Name: Paul Grobstein
Username: pgrobste@brynmawr.edu
Subject: finding a path
Date: 2001-09-14 10:26:01
Message Id: 142
Comments:
The world has changed, as of this past Tuesday, 11 September, 2001. And it is not less important but even more important now to talk about what life is and should be, to tell and listen to stories about it, to share thoughts, to together try and get it less wrong. In what ways might things we have begun talking about help to make sense of where we find ourselves? In what ways might recent events contribute to our understandings and explorations of life?
Name: Rebecca Roth
Username: rroth@brynmawr.edu
Subject: Life
Date: 2001-09-14 10:33:30
Message Id: 143
Comments:
Life can be sometimes thought of as the science of biology. When I think about what life means I usually do not think about the biological entities and what characteristics they share to allow us to be able to distinguish them from non-living things. I usually just think about our everday activities and how if we are active and breathing, then therefore we must be living--very simplistic. Here is an interesting site about life:
http://home1.gte.net/lindanic/9801/life.htm
Name: Claudia Ginanni
Username: cginanni@brynmawr.edu
Subject: organizing life
Date: 2001-09-14 13:57:27
Message Id: 147
Comments:
Contemporary taxonomy, according to our textbook, is primarily focused on establishing how closely various species are related -- how much of their genetic inheritance they share with one another. Why, I wonder, is that so important to us? Why do we seem driven to classify things according to how like or unlike us they are?
One model of macroevolution proposes that a successful species in evolutionary terms is one from which numerous other species evolve. But I have to admit that it sort of creeps me out to think about other species evolving from ours. I suppose I want to think that our species is uniquely equipped, with its big brain, to use tools to adapt to a changing environment without having to change itself in a fundamental way.
We've talked about how "mistakes" -- observations that don't fit into the accepted summary -- provoke the profound changes in science. In our analogy between science and life, the mistakes that provoke evolutionary leaps could be mutations, i.e., errors in the replication of genes. But I imagine that mutations that lead to structural changes in the human organism are unlikely to be welcomed by existing humans. Such a mutation in the developed world would likely be subject to gene therapy. Do we reduce our chances of evolutionary "success" by restricting what it means to be human and then assuming that humanity is the desired state?
Name: Joelle Webb
Username: jawebb@brynmawr.edu
Subject: Human Nature
Date: 2001-09-15 12:35:37
Message Id: 156
Comments:
The previous posting asks why humans are driven to classify things according to how they relate to themselves. I ask: "How can we avoid this tendency?" At this point in our history as humans we are learning more and more about ourselves on the atomic and genetic levels. This may seem egotistical or porideful but there are no other organisms like us on the earth or that we know of in the rest of the universe. We acknowledge our differences by comparing oursleves to each other as humans and recognizing the idiosyncrasies of our species in comparison to other living beings.
Name: Christy Cox
Username: ccox@brynmawr.edu
Subject: what is a probable assembly?
Date: 2001-09-15 16:35:12
Message Id: 161
Comments:
This is just a (somewhat trivial) side note, but it recently occurred to me that while it seems we can very easily recognize an "improbable assembly," what would we recognize as a probable assembly? I think this can be answered by making some sort of observations reguarding chaos versus order, however the very idea can also be argued against using the parts-of-me-in-a-bag illustration. If I put all of my parts in a bag and spill them out, odds are not good that I will get me on the floor. But if I spill them out once (in what might seem a chaotic and probable assembly), aren't the odds equally slim that I will ever get that "probable" assembly again?
Name: viv
Username: vbishay@brynmawr.edu
Subject:
Date: 2001-09-16 16:55:22
Message Id: 166
Comments:
after talking about the characteristics of a living organism, ie resperation, growth etc we began looking at life on a broader level, as made up of interactions. this aspect of life became strikingly clear in light of tuesdays events. in europe they mourned as we did here, one lady from france stating, "today we are all americans,"and here blood banks were full after months and months of shortage and calls for donation. the social characteristic of banding together in stress is not a human one. this kind of response is mirrored in other species. it is intersting to note that an injured water buffalo, hunted by a pride of lions, recieves protection from fellow buffalos that encircle him and display they're horns.
Name: Emi
Username: mearima@brynmawr.edu
Subject:
Date: 2001-09-16 20:45:03
Message Id: 169
Comments:
I think the main thing we can learn from recent occurances and our studies is the importance of life. Life may be an organized improbable system, but there has to be something more...something that gives "life" (the phenomenon). I remember the first time I learned about cellular organization and the cell parts, and how on the smallest level, everything was made out of the same non-living molecules. I remember contemplating this and being just horrified that I was made up of all these non-living parts and I couldn't figure out how the non-living molecules were making a living me. Where was the line that differentiated these chemicals and the living cells I was composed of?
I think a danger is that my previous biology classes seemed so distant from life. They were a study of things and of images from books. I think that this separation happens in a lot of classes, as well as daily life, and it can be dangerous. People get caught up studying theories and models or they get caught up in their own work and chores, and they forget about the life aspect. Life may go on after tragedies, but the value of that specific life (its stories and information) are gone. Science, and biology especially, aren't just about classifying things, but connecting and interacting with other living organisms.
Name: Rebekah Rosas
Username: rrosas@brynmawr.edu
Subject: biology and tragedy
Date: 2001-09-16 21:07:57
Message Id: 171
Comments:
In light of last week's events, I have thought a lot about how biology has related to all the horrendous things that have occured. Wasn't it bad enough that someone, or a group of people did such a horrible thing to our country? But no, now Americans have retaliated against who they think to be the culprits. In our class, we have learned that in order for our lives to go on, we need diversity throughout our biosphere. Yet, here we are trying to destroy something different from us, just because we don't know all the facts. If only we, as a country, could realize just how precious diversity is to us.
Name: Alexis Baird
Username: abaird@brynmawr.edu
Subject:
Date: 2001-09-16 21:55:54
Message Id: 172
Comments:
We've been discussing evolution (on some level) and diversity with regard to bio. Prof. Grobstein brought up a very interesting point that we are not "better" evolved than any other species. The very same thought occured to me when reading about tiny bacteria that can survive extreme heat and extreme cold. Humans, for all their "brain power" and complexities, are no better (perhaps even worse) at surviving than these tiny bacteria. Too often, we seem to consider ourselves the final, perfect product of evolution. This thought led to another, more pessimistic thought (I'm sorry; I don't usually think this way). In the wake of all this tragedy it occured to me that perhaps humans are WORSE off than other species. After all, what other species kills its own kind out of something other than need; what other species has created things like discrimination and racial hatred; what other species has invented "tools" that serve no purpose other than to hurt others? It makes me wonder how and why we became this way? Is it a genetic development? A behavior we learned and passed down from generation to generation? A combination?
Name: Jennifer Trowbridge
Username: jtrowbri@haverford.edu
Subject: Life
Date: 2001-09-16 22:15:13
Message Id: 173
Comments:
One thing that I find very interesting is the fact that last Tuesday's events have heightened the America's (if not the whole world's) awareness of life. When we feel safe, we do not think about our existence. Instead, we focus on what we "need" get done in the time we have. Most people do not stop to think about life itself; it is the most precious gift we have, because NOTHING can replace it once taken away. Last Tuesday's tragedies have made people aware of the fact that life is more than just an improbable assembly of scientifically named parts - it includes emotional, spiritual, complicated states of BEING that in many ways cannot be explained. It is these incredible phenomena that come together to create life.
Name: charlotte ford
Username: cford@brynmawr.edu
Subject: evolution
Date: 2001-09-16 22:54:09
Message Id: 175
Comments:
I feel insensitively intellectual in trying to understand Tuesday's tragedy as part of the human evolutionary process. If evolution implies advancement, then it would seem that any and everything that occurs in our world somehow betters it. Explaining terrorist attacks or any violence as part of a natural pattern of advancement seems to justify it. How does free will fit into evolution? Perhaps it is not a qualitative question of bettering or making worse, but instead an observation of the interaction between improbable assemblies. A popular maxim of Ben Franklin states, "Nothing is either good or bad. It's thinking that makes it so." Are human actions wrong from an evolutionary standpoint? Is evolution not about advancement, but instead just about change? Evolving from monkeys is definitely an advancement in being able to manipulate our surroundings. How has Tuesday's tradgedy advanced us? What role will it play in our evolution?
Name: Sasha
Username: skarlins@brynmawr.edu
Subject: Mortality
Date: 2001-09-17 02:24:54
Message Id: 176
Comments:
I think part of our definion of life may need to include the fact that it is irreplacable. Starfish can re-grow limbs, some lizards can regenerate their tails, plants can grow a new flower if one gets plucked. But if you remove life from a living organism, that can't be given back or replaced. And, to relate this to the recent tradgedy, no matter what actions this country takes against anyone now, the lives lost can't be replaced. Killing people can't be taken back, because life is that aspect of an organism which can't be regenerated or replaced.
Name: Sarah Sterling
Username: ssterlin@brynmawr.edu
Subject: Perfection.....
Date: 2001-09-17 10:40:45
Message Id: 180
Comments:
What Sasha says in "Mortality" makes a lot of sense. It has never been quite so clear how certain aspects of life can be taken away and will come back (like tails, flowers), but how life in general can never be re-established once it is completely gone. After talking in class about the organization of life from microscopic size to blue whales, it seems like when I think of life I forget how complex we are. It is our complexity that is so hard to regenerate. Every part of life from the physical to the emotional would have to re-established to perfection in order for life to be fully regenerated. We are not perfect, but life can appear that way at times.
Name: Akudo Ejelonu
Username: aejelonu@bmc
Subject: Life
Date: 2001-09-17 20:37:52
Message Id: 191
Comments:
Unfortunately, last tuesday's event has made us realize how precison and dear life is. if we take one life away, then we are killing millions of cells. Cells are a part of scinece and a big part of who we are. life is soemthing that should be cherished and dear to our hertas. If two hundred people in Bosnis died last month due toa bomb, we americans will give a remorse to their families . But our lives will still go on. Due to tuesday's incident, Americans are hit very hard beacuse the attack was in their home; "the home of the free and the brave". This is human instincts and it is ashmed that it took last weeks attack to make us realize how precious life is.
My motto is "carpe diem"-seize the day. You never know when your life will suddenly end.
Name: Margaret Pendzich
Username: mpendzic@brynmawr.edu
Subject: life
Date: 2001-09-17 21:42:36
Message Id: 192
Comments:
Tuesday's events are a reminder of one of life's themes that people are sometimes unwilling to rememeber, that life is not static, it is ever-changing. These events will no doubt dramatically change the political aspect of our society, if not the world, and these changes will simply become part of what we describe our lives to be. Humans will adapt to these changes, and thus evolve into different beings than they were before.
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