Category: Authors SP18

Card Shuffle Puzzle

World’s Simplest Magic Trick.

In just a few seconds, I will create something unique in human history using an ordinary deck of 52 playing cards. I will shuffle them seven times, and the result will be a card order so unusual that the odds of it being generated by my shuffling are one in
80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,
000,000,000.

Again, with no training or practice, never having performed this trick before, the odds that the cards I shuffle will end up in the order I shuffle them into will be:

1 in 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,
505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000.

Can I do it?
Would you like to bet me?

Card Fan

One Of A Kind

According to J.B. Morton on The Old Bailey blog, “The chances that anyone has ever shuffled a pack of cards in the same way twice in the history of the world are infinitesimally small, statistically speaking. The number of possible permutations of 52 cards is ‘52 factorial’ otherwise known as 52! or 52 shriek.

This is 52 times 51 times 50 . . . all the way down to one. The result of this factoring is

52!

To give you an idea of how many that is, here is how long it would take to go through every possible permutation of cards.

If every star in our galaxy had a trillion planets, each with a trillion people living on them, and each of these people has a trillion packs of cards and somehow they manage to make unique shuffles 1,000 times per second, and they’d been doing that since the Big Bang, they’d only just now be starting to repeat shuffles.

Other Big Numbers

How big is this number?

Someone shuffling a deck of cards once per second since the beginning of the universe believed to be about 14 billion years ago would not have shuffled the deck more than 1018 times.

Thus it is almost certain that any given configuration achieved through random shuffling has never appeared before in the history of shuffling!

For comparison’s sake: the number of stars in the universe: 1023.

Su, Francis E., et al. “Making History by Card Shuffling.” Math Fun Facts. .

Safer Saws- amongothers13

1- Customers- A list of Complaints

1a) “A false trip mandates replacement of the brake mechanism which is an expensive piece (~$59)”

Consumers would have to pay another $60 if the blade does stop before hitting flesh. This is an inconvenience.

1b) “A low percentage of the 30,000 annual (U.S.) table saw injuries are due to contact with the blade – most are from kickback.”

Most injuries aren’t even from the skin hitting the blade itself, but more so from other things. So, consumers would have to purchase this saw if all others are wiped off the shelves even if the problem doesn’t apply to them.

1c) “The Power Tool Institute (made up of many of the major tool manufacturers) takes strong offense to the concept of making safety devices like this mandatory on products like table saws. They cite both technical and practical/financial problems with mandating SawStop technology – and there are a lot.”

Not everyone agrees that they should be mandatory for there are many problems that stem from it becoming a “necessity.

Factual

2-  Steve Gass himself

2a) “The saw saves the finger, but mangles the machine.”

Your finger would be safe, yes, but the machine is destroyed due to slowing down in milliseconds. This causes damage to the whole machine, and then you’d have to buy a whole new one.

2b) “That’s like driving a car a thousand miles an hour and hitting a brick wall.”

Discussing the damage done to the machine after stopping so fast would be similar to the damage to a car driving into a wall at a fast pace. This infers there would be extreme damage to the machine that is unfixable.

2c) “This is a man who has faith in his creation.”

Despite what the rest of the video says about the damage, Steve Gass still has full potential in his invention and believes it is quite an amazing invention.

Opinion

3- News Reporter 

3a) “But as well as the technology works, the major tool companies have failed to put this kind of device on any of their table saws — even eight years after Gass offered to license it to them.”

The reporter thinks that these safer saws should have been on shelves when Gass first offered it to them. He wonders why they aren’t for sale yet if they can prevent injury from using saws.

3b) “In other words, let consumers decide. Young says many consumers won’t want to pay for the SawStop technology, which could add $100 to $300 in cost, depending on which side you talk to.”

Consumers can buy it if they want to, but safety doesn’t always sell because of the additional price. Would people rather lose a finger or pay an extra 200 dollars?

3c) “I came across a little ad for a table saw that wouldn’t cut off your fingers. That sounded like a good kind of saw to me; I like doing home-improvement projects. And it just sounded interesting.”

The reporter is interested in the saw because he does home-improvement projects and sees where the injuries could happen. He agrees that these items should be sold for consumers. He thinks it is a good idea.

Opinion

4- Personal Injury Lawyers

4a) “Table saws cause more than 40,000 injuries every year. Approximately 10% of those injuries, or 4,000, result in amputations every year. Fingers, hands, and arms are the most common parts of the body that are amputated. Only 20% of the injuries occur in people who are on the job, where injuries are usually covered by workplace accident insurance.”

The lawyers say that a change is needed due to the amount of injuries a year. A large percentage of injuries aren’t on the job but from at-home projects.

4b) “The SawStop and other table saw safety devices are actually very simple. ”

They think that the SawStop is a simple machine that reduces injuries.

Proposal

5-Consumer Product Safety- Sally Greenberg 

5a) “Ten people every day – according the CPSC’s own data – have their fingers amputated in power saw accidents. 10 a day!  I’ve wanted to push the CPSC for a mandatory standard ever since hearing a story on NPR in May of 2006.”

This woman believes 10 amputations a day from table saws is way too much! When she heard it she instantly wanted a change for safer saws.

5b) “They also took the commendable step of petitioning the Commission and asking that it adopt a mandatory safety standard – that was in 2003. ”

She thinks that SawStop is commendable for wanting the safe saw to be a mandatory machine for everyone to have for they are looking out for people’s safety.

5c) “As NCL told USA Today, if you have a pattern of injury, a safety technology that can address it, and it’s affordable, you should move toward a mandatory safety standard so that all parts of the industry comply. ”

People should be pushing for the SawStop to be mandatory because of how many injuries there are in just a day.

5d) “10 amputations a day and thousands more injuries every year, is an unacceptable toll when a ready fix is affordable, available, and waiting.”

Basically saying, break out the SawStops! We need more protection! It is affordable and ready for consumption, so why isn’t it on shelves yet? It is what she thinks we need.

Proposal

Safer Saws-Dohertyk9

3. Power Tool Product Reviewers

https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/bosch-tools-sawstop-lawsuit/3806/

3A. “However, the manufacturing costs, coupled with licensing fees, make this an almost ridiculous prospect.”

3B. The author of this article, Clint DeBoer, claims that it is ridiculous to expect a company to employ safer technology that would significantly increase the price of their merchandise.

3C. This quote makes an evaluative claim. The author considered the additional expenses added to the overall price of the saw because of the safety adjustments to the saw. He then made the evaluation that it would not be worthwhile for the companies to make those adjustments.

3D. This claim is hard to refute. Undoubtedly, the safety adjustment would significantly increase the cost of the saw, which may harm the company’s profit.

 

6. Personal Injury Lawyers

https://www.schmidtlaw.com/table-saw-amputation-lawyer/

6A. “Recently, a man who filed a table saw amputation lawsuit was awarded $1.5 million after the court found that table saw manufacturers were liable for not including the safety feature.”

6B. “Recently, a man who filed a table saw amputation lawsuit was awarded $1.5 million after the court found that table saw manufacturers were liable for not including the safety feature.”

6C. This quote makes a factual/quantitative claim.

6D. This quote cannot be disputed because it was an actual occurrence.

 

8. News Reporters

https://fcir.org/2013/05/16/power-tool-industry-circles-the-wagons-as-disabling-saw-injuries-mount/

8A. “Before SawStop, this fact alone would have made a successful lawsuit unthinkable.”

8B. The author claims that before the invention of SawStop, if saw guards were not used and there was a resulting injury, a lawsuit would be unsuccessful.

8C. This is an evaluative claim. After considering previously successful and unsuccessful lawsuits, the author noted that the company would be able to deflect any injury-related charges if the person filing the lawsuit had failed to use the safety guards.

8D. This claim is hard to refute. Major companies have many resources at their disposal to fight lawsuits. Also, probably even the most dim-witted lawyer would be able to think of the argument that if a person does not utilize safety guards, the injury is their fault. Only the invention of SawStop presents the new argument that better safety measures could have been taken, yet weren’t.

11. Amputees

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/table-saw-sawstop-safety-finger-cut/

11A. “He testified that after the blade sliced into his hand, he began running around in circles in the yard, screaming in pain and terror.”

11B. This claim is referring to Brandon Stollings, who cut off two of his fingers while he was in the process of installing flooring.

11C. This is a factual/evaluation claim. It paraphrases Stollings’s testimony.

11D. This claim is hard to refute because I was not present when Stollings’s injury took place nor when the trial took place, and cannot say for certain whether or not that was his testimony.

9. Steve Gass himself

https://fcir.org/2013/05/16/power-tool-industry-circles-the-wagons-as-disabling-saw-injuries-mount/

9A. “‘If the manufacturers had to pay the cost of those injuries,’ Gass said, ‘they would have adopted technology like this within months of the time they heard about it instead of looking for excuse after excuse to delay for year after year.'”

9B. “‘If the manufacturers had to pay the cost of those injuries,’ Gass said, ‘they would have adopted technology like this within months of the time they heard about it instead of looking for excuse after excuse to delay for year after year.'”

9C. This is a causal claim. If A. the manufacturers had to pay the costs, then B. They would have adopted new technology.

9D. This claim cannot be proven unless manufacturers are forced to pay the costs of the injuries, and it results exactly as Gass claimed it would. Until then, this claim can be dismissed as one man’s opinion.

 

Safer Saws- Myrtle View

Steve Gass

A. ” It [Saw Stop] will detect that [finger] in less than a thousandth in a second.”

B. Steve Gass claims that his power tool is able to stop itself from injuring a person because of its fast reflexes.

C. This claim Steve has made is an evaluation claim since he most likely tested the speed at which his power tool stops.

D. This claim along with the video proves the power tool credible for having quality and logic for making the tool sense parts of the body. However, it does not completely have reasonableness since Steve’s demonstration was orchestrated with care, he was not careless but cautiously inching his finger to the blade.

Manufacturers

A. “When skin contacts the blade, the signal changes because the human body is conductive.”

B. Manufactures claim that when the blade touches skin the machine stops because of signal changes reacting to the conductivity of the human body.

C. This claim is factual since the blade does stop when contact is made with skin.

D. This claim is reasonable, logical, and has quality because the power tool does what the manufacturers claim it does.

 

Power Tools Product Reviewers

A. “Logic dictates that this increase in accident rate on SawStop saws is due primarily to a user’s decision to use the blade guard less frequently due to a “sense of security” in having the SawStop flesh-sensing technology on the saw.”

B. Reviewers of the power tool SawStop claim that the tool has done more harm than good. According to users people feel more comfortable using the blade guard less often because of the tools technology.

C. This claim is an evaluation claim seeing that there would have to be data collected to make this statement.

D. This has quality and appears to be logical and reasonable claim since it is based on data collected from people who invest in the welfare of customers and the quality of products.

Government Officials

A. “The article got the attention of Commissioner Robert Adler, who hosted meetings this month with the Power Tool Industry, the trade group that is resisting adopting safety technology by arguing that it’s too expensive, that it’s unreliable, and that consumers don’t want it.”

B. According to government officials the power tool industry do not want to make safer power tools because they will cost too much money and will not make a profit.

C. This is a opinion claim since the industry has not tried advertising safer power tools in the market.

D. This claim is reasonable but illogical since this statement is based on an opinion on what consumers may want instead of actual data or evidence.

Personal Injury Lawyers

A. “Table saws cause more than 40,000 injuries every year. Approximately 10% of those injuries, or 4,000, result in amputations every year.”

B. Table saws cause more than 40,000 injuries every year. Approximately 10% of those injuries, or 4,000, result in amputations every year.

C. This claim is factual since it is based in statistics from a credited source.

D. This claim is reasonable, logical, and has quality since it explains how many people are effected by power tools in a year.

Safer Saws- LBirch

4A. Ten people every day – according the CPSC’s own data – have their fingers amputated in power saw accidents. 10 a day!  I’ve wanted to push the CPSC for a mandatory standard ever since hearing a story on NPR in May of 2006. The inventors of a saw that senses an electrical current in a finger, as opposed to a piece of wood, and stops before serious harm is done, named their company SawStop.

4B.

First: 10 people a day are losing their fingers due to saw innocents and this seems like a shocking statistic.

Second: This customer has been wanting to make a push for a safer, better saw with more precautions that gives users less risk of amputation of a finger. The author of this article has been wanting to do this for around five years.

Third: Inventors of this saw have made and designed something very different that no one else has made.

Fourth: This saw prevents severe injury, and with this new design, stops the saw completely.

4C. 

  • The first claim is a factual claim, stating that ten people are amputated every day due to a saw accident. This data comes from CPSC’s, Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is a reliable source for product information.
  • The second claim is causal claim and the author states that because of these accidents, he has been wanting a new standard of equipment. He has been wanting to do this since May of 2006, but we do not know if he has tried anything to make this equipment standard possible because he has only wanted to do this.
  • The third claim of new inventors finally making a product that can prevent amputations is causal. It claims that because of the need of a safer saw, the StopSaw was made with new technology that has never been used before.
  • The fourth claim is a claim of value. That if we have this new, safer product, serious harm will decrease. If the blade slightly comes in contact with you, an electrical current will stop the blade.

4D. 

  • The first claim can be flawed because of how this research was collected. We do not know how the CPSC collected their data even if they are a reliable commission and group.
  • The second claim, that the author has been wanting a new standard, is most likely accurate because of how alarming this stat seems.
  • The third claim, that new technology that senses electrical current is being made seems correct and reliable too. But with the limited information, we cannot decide how much this will prevent injuries.
  • The fourth claim the author makes seems to be his opinion. He states that the blade will stop before any serious injury is done is not backed up by sources or experiences.

Safer Saws – picklerick

A. Stephen Gass once stated, in an interview with Asa Christiana, “Obviously not everyone is going to spend $1000 or more on a table saw. But the question becomes can you put SawStop-like technology on smaller saws as well and what is the cost.”

B. Gass is making a claim which expresses that he is aware people have a tough time affording the SawStop, and because of this, he is working of finding a way to make it more affordable to lower the cost.

C. I feel like Gass’s claim could be considered an evaluative claim because he is evaluating the public’s inability to easily afford his SawStop invention and offering a solution to the issue.

D. I feel like his claim is very reasonable. The price of his SawStop seems to be one of its biggest problems, so it’s good he’s addressing it. This claim will probably persuade the public to keep tabs on Gass and on his improvements to the SawStop.

 

A. A user on LumberJocks forum named Bill Davis made a post about SawStop which stated, “I think it sends the wrong message about safety and at a pretty high cost to the user. That message is ‘you dont have to be so careful we’ll protect you’.”

B. He is making a claim that says, instead of relying on an expensive machine to keep you safe, you should just learn how to use normal saws responsibly.

C. This is an opinion claim. Bill Davis has the opinion that people should be able to care for their own safety enough not to rely on SawStop.

D. This claim is very persuasive in that it provides a counterargument to SawStop’s main goal. It will probably make people think twice before buying this machine purely for safety reasons.

E. I partly disagree with this claim because I feel like there situations where having every bit of safety possible is beneficial. Like if a company is relying on their employees to use saws responsibly, it would be in their best interest to use a SawStop. They don’t want to have to pay worker’s compensation. I do understand where Bill Davis is coming from though; it is a lot of money for a small safety precaution.

 

A. Myron Levin stated in an article about SawStop, “Each year, more than 67,000 U.S. workers and do-it-yourselfers suffer blade contact injuries, according to government estimates, including more than 33,000 injuries treated in emergency rooms and 4,000 amputations.”

B. “Each year, more than 67,000 U.S. workers and do-it-yourselfers suffer blade contact injuries, according to government estimates, including more than 33,000 injuries treated in emergency rooms and 4,000 amputations.”

C. This is a factual claim because Levin is just giving statistics.

D. I’m not sure how accurate this claim is, considering its statistics were taken from “government estimates.” These estimates could easily be wrong, disproving the claim. It is a logical claim, though, because it lets people know that lots of people suffer injuries from blades year round.

 

A. Carlos Osorio, a man who suffered from a terrible table saw injury, stated, “There was blood on my face, my body. It was everywhere. I was able to see my tendons.”

B. His injuries were very serious and gruesome.

C. This is a descriptive claim because Osorio is describing the scene after his injury from a table saw.

D. His claim is persuasive because it gives a detailed scene depicting what could happen if your hand slips when using a regular table saw. This could persuade people into buying the SawStop so that they can avoid this scenario.

 

A. There’s an article on thewoodwhisperer.com that reviews an alternative to SawStop. The alternative is called Whirlwind. The article says, about the Whirlwind, “The brake is triggered BEFORE you touch the blade, which means no stitches and no bandaids.”

B. This claim implies that the Whirlwind is superior to the SawStop because the blade retracts faster, making it safer.

C. This is a factual claim because it states a feature of the Whirlwind.

D. This claim is reasonable and logical, but I don’t think it’s very persuasive. People who are in the market for a safer saw will likely not care about such a minor aspect.

Safer Saws – PaulaJean5

2. Customers

2A. A testimonial from a SawStop customer: “This saw is everything I imagined the saw to be. It moves easily around in its stand. I feel safe using it.”

2B. This customer claims that the saw lives up to its standards.

2C. Type of claim: Evaluative

2D. I think this claim is valid as he states a reason why the saw is valuable and also adds in personal experience.

11. Amputees

11A. Hobbyist: “I’ve been doing this for years and never been hurt. That evening I spent 14 hours in surgery.”

11B. This individual is claiming that anybody can get hurt no matter how long you have been working with saws.

11C. Type of Claim: Ethical

11D. I think this claim is valid, but not complete. I think there needs more clarification on why the saw helped him. (or would help him)

5. Injured Plaintiffs

5A. “Every year, there are over 40,000 table saw injuries, resulting in more than 4,000 amputations.”

5B. This lawyer claims that out of all of the table saw injuries, 10% of them result in amputations.

5C. Type of Claim: Factual

5D. This claim is reasonable and definitely makes point.

2. Customers

2A. A customer stated, “I’m a happy camper and glad to recommend this saw to anyone. I am an Emergency Physician, and I’ve seen firsthand (no pun intended) several times over what a table saw can do to a hand- most recently last week. I didn’t need much convincing that I wanted a SawStop.”

2B. This customer is claiming that since he is a physician he knows what a table saw injury looks like.

2C. Type of Claim: Evaluative

2D. I think this claim is valid. The customer has experience on both sides of the situation as he is a doctor and uses a saw.

6. Personal Injury Lawyer

6A. “Only 20% of the injuries occur in people who are on the job, where injuries are usually covered by workplace accident insurance.”

6B. This lawyer is making the claim that 20% of the injuries occur in people who are on the job, which means the other 80% will most likely have to pay out of their own pockets for the injury they acquired.

6C. Type of Claim: Factual

6D. This claim is very valid and I think it makes a great point. Majority of the injuries caused by table saws are not going to get money to pay for their hospital costs.

 

Safer Saws- Ugandanknuckles

6A. An unnamed writer for the Schmidt Law Firm wrote, “Table saws cause more than 40,000 injuries every year. Approximately 10% of those injuries, or 4,000, result in amputations every year. Fingers, hands, and arms are the most common parts of the body that are amputated. Only 20% of the injuries occur in people who are on the job, where injuries are usually covered by workplace accident insurance.”

6b.

First: It lists the amount of injuries and some statistics about those injuries in an effort to push for more SawStop usage.

Second: The overall claim contains a claim that only a fraction of those injuries cause amputations

Third: It claims that the expected places of injury are the most common places of amputation.

Fourth: It claims that only a fifth of the people injured are on the job, somewhat discrediting the effectiveness of making SawStop mandatory for workplace usage.

6c. The first claim is a causal claim with X being table saws without SawStop and Y being 40,000 injuries per year.

The second claim is a factual claim about how many many injuries actually result in amputation. The wording is very plain and simple, without either side of the situation appearing to be supported.

The third claim is another factual claim. This is more of just restating what people already expect. The body parts nearest the saw are the ones most commonly amputated, as expected.

The fourth claim is yet another factual claim, this time serving to point out that only a fraction of the people injured by table saws are people on the job.

6d. The first claim is completely reasonable and honestly makes complete sense.

The second claim is as well reasonable and makes sense.

The third claim is kind of redundant. Maybe I’m just being too critical, but it seems pointless to mention that the parts of the body that interact with the table saw are the parts of the body that most often get amputated.

The fourth claim is astonishing and serves as a strong persuasive piece of their argument. The fact that only a fraction of the people injured are people at work should make companies want to implement SawStop more. People on the job are covered by insurance, while the common user is more likely to sue for lack of insurance coverage.

Refutation—davidbdale

Help if you need it.

The material I gathered to prepare for this Argument I have moved to a special section of my White Paper to illustrate the value of collecting all my sources in the WP, the repository of all things useful to my Research Position Paper.

What I Refute

My Refutation Argument examines the primary claims of the hypothesis I defended in my Definition Argument, that because polio is fundamentally unlike smallpox—which was eradicated in the 1960s—the differences make it nearly impossible to eradicate polio, ever.

dog-awake

The World Health Organization (WHO) and in particular its Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) have maintained for decades now that the eradication of smallpox strongly argues in favor of the eradicability of polio. They use that analogy to raise $1 billion a year for their efforts. I entirely applaud their audacious enterprise, but I question the quality of their analogy. In 1000 words, I argue that smallpox and polio ARE NOT similar enough for the comparison to hold.

If it sounds ridiculous to devote 1000 words to the OPPOSITE of my own hypothesis, you’re misunderstanding a crucial element of good argument. To persuade skeptics to your point of view, you must address and refute the strongest counterarguments. Ignoring them is fatal. Readers will merely humor you if you try to skirt the best refutations and never change their minds.

  1. My post will be about 1000 words before the References section.
  2. It will use in-text citations WITHOUT parentheses.
    • Please follow this model in your posts as well.
  3. It will use an APA-style References section
    • APA is the new style choice of the Writing Arts Department
    • I made mine for free using BibMe.com
  4. It will PRESENT but also REFUTE strong arguments against my hypothesis. It’s not AN OPPOSITION ARGUMENT, but a CONFIRMATION ARGUMENT that identifies objections to the hypothesis before re-affirming it.
  5. It’s a first draft, so it will embarrass me until I revise it.
  6. Once I revise it, it will be a second draft, still embarrassing but less so.
  7. Questions? Use the Reply field below this post.

Draft Rebuttal

The eradication of smallpox from planet Earth in 1980 by a worldwide immunization campaign raised unrealistic hopes that other diseases could be similarly vanquished. The exuberance of health professionals who set their sights immediately on polio, malaria, and cholera was understandable, but dangerous. If polio were identical to smallpox, the same techniques might suffice to eradicate it next. But if polio is fundamentally different, then the argument from analogy to smallpox fails, and efforts to eradicate polio, based on the argument that “it’s been done before,” could more than just fail; they could backfire catastrophically. The cost of the attempt is enormous, and the risk of failure is very high, so let’s examine the similarities between smallpox and polio and see if they augur success.

Several factors are considered essential to any eradication effort. Christopher Whitty, professor of public and international health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, identifies three. Others may count differently, but if polio and smallpox are sufficiently different in any category essential to eradication to void the comparison, the “did it before” argument will fail. In his Millroy Lecture “Eradication of Disease: Hype, Hope, Reality,” he names as the first pre-requisite: “effective interventions that alone or in combination can interrupt transmission of infection or at least take it well below R0 = 1 in all epidemiological settings.”

As Whitty explains it, R0 = 1 represents the situation where one infected person passes on the disease to just one other person who in turn does the same so that the disease stays stable in the population. At a minimum, then, interventions must exist that can prevent rapid spreading during an outbreak. In the best case, when the R0 can be forced below 1, local elimination and potential eradication can be achieved. For much of the world, local elimination has already been accomplished. In all but a few countries, no new cases of polio have been detected in decades. As described by Ganapathiraju, Morssink, and Plumb in “Endgame for Polio Eradication?“:

in 1955, polio paralysed and killed up to 500,000 people annually worldwide. Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) reduced polio transmission in the USA from 20,000 cases per year in the 1950s to around 1000 cases by the 1960s. [Since then,] polio worldwide has decreased from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to just 416 cases in 2013.

Such remarkable success—a 99.9% reduction in diagnosed cases in 30 years!—continues to encourage eradication advocates, including the Bill Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) that total triumph is inevitable, if not imminent. In fact, seemingly every year, when it solicits funding for its continuing effort, the GPEI announces a “game-changing” or “breakthrough” technology that will once and for all achieve the ultimate victory.

But that victory has so far proved elusive, perhaps because of fundamental differences between smallpox and polio. Again according to Whitty, to be eradicable, “the disease has to be easy to diagnose, preferably with minimal complex laboratory facilities.” But whereas schoolchildren were able to detect the last cases of smallpox among their classmates by casual external observations alone, they would be no help detecting polio, which can persist completely unnoticed in human hosts for decades without causing symptoms.

Fortunately for polio eradication advocates, Whitty’s third essential factor presents no challenge. Polio exists either in human hosts or not at all. There is no significant “wild animal reservoir” for the disease to harbor in between human hosts. But the final ironic difference between the smallpox and polio viruses is that polio uses humans as a sort of “animal reservoir,” and while it persists in unwitting human hosts, often subjected to repeated rounds of immunization efforts, it mutates, emerging as something no longer “wild,” but transformed into a “vaccine-derived virus.”

This last and perhaps most significant difference between smallpox and polio may be the distinction that finally tips public sentiment against spending staggeringly large sums to eliminate a disease that presently afflicts so few. As reported in “The Art of Eradicating Polio” by Leslie Roberts, a Nigerian boy recently voiced the bewilderment of his country in a conversation with Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health. “Why do they bring only polio vaccine when we get no help with all our other problems? And are you going to force us to take it?” he asked. His question illustrates a reluctance that is increasingly difficult to surmount among populations whose children die by the thousands from diarrhea.

The longer the final stage of eradication drags on the more challenges it faces. Despite impressive successes, and there have been many, setbacks seem maddeningly inevitable. Alwan and Maher report, in 2016, in “Closer to a Polio-Free Eastern Mediterranean Region” that

WHO alone has more than doubled the size of the teams working on polio in the two countries since the start of 2014, and now has nearly 2500 technical and operational experts in the field . . . only 30 cases of polio have been recorded by Pakistan (18 cases) and Afghanistan (12 cases) combined so far in 2016 – a far cry from the 334 cases recorded by these countries in 2014.

Yet, according to Svea Closser’s “We Can’t Give Up Now: Global Health Optimism,” after worldwide spending of nearly $1 billion again in 2016, the fight did not end. Neither did another billion accomplish the goal in 2017. One must ask, as many governments, private foundations, public health professionals, and that Nigerian boy already have, “How much longer can we justify spending so much of our scarce resources on a disease that most of the world has not seen in decades?”

Even success, if it’s achieved, might not be success. As Closser warns us, “When smallpox was declared eradicated, countries could decide independently whether or not to stop vaccinating. For polio, this approach could prove disastrous.” The cheaper OPV vaccines are a double-edged sword. They are favored for mass inoculations and millions of doses are delivered every year, preventing countless cases of polio. But they deploy “weakened live virus strains” that can “evolve to reacquire the ability to cause paralytic disease and to spread. Outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses have occurred before [in 11 countries since 2000]; more are virtually inevitable.”

It’s even possible that vaccine-derived viruses could evolve to mimic the three “wild” polio viruses we’ve taken such pains to eradicate. If that happens, according to Closser, “the gains from interrupting wild polio transmission will be lost; the entire effort will only have succeeded in replacing one set of viruses with another.”

References

Alwan, A., & Maher, C. (2016). Closer to a polio-free Eastern Mediterranean Region. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 22(9), 645-646. doi:10.26719/2016.22.9.645

Closser, S. (2012). We Can’t Give Up Now. Medical Anthropology, 31(5).

Ganapathiraju, P. V., Morssink, C. B., & Plumb, J. (2015). Endgame for polio eradication? Options for overcoming social and political factors in the progress to eradicating polio. Global Public Health, 10(4), 463-473. doi:10.1080/17441692.2014.994655

Roberts, L. (2013, October). The art of eradicating polio. Science, 342(6154).

Whitty, C. J. (2014, August 01). Milroy Lecture: Eradication of Disease: Hype, Hope and Reality. Retrieved March 18, 2018, from http://www.clinmed.rcpjournal.org/content/14/4/419.full

Safer Saws- DudeInTheBack

Analyzing the claims made by Steve Gass (9) in

9a. Steve Gass “…there’s about 60,000 medically treated accidents treated on table saws every year.”

9b. Every year, there is about 60,000 incidents where someone needs medical attention resulting from a table saw accident.

9c. This claim seems factual. If he was making this up, it obviously would not be factual. I would like to see proof of this, but I believe Steve. Its an evaluation of how many people have been effected by table saws, and had to seek medical attention every year.

9d. This seems like a logical claim to make in his case. he is justifying the importance of his invention by giving a fact of why this invention is necessary. if this is true that 60,000 people have had an accident due to table saws every year, it makes sense to push out a safety stopper. A quality claim to show the dangers of table saws.

 

9a. Steve Gass “The system can tell the difference between your finger and the wood.”

9b. This machine that I invented can tell the difference between a human finger, and a piece of wood.

9c. This claim is an evaluation of what his machine is capable to accomplish. This claim would not hold true if Steve did not put his finger in it as proof later ion the video. Proving his claim, this claim is factual. suggesting it is okay for a finger to be caught in the blade rotation.

9d. This is a claim that seems true, but I would not want to try it out. This claim is only persuasive because he proves it later on. If someone were to show me the blade in full motion, and told me that it would detect a finger and stop, I would not believe it. This claim is also the main aspect of his invention. a machine that is able to detect a finger.

 

9a. Steve Gass “It felt a little like a, I don’t know, a buzz or a tickle almost.”

9b. When I put my finger in the saw blade, when it stopped it felt like a buzz, or a tickle.”

9c.  This is Steve’s opinion. Everyone feels pain differently, and to him, what felt like a buzz or a tickle to someone else might hurt more. This cannot be proved also, only to him it could feel like a buzz. He could also be lying to make his product sell.

9d. considering the fact that Steve put his finger in, and it stopped on a dime, I could believe him. before he said this, the video showed the finger in the blade in slow motion. it did not cut him, nor did he wince when it hit his finger. It looked painless, but it still is not that convincing. It still hits you, and if you’re a person that cant take pain, you might really be unhappy.

 

CLAIM BY SawStop official company http://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop/the-technology

1a.  SawStop website “The blade carries a small electrical signal, which the safety system continually monitors.”

1b. the blade has a small conductor on each blade, which carries an electrical signal to detect a finger”

1c. This is a fact. the blade has a small conductor, which gets set off when a wet finger comes in contact with it. This is a fact because it can be/ has been proven.

1d. The claim states just what it needs to prove why the system works. The main task the system is responsible for is to conduct electricity to stop. I am fully persuaded that the blade carries a small electrical signal, which the safety system continually monitors.

 

1a. website “An aluminum brake springs into the spinning blade, stopping it in less than 5 milliseconds!”

1b. An aluminum brake spring can stop the mechanism in less than 5 milliseconds.

1c. This claim seems factual. I would like to see proof of this, but I believe the claim. It is an evaluation of the skillset of the machine. saying that it will stop in less than 5 milliseconds is a big claim, and might not seem believeable, but if it is a fact this is pretty impressive.

1d. This claim is right in the beinning of the website section on how the machine works. I wish I could have proof for these claims, but I just have to take the websites word for it. I guess if they said it took 3 milliseconds to stop, I would also believe it.