Haley Andonian<\/p>\n
Origins Lecture Series<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Origin of the Origin<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Janet Browne<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 She is very familiar with the history of medicine, and her excitement about my topic was very reassuring given this familiarity.\u00a0 She is very enthusiastic about history and science and her enthusiasm made me excited to pursue my topic.<\/p>\n Dr. Browne also attended my introductory ecology class, where she integrated her knowledge on the history of Darwin with the history of ecological concepts.\u00a0 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\u2019s perspectives on how the world work are always controversial at first.\u00a0 Darwin\u2019s theories of evolution were extremely controversial, especially since they contradicted long held religious beliefs, and thus took a long time to become accepted.\u00a0 This comment that Dr. Browne made reminded me of the conversation on paradigm shifts that Thomas Kuhn introduces in his book \u201cThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions.\u201d\u00a0 By making this statement, she provides a great example of a paradigm shift and the challenges associated with accepting the new paradigm.<\/p>\n Finally, I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Browne lecture during the Origins lecture series.\u00a0 In this lecture, Dr. Browne discussed the origins of Darwin\u2019s On the Origin of Species<\/em>.\u00a0 This piece of literature marks a very pivotal time due to the way in which Darwin redefined origins.\u00a0 In his work, he presents a completely new theory of where humans come from that totally contradicts religious beliefs.\u00a0 Instead of man being created from God, Darwin suggests rather that man descended from apes.\u00a0 This change in the origin story, backed up by detailed scientific observations, completely shocked the world and altered people\u2019s views of where they come from.<\/p>\n Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution likely had such a large impact on society and was so controversial because of the fact that it messed with people\u2019s idea of their origins.\u00a0 Origins are so crucial to one\u2019s identity and sense of self, and so to suggest that people originated from other species rather than from a divine power completely changed people\u2019s conceptions of themselves and their history.<\/p>\n Overall, I found Dr. Browne\u2019s comments on Darwin, the history of medicine, and the concept of origins very insightful and beneficial to our continuing conversation on origins.\u00a0 She did a great job of connecting Darwin\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Haley Andonian Origins Lecture Series \u201cThe Origin of the Origin\u201d 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.\u00a0 In each setting, she proved to be extremely intelligent and insightful in unique ways, 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