BIOLOGY 103 FALL, 2003 FORUM 3

as we watched the screen on friday, and the earth got farther and farther away, and we travelled into first the milky way, then began to see other galaxies, the comment was made, we are all made of star dust, and that the sun will eventually explode or burn out. in an earlier class that morning, a teacher had pointed out that we, as humans, are on the road to extinction. not only did these two classes make me,a s a human, feel tiny and miniscle, but it also questions my beliefs.

many of us are raised with certain religious values and beliefs. some of us question these beliefs, some wander from them, and some follow blindly. i guess i would categorize myself in all three.

in bio 103, we are asked to define life and the living for ourselves. its hard not to draw from earlier conceptions of evolutionary processes or religious beliefs. can a biological view, an anthropological view, and a religious view all mesh to form one theory?

life : the condition which distinguishes active animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

essence : the indispensable quality or element identifying a thing or determining its character; fundamental nature or inherent characteristics.

life essence as the potential capacity of fulfilling given capacities or individual traits?

does life essence exist before the actual birth of a plant or human?

So what of eliminating scientific bias? Well, we can't do that. However, it seems the more we observe and know, the smaller our bias becomes. The worm who sees a tree-top reduces his bias in perceiving that the world consists of more than dirt. For people, I think, technology has been a great reducer of bias -bringing us one level closer to objectivity than would unaided observation alone. Still, it is troubling to me that even though we humans can stand back and gaze at the entire universe (a seeming picture of objectivity), we will still be seeing it through our eyes.
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Looking back on our reconstruction of the "scientific method," it occurs to me that the everyday sequence of make observations -> summarize observations -> repeat also speaks to way in which living organisms, according to old Biology textbooks, "respond to stimuli." The textbooks assert than any living organism must respond to stimuli like cold, shock, water, food and so on. So ... look at this. Say a turtle is basking in the sun. It observes [sunshine] and summarizes its observations [good for basking]. But then it starts to rain! The turtle makes new observations [rainfall, wet] and constructs a new summary [bad for basking]. It then responds to the latest summary of observations by withdrawing into its shell. Alternatively, a white blood cell stays calm as long as it observes no intruders, but when it observes a germ, it attacks. Simlple S-R (stimulus-response) functioning. Is that so very different from the observe -> summarize cycle of science? It's much faster when it's pysiological, but aren't the steps the same? Is science really a human construction? If all babies are scientists from birth, why not all organisms? Is the process of scientific inquiry innate in all life? Certainly, white blood cells do not perform in the name of "science." So ... what's the difference?

I just thought of something: our class definition of the scientific method did not involve acting. It involved only observing and summarizing (or thinking). What we learn through science might not actually change the way we act. Consciousness intervenes between perception and reaction; in simple S-R sequences consciousness might not play a part.

In that case: does the pursuit of science have to be conscious? Because that's the major difference between human inquiry and the reactions of a cell. And, if conscious, must we know we're doing science in order for it to count? Probably not. Babies don't know it.

From a Theater Major's standpoint: I think a little differently about the world around me, and am quite pleased that this homepage features quotes by theater heavies Stoppard and Brecht, both of whom occupy an existentialist / Heiddegarian outlook on life. Brecht had an idea of social theater (not unlike Grobstein's social based learning for this class) where the theater is not merely a source of entertainment, but for education, mostly political. The main idea was alienation from the characters so as not to sympathize or be moved by their plight, but to THINK and QUESTION as the familiar suddenly becomes strange. Through keeping an emotional distance from the events onstage, the audience was allowed to "break the illusion of the theatre." He created EPIC theater, which is essentially, thought over emotion: a new kind of spectatorship.
In response to Nomi's question, science is everywhere, it's a part of humanity--life. In Brecht theory, people who allow themselves to be caught up in the emotion of a situation lose the reality of it. The pursuit of life, however, is a conscious thing (except if you're Hamlet), but at moments, it may seem like a character is just simply- existing, and this is okay too, it's something everyone should feel sometime or another. I would say that a comified person can certainly feel the energy from a loved one in the room, even if at that moment he or she is "unconscious."
Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael, a book about our society as being made up of "Takers" and "Leavers" --With man gone will there be hope for Gorilla? --In response to the spirituality question, he brings up tribal communities. If you were to ask an aboriginal person if he/she considered themselves spiritual, they would be very confused. Plus, any definition of the word spiritual is "probably going to include people you don't want to include." He suggests you feel no more need to express your spirituality as you do your longetivity, or humanity. It's an animist theory. People who view the world as a sacred place and really feel no need for precise theological answers. In many ways, they believe in the interconnectedness of life, the spirits of a place/s. However, the terms 'universal consciousness' and 'soul of the universe' would make an animist shrug....in conclusion, during the Renaissance, when experience and exploration and observation (3 main acting theories) became a chief new means of gaining knowledge, their theories and answers were "out of the box" and decidely required building on a previous framework of ideas, but experience, observation, and exploration will always be a surer guide to knowledge than authority and reason alone.
A New Way Of Looking At Lab Assignments: Imagine your doing Brecht theory. The next time you go outside Park Science to look at trees and shrubs, which seems like a pretty familiar thing, alienate yourself from the experience. Take on a new kind of spectatorship. Let the familiar become strange and uncannily, an un-at-home-like experience. Your critical attachment will amazingly, provoke you to action.

On the first day of class we were asked if conclusions are ever correct (in an end all be all sense) to which we decided 'no' they are never final. It was determined that science is never conclusive because otherwise there would be nothing left to explore and we would still live on a flat earth with no gravity.

Ironically, now that I have come to understand that there is no definite conclusions when it comes to science - this non-conclusiveness brings a possible answer to the age old question of where faith and religion meets science. While evolution is a theory, it is just that. As is religion. While each may have evidentiary support, neither are right or wrong. They each hold a place in our lives - whether or not we feel convinced by their defenses.

In the story of creation in Genesis (the first book of the Jewish Bible), G-d is described to have created the universe in six days. However, we cannot say that a "day" as G-d means it, is a "day" as we mean it, meaning 24 hours. After all, the word "day" is stated before the creation of the sun. The time period between day one to day two, or day two to day three, and so forth, could have lasted long enough for something, say evolution, to occur.

Other ways of looking at it are as follows: When G-d created the birds on day five, we may interpret that as "birds" being the dinosaurs, which are most similar to birds than anything else within the last however many hundreds of years. Also, the creation of the sun on day four may have been that it was just a matter of the sky clearing and sun being visible that day on earth.

These are just a few examples of how one can compare science and the story of creation for them to be in agreement. However, these opinions are just an "understanding" of what G-d did. A few hundred years ago, these "understanding" were much different than they are today, and a few hundred years from now I'm sure they will be even more different. As science advances, our understanding of evolution and creation will change.

"...what is the point of knowing what is alive and what isn't? Would anything in the world change if we did not say that an ant was living and a mountain was not?"

my immediate reaction was, of course it matters: we treat "living" things differently from the way we treat "nonliving" things. That is, we treat living things differently because we consider them to be sentient, or conscious.

Well -- not necessarily. There is considerable controversy as to whether or not mosquitoes are conscious, and few would claim that bacteria exhibit "consciousness" as we define it. So, it appears that we treat some living things differently from nonlife -- with more emotion? perhaps with greater respect? -- but only those things we consider to be conscious. For us humans, perhaps, the value of life lies in consciousness (maybe this is what we call the "life essence"?).

Do we then consider all nonlife to be non-conscious and, therefore, somehow less "important" than living things? Not necessarily! Religious people dating back to antiquity have worshipped non-living rocks and mountains, have bowed before idols made of non-living materials, have prayed to gods who lacked even any bodily form. These people do not call their gods living, for living would mean mortal, mortal means death-is-imminent, and this would mean the gods could not exist forever. Gods have to exist forever! But ask any religious person if her god or gods are conscious, are sentient beings, and you'll get an automatic Yes. We wouldn't pray to non-conscious things!

So, it seems to me that "livingness" and "consciousness," as perceived by human beings, are two separate qualities that only sometimes overlap (as in the case of people). This renders the definition of life, the distinction between life and non-life, all the more arbitrary. Also, if "life essence" equals "consciousness," then it might or might not have anything to do with actually being alive!