Evolution and Literature Web Paper 1

"Nowhere is nature more accustomed to display her secret

 mysteries than in cases where she shows traces of her

 workings apart from the beaten path."--William Harvey

In "On The Origin of Species", Darwin presents what he has observed occurring in nature and writes about the theory he has come up with from his observations - the theory of evolution.  In his concluding paragraph, he sums up his story of evolution by saying that all things living today "have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws...being Growth with Reproduction...Variability...and as a consequence to Natural Selection...Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows." (2) What Darwin discusses, then, are the patterns and laws that govern the evolution of animals in a physiological representation of variation.

Poetry and Science: Fundamentally the Same

An important warning was voiced to me on the act of writing about an author’s intent. When one attempts to do such a thing as actively write about such a thing as the intent of the author, this person should know the intent of the author from the author him/herself. I have no such reference to aide me in knowing the exact intent of the author. I seek merely to claim an assumed intent in all pieces of literature based on the form in which the pieces were published. Since “… difficulty in the evaluation and application of artist’s intent was traced to ambiguity of the term “intent”, (Dykstra) I wish to clarify myself before I begin, by defining some of my terminology as quoted from the Oxford English Dictionary Online:

Fiction-- The species of literature which is concerned with the narration of imaginary events and the portraiture of imaginary characters; fictitious composition. Now usually, prose novels and stories collectively; the composition of works of this class.

The Story of the MCAS and Standardized Learning

Children are often given less credit than they deserve. I myself am guilty of this offense, as I believe we all are. Perhaps we forget what it was like to be young and curious, reading whatever we could get our hands on, picking up on adult conversations those involved were sure went over our heads, maybe even the occasional, giggly eavesdropping sessions we knew were so wrong (but so fun.) To this day, I underestimate the mental abilities of my younger sister. An avid reader and learner, she thirsts for knowledge beyond the scope of her fifth grade classroom. This is especially true because of the MCAS.

We in this high culture think that we have evolved beyondcannibalism which in the past was much more prevalent than it is now. Accordingto one theory of evolution, species evolve up a scale in which humans are atthe top. Is it possible to move back on this evolutionary scale? Could humans,if put in the right conditions de-evolve? Several events in history suggestthat the answer could be yes, but at the same time the world is supposed to bemoving forward, not backward. Darwin argued that an environment a species isplaced in, if given enough time and the right circumstances, can lead to thatspecies evolving into something new. I would argue that the same concept couldwork to move a species backwards on an evolutionary scale.

One of the things that we have spent the most time discussing in this class in the past few weeks is the idea of viewing science as a story rather than absolute, indisputable truth.  In our first class meeting, we were asked whether we thought the Earth was flat or round.  The majority of the class seemed to agree with the story that the Earth was round, but when pressed to answer questions about the reasons why they believed that particular story, everyone who agreed with that story essentially said that they believed the Earth was round because that was what they had been taught by their teachers at a young age, and because that was the scientifically accepted story.  As far as we can see from our own obse

The "theory of evolution" and "natural selection" goes hand in hand. According to Charles Darwin and his theory of Evolution, new species are developed by natural selection of random variations in order to fit changing environments. This theory has troubled and excited scientists for a long time now and continues to do so. The idea of "survival of the fittest", which means that the stronger species takes over the space of a weaker species and in that process the weaker species dies out, is a scary one.