Analysis of Biblical Criticism -First-

Where will the scholarly research on religion lead us? Biblical criticism has rapidly become a major subject of study these days and many scholars around the world are now engaging in this field regardless of their own belief. On the other hand, there are some religious groups in which honest religious critique are never forgiven. For example, in Islam which is the second largest religion, criticizing the Koran, its own sacred book, is definitely unacceptable. The series of the Satanic Verses incidents reminded us of Islam’s strict “protective” culture. On the contrary, in Christian world, theologians who belong to the Christian community sometimes are more aggressive when it comes to criticizing the Holy Scriptures than scholars of other religions are. Today, every element in Christian traditions have been deeply discussed and researched without any restrictions. In this essay, we will scrutinize some of the arguments which have caused a lot of controversy among scholars. Firstly, we will focus on the influence of “Geocentrism” on the Bible by examining the commentaries of Robert J. Schadewald who is a former president of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). In addition, the discussions over the biblical “vaticinium ex eventu”, which means "prophecy from the event", is one of the main topics that this examination deals with. Moreover, the hypothesis about the crucifixion of Jesus will also come into play. These subjects will help us to understand the essence of the Biblical criticism.

How do we learn languages?

(*Japanese Essay)

言語によるコミュニケーションは、地球上の生き物の中で、人間のみが持ちうる最大の特徴である。アメリカの言語学者ノーム・チョムスキーによれば、人間は、生まれたときにはすでに、言語を持つために必要なあらゆる能力を、誰に教わるわけでもなく、兼ね備えているとされる。（Universal language）　その一方、年を重ねるごとに、言語を新たに習得することは次第に困難となり、母国語のみしか理解することができない人も多くいる。それゆえ、容易に言語を覚えることのできる幼児期を過ぎた後は、膨大な時間と労力を、言語の会得には費やさねばならなくなる。
         人間における言語発達は、まず、音声を発することから始まる。生後0～4週間の乳児の場合は、産声や叫喚などであるが、これが生後8～10ヶ月になると、「ジャーゴン」と呼ばれる本人のみ理解できる言語を発するようになる。そして、生後10～13ヶ月には、特定の単語を単発で話すことにより、自らの意思を示すことが可能になる。これらの言語習得の過程において、子供たちが聞く言葉の量と質、および周辺の環境から与えられる一貫した教育が、子供の言語行動を大きく左右することが知られている。　幼少期において、言語と常に触れ合いを持つことは、言語を獲得することにおいて、非常に重要なことである。また、言語のみならず、子供たちの周りにいる大人たち、（特に両親）による、幼児への表情（フェイシャルエクスプレッション）やフィジカルコンタクトも、人間の言語成長に大きな役割を果たすことが指摘されている。ある研究では、これらの時期に、適切なコミュニケーションを得ることが出来なかった子供たちは、言語の習得に著しい障害をきたすと報告されている。

　　　　　言語習得能力同様に、幼少期における人間の認知機能の発達についても、これまで多くの学者により調査がおこなわれ、数多くの有力な学説が唱えられてきた。それらのなかでも、スイスの言語学者であり、心理学者でもあったジャン・ピアジェによって提唱された発生的認識論（Genetic epistemology）は、「人間の知識は全て構成されるもの」という構成主義（Constructivism）を、その論拠の礎にそなえ、発達は固体と環境の相互作用によるものであると論じた。この説では、幼少期の発達段階が四段階にわけて説明されている。第一段階（Period 1）は、誕生してから二歳になるまでの期間を示し、「感覚運動期」と呼ばれる。この時期の幼児は、まだ物を正しく認識する能力に欠いており、物体の普遍性を理解するに至らない。ゆえに、物体がベールなどで覆われてしまうと、それが実際に消えてしまったかのような反応を見せる。第二段階（Period 2）は、二歳から七歳までの期間を示し、「前操作期」と呼ばれる。この期間では、幼児は言葉を覚え始めると共に、「ごっこ遊び」のような記号的機能を持つようになる。他者の視点に立った物事の見方も出来るようになる。第三段階（Period 3）は、「具体的操作期」とされ、前期と比べて、より正確な物事の把握が可能となり、数や量を概念としてとらえることができ、合理的な判断ができるようになる。「形式的操作期」と呼ばれる、第四段階（Period 4）では、形式的・象徴的操作が可能になり、仮説的思考ができるようになる。このような段階を経て、人間は世界を少しずつ理解していく。
　　　　　もしも、私たちが、常に、生まれたばかりの赤ん坊のような、言語習得力を保ち続けることができるのならば、言語の持つべき意味合いは、現在と比べ、大きく変わるだろう。人間がいかなる言語も覚えられる期間が、生まれてからのわずかな期間しか許されていないということからみて、私たちの言語習得能力は、多くの言語を扱うことよりも、一つの言語（特に母国語）を短期間に覚えようとすることに特化しているようにも思える。旧約聖書の逸話によれば、「バベルの塔」が建てられたころ、人間は皆同じ一つの言語を使っていたとされるが、これらの複雑な人間の言語習得の過程は、それらバベル期の名残を表しているようにも感じられるほど、不可思議なものである。

7. References

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6. Conclusion

This investigation proved that the technique of the Sentimental Analysis can be a new method of the evaluation for the various social issues in the near future. There also were two main themes other than Sentimental Analysis in this paper. One is the media influence on the public opinions. The other one is the people's reactions towards the Syrian refugee crisis that has been discussed in the western world ever since it happened. As for the media impact on the people's emotion, the result that the media coverage does not affect the public opinion so much was so surprising because the media has long been seen as the most influential information source.

So many possible reasons can be assumed for this public aversions to the big media. For one thing, these days ordinary people tend to take what they think is good and leave what they think is bad when it comes to choosing information sources.

Social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook in which people can exchange their opinions freely without any hesitations, the increase floods of unreliable and provocative mini media and the distrust of the major news companies' honesty have created the current strange social emotions. Inexplicable events like the realization of Brexit or the Trump's winning for the Presidential election show a glimpse of the upcoming new era where the exact future foresee becomes much more difficult than it used to be. Though people nowadays are willing to aggressively collect the information they are interested in, those actions might lead them to a heavy concentration on the extremely biased opinion. What is more, it is liable to raise the ancient populism which brought us many conflicts in the past generations. "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it (Dietrich, 2016)" The famous proverb of Joseph Goebbels who was an ill-famed propagator of Nazi somehow tells us that complicated entanglement of information might be beneficial to the demagogues who want the society to be in chaos.

The target of the warning is not limited to our humans. The other day, Microsoft released an artificial intelligence chatterbot called "Tay". It used Twitter to learn various knowledge from interaction with other users. However, within few hours from its start, it became a vicious racist due to the malicious interference from others (“Microsoft”, 2016). This incident suggested that the AI system has many flaws in it. On the other hand, it is quite certain that the machine learning techniques will make great progress within next few decades. For example, the Sentimental Analysis will absorb similar fields' methods like "voice sentimental recognition", "facial expression analysis", "psychological sentimental analysis" and things like that. Then the new sentimental analysis method which might be called "Integrated Sentimental Analysis" will be established in the near future. "Integrated Sentimental Analysis" can be used for software like Apple's Siri to analyze humans' feelings more accurately or it will be important technology for androids' humanization. It seems that the day when the machines can dream of Electric Sheep may not far away from now.

5-2. The media trend over the Syrian Refugee Crisis

 As a result, the Net-tone became worse dramatically after February 2016 (Fig 2-2, 2-3 and 2-4). The investigations on BBC media trend also exposed a different aspect of public emotions. The research question of this paper was “How have the public reactions changed as the trends of the media coverages have shifted?” The hypothesis for that was “The more there are negative headlines about refugees, the worse the public image towards them becomes”. However, the outcome of the survey was totally beyond expectations and it showed the inner complex matters that this subject potentially has. According to the three surveys conducted by YouGov in June, September and November 2015, the public sentiments towards refugees in the U.K. consistently were deteriorating during the period. In the inquiry of June 2015 (“Nearly Half of Britons”, 2015), 42% of the respondents said that those migrants escaping from conflict or persecution should not be welcomed to the U.K. From the result, it can be guessed that the Syrian refugee crisis split the U.K. public opinion into two at that time. One of the most surprising things that the analysis find is that the drowned boy incident affected the English people not so much at all. The survey of September 2015, which is soon after the tragic event, told that about 51 percent of the answerers showed their negative stance towards refugees. The pessimistic image towards the displaced people become much stronger after the incident. Even though the media trend calculated by Net-tone expressed sympathy about the situation of the Syrian refugees due to the incident, the public emotions seems to be never interfered with it. In addition, it seems that the Paris terrorist attack which never influenced the media trend played a crucial role to corrupt the refugees' public image. After the terror act, as reported by YouGov research, almost 72 percent of the people who participated in the survey replied that they had negative sentiments against those outsiders (Dahlgreen, 2015). The reaction of the respondents certainly indicate that the general people rarely distinguish the refugees from terrorists like the media usually tries to do. Not only that, it implies that even the sympathetic event like the drowned boy incident might give a boost of fear and hatred against those migrants. The public psychology could be seen in the transition of the approval rating for political parties. From the data which YouGov posts on its website, the comparison between conservative party and UKIP on their public support was made.

Though the conservative party, which is the ruling party led by David Cameron, gained the constant approval rating, the UKIP, which is famous for the anti-EU and anti-refugee policy, increased the support from citizens in the U.K every month (Fig 2-5). Every pivotal incidents related to the refugees seems to contribute to the support for UKIP. The above has led to the conclusion that the big incidents related to the refugee crisis have an effect on the media trend to some extent depending on whether they can be sympathetic or not. On the other hand, the public mind is not seemingly influenced by the media tone expressed in their news headlines. This would be because these days there are so many news sources such as Twitter and Facebook and those people tend to be skeptical about the major news coverages. 

5-1. The media trend over the Syrian Refugee Crisis

（*Some Figures and pics are omitted due to copyright issues）

　　The most significant thing this survey revealed is that the media coverages are likely to be affected by the crucial events. The Net-tone values in June and August 2015 are lower than -0.5, which means the BBC news coverages at that times were treating the Syrian refugee crisis as negative subjects. Those numbers fall below the every Net-tone indicators which Bleich's thesis shows. (Fig 2-1) Originally, it has been said that the U.K. media tends to be conservative (“British people,” 2016). As proof of the national nature, the Prime Minister David Cameron described the massive inflow of the displaced people from the Middle East as "swarm" (“David Cameron criticised,” 2015). 

The tide of the U.K. media attitudes vastly changed due to the tragic event in September 2015. The incident was brought by one photo which depicts the drowned refugee child named "Alan Kurdi". This news quickly spread across the world and forced many politicians to alter their cold stances towards Syrian refugees. Only few days after the sorrowful news, Cameron immediately reversed his previous remarks and announced the acceptance of those migrants. (“David Cameron: UK,” 2015)

As a result of the movement, the media trend was also affected by the death of the Syrian boy. The Net-tone in October and December clearly improved and the total number of "Negative headlines" also decreased. The remarkable portion is that the November terrorist attack in Paris conducted by terrorist who disguised themselves as refugees from Syria seemed to be no effect on the media trend. On the contrary, the survey of the December showed the most sympathetic and lenient response in this research periods. This trait obviously suggests that BBC tried to avoid mixing up refugees who searched for the haven and terrorists who wanted to destroy European countries. Under such circumstances, it is highly likely that they began to depict the migrants more compassionately. The same phenomenon was reported by Bleich's paper saying that after the crucial events by terrorist the stance of media towards the related people like Muslims tends to be more positive-orient. However, the 2016 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany decidedly influenced the media trend quite negatively. Unlike the previous two incidents, this disgusting event was carried out by the ordinary male migrants. Therefore, it damaged not only the Germans' feeling towards refugees but also their credibility. Then the Net-tone, which had formerly continued to improve, suddenly began to decrease terribly after the episode was reported by the major media. There was no similar sympathetic signs that the media trend showed after the past incidents possibly because the sexual assaults in Germany was treated as a social problem of refugees themselves. Another presumed reason for the abrupt change of the media attitude towards the migrants would be the heavy criticism against the news coverages from the local people. Some people in German seriously thought that the media tried to cover up the New Year’s crime in order not to increase the social tensions over the refugee crisis. Those harsh opinions might make the stance of the news companies more negative against the new comers. (“Cover-up' over,” 2016)

4. Methodology, Research Question and Hypothesis

The primal objective of this thesis is to find out how the media trend changed over the Syrian refugee crisis based on BBC website news headlines. For attain the goal, three incidents related Syrian refugees are taken up as pivotal events which altered the tide of public sentiments. Those targeted episodes are "September 2nd 2015 Death of Alan Kurdi", "November 2015 Paris attacks" and "2016 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany". The investigation was made into the media trend over the period from June, 2015 to April, 2016 so that the survey term can cover all the tragedies.

In terms of the research techniques, there are already some methods to analyze the media trend from news coverages. For example, NET-Tone indicator which is introduced by Erik Bleich and his team is a quite efficient way to calculate the emotions of the news titles. Initially, this technics was considered as a main analysis method for this exploration. However, as the research progressed, some problems began to appear. The most serious issue was that getting the proper assessment for "positive" headlines was much harder than expected as proved in the previous section. Without the precise perception for "positive" elements, the credibility of "Net-tone" would be damaged tremendously.

As a result, this time, we decided to create the original simple procedure for this thesis to calculate the index which focus only on negative value. First of all, 50 titles of the suitable BBC articles from June, 2015 to April, 2016 were collected every two months. Secondly, every news headlines were split into three categories "positive", "negative" and "neutral" by the three programs. After that, from the result, only the extreme “negative” headlines which all three software indicate them as negative were counted for every selected month. In the end, those outcomes were compared with each other and other information so as to unravel the movement of the media trend. Some people might think that the number of the samples are too small in order to calculate the emotional value. However, given the fact that Nielsen Media Research has used only 5,000 households to calculate the nearly 100 million American’s TV viewing rate precisely for many years, the sample number of 50 headlines for each month would not be so small (Eric T. Olson & Tammy Perry Olson, 2000, p. 14).

The research questions for this thesis is “How have the public reactions changed as the trends of the media coverages have shifted?” The hypothesis for this query is that the increase of the news reports which contains negative elements towards the refugees will contributed the deterioration of their public image.