Reply to comment

I found our discussion on Thursday clarified my thoughts on Darwin and the suspension of disbelief. I feel like the believing/doubting cycle that Professor Dalke introduced in small discussion really organized my thoughts on the subject and simplified a rather complex theory. 

On Darwin's work as foundational or emergent, it is pretty clear to me that Darwin's ideas were more emergent than foundational. His (and others) observations were substantial and numerous enough to eventually lead him to a theory rather than the theory leading him to certain observations. 

In terms of fiction and non-fiction writers, I think that a non-fiction writer would typically be thought of as a foundationalist because they are building upon certain givens and truths that occurred in real life and these truths build upon one another to create a story whereas, fiction writers are more emergent. That is, stories emerge as they create characters and fantasy worlds in their writing. However, some fiction writers could be considered foundationalists because some may be writing about a fictional world that has its own truths and givens and build a story based on that fictional world.