Evolit: Week 2--First Reactions?

In seventh grade, I was first introduced to the theory of evolution in my general science class. I never questioned it or thought it to be controversial, as I was never taught the idea of creationism.  When I learned about evolution more extensively in high school, I again did not really think it was a controversial subject matter because my professors did not force us to whole-heartedly believe the theory, they simply told us the facts and moved on to the next topic in the course.  

The Origin of Species was the central topic discussed during the evolution portion of the course, and I did not ever consider reading the actual text and simply thought of it as a stepping stone in biological history that was mentioned in biology courses.  This is why I am finding it difficult to read as a novel.  I have a preconceived notion that The Origin of Species is a scientific text that radically changed the way that human evolution was thought to have occurred, from having a religious influence to being backed by empirical scientific facts.  So during the small groups, when we were analyzing the language used by Darwin, who he wrote it for, and how personal he made the text, I began to think of it as a novel, which I am somewhat uncomfortable with.  Hopefully, throughout the course of the semester, I will be able to find a balance between accepting The Origin of Species as a novel as well as a scientific paper.  

Reading Darwin has been sometimes interesting, sometimes boring and sometimes frustrating.  The problems are similar to those I've had in more modern and drier scientific writings-- the big ideas are interesting (even fascinating) but the details bore me. For Darwin, the details were the most important part-- the proof, the observations that started everything. Because of this I'm trying to understand them. I don't want to take for granted that his proofs make sense-- otherwise known as "suspending disbelief." That feels like a betrayal. We spent a lot of time in our discussion group talking about how Darwin adresses the readers and how he tries to get us to suspend our disbelief. After further thought and reading, I don't really think that's right. He doesn't want us to suspend our disbelief, he wants us to read skeptically-- until we become convinced. He includes the arguments he thinks we may have, specifically so he can disprove them. This device is ueless, unless his audience really is coming up with arguments.

He is deliberately  giving us a more complicated picture, one which includes cases against as well as for his theory. It reminds me of the discussion we had about learning in elementary school and in high school/ college-- being taught what to think or how to think. The only information I've had about evolution before has really been of the elementary-school variety. Darwin is inviting argument.

Non-narrative foundational to narrative foundational to narrative possibly non-foundational - this is how the story telling style has evolved. Personally, I had always played with an understanding which meshed the three. The Great Chain of Being was in place to show how close a certain creature could be to God (or the supernatural being of your choice, if one should exist). The Tree of Life was a way of seeing that all creatures are united or tied together through a common bond of life. Emergence fit in because I could say that the origin of emergence was God (or other supernatural being) or that such a being allowed this process to happen. I even started rationalizing the creation story to blend with emergence. The bible doesn't say how long a day was. During the time when day had just been separated from night, one day could have meant a much longer time and the events of the biblical day could have happened in the form of emergence.

I created my story so that it would answer a lot of questions. It would summarize a lot of observations, yes, but I don't know that I particularly like it. Formulating a new story is being much more difficult than I had hoped. But Darwin breaks things down and I like his writing. My own understanding of evolution is going through its process of change.

What struck me most about this past week's discussion was the similarity between the debate surrounding Evolution, Creationism, etc. as stories developed to explain something to the constant struggle historians face in attempting to reconstruct an event and distinguish hearsay, "memory", eye-witness accounts, etc. from the bare "facts".

**In writing this post, I've noticed I've become much more hesitant to state "facts", but rather leave things up to interpretation by the reader.  It has become hard to write a sentence about anything, really, without quotation marks to qualify that what I am writing is how I may see things, but another version of the story, or another story altogether, may come up with a different explanation.

Back to my previous thought, historiography traces the different sources available and analyzes their usefulness by determining who was writing, why, when, etc. It is really impossible to have a "good" source without qualifying what it is good for. For example, British sources discussing the happenings of the Boston Tea Party would be good for learning the English viewpoint on the revolting of colonists getting increasingly determined, whereas it would be almost useless in learning why Bostonians felt so imposed upon by the latest tea taxes. In this same vein, the stories we have been looking at, Darwinism, for example, are probably "good"stories for some occasions, while others may be a better fit at other times.

In this past week’s discussion Professor Grobstein mentioned how Darwin’s story of Evolution was questioned at the time of publication because it conflicted with another accepted story of the time.  This got me thinking of the nature of stories in general and how one is most remembered or kept alive throughout the years.  Are not the most successful stories the most controversial? Furthermore, this controversy plays into how much a story is idealized.  It seems that the ideas that are in opposition to others and those that consistently initiate a new critique are the ones that are considered the most “special”. The other point that I thought was interesting was the idea on how a certain discipline tends to idealize specific stories.  Science, for certain, idealizes Darwin and his theology. Can the English discipline do just the same? I guess here in exists one of the distinctions and troubles I am beginning to see between these two subjects.  What Science idealizes and is most selective about is not the same as that which a literature critique is concerned with.  Both disciplines share the notion that the importance of a story is measured in its ability to be useful in describing other portions of that subject. However, what is considered useful within these stories is different between science and literature; science tends to promote the analytical while literature seems to promote the theoretical.  Does a notion of tangible proof come into play here with what is idealized and what is not?...I’m not really sure. I’m wondering if there is a systematic narrative to those stories we idealize.  Being a Type A personality, during class I imagine making a list of distinctions between Science and Literature.  I’m slowly trying to figure out if the distinction is as divided and “list-like” as I originally thought.  

Reading the original Darwin years after studying modern evolution has been a real pleasure.  It is incredible how foresighted his ideas were.  Despite lacking any sort of scientific basis Darwin, on observation alone, realizes the key to evolution is hidden within reproduction.  This is an extremely powerful observation, especially considering Professor Grobstein's "science is a story based within our factual understanding" model.  Darwin's story is still absolutely correct, even though the factual framework on which it is based lacks every hallmark of modern biological understanding.

That being said, an interesting limitation of Darwin is his hesitation to fully ascribe his theory to human society.  Most of his examples involve domesticated animals being manipulated by a skilled breeder.  He recognizes that similar natural forces are responsible for wild animal form and function but stops there.  He does not wish to cross the line by ascribing humanity’s condition to a simple randomness of environmental pressure.  Though his theory is completely applicable to humans he stops just short of explaining their existence with it.  Darwin quite intentionally leaves room for God in his work.  Part of me wishes to indict him for this lack of conviction but I also understand his predicament.  It is a large fundamental leap to move from beak size corresponding to diet to environmental factors favoring the evolution of a brain capable of metacognition; thinking about thinking.  It is this most abstract of abilities that truly defines our humanity yet it’s unclear evolutionary advantage makes it a puzzle piece that is hard to fit together with the rest of Darwin's theory.  Darwin recognizes the imminent value of man's defining ability yet struggles to apply the "life / death" nature of natural selection to such an organic concept as abstract thought.          

Reading Darwin makes my head hurt. It is beginning to explode with thoughts and ideas that aren’t at all normal for me. While finishing the reading for last week I found myself writing down some pretty profound thoughts. Darwin made some very interesting observations of the variations found in pigeons, beetles and other species and explained them as factors of use vs. no-use or advantages vs. disadvantages. If I change the creature name from those listed in his writings to humans, I then have to ask: Are humans just poorly cross-bred creatures, extreme anomalies or monsters of some kind? Have humans because of their ability to rationalize and think mucked about with evolution and natural selection by way of medical miracles, technological tampering or what we call advancements or perhaps through wars to the degree that we have altered our own existence? Who holds the blueprint for human design?

Darwin wrote “Natural selection acts solely through the preservation of variations in some way advantageous…it follows that as each selected and favoured form increases in numbers, so will the less favoured forms decrease and become rare…Rarity…is the precursor to extinction” (pg. 162).  If that is in fact true then how does one explain the explosion of criminality in the world? There are no advantages found in the biological processes of the criminal mind. Why can’t societal ills become rare and extinct?

There were several things that struck me while reading Origin of Species and also while we discussed it in class.

 The first thing that really stuck out to me while reading it was how the book is an example of a work in progress.  Every chapter Darwin talks about what he is going to add and what further research needs to be done. While most scientific texts are viewed as complete, The Origin ofSpecies is distinctly a work in progress. 

The next thing that really caught my attention was the amount of references to observations that are completely explained by genetics.  It amazes me that Darwin had so much insight he was describing complex genetics years before they were actually proven. Darwin talks about what would now be known as sex-linked traits and linked traits, all of which can be described at a molecular biological level.  That aspect of the book, Darwin being able to deduce information about genetics long before it was even thought of, really made the book much more interesting to me.  I felt like I was guessing what biological concept Darwin was alluding to.

One of the discussions in class also sparked my interest.  When we discussed the purpose of education and whether or not it was used to expose people to stories or try to get children to believe certain stories in order to serve a purpose, I had a series of thoughts.  The reason there is a controversy about evolution is becauseit is in conflict with other widely believed stories.  But the problem with deciding what to teach in schools is much more vast than evolution versus creationism or the other few widely discussed stories of existence.  Going along with the idea of loopy science, there are an infinite number of stories.  Schools are making a decision about what they expose to their students.  It would be impossible to expose them to every possible story, because there is an infinite number.  Because of this, schools are in a way using the curriculum to teach children certain stories, nudging them to believe whatever they have deemed the best. A selection has to be made and what stories are told to children in schools really can affect society.

What stuck with me from the small group (with Grobstein) on Thursday was Evelyn's comment about Darwin being a pessimist.  When I read the first four chapters, I didn't really get a feeling of pessimism at all.  It seemed to me that he was very appreciative of the natural order of things, and was not criticizing humans but simply de-emphasizing their role in the process of evolution. 

Her comment, however, made me think about reading Darwin in a different way - I guess I finally started thinking about what I was reading as a story that can be read with multiple interpretations.  I must admit that I had trouble reading Darwin at first, and I think it was because of the instruction to read it like a novel.  I did not really know what that meant.  Our disussion on Thursday made me realize that it's okay to read Darwin by looking at his word and punctuation choices and analyzing what he's saying in the same way one would look at a book labled as a fictional novel.  I suppose the fact that this barrier existed for me in the first place is further evidence that there is still a science/literature divide I need to work on overcoming for the purposes of this course.  I think one reason for this divide is that I have been reading Darwin in a more detached way, analyzing the facts he's presenting and completely ignoring his own voice as an author.  When I read literature, I do look for the author's insertion of his or herself into the writing.  It's an interesting divide between the two...I think it highlights the "cut-and-dry" reputation that science has, especially in comparison with the artist-centric reputation of literature.  In reality, it seems that both science and literature have examples of both detached and involved writing.

WEEK TWO!!!!

Organic Chemistry lab, jan 28: in an introduction to our final lab assignment for the semester, the prof described our lab excersize as a rule-guided recount of the reation we were to carry out and the results we were to observe. Having a formal  write-up, our lab will  certainly not involve any creativity on our part. "This is not a creative writing assignment!" she professed, and insinuated that if it were then we'd all have reason to be a little nervous. I just though this would be an interesting occurence in light of what we've been discussing in this class. Can the questionable rigidity of the scientific process just be a utopia in the study of the physical world?

By describing Origin of Species as a nonfoundational story really seems to pull away from Darwin's work as a scientific thesis and makes it seem like more of a story.  Prof. Grobstein also mentioned how the fact his work was nonfoundational was more influential then anything, because it not only was a huge step away from normal work.  When I studied Victorian Era literature in 12th grade english, my teacher made it clear that the growing split between the sciences and the church because of this book greatly influenced many of the works and writings created at the time.  If Origin of Species was such a huge influence on fiction literature as well as the world of biology, what other aspects of life did it have an influence on?  In comparision to many other works written around this same time period, even scientific works as well as fiction, the writings were very romantic.  However, Darwin keeps his writing very straight forward and casual.  My question is why did he write his story like this if everything else at the time was so different? It's obvious with the number of disclaimers that Darwin himself is unsure about how true his story is, even though others people before him wrote on the subject.  If he was so unsure about his story (which was radical enough to begin with), why go the extra mile to make the way he wrote it just as different?

Prof. Grobstein left us on Thursday to think about whether or not Darwin was a nonfoundationalist in his studies.  After looking through the beginning chapters and the reading for next week, I think Darwin was a nonfoundationalist. I wonder if because of this, it is why Darwin has a negative tone when he talks about the human race, as though he sees it bringing itself to ruin. 

I really enjoyed the small group dynamic on Thursday- the ideas that emerged among the discussion propelled my thoughts into a myriad of different discussions. I was very interested in the idea of the “suspension of disbelief” that was brought up as one of the main reasons that students could not read the Darwin’s book as a novel. The “suspension of disbelief” is a concept, outlined by Wikipedia, is a theory that explores the relationship that individuals have with art. It “refers to a willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium, so that these do not interfere with the acceptance of those premises” (Wikipedia). There were many students that had a difficult time reading Darwin’s work because of they were unable to utilize this concept as many of us do with several different types of mediums including books, movies, television shows, among others. Is this concept of suspended disbelief one that preventing the parallels between science and literature to be seen?

When I tried to read Darwin again I made the conscious effort to read it like a novel and failed to do so, yet again. Is our mind preventing us from looking and reading things at face value? The parallels between literature are many when we talk about them but when trying to put them into practice it seems like all the similarities vanish.

Because of Darwin's birthday coming up so soon, there is an abundance of articles regarding Darwin.  In the New York Times, there was a book review about two upcoming books regarding Darwin, one of them comparing him to (who else?) Lincoln.  However, it an un-Darwin related article that caught my eye recently and made me think of this class. The essay entitled "Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/science/27essa.html?ref=science) discusses the new pressure put on scientists after Obama annouced that "he would restore science to it's rightful place" (Elevating). 

The section that particulary surprised me was when the essayist writes that Einstein believes that he has never gained any kind of moral information from science, since science (in his mind) is pure fact and therefore truth.  The writer of this article disagrees with Einstein on the point that science is fact, stating that "this is balderdash. Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth"  He even introduces this point by telling Einstein's beliefs as a "story" and observing that science as a "Truth" is only a story.  

The writer also reconfirms Professor Grobstein's point that the most valuable scientific studies are those that are incorrect, since they fuel a search for greater knowledge.  In class on Tuesday we talked about attitudes towards science and whether science has always been viewed in the "loopy" sense, or whether that view is a more modern way to look at the field.  This article presented science as something that is culturally thought of as hard facts and right answers, yet is often truly more loopy than one might think.

Well, this class has certainly boggled my mind.  Every day I get closer and closer to wrapping my mind around the ideas and thoughts presented in class.  I feel that the most interesting topic that we talked about was about evolution teaching in schools.  I know now that we're in college everyone looks at public schooling and sees society forming clones.  Isn't there a saying if its not broken don't fix it.  And if you were asked as a child in elementary school if you are suppressed and can't express yourself freely would you say yes?  I don't know if I would.  In elementary school I at least was having a great time with no worries.  If I was taught what I have learned so far about all the depressing and unfair facts in life I feel that I would be a very sad and unsocial child.  Why not let kids have fun instead of bombarding their minds with all of the worries of being an adult.  I know that in school you are told what to believe instead of figuring it out on your own.  Still it can be nice to have a basis for your thoughts instead of stressing over what it right and wrong.  I feel like I'm not making myself very clear. I just don't think that we need to change our whole school system so that we can have more free will or not conform to everything. Because once you get older yes you have conformed to what has been told to you but you still have the choice to break away and think through what you have been taught and change your mind.  As you go through school you keep getting taught more complicated ideas but once you reach high school you are able to disagree with your teacher. They may not like you afterword for saying that their wrong, who knows, maybe the teacher will change their mind and agree with you.  Yes, children are capable of understanding some complicated ideas for example how to work technology.  But by trying to get them to understand every single complicated and inconsistent ideas could make them go crazy as I sometimes feel when I get done with my classes for the day.  I guess I see the positive and negatives of schooling but I care more about a kids well being, that they stay happy even if they are being told junk then if they are conforming to a society. 

Also in our group discussions Grobstein asked us if we believe Darwin to be a pessimist or optimist.  When I read the book I see Darwin as an optimist, ready to new things to pop into his sight so that he can explore every detail.  I can just picture Darwin as a giddy child running around finding dirt or an insect and bringing it to his mother yelling look what I found isn't it cool.  I mean can you not see it when he starts talking about pigeons or how bees form hives.  He can't stop talking about the subject until every single detail is explained and analyzed. I can hear his excitement.  Maybe if I looked a little harder and found some of his fears about evolution I could see some pessimism. But all i see is appreciation and fascination of what is going on around him and how it all comes together.  

As this class continues I find that the gap between science and literature is rapidly closing. Science is a story, literature is a tool for looking at the world; I can't lie when I say that I find all of this to be quite disconcerting. It is so ingrained in us that science has to be... sciency. It must be studious, quiet, sterile. Yet, it is slowly being revealed that this view of science is not at all what is present in the scientific comunity. Science is deeply personal and highly subjective. Ok, I have seen that in my own readings for Anthropology (whether or not you consider Anth a science course, the approach to fieldwork is much the same as with science and has often demanded a sterility of the self) an increased desire to analyze the self along with the material. as one of my readings says, "the effective field worker learns about himself as well as about the people he studies." - Hortense Powdermaker "Stranger and Friend"