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To begin with, I love the layout of the class. I think that it's brilliant that we have both a day of lecturing and a day of discussion within a week, as well as the added dimension of the web dialogue. This particular arrangement, I believe, allows for a deeper, more thorough understanding of the material being discussed any given week, and also allows people to explore relevant ideas that they were unable to express during class, or ideas that had been sparked afterwards, while pondering the outcome of those classes.  Serendip, in itself, is also very useful. I think that publishing the papers online is an interesting, and useful choice. Not only might it push the students (it certainly pushes me) to write and think in innovative ways, but it also leaves all of these fascinating, often well developed, thoughts and theories open to discussion. I also like the mandatory weekly postings; I find them thought provoking, and they also seem to encourage a wider range and depth of thought that might otherwise be found. I think that I would like to see more comments and replies to other's posts, though.

 I have found the scientific aspect of the class so far very interesting. I am not very much the scientific thinker, tending to lean more towards the more humanistic and literary perspectives. I find that I am learning a lot about the problems and inconsistencies inherent in different theories of evolution, just as I'm learning about the theories themselves from our readings. I can't wait, however, to begin considering the more literary side of the course. I am very interested to see where, exactly, studying the evolution of stories will take us.