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LECTURE TWO

Culture which has many different definitions in the social sciences. Perhaps the most commonly is said to be "shared learned behavior". However, one has to notice that the word "culture" refers to different things. There is culture - a kind of abstract idea that is had by all societies. Then there is culture which varies from one society to another. Some people use the term "high culture" to refer to things like opera or going to museums. This last is generally seen as a part of a culture but not what social scientists mean by the term. One can compare the two meanings of culture - a general one and a specific one to the word "language" as well. All human societies have language (the general form) and each society has a specific language. So German, Chinese, Japanese, Bantu, Nadene and so on are all languages, but they are also all different. We can say they are all languages because they share something in common (even though speaking one does not let you understand the other). Whatever they have in common is what lets us call them "languages". What they have in common is called "language" as well. It is the same with "culture". Some writers write the "general" form with upper case letters ("Language" and "Culture") whereas the specific ones are written with lower case letters (i.e. "language" and "culture"). Another definition of culture involves “symbols”. In symbolism one thing stands for another in an arbitrary way. The word “dog” is s symbol for the dog while the footprint of the dog is a “sign” of the dogs (the relationship between a sign and the referent is no arbitrary but intimate)

One of the first things scientists have to do when they start an investigation is to define their terms. We often distinguish 3 kinds of definitions - a "usage definition" (what people usually say and are found in dictionaries); "technical definitions" which are those made by specific groups of people (often scientists) with very specific meanings and "operational definitions" which are those being refined on their way to being technical definitions. Definitions are not carved in stone or given from on high. Technical definitions are made to help define specific phenomenon to help understand something.

Technical definitions can be at odds with usage ones. "Myth" for example, is often meant in usage to be something untrue. "That's just a myth". But for folklorists and social scientists who deal with narratives, "myths" are defined technically as stories which are "believed to be true and sacred" making the technical definition almost the opposite of the usage one1

Science differs from religion in several ways. Perhaps the most important is its interest in testing its conclusions. As more data emerges which contradicts existing wisdom, the scientists revise their ideas.

Scientists start with data - a problem that needs and explanation. Scientists create hypotheses which try to explain the phenomenon. As some may be discarded scientists hope to come up with a good answer. If a hypothesis survives many "attacks" it may become a "theory" which is a stronger position than a hypothesis. Ultimately it may become "a law" If new data should appear that indicates any of these is no longer capable of explaining the new data, it will be discarded, altered or hopefully replaced by a better explanation. Science does not give the "last word" on the subject but simply the best possible answer at the moment. This has ramifications into society in that governments often spend huge amounts of money on projects that are based on scientific laws. So it is not just a relationship between society and the ocean, but society and science as well.

There is also a problem with unforeseen occurrence. Sometimes when one acts, things might occur that were unexpected. Scientists are aware of this and are often more conservative in deciding to put plans into operation because there can be unforeseen consequences.

In addition, the impact of decisions on society in general are hard to predict and there are ethical and moral implications of both taking action and not taking action which are not easily evaluated and don't fall into the scientific method.

In some cases, what appear to be rather small changes have had enormous consequences and some rather extensive changes seem to have very few. Introducing a species of animal from one place to another creates an "invasive species". When the American honey bee became extinct, European honey bees were imported, it was beneficial. More recently the hybridized African bee has been accidently introduced and has generated problems. One type of bee introduction was fine, another not so.

Feral cats (feral means the animals live among people but not as pets. They are also not wild which implies virtually no human involvement) are not indigenous to the US but are introduced and hence invasive. While many people think they cute and give them food and milk on the street, the cats are responsible for the extinction of several species of birds.

So while people respond to the ocean in many ways, one is scientific. There is a desire understand what they observe in and around the ocean. Certainly the regular rising and falling of the tides would have been noticed by any people living by the ocean. Sometime during the day the ocean would come up much further on the shore than at other times. Sometime during the month the water would come very far up the shore. One can talk about high tides and low tides and even higher high tides and lower low tides! These cycle through about once a month. People quite early noticed there was a connection of some sort between another monthly cycle - that of the moon. So one rather natural question - what causes the water to have tides, has resulted in a hypothesis which links the moon to the tides.

One of the first things that we would notice is that in addition to emotional, artistic and symbolic approaches to the ocean, there is a scientific response which involves questioning the way the water of the ocean behaves. First we need to define some of the "zones" or "areas" of the ocean. Moving out from the shore, the ocean floor slopes down along a "continental shelf" and then drops off into the ocean depths.

First, one notices at the shore, there is a place where the water comes at "high tide" and where it is at "low tide". This is a part of the shore which is referred to as intertidal and is sometimes underwater and sometimes not. Sometimes it is called the littoral zone. Following that is the neritic zone, which extends to the point where the continental shelf begins to descend rapidly. which is defined, not by a specific distance from the shore which is consistent, but rather, Following the Littoral zone comes the zone where the water column is over the continental shelf. This is called the neritic zone.

Everything after that is called pelagic

In addition to the above zones which are measurements from the shore, there is also a classification of the water column vertically.

The uppermost level of the water is called epipelagic (one top of the ocean) or euphotic (good light). This is the depth that sunlight can reach. This means in some places, if the water is very clear and not turbid, the depth may be much deeper than places where there is a good deal of material in the water and the light cannot penetrate as far. Usually it is about 50 to 100 meters deep but may go as deep as 200 meters. The reason this is important has to do with the fact that "autotrophs" (organisms that can manufacture their own food) usually need light to perform photosynthesis. They contrast with "heterotrophs" which are animals that need to consume food. The idea of primary production (the start of the food chain) is very critical for life in general

Once again the emphasis here is on how well light can penetrate the water.

Below this epipelagic level is the mesopelagic level. This is sometimes called the dysphotic (badly lit) zone. There is enough light for animals to see, but not enough for photosynthesis. This is seen as going into total darkness at aout 1000 meters

Still deeper is the Bathypelagic (sea deep) or aphotic (no light) zone where there is no light. The abyssal plain which forms the bottom of the ocean (aside from deep trenches or canyons reaches to a depth of about 6000 meter.

Some scientists have also used the word hadalpelagic (Sea of Hades) zone to refer to the ocean waters in the deep trenches, the deepest of which is the Mariana Trench in which the deepest point is known as the "Challenger Deep".