Evolution in the mind of others?

 For my final presentation last Thursday, I showed an interview clip with a Haverford College Chemistry major. My thoughts before conducting this interview was to compare how I view evolution now and how someone outside the class would. I asked him five questions which were questions we had pondered and discussed aloud in class.

Questions Asked

1. What are the first 3 words that come into mind when u think of evolution?

5. What common grounds and differences are there between evolution of science vs. literature?

As a science major, the interviewee used very scientific terms in describing evolution whereas in class, we have applied the term evolution to culture and literature. When asked whether evolution is random or directed, the interviewee stated "directed, of course! natural selection implies a directionality". I then asked him whether he saw an randomness in the process and he disagreed. Furthermore, when asked to describe the evolution in science and literature, he used the terms, "I never thought about it" and "not sure". Given our discussions in class, I feel that I have come a long way since January. And to a certain extent, I can see myself giving very similar answers if these questions were posed to me before entering the course. It may be an interesting idea to have students fill out a questionnaire on the first day of class and allow them to compare the answers during the last week of class.