Name: Ahmed Abdelaziz Wasel

Id: 202002790

Nile University
Logical & Critical Thinking
HUMA101
Time Allowed: One Day
Final Exam (Home Exam) June 2020
Question1: (30 Marks)
(a) Give an example from our daily lives to show that:
(i) Pseudoscientists have very little explanatory story. (3-marks)
Of all the sciences, it seems astronomy findings should be rather definitive. It's a complex study where,
despite the magnitude of studies, we probably haven't even scratched the surface. Let's take a look at
pseudoscience’s that claim to have a basis in astronomy:
2012 Doomsday Scare - Expected that 2012 would bring large-scale disasters or even the end of the world
Ancient Aliens - Proposes that aliens have visited Earth in the past and influenced our civilization
Apollo Moon Landing Hoax - Contends the original moon landing was faked
Astrology - Believes that humans are affected by the position of celestial bodies

(ii) Imagination is more important than knowledge. (3-marks)

Many great scientists weren't great learners but still made inventions due to imagination that made them
think of different results like Einstein, he once said “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my
imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles
the world”
(b) A look at the major events in the history of the universe provides a context for the question of
chemical evolution. According to the Big Bang theory, the origin of the universe occurred between
10 billion and 13.77 billion years ago. Astronomers arrive at this rough estimate using an uncertain
value that compares the rate of expansion of the galaxies with the distance covered. The dating of
the origin of our solar system is much more definite. By measuring the radioactive decay in a wide
sampling of meteorites and lunar rocks, geologists conclude that the sun and its planets formed
about 4.6 billion years ago. The first evidence of life on Earth is found in microfossils from western
Australia and southern Africa, which indicate a relative abundance of life about 3.5 billion years
ago. Thus, life on Earth must have begun between 4.6 billion and 3.5 billion years ago. Whereas
biological evolution can account for the changes over the last 3.5 billion years, those of us who
study chemical evolution are trying to retrace events from the origins of the universe to the
inception of life on Earth. Taking the Earth-the one laboratory in which a successful experiment
has been performed-as an example, we postulate that what happened on Earth must have occurred
on the billions of other planets around other stars. Charles Darwin was among the first scientists to
speculate on the notion of chemical evolution.
(i)What is being explained? (Title needed) (3-marks)
Chemical Evolution
(ii)What is the explanation? (Summary of your own) (3-marks)
Formation of life on earth was found due to the microfossils and the biological evolution can not be
formed before finding out about chemical evolution, and by measuring the radioactive decay in a wide
sampling of meteorites and lunar rocks, geologists conclude that the sun and its planets formed about 4.6
billion years ago and this is how the age of solar system could be estimated, and afterwards they
calculated that life on Earth must have begun between 4.6 billion and 3.5 billion years ago. Whereas
biological evolution can account for the changes over the last 3.5 billion years
(iii)What conclusion can be drawn about the above explanation? (Your point of view) (3-marks)
From my point of view, I think that we have started with the big bang theory which is an astronomical
theory or even cosmological one talking about the history of the universe, and then they switched to
finding the solar system and then earth and biological life
(c) A remarkable fact is that many of the great scientists and mathematicians in history have a deep
interest in music. Einstein, for example, was devoted amateur violinist, and Newton is said to have
been fascinated by the mathematical structure of musical compositions. If you want your child to
pursue a career in science, you would be well advised to do everything you can develop his or her
interest in music.
The above passage involves THREE fallacies. Comment on every one you find in a detailed way.
(15-marks)
There is fallacies visual influence, because he said if you want to make your son genius in math go let
him be interested in music. Another thing could be a fallacy is the way the people are dealing with this
issue; I mean it could be anecdotal or a rumor as we may heard about it but not be sure. Or sorting facts
like the facts here are not put in a proper order or an emoting fact like we don’t have many details about
Einstein playing music.

Question 2: (25- Marks)

(a) Compare between the following items using scientific examples:

(i) Theories and hypotheses. (5-marks)
Hypothesis is an assumption or speculation that is made before research for testing  
Examples - An apple a day keeps the doctor away
Anxiety leads to problems like hormonal imbalance thyroid, high blood pressure etc
A Theory is a set of principles that can explain a phenomenon with the help of supporting data.
Examples are the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darvin.
Theory of Relativity by Newton.

(ii) Rationalism and emotional neutrality as norms of scientific behavior. (5-marks)

Rationalism
It is the practice of following opinions and actions on the basis of reason understanding and knowledge
rather than on emotional response or religious beliefs Example - slavery is a cruel practice.
Emotional neutrality is the decision - making power neglecting fear and greed. Example - The investment
in business gold etc.

(b) Healers who use a technique called touch claim to be able to manipulate what they call the
human energy field. They pass their hands over a patient’s body, but actually do not touch the
patient. Practitioners claim that patients who are ill have hot or cold spots in their energy fields. By
massaging a person’s field, they claim they can cure symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, and some
types of cancer. Can practitioners of therapeutic touch actually detect a human energy field?
Apply the test of extraordinary abilities to examine the reliability of the above claim.
(Use the flowchart as shown in the textbook to explain your claim) (15 -marks)
To test this kind of ability we have to put those people who claims of having such a gift under pressure
and make them go through many tests and experiments and if they didn’t succeed then they are liars, but
if they succeed then they are really a true healers and this is example: There has been considerable
research interest in TT. However, as yet the evidence for benefit is no more than weakly positive at best.
A 1999 review of all published studies concluded that many of the studies had serious design flaws that
could bias the results; in addition, the manner in which they were reported did not meet adequate
scientific standards. 2 A similar review in 2008 focusing on pain concluded that that TT (along with
Healing Touch and Reiki ) may have modest effects on pain relief, particularly in the hands of more
experienced practitioners, but the evidence was still fairly weak. 13
To be fair, proper study of TT presents researchers with some serious obstacles. The only truly
meaningful way to determine whether a medical therapy works is to perform a double-blind, placebo-
controlled trial. (For the reasons why this is true, see Why Does This Database Rely on Double-blind
Studies? ) For hands-on therapies such as TT, however, a truly double-blind study is not possible—the TT
practitioner will inevitably know whether he or she is administering real TT or fake TT!
The best type of study that can be performed on TT is a single-blind study with blinded observers. In such
studies, participants do not know whether they received real or fake TT, and an observer who is also kept
in the dark evaluates their medical outcome. However, such a study still has potential bias in it;
practitioners could very well communicate a kind of cynicism when they fake TT, and this problem
appears to be insurmountable.
Further problems are involved in the choice of fake treatment. In most of the studies described below,
sham TT involved practitioners counting backward in their heads by subtracting seven serially from 100.
The intent of this method was to avoid any possibility of projecting a healing concentration. It has been
pointed out that this somewhat stressful effort would cause the practitioner to communicate tension rather
than relaxation to study participants, and this too could bias results. However, it is difficult to suggest
what should have been used instead for placebo.
Some studies compared TT to no treatment. However, it has been well established that any therapy
whatsoever will seem to produce benefit compared to no treatment for various non-specific reasons;
because of this, such studies say little to nothing about the specific benefits of TT. Finally, numerous
trials have simply involved enrolling people with a medical problem, applying TT, and seeing whether
they improve. Trials of this type prove absolutely nothing at all; for at least a dozen reasons, it would be
rather surprising if benefit were not seen. (The reasons why are discussed in Why Does This Database
Rely on Double-blind Studies? )
Given these caveats, here is a summary of the research available thus far.
At the time of the 1999 review noted above, many published studies of TT were of unacceptably low
quality and, in any case, the results were quite inconsistent.
For example, in one trial, 31 inpatients in a VA psychiatric facility received Therapeutic
Touch, relaxation therapy , or sham Therapeutic Touch. 3 The study was designed to evaluate the
effectiveness of TT for reducing anxiety and stress . The results appear to indicate that Therapeutic Touch
was more effective for this purpose than sham Therapeutic Touch. However, there are some very serious
design problems in this study that make the results hard to trust. The real TT was administered by a
woman in street clothes, and the placebo treatment by a woman in nursing garb; to make matters more
complex, the relaxation therapy was administered by a man dressed as a clergyman. These large
differences in appearance could only be expected to considerably influence the results in ways that cannot
be predicted.
In a better study, 60 people with tension headaches were randomly assigned to receive either TT or
placebo touch. 4 TT proved to be significantly more effective than placebo touch.
However, in a reasonably well-designed study published in 1993, use of TT in 108 people
undergoing surgery failed to reduce post-operative pain to a greater extent than sham Therapeutic
Touch. 5
A series of studies evaluated Therapeutic Touch for aiding wound healing . 6 Some found TT more
effective than placebo, others found no significant effect, and still others found placebo more effective
than real treatment. These results suggest that the effects seen were due to chance.
Subsequent to the 1999 review, several better-quality trials were published. One such study compared real
TT and sham Therapeutic Touch in 99 men and women recovering from severe burns. 7 Researchers
hypothesized that use of TT would decrease pain and anxiety during that arduous and traumatic process,
and indeed some evidence of benefit was seen.
In a smaller study (25 participants), real TT appeared to reduce the pain of knee osteoarthritis compared
to sham Therapeutic Touch. 8 Furthermore, in a study of 20 HIV-infected children, use of TT improved
anxiety while sham Therapeutic Touch did not. 9 Another study found that an actor pretending to perform
a form of treatment similar to TT produced significant improvements in well-being in people with
advanced cancer. 12
Taking all these studies together, it appears that real TT may be more effective than sham TT (using the
serial subtraction technique described above). However, whether these apparent benefits are due to the
energy-healing effects claimed by practitioners or, more simply, through emotional communication,
remains unclear.
Some studies provide preliminary evidence that TT does not work in the manner practitioners believe it
does. For example, in one well-designed study, TT produced no effect when conducted without eye
contact. 10 The researcher, an influential person in the history of TT, had hypothesized that TT involved a
kind of energy transfer that would not need eye contact. The fact that no effects were seen without the
addition of eye contact suggests that it might be focused attention that makes the difference, not energy
transmitted through the hands. Similarly, in a study involving 76 breast cancer survivors, real TT (with
healing intent) was no better than sham touch (without healing intent) in reducing cancer-related
fatigue. 14 However, both were more effective than no touch at all.
Furthermore, if TT actually involves contact with the “energy field” of a patient, it would seem that the
practitioners would be able to sense the presence of such a field. However, in a widely publicized study,
21 practitioners who had practiced TT for 1 to 27 years proved unable to do this. 11 In this trial, TT
practitioners placed their hands face up through holes in a barrier. The experimenter (a nine-year-old
student) held a hand above one of the practitioner’s hands, and the practitioner was asked to sense its
presence. The practitioners' guesses proved to be no more accurate than chance would allow. This study
has been strongly criticized by proponents of TT. Some have said that the experimenter was in the throes
of puberty, and for that reason her energy field was too disturbed to detect; others have complained about
the disturbing presence of video cameras. While these criticisms are potentially valid, the burden is
actually on proponents of TT to prove that there really is such a thing as a human “energy field.”
Nonetheless, the studies already performed do indicate that, at the very least, concentrated, positive
attention provided by one human being to another is consoling and calming. This is a wonderful fact,
even if there is no special “energy field” involved.

Question 3: (15-marks)

(a) Give an example, from our daily lives to indicate that anomalous phenomena play a
central role in the evolution of scientific ideas. (6-marks)

We deal with things like somethings that could be observed, and the people are unable to explain it
until they discover a theory, one of the good ideas advanceable helium of mercury when people
discover that mercury isn’t responding like the rest of the planets that was a beginning for Einstein to
develop the theory of relativity

(b) Apply the scientific method in the following example. (9-marks)

“It is well known that college students who turn in typed assignments tend to get better
grades than those students who turn in handwritten assignments. I suppose this is
understandable. Good students --- students who are bright and responsible and who
take their assignments seriously--- are willing to go that extra step. Not only do superior
work, they take great pains to ensure that it is submitted in the most attractive,
readable format possible.”
(Scientific Method: Asking why? - Offering an explanation – Testing an explanation)
Why students turn in typed assignments? to do better grades, students get better results when they deliver
it in typed way not just handwritten. Because they actually put an effort in it
Question 4: (30 -Marks)
(a) Give an example to satisfy the following dictums
(i) “I think, therefore I am” R. Descartes, (3- marks)
This statement was said as conclusion that Descartes reached after the investigation about reality. He
wanted to find out an entity that he could not doubt about its reality and existence. For reality cannot be
constituted on doubtful information and entity and doubt was the best tool in order to do that. He used a
method in which doubt is used pretty efficiently. He doubted about everything. Everything… From the
accuracy of mathematics to everything that he perceived by his own sense organs since there was a
possibility of which these were illusions. He doubted and doubted and reached a groundbreaking
conclusion: He could not doubt about which he was doubting. Doubting was a thinking process. Thinking
requires existence and the existence of him was evident to him. Finally, he concluded by saying: I think,
therefore, I am.
(ii) “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge” C. Sagan (3-marks)
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Its goal is to find out how the
world works, to seek what regularities there may be, to penetrate to the connections of things—from
subnuclear particles, which may be the constituents of all matter, to living organisms, the human social
community, and thence to the cosmos as a whole but depending on knowledge only and what you already
know won’t get you anywhere.

(b) On a few rare occasions, living human beings have mysteriously ignited and been
largely consumed by fire. Although there are no well documented instances in which
spontaneous human combustion has been witnessed, there are a number of actual cases in
which the remains of a person strongly suggest spontaneous human combustion. Typically,
the body will be most entirely destroyed by fire, with the fire beginning in the torso and
often living a limb or two intact. This contrasts with most burning markedly injuries, in
which the limbs are likely to be the first to burn. But in cases of spontaneous human
combustion, the burnt body is reduced to greasy ashes—even the bones. There is often no
apparent source of flame and little damage to the victim’s surroundings
(1) Do we have a clear sense of what the relevant phenomenon is? (3-marks)
(Search for its definition and mention the corresponding reference )
Spontaneous human combustion refers to a situation when a human body is found with significant portion
of the middle part of the body reduced to ashes, much less damage to head and extremities and minimal
damage to direct surroundings of body.

Koljonen V, Kluger N. Spontaneous human combustion in the light of the 21st century. J Burn Care Res.
2012 May-Jun;33(3):e101

(2) What do we know for sure? What is based on fact and what on conjecture or assumption?
 (Apply the types of explanation as shown in the textbook )
(3-marks)
spontaneous human combustion is a reality. Human body composed of water and inflammable substance
fat tissues and methane gas. Many scientists dismiss the theory saying undetected flame source such as
cigar or match would have been there. Human body has to reach 3000 degrees to reduce to ash. But it
seems a fact, otherwise, furniture would have been burnt.
(3) Have we considered any necessary comparative information? (3-marks)
(Use internet to emphasize your claim, provided links)
Yes, there are many studies have been reviewed. Even though the cause is not understood, the
phenomenon is real. and is not based on the belief system.
Byard RW. The mythology of spontaneous human combustion. Forensic Sci Med Pathol. 2016
Sep;12(3):350-2. doi: 10.1007/s12024

(4) Have our observations been contaminated by expectation or belief? (3-marks)

(A critical thinking question based on your opinion)
The observation does not contradict our belief. There are many communities like Hinduism where
diseased human body is burnt, and it burns to ashes.

(c) From your own reading(s), write a short essay about one of the following articles:
(15-marks)
(1) Ethical implications on human cloning,
(2) The existence of aliens and extraterrestrial life.
(3) The possibility to travel in time.
(4) The effect of risk management on decision making.
Your article must include one paragraph for an introduction (4 marks), two paragraphs to show
the current methods of the topic (6 marks), and one final paragraph to indicate your own opinion in
terms of concluding remarks (5 marks).
Remark: You may apply it on your project even if your topic is different from the above.

The possibility to travel in time.

 Introduction

The possibility to travel through time, this is one of the most interesting ideas and there are lots of

theories and debates about it. But first when you try to discuss theory like that, we have to know what is

time and how can we define it, so for this paper, we will discuss the definition of time and what is the

difference between time and space, we will also discuss how such a theory can violate the laws of physics

for it to happen, and what are the possibilities to travel to the past and discuss “the grandfather paradox”,

we will also discuss the possibility to travel to the future and the wormholes and its relation with the

negative energy, and finally will talk about the entropy and arrow of time.
 Body

Time can be defined by so many definitions like the duration in which all things happen, or a

precise instant that something happens (Your dictionary, 2021). But the definition of time by physicists is

the progression of events from past to the present into the future. Basically, if a system is unchanging, it is

timeless. Time can be considered to be fourth dimension of the reality, used to describe events in third

dimension which is space (Helmenstine, 2019).

Differences between time and space are their functionalities. Space offers the 'room' for matter to

exist and move in, and time offers the facility of keeping track of what matter is doing and in which order,

also space is like the arena of all events, then time is just the most informative direction of

space(Yahloom, 2021).

According to Weinstein (2018), if by any mean we manage to travel through time that means

violating three laws of physics which are: Hawking’s chronology protection conjecture: The chronology

protection conjecture is a conjecture by physicist Stephen Hawking that the laws of physics are such as to

prevent time travel on all but submicroscopic scales. The permissibility of time travel is represented

mathematically by the existence of closed time like curves in some exact solutions to General Relativity.

The chronology protection conjecture should be distinguished from chronological censorship under which

every closed time like curve passes through an event horizon, which might prevent an observer from

detecting the causal violation., the generalized second law of thermodynamics: there is a quantum

analogy to the classical second law of thermodynamics which is called the generalized second law of

thermodynamics. Hawking showed that black holes possess entropy proportional to the size, i.e. to the

surface area of the event horizon of the black hole. According to Hawking, the area of the event horizon

can only increase (or stay the same) but can never decrease because the entropy of the black hole can

never decrease. Jacob Bekenstein and Hawking, however, speculated that the entropy of the black hole

would decrease in time with the emission of Hawking radiation and hence it would violate the second law
of thermodynamics. They suggested that the sum of the rate of change of entropies of a black hole

horizon and the entropy of the total universe, including that of all black holes, must never decrease and

this was termed the generalized second law of thermodynamics. This principle is valid for any causal

horizon, not only a black hole horizon. The horizon is the boundary of the past of any future infinite

world line. According to the generalized second law of thermodynamics, the entropy is increasing at each

space-time point on the event horizon of a black hole. Thus, the generalized second law of

thermodynamics rules out traversable wormholes connecting two disconnected or asymptotically flat

regions, due to the fact that the area within the future horizon of a particle crossing through the wormhole

decreases or shrinks at very early times, which contradicts the increase of generalized entropy. And the

averaged null energy condition: According to quantum field theory, there is a so-called no-go theorem:

traversable wormhole configurations require matter that violates the averaged null energy condition. The

averaged null energy condition is a constraint on the stress-energy tensor (no negative or

exotic energy).Although quantum field theory allows states, where energy density can be arbitrarily

negative at a given point, such as the Casimir effect; even in this case the averaged null energy condition

is satisfied. However, it is violated in all traversable wormholes because there are infinite null geodesics

(the paths that photons follow) passing through the wormhole, such that the energy averaged along them

is negative. The averaged null energy condition is always obeyed along infinite achronal geodesics

(geodesics that do not contain any points connected by a time like line). That is to say, non-closed time

like curves obey the averaged null energy condition. This condition is sufficient to rule out traversable

wormholes joining two otherwise disconnected regions of space-time.

For the possibility to travel to the past: time travel to the past is theoretically possible in certain

general relativity space-time geometries that permit traveling faster than the speed of light, such as

cosmic strings, traversable wormholes, and Alcubierre drives, but it is impossible to achieve the speed of

light yet and if it is possible, changing it is impossible (Brennan, 1997).

 The grandfather paradox is a paradox of time travel in which inconsistencies emerge through

changing the past. It is about: what if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, the results is the

mind-blowing part, like if the grandfather is dead that means you didn’t exist because your father was

never born, but also if you didn’t exist that means your grandfather didn’t die, and that goes also to your

father and you(Brennan, 1997).

Travelling to the future, while it's not possible (yet) to travel to the future fast than the rate at

which we're doing it now, it is possible to speed up the passage of time. But, it only happens in small

increments of time. According to Einstein's theory of special relativity, the passage of time is relative to

an object's speed (Sutter, 2020).

Wormholes and negative energy, they are both related. Wormholes require negative energy.

Because negative energy is gravitationally repulsive, it would prevent the wormhole from collapsing. For

a wormhole to be traversable, it ought to allow signals, in the form of light rays, to pass through it

(Ford&Roman, 2000).

Entropy is one of the few quantities in the physical sciences that require a particular direction for

time, sometimes called an arrow of time. As one goes "forward" in time, the second law of

thermodynamics says, the entropy of an isolated system can increase, but not decrease. Thus, entropy

measurement is a way of distinguishing the past from the future. In thermodynamic systems that are not

isolated, entropy can decrease time, for example living systems where local entropy is reduced at the

expense of an environmental increase, the formation of typical crystals, the working of a refrigerators and

within living organisms (Joel, 2008).

 Conclusion

At the end of this paper, we concludes that the possibility of time travel might be real, for

travelling to the past, it is theoretically possible if we reach the speed that faster than the speed of light

somehow, we can travel through time to the past, and for the possibility to travel to the future, some

researches discussed that we are actually travelling to the future right now by every second and minute we

spend, we are slowly travelling to the future slowly, but for travelling faster to the future, it is not possible

yet . And we got that for travelling through time to happen, there are laws of physics will be violated such

as the second law of thermodynamics, hawking’s chronology protection conjecture, and the averaged null

conditions.
 References

 Brennan, J. (1997). Time Travel: A New Perspective. Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications.

p. 23. ISBN 9781567180855

Ford, L., & Roman, T. (2000). Negative Energy, Wormholes and Warp Drive. Scientific American,

282(1), 46–53. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26058563

Helmenstine,A. (2019). What is time? Here’s a simple explanation. ThoughtCo. Retrieved December 30,

2021, from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-time-4156799

Joel,L.(2008). Time′s arrow and Boltzmann’s entropy. Scholarpedia.  3 (4):

3448. Bibcode:2008SchpJ...3.3448L. Doi:10.4249/scholarpedia.3448

Sutter, P. M. (2020). Time travel into the future is totally possible. Physics. https://phys.org/news/2020-

05-future-totally.html

Time meaning. Best 117 Definitions of Time. (2021). Retrieved from

https://www.yourdictionary.com/time

Weinstein, G. (2018). What laws of physics prevent time travel to the past? Quora.

https://www.quora.com/What-laws-of-physics-prevent-time-travel-to-the-past-1

Yahloom,A.(2020).On the difference between time and space. DOI- 10.13140/RG.2.2.13686.22080

GOOD LUCK
Note: The final grade will be 40% of the marked obtained!!!!