Medicine (Surgery)

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A new desire in plastic surgery patients is to preserve their racial identity. They do not want to undergo procedures that will alter a characteristic feature of their particular ethnic group. The goal of the surgeons who perform these operations is to achieve beauty without losing ethnic character. By doing this, patients can feel better about their appearance while still holding on to their identity. The traditional procedures may change the way a person feels about him or herself because of a   completely different look. The new procedures most likely will give the patients confidence about their appearance without giving them guilt about abandoning their heritage. Plastic surgery procedures certainly change appearance and in some cases the improvement in appearance gives the patients new found confidence. Therefore it serves to improve their inner identities as well. In the movies, characters undergo major appearance changing surgeries to go under cover on a mission without getting recognized, for instance. In these unrealistic portrayals of plastic surgery, the patients can become unidentifiable by even their friends and family. However, even after undergoing the most drastic of procedures, a person’s true identity can never be mistaken by those who know the person well.

Identification of Species

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Why do we need names? Is their only purpose for identification? Imagine if every person in the world was called homo sapien sapien . This idea might sounds crazy, but scientific names are used to classify every member of a species. Why, then, do we as humans, need names? Names establish identity. They give people a sense of self and give people a possession that nobody can take away. They are not only meant for classification but so that people can feel sympathetic for you. What if you were an animal and you had no name? What if people only knew you as Felis Domesticus? Nobody could feel  for you because you would sound distant and sharing few similarities with people. That is why we not only call them cats, but take it a step further and give or pets names, like the familiar Garfield for instance. Due to the unfamiliarity of the scientific names of species, we have a hard time caring about them. The names given to species by the process of binomial nomenclature are necessary to scientists and help for identification purposes in the lab, but we non-scientists have a hard time being sympathetic towards them. In the UK, a competition was held to name 10 endangered species. The results were fantastic and over 3000 people submitted names for all different types of creatures in danger of becoming extinct. This contest, though on the surface appearing to be a fun way to find new names, allowed regular people to identify with different species. By giving them names like "The Queen’s Executioner"  or "The Kaleidescope Jellyfish,"  people can now have more empathy for fellow inhabitants of Earth.

Works Cited

http://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/columnists/jessica-damiano/garden-detective-botanical-name-system-1.2749883
http://www.goldiesroom.org/Multimedia/Bio_Images/02%20Classification/03%20Classification%20of%20a%20Species.jpg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jul/16/name-a-species-winners:
http://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/columnists/jessica-damiano/garden-detective-botanical-name-system-1.2749883