Chapter 2 Vocabulary
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Significant Numbers
- Meaningful numbers whose accuracy can be verified.
- reproducibility
- Making an observation or obtaining a particular result more than once
- Scientific Theory
- A well-tested explanation for a wide rande of observations or experimental results.
- paradigms
- A model that provides a framework for interpreting observations
- Environmental Justice
- A recognition that access to a clean, healthy environment is a fundamental right of all human beings.
- Nihilists
- Those who believe the world has no meaning/ purpose other than a dark, cruel, unceasing struggle for power and existence (MALTHUS)
- Morals
- Set of ethical principles that guide our actions/relationships
- Universalists
- Those who believe that some fundamental ethical principles are universal and unchanging. In this vision, these principles are valid regardless of the context or situation.
- Blind Experiments
- Those in which those carrying out experiments don't know until after the data has been gathered and analyzed which was the experimental treatment and which was the control.
- Values
- Concepts or beliefs that guide how we make decisions about and evaluations of behavioiurs and events.
- Relativists
- Those who believe moral principles are always dependent on the particular situation.
- Instrumental Value
- Value of an organism, species, ecosystem, or the earth's biodiversity based on its usefulness to us.
- Biocentrism
- The belief that all creatures have rights and values; being centered on nature rather than humans
- Environmental Ethics
- A search for moral values and ethical principles in human relations with the natural world.
- Controlled Studies
- Those in which comparisons are made between experimental and control populations that are identical (as far as possible) in every factor except the one variable being studied.
- LULUs
- Locally Unwanted Land Uses such as toxic waste dumps, incinerators, smelters, airports, freeways, and other sources of environmental, economic or social degradation.
- Inductive Reasoning
- The reasoning that uses specific examples to draw a general conclusion or discover a general principle.
- Stewardship
- A philosophy that holds that humans have a unique responsibility to manage, care for, and improve nature.
- Moral Subjects
- Beings that are not capable of distinguishing between right or wrong or that are not able to act on moral principles and yet are capable of being wronged by others.
- Double-blind Design
- Neither the experimenter or the subjects know until after data has been gathered and analyzed which was the experimental treatment and which was the control.
- Deductive Reasoning
- The process of using facts, properties, or rules to justify reasoning or reach valid conclusions
- Anthropocentrism
- Belief that humans hold a special place in nature; being centered on HUMANS and their affairs
- Parsimony
- if 2 expl. appear equally plausible then choose the simpliest
- inherent value
- Ethical values or rights that exist as an intrinsic or essential characteristic of a particular thing or class of things simply by the fact of their existence
- Hypothesis
- A provisional explanation that can be tested scientifically.
- Science
- A body of knowledge gained through observation and experimentation; latin scientia "knowledge"
- Utilitarians
- Those who believe that an action is right that produces the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time (UTILITARIAN CONSERVATION) (ROOSEVELT AND PINCHOT)
- Toxic Colonialism
- Shipping toxic wastes to a weaker or poorer nation.
- Environmental Racism
- Decisions that restrict certain people/ groups to polluted/ degraded environ. on the basis of race
- Ecofeminism
- The enviroment deserves direct moral consideration and not consideration derived merely from humans and animals