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Synthesizing the two pieces by Professors Anne Dalke and Paul Grobstein, it seems that the common thread is story telling.

In Anne's piece, she uses the concept of emergence to describe how even a single word (such as in a pun) can be given two different meanings, and thus how one story can even spawn "in ways that are unpredictable beforehand--other tales not yet articulated." How is this useful for us in this course? As articulated best in the dialogue at the end, I believe it is pertinent since science, math, and computer languages have a concept that if you get the right equation or insert the right code, you will get a certain outcome. Or even, as in the example of computer languages, you will get one of a limited number of outcomes.

What was most useful for me was the snippet between Paul and Anne on the second to last page:

Paul: 'Having done a, b, c, and d, there are no a series of possibilities. You pick from among them.' That choice makes the use of language a generative process.

Anne: That's a really useful thing for literary studies to be aware of, because we still have this model of mathematical exactness, that you can get the right or the best interpretation, or the original meaning.

The reason this was particularly useful to me was because it demonstrates how our culture seems to have synthesized basic scientific processes as being a required standard for all walks of life. That you can get it right that Homer meant this. If you get just the right ingredients, you can make the perfect hamburger.

However, in my daily life I find myself operating much as Paul describes in the last paragraph of the dialogue. To paraphrase, the motivation is not to replicate, but to inquire into the state of another brain. Language for me is often about trying to not only illicit a certain response, to strike a certain chord in another person. It's also about 'testing' the other person, to see what is different about their response, to see how their see the world differently.

But for Anne, I would appreciate it if we could come out with a working definition of the concept of emergence, just to make sure we're all on the same page by what you mean.

Paul's article seemed to outline the journey of the class, so far, and our understanding of what science is. How science is not the answer for everyone, or the tool that everyone is accustomed to using. I particularly found the second section ("Science as a Method: Strengths and Limitations") to be useful. "When given to believe that science is about getting things right, students (and others ) are being seriously misled about the fundamental character of the scientific process." I like the idea that science is constantly testing itself, that is this constant cycle of re-evaluation.

I also found it useful in the fourth section how he outlined the emergence theory that Anne describes, where two competing ideas for how a nervous system develops eventually merged into a new story. Is there any way we can apply this to our discussion on incorporating more women into scientific fields? Would that be the emergence theory we are trying to advocate?