Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

Erin's picture

After thoughts

After the class, I really have a lot to share about our great Esem Class. I felt that the role of instructor is to lead the direction of class discussion. When we were walking to another section of group which shared the same topic with u, the topics were completely different.

The model Professor Paul Grobstein showed gave me a visualized impact of the evolutions made on the environment. The answer we found for the drive changes over time is the environmental changes. On other hand, the model did tell us the reproduction with varies is the core force to provide the diversity in the ecological system. The natural selection, which I used to considered is a way to direct the pathways of evolution, is eliminating the possibilities is being created by all the biological reproductions. The remaining possibilities over time became the evolution we know today.

Typically, I found the questions I found interesting is that “Whether human beings are more evolved than other species?” Most people agreed on this statement that human are superior on the biological evolution level because the intelligence shown on human. The smartness which is the ability to overcome our weakness using tools and the technology we developed over generations of excellent pioneers is remarkable. However, I still believe that statement depends on the definition of intelligence. I believe every species are equal. All kinds of animals today are in the stage evolution which enables them to be “clever” enough to hind the fittest way to survive and reproduce in this world. Somehow, people are lucky enough to be the spice can use tools. This fact does not give us the authority to depreciate other amazing living things.

However, I still have some questions about the evolutions. What drive the change of the environment where the natural selections took place? Also, are the eliminated species or individuals really meaningless and useless?

The other thing I really want to mention is the confident attitude for your own writing. I was really dumfounded when I read the third passage of students’ writing. She wrote that “My story came from me, a layer of complexity in this universe. I am not small, nor am I big, but I am here.” I really want to thank her for letting me know or teaching this key point: Never depreciate your own work! There are so many stories in this world, and each of them has its own value, including mine. The feelings I have for my own work from my education background make me change my minds so easily. I am not a confident person for almost anything. For example, I won’t make my point until I am 90% sure of it. In my second essay, I basically overturned the whole story I wrote first time. I totally ignores the value my essay has. I was not confident enough to insist my viewpoint. When divergences appeared, I would usually choose to comprise for an agreement. And I always thought the problem is in my side. It’s OK to be different and disagreements are allowed in this society. So far, the LAC experience and our Esem have already taught me that to develop critical thinking and skeptical for all the information received from the surroundings. From now on, I will tell myself that even though I might not be good enough to be praised but I am unique and I deserved the right to speak out loud and I must be confident and proud of my own work. I have the right create my layer of complexity the way I want.

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
9 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.