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kapelian's picture

By describing Origin of

By describing Origin of Species as a nonfoundational story really seems to pull away from Darwin's work as a scientific thesis and makes it seem like more of a story.  Prof. Grobstein also mentioned how the fact his work was nonfoundational was more influential then anything, because it not only was a huge step away from normal work.  When I studied Victorian Era literature in 12th grade english, my teacher made it clear that the growing split between the sciences and the church because of this book greatly influenced many of the works and writings created at the time.  If Origin of Species was such a huge influence on fiction literature as well as the world of biology, what other aspects of life did it have an influence on?  In comparision to many other works written around this same time period, even scientific works as well as fiction, the writings were very romantic.  However, Darwin keeps his writing very straight forward and casual.  My question is why did he write his story like this if everything else at the time was so different? It's obvious with the number of disclaimers that Darwin himself is unsure about how true his story is, even though others people before him wrote on the subject.  If he was so unsure about his story (which was radical enough to begin with), why go the extra mile to make the way he wrote it just as different?

Prof. Grobstein left us on Thursday to think about whether or not Darwin was a nonfoundationalist in his studies.  After looking through the beginning chapters and the reading for next week, I think Darwin was a nonfoundationalist. I wonder if because of this, it is why Darwin has a negative tone when he talks about the human race, as though he sees it bringing itself to ruin. 

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