Category: November 14 (Page 2 of 3)

Darwin’s Influence

November 27, 2017 / / 0 Comments

In this week’s past lecture with Janet Browne we spoke about Charles Darwin’s biography and the origins of his studies.

Charles Darwin came from a well-educate and affluent family in England. His advanced studies drove his curiosity regarding human kind and their origins. Browne focuses not only on Darwin’s findings but also his person life which lead him to delve deeper into our evolution.

During our lecture with Professor Browne she asked each of us individually if we have learned about Darwin in biology classes during high school. The entirety of our class responded that they had even if their studies had been brief. However, Browne question caused me to think about the scope in which we learn about Darwin opposed to the scope that her biography took. Browne goes as far back into Darwin’s life as one could. She wrote about his siblings, parents, and education at the basic level. Browne then goes on to elaborate on Darwin’s college education. Browne gives the reader a deeper understanding to the way in which Darwin’s mind worked. She explained how his research can be seen as taking both Edinburgh University and Christ College approach and how the philosophies of the two schools shaped Darwin’s intellectual approach. Browne then goes on to talk about Darwin’s voyages and later findings.

However, what I realized from Browne’s initially question regarding our previous knowledge of Darwin made me realize I had known little of Darwin’s personal life prior to reading Browne’s book. The greater background knowledge of Darwin helped to explain how his mind approached the issue of our origins and what was driving his passions.

At the end of the lecture Browne asked us to leave with one final thought. My final thought regarded the unique timing of Darwin and his findings. Browne stated that while some people were and still are opposed to the idea of evolution, Darwin was not shunned for his findings. In other historical accounts people like Gallileo, for example, was put under house arrests for proposing ideas as to how the earth rotated and existed in relation to the sun. While now we know that Gallileo’s findings were in fact correct, during the time period he lived people refused to believe him. Browne’s writings made me realized the importance of time. Had Darwin lived just fifty years early he would not have been the one to come up with the idea of evolution. Theres a chance that it could have taken hundreds of years for the ideal of evolution to arise. This idea can be applied to any history, philosopher, mathematician, or scientists. However, it highlights the important of the society in which one is living in . The society in which Darwin was a part of was receptive to his findings. In addition it made me think of how while society is constantly changing, there has not been a massive shift in our societal beliefs for years. The last major societal shift was that from having slaves to being a slave-free society. While Darwin looked at the evolution of many kind and species, I think it is important to understand the history of Darwin as a person and the society he was living in when he proposed his ideas.

The origins of “the origins”

November 22, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Last week, Prof. Janet Browne from the Harvard University came to Colby to attend the seminar and give a lecture on the origins of Darwin’s origins of the species theory. While her talk mainly provided a bibliographical introduction of Darwin and his findings, I found the seminar discussion very inspiring for me to think about the word “origins” from different perspectives.

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Charles Darwin and Origin of Species

November 20, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Janet Browne, from Harvard University, came to Colby this week to talk about Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species. Janet Browne in class discussed how her work is involved in studying about Darwin’s work especially about his works on different species. Her book “Origin of Species,” informed me, in depth, about Darwin’s early childhood, early works, and how his early works have been the root for all his later studies done about his thesis.

A fascinating fact I learned about Darwin was that he had a very religious background. I thought Darwin would be a scientist who would have questioned the widely accepted religious idea that God created Earth and all living things. In the book, “Origins of Species” it mainly focuses on Victorian science, which has a strong relationship with religion and science which had a strong influence on Darwin’s career.

According to Janet Browne, Darwin merged theology and natural science. One of the most significant decision by Darwin for his career and his life was going on the Beagle Voyage. Darwin could not have achieved any of his life’s work if he had not boarded on the Beagle Voyage. From Browne, it sounded as if Darwin was too comfortable with his surroundings at the time and he couldn’t explore the anything outside his realm is he did not leave England. Darwin was also not fond of using humans in his experiment. He decided to look more into the geology. He looked at volcanoes erupting, earthquakes, and shapes of coral reefs which were instrumental in confirming his later studies. He took all these notes about his observations of different animals, plant, and geology. Darwin also encountered Fuegians in his voyage. The captain of the voyage, as well as Darwin himself, thought the Fuegians were savages and thought Christianity was a way to civilize them. Darwin noticed that the indigenous Fuegians and the Europeanized Fuegians were vastly different. Darwin in cases of this could be seen as a racist by many. Darwin later went to the Galapagos and noticed different organisms looked so similar to each other. Darwin categorized these animals as different varieties, however, he later realized that the reason why the animals were different was that of adaptation evolution these animals went through. After coming back from Britain, Darwin thought hard about his research he linked geology and biology. He also attempted to visualize the evolutionary change.

I believe that following your passion and having a wide perspective on any matter is extremely important. Darwin was very enclosed to his specific community in England; he couldn’t have done his research on evolution if he didn’t travel to other parts of the world and observed all the different geological and animal subjects. If Darwin did stay in England, he might have been a priest which his parents wanted him to be. Without Darwin’s work, most people today will not know that natural selection was what made evolution possible and still believe that God created new species. It is indisputable that Darwin eliminated god from science which made it possible for scientific explanations for all natural phenomena and created an intellectual and religious revolution.

Evolution and Origins

November 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Haley Andonian

Origins Lecture Series

“The Origin of the Origin”

Janet Browne

 

I was fortunate enough to experience the wisdom of Dr. Janet Browne in a variety of different settings over the course of her visit to Colby last week.  In each setting, she proved to be extremely intelligent and insightful in unique ways, and I believe I strongly benefitted from her presence in my STS senior thesis course, in the Origins lecture series, and in my introductory ecology course.

Although she specializes in the history of Darwin, Dr. Browne was a very helpful person to bounce ideas off of for my senior thesis, which will focus on the history of human experimentation in the United States.  She is very familiar with the history of medicine, and her excitement about my topic was very reassuring given this familiarity.  She is very enthusiastic about history and science and her enthusiasm made me excited to pursue my topic.

Dr. Browne also attended my introductory ecology class, where she integrated her knowledge on the history of Darwin with the history of ecological concepts.  One of the good points she made was that, throughout history, as with Darwin and with the history of ecology, new concepts and discoveries that change people’s perspectives on how the world work are always controversial at first.  Darwin’s theories of evolution were extremely controversial, especially since they contradicted long held religious beliefs, and thus took a long time to become accepted.  This comment that Dr. Browne made reminded me of the conversation on paradigm shifts that Thomas Kuhn introduces in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.”  By making this statement, she provides a great example of a paradigm shift and the challenges associated with accepting the new paradigm.

Finally, I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Browne lecture during the Origins lecture series.  In this lecture, Dr. Browne discussed the origins of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.  This piece of literature marks a very pivotal time due to the way in which Darwin redefined origins.  In his work, he presents a completely new theory of where humans come from that totally contradicts religious beliefs.  Instead of man being created from God, Darwin suggests rather that man descended from apes.  This change in the origin story, backed up by detailed scientific observations, completely shocked the world and altered people’s views of where they come from.

Darwin’s theory of evolution likely had such a large impact on society and was so controversial because of the fact that it messed with people’s idea of their origins.  Origins are so crucial to one’s identity and sense of self, and so to suggest that people originated from other species rather than from a divine power completely changed people’s conceptions of themselves and their history.

Overall, I found Dr. Browne’s comments on Darwin, the history of medicine, and the concept of origins very insightful and beneficial to our continuing conversation on origins.  She did a great job of connecting Darwin’s history to his work and our humanities topic, and I found her to be a very intriguing person to meet, speak to, and hear from.

Charles Darwin

November 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

It was a great opportunity to Janet Browne this week to Discuss more about Darwin and Origin of his works. With her discussions in class, she seemed to have immersed her life in studying Darwin’s work by writing and reading a lot about Darwin. From reading her book, ‘Origin of Species,’ I got to learn a lot about Darwin from his childhood and his family and how it all influenced who he later became in his life

Darwin’s experience, growing up in a religious background sparked my childhood experiences. I was brought up in a Christian family and went to a Christian high school. In both places, there were emphasize of God creating the earth and all the things in it in six days in the form they are now. It was strange to learn about evolution in Biology classes in high school then move into a Christian Religious Education class that we were required to study as well. The expectation in Victorian Science did not include the possibility of any disprove in their religion and was a challenging a moment for Darwin during his upbringing and his career path.

Janet emphasis was that Darwin’s evolution interest probably originated from the Beagle voyage he had for five years. These five years gave him an opportunity to be away from his family and interact with nature and fellow naturalist. He had an opportunity to see geological activities, like the mountain erupting, experience of earthquake in 1835, and encounter with different groups of people which made him believe that there must be something more than nature. During this time, he kept notes on animal observation, plants, and geology which he sent them back to England for further study. It was impressive how careful Darwin was during this voyage to notice very detailed things and the incident of eating an ostrich when he suspected that that might have been the smallest ostrich and was willing to send the remaining part of the ostrich back home for further study.

When he moved from one region to another during his voyage, he was fascinated by the difference between organisms which were close to each other. He called them, “different varieties” which he later figured out that these those species were in that form because of the adaptation to that place. His experience with the ingenious people was fascinating to him in how those people were different from the Europeans.

 

I think therefore, that the aspect of being independent in life is important.  Darwin leaving home for the voyage, his habit of thinking in silence and walking the sand walk gave him an opportunity to think about his work. I think if he had not gone on that voyage, he would have probably gone on a different career path in life, maybe become a clergy as his parents wanted him to be after Darwin dropped out of medical.

It is encouraging to see how much work has been done now which has roots in Darwin’s work. Medical field has improved a lot in gene modification to have a plants and animals who can adapt well to different places, which can be traced back to Darwin’s work.

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