Story of Evolution and Evolution of Stories course

“The truth about stories is that that's all we are ... The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that .... 'if we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.’ ....”
            —Thomas King, The Truth About Stories

 "She's still alive, my invented friend, just as I conceved here, still uncrushed by the need for happier endings.  All writing is rewriting" .... Richard Powers, Generosity, Picador, 2010

Hi,

My name is Kerlyne. I am a Senior Anthropology major and Biology minor at Bryn Mawr College. I have taken previous classes on Evolution in my time here at Bryn Mawr but this class interested me very much in my last semester because it seems to focus on the "story" of evolution. The idea that this may not be set in stone and may change at any moment. I enjoy the notion that one should not take everything as fact and instead, our everyday lives should revolve around collecting observations and making possible stories that serve as explanations. Many of these "stories" seem to have been created solely to find comfort in what is often unknown. I hope to get a greater insight on how stories play a role in science and our everyday lives.

Hello everyone. My name is Hope, I'm a senior Biology Major.  I went to one of those high schools in GA that had to put stickers in the biology textbooks saying evolution is only one of many theories or something.  It was a big controversy and on the news all the time for a while. I also have a fish named Bruce and I want to live on a boat. 

 Hi, my name is Katie and I’m a sophomore at Bryn Mawr. I’m an anthropology major with a biology minor, and have a particular interest in evolution and primatology. I’m excited for this class because I’m hoping it will incorporate both the cultural and biological aspects of anthropology by bringing to light how culture impacts evolution. The writing and the sharing of our ideas is a huge part of our culture, and the evolution of our culture has been crucial to the evolution of our species on a genetic level. As a result, our evolution is not only caused by how the environment changes us, but how we change our environment.         

 Hello! My name is Kati Zaylor, and I am new to Serendip, Professor Grobstein, and Professor Dalke. Therefore I am excited and intrigued about this course and learning more about evolution, biology, and literature. I am a senior and a Theater major, and so I approach this course with a relatively open mind about the way the universe operates. Because I don't understand most science, I am not constrained within the limits of what is and what isn't, and feel as though there are many possibilities and unknowns to the universe. I respect some limits of science, but I will continue to verbally oppose trying to define the undefinable and declaring what is or isn't at times when humans have no place to do so. For example, "The universe doesn't evolve.