When asked, "Do you find it odd that teaching a computer chess is easier than teaching it Jeopardy?" I contemplated this for about a minute and realized that I do not find this odd at all. I agree with the statement that teaching a computer/robot chess is easier than teaching it Jeopardy. When I was younger, I played chess at a pretty competitive level. I learned it was very much like a mathematical equation. Chess is based a lot on probability and statistics; the key to the game is to predict the next move of the opponent. Chess is also a reaction-game - when a specific move is made, there are a limited amount of choices you can make to react to that move. Therefore, a computer would have an easier time computing the probabilities involved in the game.

I must admit that evolution is no easy task to conquer. I would like to now place Darwin right up on the pedestal with Albert Einstein and other great geniuses. Why wasn't he there before? I am not sure, maybe my gut reactions and morals were holding me back from holding him to such esteem but after attempting to piece together a course syllabus on evolution I found that the subject is not only complex but never ending. It pours into other disciplines and weaves its way into society and popular culture. I can see how some people can find great excitement from such a theory because, I feel like there's so many questions that still need to be answered and so many answers that still need to be understood. I think I might have a crush on evolutionary theory.

 I'm going to admit straight off the bat that I skipped class on Thursday to attend the Teach-In about the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia that was taking place at the same time. While feeling guilty about this fact and simultaneously watching news coverage of and Skyping with people taking part in the events in Cairo, however, I got to thinking about the evolutionary paradigm as it applied to the revolutions taking place in the Arab world. Much of the language used to describe the path these revolutions have taken has been organic, with words such as "spread" and "grown" used to describe the way in which the events in one state have had a ripple effect throughout the neighborhood. This got me thinking about how these events could relate back to evolution and natural selection.