In many lower division classes, we are asked not to take the facts we have learned and apply them to a new situation, but only to regurgitate memorized information. We are not asked to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of opposing theories, but only to know them. Our education often does not teach or ask us to think critically, missing the point of schooling.

For example, every lab course I know provides step by step instructions for each “experiment.” This does not foster critical thinking, only following memorized directions. Instead, the lab manual should tell us what we are to measure and give an overview of the materials and equipment available to us. It could provide general guidance and useful facts, but should not reduce us to machines executing commands. If we are stuck and cannot think of what to do, the teaching assistants are there to give advice.

I understand that one reason for step by step instructions is safety and liability issues, but those could mostly be bypassed by not using dangerous chemicals, which is likely possible at least in the lower division labs. In addition, at the start of each lab, the teaching assistant could identify common hazards or mistakes and how to avoid them. In effect, teaching laboratories would simulate research laboratories; we would have a goal and decide, mostly on our own, an experiment to achieve it. This method would foster synthesis of learned facts into a working experimental procedure.

While the goal of any class, or education in general, is to help us think critically, many of us do not study with that aim. Many of us study by spending countless hours and sleepless nights memorizing the professor’s slides and lectures. When we do this, we think we know all of the material, and we are right! We do know all of the material covered, but we can only regurgitate it, not synthesize it to solve new problems; we cannot think critically about it.

For some classes, often lower division science classes, this approach is sufficient, even encouraged, to do well in the class. However, when we move on to upper division classes, where we learn facts more rapidly and are asked to synthesize what we have learned on exam questions, this approach is disastrous, resulting in studying for seven to 10 hours yet failing the exam. However, as we did not learn how to approach material without brute force memorization in earlier classes, we cannot adapt, so we struggle and stress.

To address this problem, lower division exams should not consist of questions that lend themselves to memorization, such as definitions, matching, or pure calculations. Instead, questions should address novel systems not covered in lecture but that can be figured out based on material in lecture. We should be asked not just to know facts but also to be able to use those facts.

However, memorizing facts should not be abandoned. Rather, it should be seen as a means to the end of being able to use those facts to analyze a new situation, i.e. to think critically. If we do not know something, we cannot think critically about the implications of that knowledge.

Unfortunately, in many classes, especially lower division classes, memorization of facts is not a means to an end but an end in itself. This approach leaves us unprepared and struggling when we pass the point where memorization is sufficient.

WILLIAM CONNER is a fourth-year biochemistry major. He can be reached at wrconner@ucdavis.edu.

Until last week, I had never felt threatened by technology. It all changed when I stumbled upon a WIRED magazine article, titled “Can an Algorithm Write a Better News Story than a Human Reporter?”

I really hoped the answer was no, but the report made a convincing case for yes. The article investigated Narrative Science, a company founded to create programs that can act as journalists.

According to Kristian Hammond, the CEO and co-creator, “computers mine vast troves of data to produce ultracheap [sic], totally readable accounts of events, trends, and developments that no journalist is currently covering.” Not only can the algorithm do its own research, but clients also can customize the writing style. And errors are reportedly rare, as it has built-in error checking.

The program is already wildly successful. Big companies like Forbes have been using the service to give company analysis and financial reports. When asked what percentage of news articles computers will write in 15 years, Hammond replied, “More than 90 percent.” And asked further about the future of the company, Hammond claimed, “In 20 years, there will be no area in which Narrative Science doesn’t write stories.”

As a writer, I never thought a machine could do my job. Yet here I was, a replaceable human, paranoid of androids.

So I asked myself, do we control technology or does technology dominate us? Is coexistence possible?

To find an answer, I asked some of my CoHo co-workers for their thoughts. How do you coexist with technology?

Right off the bat, a student responded, “I start every day with technology; it’s what gets me up in the morning.” Other students mirrored this answer, stating that many machines are part of their daily routine, including transportation, communication and work. So our lives and our lifestyle depend on these advancements.

But do we feel like we are slaves to machines? I had to ask the follow-up question, what does technology do for you? Another student answered, “It empowers.” With an iPhone, anyone can become an instant navigator, researcher, long-distance caller, photographer, DJ … and the list goes on.

The consensus seemed to be that students thought of technology as a positive addition to their lives. But still, I was upset at the new invention of the robot author. It seems that progress may have cheated me out of a career. Jealous, I asked my fellow students one last question: what robot invention would you like to see in 50 years?

The answers were surprisingly mixed.

Half the students wished for Jetson family ideas, like “robot maids,” “hover devices” and “Yoda shit”.

However, the other half seemed very skeptical of new innovations. One student scoffed, “my first answer is none,” as “it’s better to do things yourself.” Although we obviously depend on many devices each day, this student thought we should revert to old school labor. Another student asked, “Have you seen Wall-E?” referring to the disastrous effects of letting technology do our work.
It seems that technology and progress both aid and hinder our lives. For example, phones help us connect to others. But if you walk around campus, try to spot the amount of students not plugged into their headphones and facing down into their screens.

Above all, technology is a tool. It allows humans to do what we could not do alone. I cannot replace somebody’s heart valve nor scan somebody for cancer.

Progress doesn’t seem like it will stop anytime soon. Since harnessing the power of fire, humans have been using technology to better our species. So it is up to us be mindful of how we are using it to keep it that way.

If you want to welcome the coming of our robot overlords with DANIEL HERMAN, he can be contacted at dsherman@ucdavis.edu

They say the easiest way to scare a guy is to whisper the word tampon into his ear. We’re all just a huge caricature of a flame-breathing dragon on our ceremonial week of menstruation; prone to biting your head off if we’re pissed. Why are people so scared of us when the image of femininity is “docility”? Is it because there are parts of us that stray from that ideal of purity that has been built up and reinforced for centuries?

As soon as we’ve slipped up once, it feels like we’re marked for life. That area of our permanent record never leaves us. This becomes especially apparent when you see it exaggerated in the hypersensitive reactions towards female celebrities.

Lindsay Lohan will always be judged for that one time she decided not to wear underwear, but the paparazzo who snuck a picture between her legs will never face the same judgment. When Heidi Klum has a nip slip, even as a consequence of trying to save her son from drowning, the articles that don’t focus prominently on the uncovering of her nipple still blur it to protect all innocent eyes. This censorship is obviously counterproductive.

The conundrum is that these women have the pressure of being our role models, and as soon as their image is tainted we’re told we have no good role models to lead us into womanhood. This plays a huge part in the public scrutiny of former child stars.

If you’ve read through the YouTube comments for Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” music video, you would see some variant of these questions: “Miley, what happened to Hannah Montana? Why did you become such a whore?”

But, if you look up the video for Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (the unrated version), you’ll see comments like “that brunette is so hot” and “it’s just a song,” and if anyone decides to vocalize how they think that it objectifies women they get hateful replies from multiple users. Simultaneously, there are many people on the other end of the spectrum who feel sorry for the girls in the video, even though the models expressed their agency when they agreed to be a part of the project.

The focus is lifted off of them and given to Thicke, who looks like the trope of the Alpha Male: he’s got these three gorgeous girls who follow him around and lean on his strong man-shoulders suggestively. He’s “the Man”.

It’s as if it’s more acceptable for women to be nude in a video if it’s in relation to a man who is just flaunting his irresistible masculinity. But as soon as people realize that a woman has made her own decision to expose herself, she is deemed to be someone with no self-respect or morals; a tragic heroine who has lost her way.

The idea of females being so confident with their bodies seems to be a turn-off. We can see this in the criticism surrounding “The Vagina Shirt,” designed by photographer Petra Collins and The Arduous. The shirt features a line drawing of a vagina with blood watercolored onto it, pubic hair sketched on, and a shifty pair of fingers moving in on the gloryhole. The vilification for this has centered mostly around how gross pubic hair is.

The big mystery is if women really have hair “down there.” All the vulva we have seen in movies are cleanly shaven and of the same basic design. All the women in mainstream porn are carefully groomed. We’ve simply grown to view the female body as having a narrow mold to fit inside of.

It’s unhealthy for girls not to understand something that is a functional part of them; to not understand that vulva come in many shapes and sizes. There’s no need for girls to get extremely defensive when asked about masturbation as if they’ve done something really unthinkable and criminal. On the other hand, within my freshman year of high school, I heard at least five boys proclaim confidently, “every single high school boy has watched porn.” Male masturbation, in comparison, is so common that it can be shown in movies and still be PG-13.

The idea of femininity has evolved into the dogma that we, as females, should never step over the societal boundaries set up for us. The fear of the female anatomy needs to end. It’s time for our sexualities to stop being hidden and only taken out in order to be exploited.

As the wise, contemporary philosopher Macklemore once asked, “Have you read the YouTube comments lately?” Email MONA SUNDARA at msundarav@ucdavis.edu about what role you feel YouTube plays in our modern culture.

Quick, name one thing John Adams did that changed the course of the United States forever.

If you said the Midnight Appointments, congratulations! You studied way too hard for the AP US History exam. You also happen to be correct.

When Adams appointed John Marshall to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he probably had no idea how much of an impact his decision would have hundreds of years later. When Marshall’s ruling in Marbury v. Madison established judicial review and thereby strengthened the power of the Supreme Court, it set a precedent for years to come.

Although Adams himself had no part in this ruling, we can give him credit for vicariously influencing the decision through his nomination of Marshall, despite the fact that the ruling took place long after Adams left office.

One hundred and fifty years later, another monumental nomination was made when President Eisenhower chose Earl Warren to be Chief Justice. As you may know, the Warren Court made some of the most important liberal rulings in United States history. We can thank Eisenhower for this, as he appointed Warren.

Although Eisenhower supposedly called this appointment “the worst damn fool mistake” he ever made, he made it nonetheless. The Warren Court’s decisions live on as an extension of Ike’s decision to name Warren Chief Justice, whether he intended for them to turn out as they did or not.

The president’s power to choose who fills important positions can come back to bite him in the rear, as he must also take the blame when a nominee screws up. Look at Antonin Scalia. One of the longest-tenured members of the Court, Scalia has gained notoriety for spewing homophobic vitriol. Who appointed him? Ronald Reagan did. That’s right: Reagan indirectly continues to screw America over 10 years after his death.

While new Supreme Court Justices usually make headlines, not all nominations gain as much media coverage. If you’ve watched any news at all in the last month, you probably know about the government shutdown. It seems pretty important: tons of government employees losing their paychecks, the economy losing approximately $24 billion in activity, veterans locked out of their own memorials, et cetera.

Meanwhile, President Obama made perhaps the single most important economic decision of his presidency, and it flew almost totally under the radar. A couple weeks ago, he announced that he would nominate Janet Yellen to become the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.

Were Washington not in the midst of a crisis, this decision may have turned a few more heads than it did. Still, too many people overlook the importance of this appointment. If Yellen happens to be the chairwoman 10 years from now and the economy collapses, the president then will undoubtedly bear more of the blame than he or she deserves.

One can, of course, trace economic collapses to plenty of different sources, but the Chairman of the Fed usually takes some due heat. Though people could argue all day over how much fault the Fed Chair has in the event of an economic recession, Ben Bernanke deserves a good chunk of the blame for the 2008 crash.

During the crash, the uninformed masses desperately needed a face on which to pin the crisis. Naturally, they chose the easiest target: the president. Yet it was Bernanke, not Obama, who had the power to hike interest rates on loans which could have softened the blow of the housing bubble. He chose not to do so.

In fact, Obama had no say in the monetary policies that led to the bubble, as Bush elected Bernanke in 2006 (although, to be fair, Obama did re-nominate him in 2009 after the crash). Bernanke, who will serve officially as Fed Chairman until Yellen is sworn in, can be considered part of Bush’s legacy.

Now we can consider Yellen part of Obama’s legacy, and if she mismanages the Fed, we can blame Obama for nominating her, even after his presidency.

The above examples highlight a truth about our political system that too often goes unnoticed: presidential appointments to any position, whether it be the Fed Chair, Supreme Court Justice, Director of the CIA or anything else, have some of the strongest and farthest-reaching effects of a president’s tenure. For better or for worse, presidents are accountable for the actions of their appointees, and we must hold them as such.

If you would like to share your fond memories of the AP US History test with ZACH MOORE, you can reach him at zcmoore@ucdavis.edu. 

For the past few years, the Davis Fire Department (DFD) has been in a major state of flux. Their staff has been cut from 45 firefighters to 36, their call volume has more than doubled and their management has shifted from one interim fire chief to another. Such issues have forced the firefighters to pick up nearly 500 hours of overtime per person in just this past year and have led them to be seriously concerned about their ability to protect the Davis community.

Currently, the DFD is led by the City of Davis Chief of Police Landy Black. Unfortunately, this leads to all the problems in organization you might expect from someone heading a department that does not fit their expertise.

In order to address this issue, the DFD and the UC Davis Fire Department will attempt a one year “joint trial period” in which both entities will be led by a single fire chief.

This proposed merger will initially save the City of Davis approximately $78,000 with the potential to save up to $200,000 a year afterwards. Unfortunately, these savings come with a price for UC Davis: a measly $1.3 million annually.

Although we sympathize with the firefighters’ plight and agree that steps need to be taken to ensure that they have adequate management, we don’t think this is the best solution possible.

It is great that the City of Davis is saving money, but we do not understand where these savings are coming from, or why the costs need to be absorbed by our campus. Furthermore, simply adding a joint fire chief does not seem to be addressing the problem of an understaffed fire department.

We are also concerned by the transition period while the new fire chief gets accustomed to their new role. Since the city is recruiting nationally, the new chief will undoubtedly need time to acclimate, but if there is a major emergency before they have gotten their bearings, it could spell disaster.

Finally, in light of the increased cost to our campus, city officials have proposed cutting our student firefighting program. This is totally unacceptable.

In the end, this proposed merger seems to benefit only the City of Davis while costing UC Davis more than it’s worth, especially considering it doesn’t even completely solve the fire department’s problems.

As the six-week campaign known as Promise for Education draws to an end, there have been mixed reviews regarding the effectiveness of the program. Promise for Education is an attempt to raise money for UC scholarship funds.

The program is a crowd-sourced fundraiser which allows people to pledge a promise of their choice if their funding goal is met. Then, through social media, those who have promised can attempt to raise funds.

The promises range from impressive to, well let’s just say, lackluster. UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake has one of the better promises: he promises to lead a cycling tour of Irvine and host a post-ride reception for all who donate.

He has raised $18,000 which surpassed his goal by $8,000. Such unique and interesting promises are great ways of getting those who may not necessarily be affiliated with the UC system to donate.

However, a large amount of promises seem to be uncreative and generally useless. For example, one student promised to have the “best senior year ever.”

Furthermore, even though this is helping the ASUCD scholarship fund, some members haven’t even come close to reaching their goals.

We appreciate that people are willing to try and make a difference. However, such promises really don’t further the cause as they offer no incentive for others to donate, depicted by the lack of donations many have received.

One person who could definitely make a bigger impact is Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. Her promise to work as an employee at the Coffee House when she raises $5,000 is an interesting idea.

But, if the purpose of this program is to raise money, Chancellor Katehi should put her money where her mouth is. Instead of simply working as an employee, she could also match any offers up to the $5,000 goal. After all, what good is a $400,000 base salary if you can’t donate to a good cause?

Any effort to raise money for the UC system — especially for scholarship funds — is a good idea. But we question whether the actual program will be successful and whether it is the best form of fundraising.

For example, there are currently 213,626 living UC Davis alumni. If each of them were to donate $0.50 to the UC system, UC Davis would raise $106,813 — which is almost $67,000 more than UC Davis’ current goal.

Promise for Education is definitely a step in the right direction. However, we believe that the execution of the program has been far from stellar.