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My name is Dan Shanin and I am a junior at Haverford College.  I am majoring in psychology with a neural-behavioral concentration and will be applying to medical school this spring.  I am a lieutenant of emergency medical operations at the Llanerch fire company and have been doing ambulance-related things for over 5 years.  I have a very strong biology background and have done research fellowships in microbiology and yeast genetics.  I feel that I will bring a very science-oriented perspective and I am curious to see how it compares with that of those who study the humanities.

The theory of evolution involves the idea of "success".  In biology success is easy to define; the creation of viable offspring carrying your genome.  How does the idea of success, an integral part of the theory of evolution, manifest itself when evolution is studied outside of the biological realm and it becomes more complicated than living vs. dead?

Evolutionary change in biology is the result of random mutations that are then acted upon by natural selection.  What is the driving force for change in literature since it certainly isn't random mutation?

Are all stories simply the evolution of an earlier tale or genre?