Bureaucracy and Science..and Policy in dilemma

Bureaucracy as I understand is a group of government and non-government officials that implement the rules, laws, ideas, and functions of their institution. They are usually expected to be loyal, first, to the state and the public good. In addition, bureaucracies follow rules and patterns of administration that separate them from the rest of society. However, sometimes these people do not understand the things the way they are and try to impose their strict concise that does not provide logical answer to the real life situations. Example out of many of such incidents is the recent summer home issue in Colorado. As per the new survey conducted, U.S. Forest Services is claiming that a summer house owned by a private owner for the last thirty years now belongs to them. The officials from the U.S. Forest Services are continuously forcing the owner to vacate this property as they argue that not a single person can have their private property on their land. The lady owner who is Hispanic by race has a strong and logical argument that she had earned her living throughout along with her kids in this home. She strongly claims that the property belonged to county at the time when she bought and she cannot simply vacate her home based on claims made by the U.S. Here the interesting issue is the role played by technology that defined the boundaries differently in course of time. The other interesting point is the inability of the officials in understanding the real life situations of public whom they aim to serve. It totally becomes a nuisance when bureaucrats do not look into a pragmatic solution to a problem. From this activity we can simply assume that lot of politics embedded here can be reflected as theatre. Everywhere we can find controversies as we interpret our ideas differently in course of time.

In another discussion part of the lecture on the of theory of evolution, as proposed by Lamarck, it can be understood as   “purpose” and “process.”  Here the “purpose” is not clear may be it was God’s will and intervention and the “process” reflected science and reason.  As I understand Lamarck’s theory stated that organisms evolve over time due to the environmental factors that act upon that organism. For example, a giraffe’s neck grows longer over time because of the giraffe’s desire for treetop leaves; however, the giraffe’s elongated neck may not be the result of purpose. Instead, I understood that the giraffe’s evolving neck can be the result of environmental situation based on scientific reasoning. While purpose was not inherent in the organisms desires for high leaves and a longer neck, purpose made its way into Lamarck’s theory in that God had created these rules so that organisms could evolve in a certain way.  In his theory, I understand that extinction was not a natural process. The process of evolution was in the form of simple to complex and imperfect to perfect.  Here, the simple reflected the imperfection that does not involve organism with environment and complex reflected perfection in a relative sense that strongly focused the relationship of organism and environment.  The concept of adaptation is inherited here as an acquired characteristics of organism meaning that more complex creatures get adopted to more complex environment. Therefore, more diverse ecosystem is needed.

 If we look into theory of evolution by Darwin, the natural selection and the concept of the survival of the fittest, if we compare and contrast with Lamarck, we see that Lamarck’s much focused on acquired characteristics. He support the transformation of a species through environmental factors, which Darwin’s theory largely does not.  Darwin focuses much on heredity characteristics. Darwin devoted his life to the study of plants and animals, so in his concept of  natural selection and  survival of the fittest,  he argued that  organism with superior physical and behavioral attributes are more likely to survive than their inferiors. These survivors would produce the most offspring, and the inherited attributes from the “superior species” would become the most common. He also concluded that species evolves to adapt to their environment, which is why similar species in different locations may have different traits. Darwin seems to have later read about Lamarck’s theory and used it when developing his own theory of evolution. The natural selection by Darwin was much popularized when Gregor Mendel an influential scientist confirmed many of Darwin’s ideas through his experiments with plants hereditary characteristics. However, we can argue that neither Lamarck nor Darwin talked about social world.  They missed out how society evolved and taking a distinct shape in course of time.

There is an interesting controversy what it means to evolution and adaptation. We can argue that evolution requires a genetic change and if there is no genetic change an organism, we can  simply term it as adaptation.