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elly's picture

"Science mind and literary mind"

 I am currently enrolled in a history of women in genetics course with Greg Davis, which I believe exemplifies many of the issues mentioned in ems8140's post. Even though the "blurring of the line" between science and humanities in my course is not the exact same situation as teaching evolution and social Darwinism together, it does bring history and biology together in a very intriguing way. On Thursday, we went around the room discussing our previous experiences with science courses, in the sense of biology, chemistry and physics being the typical high school science courses, and how that effected what we decided to major in/study in college. I personally discussed how my science courses were too structured around testing and memorization, without much time for critical thinking, writing and any sort of artistic projects. I believe that if I had been able to take a course that was more about the history of a science, or involved more literary and artistic work, then I may not have been turned off from the hard sciences as quickly as I was. As mentioned above, if I had been exposed to the sciences in tandem with more humanities style thinking, If I could have seen the facts of science from a different perspective and then if something stood out to me, then I perhaps I would have gone on to study that subject. In terms of my understanding of evolution, especially in my history of biology class, I definitely agree with the statement above, "Perhaps, a science mind and a literary mind are both needed to allow for a deeper understanding of evolution."

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