how law enforcement messes up during drug busts due to miscalculations, and lists a number of stories confirming his thoughts.

The confirmation bias is the tendency to search for information which confirms one's beliefs. In this case, almost the whole article is written with the confirmation bias. Nick states his belief, that law enforcement should "hire a botanist" if they want to continue "cracking down" on weed, and for the remainder of the article, he provides research that he has found of stories in which there were wrongful fatalities, wrongful, and sometimes without a warrant, home searches, and many lawsuits as a result. In one, a family was held at gunpoint as the police checked their home, only to find a basement full of tomato pants and watermelon plants that the son and father had made, which, as anyone can imagine, led to a lawsuit. Nick found many stories such as this, yet he found none of success on the law enforcement's part.

 The base rate neglect bias is the tendency to ignore generic information and focus on specific information. In the article, Nick is talking about the same thing over and over again. The same drug; weed, the same basic idea; miss-identification of weed, and that is all he is focusing on. He could broaden his subject by telling a different story; all the ones he lists are essentially an innocent person or family is wrongfully accused of making/possessing weed, the "weed" ends up actually being some sort of marijuana look-alike, and the family/person sues. That is how he is using the base rate neglect bias.

In the article "when misguided cops turn the war on weed into a war on growing things," the author, Nick Wing, uses two biases that could affect the readers opinion on the topic; the confirmation bias, in which he only provides information confirming his opinion, and the base rate neglect bias, in which he narrows his subject matter down very narrow, and only focuses on specifics.

Peer Interview

Elise Cracco

If Elise could where only one color for the rest of her life, it would be"between blue or pink," because she looks good in those colors, but she would have to go with blue, because "there is so many different shades of blue." If she could move anywhere in the world for her choice of time, Elise would live in "Antarctica, just to say that I had that experience." I asked Elise what her opinion on Mr. Kefor was as a teacher, and she thinks that "He is really funny, and he teaches well." Elise has "technically, an older brother," but she says she was "an only child for the first eight years" of her life. I asked Elise if she was in a purge, what illegal things she would do: "I would rob a bank, to get money, and then I would use that money for whatever, then I would raid a convenient store and get all there food." Elise was born "in Providence Rhode Island, in Women and infants hospital. and  funny story, family friends, they have a son who is exactly a year older than me,and we were born in the same hospital by the same doctor." Elise say that the coolest place she has ever been is " Scotland, because they are so different, with there skirts and stuff." If Elise could be a fictional character for a day, she would be "Alice Cullen from the twilight series." Elise's opinion on school differs based on the time of day. " If I am just waking up in the morning, I am totally not for school, but when I am at school its OK, then when I get home I am like no, don't go back." Elise's favorite animal is a "giraffe, because they are so awkward, and disproportionate." That was my interview with Elise Cracco.

Incentives And aesthetics

A) Incentives motivate people to complete tasks. An incentive could be money, but that only works for tasks with a set of instructions. When people are asked to do tasks that require more thinking and work for large sums of money it does not help at all. It can help with a smaller sum of money and less thought involved in the task.

B) The most aesthetic experience in my life was when I went to Australia. My dad had a job interview there and his and my moms's tickets were free so we decided to make it a vacation. I was the most awesome place ever. The people were super friendly, which was a nice change, the animals were just like the best, the weather was absolutely perfect and the view from the hike up the blue mountains was unbelievable. And terrifying, but mostly unbelievable. Also the Sydney Opera House was so beautiful at night. That was the most aesthetic experience I have ever had.