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There were many topics discussed in class this past week that I found very intriguing. Firstly, I thought the question of why evolutionis so controversial to be interesting. Why is it that people accept other scientific discoveries such as F=ma orthat the earth is round, but some have difficulty fully accepting evolution? I believe that F=ma because I learned this in physics and I believe that the earth is round because I learned this from my parents, but I have never actually felt an upward force onmy feet from the ground when standing or have never seen the earth as round with my own eyes.  I even believein evolution, yet I have never actually seen the process. Is it because the origin of life pertains to two different stories that people have trouble believing it? But can’t there be two stories for F=ma or the earth being round? What if the bible had said that there is no such thing as force or that the earth is cube-shaped, would there be controversy with these topics then?

I also was somewhat surprised to hear that Darwin was not the first to propose the theory of evolution. When I think about evolution, I also think about Darwin. I learned about Darwin as the founding father ofevolution so it is interesting to know that he had just expanded on a topic that naturalists were considering. Before reading Origin of Species, I was expecting Darwin to write about this new idea of variation and selection. After reading the first couple of chapters, I realized that he was really arguing and disclaiming already known ideas about variation and selection.

Lastly, I was a little confused about the different stories of evolution (ie. Non-narrative foundational, narrative foundational, and emergence). The term foundational does not seem right since looking at all three pictures, there seems to be a base to all of them. In addition, I do notreally see a difference between the tree of life and emergence because both seem to branch out in ways that separate out species and both do not look like they could stop and extend to some highest point.