Bio 103, Semesters end, but life goes on

This was the best science class I've ever taken, and I've been taking science since middle school! I loved the way in which we thought about science unconventionally as a bunch of stories rather than the truth. I feel like in conventional science classes we are taught that the science we learned is the truth, in this class we got a chance to question and challenge it. I also truly enjoyed writing web papers on topics I am interested in and also the interesting class discussions. The labs were also very engaging and fun!This class has changed my outlook on science as a whole.

Thanks Prof. Grobstein!

I'm really sad to see this semester/class come to an end... it was one of the most enlightening science class experiences of my life and it has taught me to question everything and to never take anything by face value.

We always managed to bring up interesting discussion about the role of life, what life means and the whole "improbable assembly" concept in all of our class discussions and I really enjoyed that. Connecting the whole concept of what life is into each and every minute aspect of Biology is what set this class apart from all others that I had taken before.

My favorite part about this class was that you had the freedom to come up with questions and approach the class with any question without being afraid or intimidated about it. It was fully open to discussion and we always managed to make any topic interesting. :D I also enjoyed the labs and how well they were connected with one another. You always took away something from the class by applying it to your labs.

This class taught me to question everything and be constantly revising and revisiting old concepts. I had so much fun in the class. I'll be sad to be leaving it.

Thanks so much Prof. Grobstein and Prof. Franklin!

For the first Time in my "LIFE", i actually enjoyed bio class and the labs! Science isall stories that many can challenge with new set of observations. In reality we all are scientists. It's fun and entertaining when we look at biology from the point of view "that observations set/creates new stories", because then I enjoy figuring out new things, which makes me feel as if i have accomplished much. The feeling of accomplishing finding the new things is a great feeling because than I know my opinion matters, which i think beomes lost in science as many people prove your theory wrong. There is no right or wrong way or answers in biology OR SCIENCE! I am more than comfortable with this notion. At frist I could not understand how truth did not exist in science, but now I do! Thanks Professor Grobstein! Everything is a story, and the best story wins/survives!

This semester I actually got the chance to enjoy science. I got to further investigate so many things I always wanted to know about, such TB infection, heart murmurs, conflicts of interest in medicine etc. I got the chance to explore/approach science with questions without prior knowledge through our many lab experiments and class disscussion. The idea that science is a story and not Truth, was unsettling at first but now I understand why, cause it is forever changing. I initially wanted to know how dangerous it is to have a heart murmur. With the help of the website that professor suggested, I found out that slight heart murmurs are very common and does not show of having any real effects in the future. I think this class was wonderful and honestly would have paid attention more in science class in high school, if they were all taught through stories rather than definite definitions, which appears to be definite Truth.

I think this class has taught me two things that are really important:

1) I should think for myself, because even though I don't know a lot of stuff that is labeled "SCIENCE," I do have the tools to think about what I'm presented with, and

2) Randomness can be kind of beautiful. The idea that things fall apart and result in other things coming together is just elegant. Things don't need a reason to be the way they are; organisms don't evolve for a reason; they just exist as they do based on interactions with the surrounding environment as well as genetic coding. And I can comfortably say that as a religious person, though that may not be here or there.

Bye everyone!! Have a great break!

At the beginning of this class, I stated that I wanted to understand what made us "different". In a sense, I now know. Looking back on the discussion that we had before fall break, I discovered that I no longer believed that humans were so different. Every organism is made up of smaller and smaller things, is improbable, and no creature is "better" than another. I acknoledge Andy's point about our conscience and the fact that no other animal has a brain quite like ours, however. At any rate, the fact that the most simple one celled organisms have not died out proves a very good point for me: Humans are not "perfect" and are not the "final step" in this process of evolution.

I think what this class really taught me was that "facts" are not set in stone and that there is always another way of looking at things. It taught me just how likely that each progressive step up to a being is and just how "improbable" humans are. It taught me that just because we believe something now doesn't mean that it will be true later. Look at what happened to Pluto! Unfortunatly, my childhood pneumonic device "My Very Extrordinary Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" doesn't work anymore, but perhaps she is now serving Nachos instead.