A friend of mine posted a link to a video on youtube of Bill O'Reilley interviewing Richard Dawkins about atheism and religion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FARDDcdFaQ) which made me think immediately of Darwin and our discussions over the past few weeks. How did the universe begin? Can science explain it? Or is G-d the only rational explanation? Is it true? If I see it, I'll believe it. Putting one's opinions about the show aside, I found the interview to be very interesting and would be interested to hear what other people's thoughts were about it, in relation to what we've discussed over the past few weeks.

In the first half of our Thursday discussion, we discussed Darwin's conception of chance.  It was decided that Darwin believes that chance is simply due to our "ignorance of the cause of each particular event".  This coincides with Aristotle's description of chance.  To Aristotle, every action causes a reaction that is due to 4 causes: material, efficient, final and formal (I won't get into descriptions of what they are but you can read about it in his book on Physics).  However, there are cases which will at first seem to not be a result of any of the 4 causes.  In these cases, Aristotle explains the event as being caused by chance.

Last Thursday we discussed whether there was such a thing as progress in evolution. Are we moving forward as a species, or is it just change for the sake of change, as adaptation to our current situation and environment. How can we compare our ability to survive to humans who came before us? It is all situational. If there is no such thing as "forward evolution" then there is no proof that we are more advanced than our predecessor. This idea is representative of the problems that Darwin's ideas created for people associated with the Church, and with colonization during his time.

 On Thursday we talked about the identity of the selector in "natural selection". People used phrases like "survival of the fittest", "superior", "progress", etc., when explaining that no one actively, knowingly controls the evolution of a species, but what struck me about the discussion was the nature of the words I just listed. They all rely on a concept of improvement - of forward progress. 

In this blessed age of the Internet and the constant alerts and updates that we can subscribe to--if we dare--I found a recent article/blog entry on Discover Magazine's website concerning Sherry Turkle (in our reading this week) called "The Turkle Test" which researchers hope to use to build sympathetic "listening" robots that mimic human body language and provide comfort to those who just need someone there to talk to.

Being asked whether two (or more) very distinct theories on how life came to be can simultaneously exist side by side caused me to ponder over that which I'd been taught growing up. Seeing as how I was raised Catholic, the story of Adam and Eve is not an unfamiliar one. While I was told this to be the reason for human existence, once I started learning about the theory of evolution in school I didn't find myself struggling with which one to side with. It seemed more a matter of both of them being in existence in my mind, although they were in completely separate realms.

although I've been sick and wasn't able to go to discussion, following this comment board and talking with others in class has kept me fairly up to date.  Now that I have a class that uses it actively, it seems silly to me not have a fairly active, continuous thread going where students and the professors could voice thoughts.  It keeps people up to date on class discussion and inspires future discussion.

 In class on Thursday, we discussed how thinking and the ability to reason is only a human characteristic, and whether this ability makes us “better” than other organisms or not. We went on to discuss that there is no such thing as “superior”, but really good enough. If something is able to survive on this planet and continue to pass on its genes, it is pretty much golden. Our ability to think has definitely been a key in our ability to survive, and therefore has been important to our evolution. What I was struck by was the amount of people who believed other animals do not think. Our ability to reason is not exclusive. There have been plenty of examples of other primates with social structures, tool manipulation, and the ability to build lifetime rela

Thursday, we talked about how the term "survival of the fittest" is misleading because it is difficult to say what exactly determines who or what the "fittest" is? A worm is not as strong or "fit" as a bird, but yet there are still worms alive today. This does not mean that the bird that eats the worm is necessarily better or fitter than the worm, but that both have somehow maintained the ability to survive, which is what it all comes down to in the first place. We also discussed how the idea of progress is actually a human idea, spawned from our tendency to rank ourselves at the top of the chain. It had never occurred to me that a human built skyscraper is superior to a beaver built dam just because of the difference in species that created them. 

Who is it that said we are all just stardust? I like that. To think that all of these thoughts and feelings I have that seem so important to me are just chemicals moving around in my head. Chemicals my DNA told my body to make, DNA that is just an accumulation of millions of years of accidents. I like to try to imagine the story from the beginning. I find the randomness beautiful.  A long time ago nothing exploded into something. Some stars formed, cooked up the elements, exploded. Earth and the sun were born. Life emerged, evolved. And now here I am. Stardust, with feelings.