Natural Science Knowledge: Biologically Bad Beings?

We learned with the natural sciences that through any form of scientific learning that deals with matter or energy and their transformations that result with an objectively measurable phenomena people can transform themselves. Natural science is a broad collection of sciences that involves the human body in more ways than one. The way that the human body works is the natural science of biology, the natural science of the medication that we as humans take for a wide variety of reasons to help us is chemistry. The biology of our beings is unique and sometimes needs assistance because of chemical imbalances. Natural scientists look at the facts through tests that look at our blood, bones, ligaments, tendons, cells, nerves, brain and make conclusions of what should be done to help humans.
Humans are not all the same inside or out, there is no model of perfection.

For natural scientists to answer the question of "what makes humans bad?" they must first decide what bad means. Natural scientists deal with the biological and chemical aspects that makes up humans. When it comes to humans and what motivates them it is not blood and ligaments, but the way their brain and nerves react to different stimuli. Natural scientists need to create a series of tests to decide a line of bad and good that humans can be placed on by their responses to the tests.

Susan Blackmore discusses the altered states of consciousness that humans can experience in the seventh chapter of her book Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction. The specific discussion of drug and their effect on human consciousness is about chemicals and their effect on a human being. Drugs that affect the mental functions of humans are psychoactive drugs, and are made from chemicals creating a chemical change to human's minds. Psychoactive drugs have a wide range of reasons for use and types that are used. Anesthetics are psychoactive drugs that are commonly used by doctors today when they preform procedures to place humans into a state where they are unconscious. The state of unconscious is made by three drugs that reduce pain, induce relaxation, and abolish memory. The stimulants that change humans responses can make them numb, unaware, forgetful, tired, awake, active, depressed. Human consciousness can be altered by chemicals, and the alterations can have a wide range of effects. Humans can have a need for medication to offer a chemical balance on the brain, and those can be given by doctors after psychiatric tests that are done by natural scientists in the hopes of finding out what is wrong with the brain.

Kevin Glenn talked to the class during a knowledge fair about pathological lying and the neurological connection of how it works through natural science. He focused on the article "The Neuropsychological Correlates of Pathological Lying: Evidence from Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia," and in the article Michele Poletti, Paolo Borelli, and Ubaldo Boneccelli talk about the case of a 57-year-old man and how he became a pathological liar and his behaviors began to alter. His family members described him as lying about little things that they knew that he did not do, and they wanted help to be found for him. A battery of tests were ran on him, they did neuroimaging, a variety of bloodwork, neurological examinations, and neuropsychiatric assessments. The neuropsychiatric assessments showed an anosognosia which meant that there is a decreased amount of awareness and a lack of concern for the lying and lack of awareness. He was diagnosed with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, and that even though his brain was physically normal he was not fully capable of controlling his brain. 

The two readings have helped me get a better understanding of the theme of what makes humans bad because they both discuss the easily manipulation a human's brain can undergo. Through neurological testing, natural scientists get a look at how humans are and compare the results to gauge a  standing of where bad and good lie. The knowledge of natural science is more definite than that of the

humanities or social science because of what is being tested and how they are being done. Like the social scientists, the natural scientists based their reasons or answers off of research.

Blackmore, Susan J. "Chapter 7 Altered States of Consciousness." Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2005. 99-114. Print. 

Poletti, Michele, Paolo Borelli, and Ubaldo Bonuccelli. "The Neuropsychological Correlates of Pathological Lying: Evidence from Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia." Journal of Neurology, 258.11 (2011): 2009-2013.