Bio 103 Week One: Science? and Life?

As I looked at the picture of the desert before class and pondered about what life actually was, I came up with some criteria in my head.  Most importantly, I believed that to be alive the object must do some form of energy transfer, along the lines of photosynthesis or cellular respiration.  I believe that if we used this criteria, we could limit what is alive and what isn't.  When something stops transfering energy, then it dies (the opposite of life).  I also believe that being "alive" would mean something is made up of cells that are constantly interacting with each other. 

in class, we stopped at living things being defined by its "improbable assembly" and as having a "collection of properties." But then how many properties would qualify as being a collection of properties, and therefore a living thing? And if science has no right or wrong answer, does that quantity in defining a collection of properties depend on The Crack?

As discussed in class, I agree with science being more stories than truth, and in relation to life, I think that only our pasts can have truth in them, our future or our presents are many stories in development. I love having the flexibility of figuring out my own story from what I observe rather than have something told and be forced to take it as the Truth. However, there are beliefs that take this whole idea of there being No Truth too far,-- so, is it that the Truth is that there is No Truth? Also, I could never take the idea of evolution as a Truth. Besides the fact that I do believe that only God could create something that the humanity still can't explain, I find it extremely hard to think that some unknown force made cells reproduce on their own and turn into different living creatures. It just doesn't fit in my head. I rather believe that a (spiritually) known God did it.

That's all I have for now, thanks for making this class so fun, and at the same time to challenge us on what we believe, take as truths, find out in our own... etc.

 

I think I prefer the idea that evolution is a story. There are many questions we cannot answer in this world but as the SAT instructions states, one has to find the best fit. My belief that there is one God that created us does not want to believe in the evolution theory but if I want to hear a good story I am open to this theory. I look forward to learning more things in this class. This class begins the thinking process, one we don't always use in our hasty life. Do anyone agree with me?

wow. the last class was a little intense. don't get me wrong...class is EXCELLENT. its just that I've been taking science forever and being told that there is another way to think about it was kind of mindboggling. the traditional method has been drilled into my brain for years and thinking in terms of the Loopy Story Telling Perspective is a little daunting because its so new!

I completely agree with everyone who submitted their opinions on this forum. I never thought that I was going to be experience a class where you approached science in a completely innovative way.

Being tied to only one answer (and to a textbook) was the way that I had studied science all throughout my high school years, but after beginning this class it's taught me to constantly question everything and to look for ways to negate current theories. I really look forward to studying through this new approach!

Eri

The discussion in class on Friday made me think of science in a completely new way. I like the idea of science being a series of stories that can’t be proven true. Going back on the ideas of the earth revolving around the sun and the story of the earth being round and not flat have been ideas that many of us have believed because these are things we have been taught in school. There was never a time when I really ever questioned or thought to question these beliefs until now. I feel that I am really going to enjoy this class because it is not the traditional biology class, with this class, we will be able to question many theories and come up with our own conclusions.   

The idea that science is like a story is very interesting and a little hard to wrap my mind around it because we've always been taught that science is truth.  I actually like the idea that sceience is not complete facts because when you think about it in that way, then there is no reason to feel the need that one needs to choose between their own personal views and the ideas that science presents.

I really like the notion that one cannot believe in science, i think that it is a mistake that a lot of people make.  I believe that one is able to be a better scientist when they regard science as something that should not be believed.  It allows the scientist to continue making observation and be open to new ideas without sticking to one concrete belief.  Science is about questioning to me and so one should always be questioning and making new observations.

At first I was actually a little scared of looking at science like this-it seems so indefinite and up in the air! But the more I think about it, the better it seems. In a way it reminds me of the quote "The only thing you can depend on is change," in that a new story/new summary of observations can always potentially be found. Evenmore, if nothing can really be proven to be true, it means that things must always be in motion and always be changing (or have the potential to change. And the more things change...the more we can learn!

Also, Im a history major and Im beginning to see history as a summary of observations. People see and experience different things and therefore they have many different summaries of observations that shape the way they view and understand the past.

The discussion we had in class on Friday really opened up a whole new meaning of Science to me. At first science was always just about these experiments that had been done and proved something to be "true". But since we've established that there can be an alternative observation in a certain situation we cannot simply prove anything to be right. In addition to the other side of the story is the crack which i believe definitely exists and may be a major deciding factor in deciding whether the summary needs replacing or not. I believe approaching science in this manner will lead us to seeing science with better understanding and a more open scope to new ideas.

Looking at science as a set of observatons that can never prove a conclusion right, but consistant, makes me ponder: why do we live by certian rules, laws and beliefes? I am convinced that everything is a story, and a story is made by ones observations and beliefes, so how can we live by what another believes to be the right observation? Who am I to answer the question "what is life?" I am a humanbeing that has many observations and plenty of stories of what i think life is, personally i believe that it is struggle. It consists of struggles, which makes it struggle right? well atleast for me...from experience. Evoltution....i do not think the definition of life consists of evolution. How do they tie together? I do not know. When i think about my stories of what i think life is, I still can not tackle the notion of what it is? Its proably a set of observations that can never be truth.....but we live it so it has to have some truths. Why can't I answer the question with confidence, when i experience what it is every day?

Shanika Bridges-King

The class discussions have brought about a new understanding and realization about science for me. The 'loopy story-telling' perspective makes so much sense especially when compared to the traditional perspective. The idea that science as a process is not linear but rather loopey is very true because you never know as to what will happen the next time the observation is tested. That is why you can never prove a summary to be true but you can prove it to be false. I never even thought to take this type of understanding into account because I have grown up with the traditional method of either you got the right answer or you got the wrong answer. This class has taught us that science should actually be looked at as a set of stories; a good scientific story motivates new questions and summarizes all previous observations. Even though a summary of observations may be proven false, it does not necessarily mean that it was a bad story, it paved the way for another story.