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I would like to reflect on the entire semester, but I am too intrigued by what Paul said on Tuesday when he asked, "What negative consequences do stories/ meanings have?" In some ways, this does link back to my very first forum post, in which I questioned what negative impacts the story of evolution could have on society. However, I never extended the negative impacts of stories onto the biological sphere itself, which makes complete sense to me and is so totally obvious after Paul mentioned it. Stories can conflict with biological processes that gave rise to them, not just with one another & the culture of which they are a part. Thus, we get the Judeo-Christian worldview, which arguably led to our current environmental situation. Our stories hitherto have resulted in human destruction of the environment - namely, that we have dominion over nature and can use it however we wish. 

As an environmentalist, this realization is key to me. Evolving to have different stories as a culture will have positive impacts on biological evolution as well, for we can become stewards of the environment. We must evolve our "noosphere" to be mindful of the biosphere.  

This seems to challenge what Lisa B. said above - “It seems that literary evolution is insignificant compared to biological evolution...” Biological evolution is incomparably more vast than cultural and literary evolution, but the latter two may be unfathomably more powerful, given the scope of their impact compared to the contracted time scale of their existence. Conservationist Aldo Leopold drew a contrast between evolutionary or “natural” changes, which typically occur slowly and locally, with human-induced changes that are “of unprecedented violence, rapidity, and scope” and have “effects more comprehensive than is intended or foreseen.” We have become a most formidable force of nature. The question remains to be seen whether we have control over our own unfathomably vast scales. It will take a hell of a good story to turn this around. 

Kudos to Ann & Paul for such a generative course!