(no subject)
It's been a while.
Finals start tomorrow. I have my exam on evolution tomorrow, history Monday, and German Wednesday. Then I'm a rising sophomore. Kinda scary how quickly it all passes.
I had an absolutely fantastic semester. All of my professors and TFs were great. All of my classes were at least interesting if not enjoyable.
I'm starting to reconsider history as my area of study. I'm not sure what I'd change to. I have about a semester to figure it out though.
I think "Understanding Darwinism" was the most important class I've taken. I had no bio in high school, so I didn't really understand a lot about evolutionary theory. This is the first class I can remember where I've gone and found books beyond the course material. As Darwin notes at the end of Origin, our naturalist understanding of the world truly is beautiful. Ironically, this science course had a rather profound affect on me that you'd expect more from a liberal arts area. I feel...idk, changed. My views of the world have changed drastically.
I would highly recommend the book "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" by Kenneth Miller. He's a cell biologist at Brown and he also makes sure to note that he is a devout Catholic, a bit of a rarity in science. The book examines the tenants of intelligent design, why they fail scientifically, why they fail theologically, and why this pseudo-science that has ignored millenia of Christian teaching (along with the rest of the Creationist movement) is a threat to both science and our society as a whole. If you doubt the last claim, read the Wedge Document. The wikipedia page has a link to the actual thing. The other interesting thing is that ID is exactly the same as creationism except for the age of the earth. And if you read Behe's book (which I read a significant portion of for my paper) you realize the obvious: there's no body of evidence, there have been no experiments, nothing. They look at something and say: that's too complicated to understand. Sad part is, every single example they've given of irreducible complexity, we understand how it happened. And as for each species being separately created, well, someone's been smoking too much pot.
Nova did a 2 hour documentary on the Dover Trial called "Judgment Day." It was very good, and very enlightening. I've also discovered the wonders of youtube. Obviously Richard Dawkins has drawn my attention. But not all of his videos are about religion. He did a bunch of very interesting interviews...one with a Catholic priest, one with a doctor on the applications of evolution on medicine, and one with Steven Weinberg, among several others. They're worth watching. Some of the great minds of our time.
I'm also in the process of reading "A Briefer History of Time," the somewhat less difficult version of Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time." Physics is so much more complicated than anything else lol, something that Dawkins notes in his interview with Weinberg.
Going home for a job interview and LHS' prom, then back for graduation stuff. I have two somewhat part-time jobs that seem to be playing out. I contacted a UML professor whose working on a grant from the national park on immigration patterns to Lowell. He's basically writing a book and does have an opening for another student to work on it...just waiting for him to clear it with the national park since they're paying for it. And it seems like I'll get a shot at learning and working on webdesign a little bit. Won't get much money from all of this, but shrug, good experiences are the important part at this point in life. And I have gotten over my disappointment at not getting a job with the national park. The professor told me that some of his students weren't hired and, well, they're much further along in their educations than I am.
Well, I should get back to studying. I think my GPA is going to take a bit of a hit this semester, but it's not like I was going to maintain a 3.556 my whole time here lol. Shrug, never know. My exam tomorrow might be easy. In that case, well, we'll see.
Finals start tomorrow. I have my exam on evolution tomorrow, history Monday, and German Wednesday. Then I'm a rising sophomore. Kinda scary how quickly it all passes.
I had an absolutely fantastic semester. All of my professors and TFs were great. All of my classes were at least interesting if not enjoyable.
I'm starting to reconsider history as my area of study. I'm not sure what I'd change to. I have about a semester to figure it out though.
I think "Understanding Darwinism" was the most important class I've taken. I had no bio in high school, so I didn't really understand a lot about evolutionary theory. This is the first class I can remember where I've gone and found books beyond the course material. As Darwin notes at the end of Origin, our naturalist understanding of the world truly is beautiful. Ironically, this science course had a rather profound affect on me that you'd expect more from a liberal arts area. I feel...idk, changed. My views of the world have changed drastically.
I would highly recommend the book "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" by Kenneth Miller. He's a cell biologist at Brown and he also makes sure to note that he is a devout Catholic, a bit of a rarity in science. The book examines the tenants of intelligent design, why they fail scientifically, why they fail theologically, and why this pseudo-science that has ignored millenia of Christian teaching (along with the rest of the Creationist movement) is a threat to both science and our society as a whole. If you doubt the last claim, read the Wedge Document. The wikipedia page has a link to the actual thing. The other interesting thing is that ID is exactly the same as creationism except for the age of the earth. And if you read Behe's book (which I read a significant portion of for my paper) you realize the obvious: there's no body of evidence, there have been no experiments, nothing. They look at something and say: that's too complicated to understand. Sad part is, every single example they've given of irreducible complexity, we understand how it happened. And as for each species being separately created, well, someone's been smoking too much pot.
Nova did a 2 hour documentary on the Dover Trial called "Judgment Day." It was very good, and very enlightening. I've also discovered the wonders of youtube. Obviously Richard Dawkins has drawn my attention. But not all of his videos are about religion. He did a bunch of very interesting interviews...one with a Catholic priest, one with a doctor on the applications of evolution on medicine, and one with Steven Weinberg, among several others. They're worth watching. Some of the great minds of our time.
I'm also in the process of reading "A Briefer History of Time," the somewhat less difficult version of Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time." Physics is so much more complicated than anything else lol, something that Dawkins notes in his interview with Weinberg.
Going home for a job interview and LHS' prom, then back for graduation stuff. I have two somewhat part-time jobs that seem to be playing out. I contacted a UML professor whose working on a grant from the national park on immigration patterns to Lowell. He's basically writing a book and does have an opening for another student to work on it...just waiting for him to clear it with the national park since they're paying for it. And it seems like I'll get a shot at learning and working on webdesign a little bit. Won't get much money from all of this, but shrug, good experiences are the important part at this point in life. And I have gotten over my disappointment at not getting a job with the national park. The professor told me that some of his students weren't hired and, well, they're much further along in their educations than I am.
Well, I should get back to studying. I think my GPA is going to take a bit of a hit this semester, but it's not like I was going to maintain a 3.556 my whole time here lol. Shrug, never know. My exam tomorrow might be easy. In that case, well, we'll see.