Skip to main content

To know a fly


                                                                                                                             Vincent Dethier

Literal Comprehension:
A properly conducted experiment is a beautiful thing. It is an adventure, exploration, and conquest. It commences with an act of faith, faith that that world is real, that our senses generally can be trusted, that effects have caused and that we can discover meaning by reason. The experiment is a way of asking nature good questions in different time and condition. The result is observed by changing condition and conclusion is drawn. But the wrong conclusion is drawn in the experiment due to the lack of proper experimental control, absurd extremities and confusing correlation with cause and effect. The writer has proved that many things can be discovered with the help of a properly conducted scientific experiment. On the other hand, improperly conducted experiments are ridiculous. To get the right conclusion is proposes of an experiment but getting experiment with animals is challenging. The writer here presents some information about the fly. Fly possesses a sense of taste in the feet. The sense is similar to human beings but the hungry fly is ten million times more sensitive than human beings. Fly prefers sweets and rejects sour, bitter or salty. By giving examples of water and sugared water, sugared water and salt water and water with more and less sugar, he says that the feet of the fly is more sensitive than the proboscis. Sensitive feet taste the food and flick out the proboscis if the food is sweet and retracts the proboscis if the food is bitter or sour or salty. 


Interpretation:
In this scientific essay, Vincent Dethier discusses what real experiment is and how does wrong result come out in the experiment. The mistakes in an experiment he calls out fallacies. The proper experiment is undertaken with full faith in keeping the relationship between cause and effect,
random guesses and improper experiment create fallacies. Due to absurdity and lack of experimental control, the wrong conclusion is drawn. By discussing on the experiment, he gives proof about the fly, its sensitive power and preferences. He says fly prefers sweet. It takes a taste with feet which are 10 million times more sensitive than a human being. 


Critical Thinking:
This essay is interesting and practical. By providing different examples, he tries to convince us what the experiment is and how does wrong result comes out from there. He gives some examples and information about the fly. As a critical thinker, I like to raise some questions in the text. Are there only foolish and cruel persons in the world? Why the writer does degrade us? Can we use the same saucer used by a fly? Are the flies really 10 million times more sensitive than mankind? Do the flies have a sense of taste on feet? Except for these points, I like this essay.


Assimilation:
This scientific essay tries to give us a practical lesson. Before reading it, I was unknown about how the wrong result comes out in a scientific experiment, how sensitive the animals and insects are? By reading the essay, I have come to know that animals are also respectable in their place. To be proud being a man is in vain. There are some animals and insects to which we have to respect. There are many things in nature to be learned by us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Then and Now: Finding My Voice

                                                                                                                       Elaine H. Kim, Korea Literal Comprehension “Then and Now: Finding My Voice” is written by Korean writer Elaine H. Kim, Korea. As she has come from Korea, she believes on fortune telling. Once she visited a popular fortune-teller to interpret her saju (horoscope), the arrangement of year, month, day and hour of birth. He said that her saju suggested disaster. On the other hand, women fortune- tellers looked at her saju and said she must have lots of fun in her life. Once, the Korean community center in Oakland sponsored a fund-raising party. Some fortune-tellers were also...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Stub Book

Pedro Antonio de Alarcon Literal Comprehension  The story has been written by 19th-century Spanish writer Pedro Antonio de Alarcon. Uncle Buscabeatas was a farmer of Rota, a small town of Spain famous for the production of fruits and vegetables. He was already sixty years old and had spent forty of them working in his garden. He had grown some enormous pumpkins that were already beginning to turn yellow. He knew them perfectly by color, shape, and even by name. In one afternoon, he decided to sell forty of the pumpkins. But when he went to his garden the next morning, he found his pumpkins had stolen. He guessed that the thief must have taken them to the market of Cadiz. So he went to the Cadiz. He stopped before a vendor. After recognizing his pumpkins, he asked the policeman to arrest the vendor. After a brief argument between the farmer and the vendor, the latter said that he bought them from Uncle Fulano of Rota. When the inspector of the market asked the farmer fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Four-tusked Elephant

                                                                                                                         Armand Denis Armand Denis, the author of this essay, was camping in a forest of Congo with two people Putnam and Texan. They had heard about the four-tusked elephant that lived in the forest. The elephant was said to speak in a human voice. Once Denis went to the pigmies, the residents of the forest, and asked if they had seen the four-tusked elephant. One of them said that they had seen it many times and that it was fierce and very wicked. Every pigmy of that place believed in the existence of the elephant and was frightened of it. Having heard the description...
Post a Comment
Read more