Essay
Did you know that you could use peanuts to make SHAMPOO? Yes, I'm being entirely real here, you can use things like peanuts to make a lot of useful products like shampoo, oil, and even plastics! This was all popularized by George Washington Carver (Also known as Peanut Man), an African-American agricultural scientist, using makeshift tools1 and spare materials! Now imagine something with me: If he was able to make things like peanut leather and shampoo using makeshift tools, then what do you think he could do with more modern science equipment? In my opinion, if he were to get modern scientific tools, he would have been able to discover much more uses for things such as peanuts than what he had discovered using just makeshift tools and scrap materials, being able to revolutionize agricultural sciences even more than what we could think of!
Although Carver worked in a University, he had almost no materials or research equipment to work with due to limited funding. Even with the limited materials and research equipment he had, he still managed to make many uses of crops such as the peanut and the sweet potato, such as peanut leather and peanut glue. Such can be seen in Npshistory's brochure of Carver's peanut products1, where it states how Carver made Rubber, Leather, and even Plastics from peanuts. This shows how he, even with little, still managed to make a lot of useful products, such as rubber, plastics, and leather, from products such as peanuts.
Now, if Carver had more modern scientific tools, he would most likely be able to discover much more than what he discovered using makeshift tools. The fact that he was already able to discover all the things he did discover, such as leather, diesel, plastics, and other things shows that he had the potential to do so much more. We can see the potential of modern technology with new technologies such as AI. With the advent of AI, scientists, and thus biologists, lives have gotten much easier, being able to automate most of the mundane or complex tasks for them, allowing them to focus more on actually experimenting and making new inventions. This would most likely help with Carver’s work, as it would take out most of the bore and dislike he had of detailed reports, as said in CS Lewis institute 3, saying: “Mr. Washington, Carver quickly discovered, was a stickler for detailed reports, which Carver had little use for. He wanted money to develop his laboratory, assistants to help him in his growing responsibilities, and a certain amount of freedom to develop things the way he chose.” This shows how Carver would benefit from modern scientific tools, as he would be able to complete the more mundane tasks of his work much more easily.
In all, George Washington Carver had been an amazing scientist, one for his time, and espically for the African-American community. If he had the tools that we have today, he might have been able to popularize/discover much more products with peanuts and sweet potatoes than we knew today. As well as such, he might have been able to revolutionize agriculture more than we could have ever thought of!
References
- https://npshistory.com/publications/tuin/brochures/carver-peanut-prods.pdf
- https://www.usda.gov/oascr/carver
- https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/george-washington-carver-1860-1943/
Criticism
It feels weird imo.
Personally, while writing it, it didn't really feel like it was, nor did it have to, be an essay.
It also feels like it doesn't have enough content or real information in it either.