The Ethics of Crowdsourcing

“With the dawn of the 16th century, there came together in Europe both the motivation and the means to explore territory across the seas.” During the sixteenth century, Spain found success in conquering American lands thanks to prior interest in exploration fueled by religion, trade, and technology. With their recent success against the Moors in a religious battle, both Ferdinand and Isabella were ready to explore new lands in which they could plant the seeds of a new religion. The desire of trade items that could only be found in Asia also gave them motivation to find a new, quicker root the Far East. But, all of these feats would not have been possible if it were not for the invention of new technologies, such as the compass and astrolabe, helping explorers find their way around the world.

Lisa Jardine’s Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution provides a comprehensive breakdown of the discoveries that defined the Scientific Revolution and the history behind them. The story of the scientific revolution truly begins with a separation between the Catholic Church and the denizens of Europe brought on by the Protestant Reformation. This separation led directly to the questioning of the church and what they deemed to be true. The growing suspicion of the church applied not only to the politics and religious views but the scientific “facts” the church was built upon. The suspicion of these scientific facts quickly grew to an open challenging of these facts, The Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution is something we have all studied in our grade school years and the discoveries of people such as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei are well documented and arguably common knowledge but Jardine’s book Ingenious Pursuits encapsulates the scientific revolution in a new light. Jardine accomplishes this by telling the stories of some of the greatest achievements of the Scientific Revolution. These stories reveal the collaborations of some of histories most brilliant minds as well as the secrecy amongst them and uncover the motives that fueled many of these accomplishments.

The cut-off resulted in the lowering of economic success throughout Europe, because European civilizations could not trade goods with other civilizations. The economic motive caused Europeans to look for success in the west for “God, Glory, and Gold”, which inspired explorers to make dangerous travels across the Atlantic Ocean. The travel safety was improved when Europeans had developed sturdy seaworthy ships and new technological advances. The advancements on the ships included the use of the axial rudder and lateen sails with a square rig, which improved the ships to be more mobile against the wind and also make easier turns in naval warfare. The advancements of ships were very important, but useless without the knowledge of how to utilize the improvements. Fortunately, explorers possessed the knowledge of specific wind patterns in the Atlantic

Even though exploration had a huge impact on our lives, it had a lesser impact in terms of differential thinking and new ideas. The evolution of exploration led to the developments in map-making (Doc. E). The printing press helped to distribute the maps across Europe and spark the curiosity that led to the

Without the desire to acquire a safer trade route over sea to Asia, no one would have ever tried sailing west to get east. “The explorers of the fifteenth century and early sixteenth centuries did not set out to make a revolution in knowledge, but that is what they achieved,” wrote Christopher Farman in “The Ocean Adventures” found in Voyages of Discovery (Document 4). This quote shows how many of the explorers did not set out to find the Americas, but once they knew what it was the Americas were quickly integrated with their own world. Many of the foundational thoughts and ideas of today’s society would have never developed if not for this link between continents. Arthur M. Schlesinger makes note of this writing, “In fact it was precisely the contact with the Americas that stimulated Europe to develop further some of the principles we take for granted today as the basic minimum of human rights…” in Columbus on Trial (Document 5). Without all of this exploration the world would have continued to be stuck in isolation until inevitably some other group of people decide to explore the sea. Contact between the Old and New world would have happened at one point or

already had their own maps. They sailed into the wind by the triangular shaped sails on

It is 1492, and many Europeans are hungry for exploration. The “New World” was seen as the future of trade. But there was one problem; the current way of shipping from Asia was by slow land travel, touching many hands before they reached the European market. With a market that was hungry and the means to travel by sea, Christopher Columbus set sail under the endorsement of queen Isabella of Spain, searching for passage to Asia. What Columbus would find was not Asia, but America. This discovery as time would tell, would not come without consequence. In the age of the new world, exploration, conquest and settlement would have consequences for both the people who were adventuring to these new lands as well

Much of the new technology that they brought over, however, was borrowed from various people and cultures along their travels. Some of these new technologies include the compass, which they used to figure out which direction they were travelling, and the astrolabe, which aided the sailors in trying to find out how far north or south they were from the equator. Another borrowed technology that greatly benefitted the Europeans on their travels was cartography; this is the science of map making. This was probably one of the most beneficial discoveries to the Europeans because it allowed them to draw out where they had been and where they were

History has witnessed an immense number of scientific breakthroughs and simultaneously ,various paths that have led to 'eureka's. Though it may be true that examination of the familiar has proved to be beneficial for many scientists ,I think humanity has discovered far more about the world it exists in by exploring the unfamiliar .The construction of 'Christopher' machine ,the unique decryption device of Enigma, and Columbus's discovery of America prove this opinion conclusively.

Advances were required in cartography, shipbuilding, navigation in open water, and arming a fleet with shipboard cannons. In tackling the problem with maps, the Europeans were most assisted by the Arabs, who were responsible for preserving and adding to the works of Claudius Ptolemy, a Hellenistic scholar whose work fused the astronomical and geographical knowledge of his time. By ca. 1410, sailors had revised Ptolemy’s contributions and developed portolani, practical charts designed for coastal navigation that alone, unfortunately, were still of little use once in the open ocean (Ames, 11). However, this hitch was solved by the concurrent use of the compass, astrolabe, quadrant, cross-staff, and tables of declination.

The English, French, and Dutch all sent sailors to explore the coast of North America in the late 1500's and the early 1600's. They were told to find a Northwest Passage and report it back and the passage was a direct water route between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean through North America. All the explorers could not find it but they had other outcomes and long lasting effects. For example, John Cabot was the first explorer sent to look for the passage and he came for England. He did not find anything but he mapped the coast. The same thing happened to the French hired sailor, Giovanni de Verrazano. He was only able to explore the coast of North America from Nova Scotia to North and South Carolina. The real effects started in 1535 when Jacques Carter started his journey.

The race to find longitude at sea was a race of endurance, spanning multiple centuries, countries, and methods. John Harrison’s final clock, H4, was the culmination of that race, an elegant, practical, and direly needed winner. But this race wasn’t solo; instead it was a relay. Harrison needed the knowledge and support of Enlightenment Science and the Royal Society to accomplish what he did. Without past horological innovation, patronage from the Royal Society, and the experimentation through a voyage to Lisbon, Harrison’s clock would have never succeeded.

Also in Over the edge of the world by Laurence Bergreen, “He ordered lookouts scrambling to the highest perch on the ship, where they could see the waterways and obstacles that lay ahead.” Also he tasted the water in order to navigate. If the water got fresher then he was coming in the land, and as it was getting saltier they were heading to the pacific through the Strait of Magellan. This is a unique talent that only special navigators have. He is one of the greatest navigators of all

Imagine the world in about twenty years. What’s new? Technology. Medicine. Celebrities. Trends. What about something as simple as food? Will it be the delicious, fragrant,colorful delicacy we’re used to or an odorless and unsavory beige liquid only consumed twice a day? A new product, Soylent, is just that, all the nutrients necessary for survival compiled into a pancake-batter like beverage that replaces food; “a large burden [and]hassle” according to the Soylent creator, Rob Rhinehart. In an article entitled, “The End of Food,” the author, Lizzie Widdicombe discusses the intentions and motivations of Rob Rhinehart as well as her own opinions on Soylent and its effects on consumers and non consumers. To both foodies and common people who

The advancement of Cartogrphy has helped in many ways through out the years.It has had updates that would of helped through his voyages.The recent update was the GPS which stands for Global Positioning System.This is a satelite that orbits the Earth and it make sit possible for us to pinpoint the locations.GPS has made it easier to travel