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JPierre's picture

Monday's discussion

The idea of classification by way of context makes classiying organisms/peoples/things less daunting. Classification by context removes the "anything goes" method in this class. More specifially, knowing that I share a kinship to bacteria because of our abilities to store DNA is more reassuring than saying that I am related to bacteria just because everything in this world is related somehow.  Having a context in which to classify organisms or living things reassures me that in this class, I won't be learning that I'm actually related to a wooden table without ample reasoning to support that claim.

Moreover, this mode of thinking is pretty exciting. Thinking about classification in these terms increases my ambitions as I see myself wanting to find or observe the link between me and other organisms. Now that I can see a link between myself and bacteria, an organism that is so anesthetically different from me, I wonder with what I will find a connection to next.

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