Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

Catrina Mueller's picture

Final Summary

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.

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
3 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.