Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Highlanders
On Thursday we discussed evolution versus creator. For this discussion everyone seemed to agree on evolution, or a mixture of the two. What if the creator created evolution and meant for everything to happen the way it did. Leigh pointed out that there are parts of evolution we absolutely cannot deny. Daniel brought up the example of birds and their beaks, how they evolve to match their environment, pointy beaks vs curved beaks which ever matches the diet of the environment their in. We were in the middle of discussion when class ended.
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The example of the birds is very compelling evidence for evolution.... and that is just one example which happened over a relatively short time span... Imagine what 3 billion years could do... 7 billion...
ReplyDeleteI actually saw a Ted Talks about how, if we were to try to recreate dinosaurs, we would probably start with chicken embryos and genetically engineer them, because they're so close structurally to dinosaurs. They have all the necessary genes - it's just about triggering them.
DeleteFactual Question: What famous book did Marx co-author with his friend Engels in 1848? (Answer: The Communist Manifesto)
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Question: Do you believe in the world Marx wanted to exist? A world without classes, where nobody owned land and everything was equal?
I think my favorite part of the discussion was the ability of the group to discuss a topic like religion and evolution (note: I didn't use versus, because I don't believe the two are, by necessity, mutually exclusive, especially from a deist perspective) in a civilized fashion. So often people butt heads when the conversation takes a turn towards organized religion, so it was nice that we were able to discuss it without any animosity towards one another.
Link: this is a link to an online copy of Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto:
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Factual Question: Two contributing authors for the Communist Manifesto were? Marx and Engel.
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Question: Based on the fact that every communist nation (in some form or another) has failed or been oppressive to its people do you think that Marx had poor ideas? Or were they poorly executed?
I think the general group idea was that small scale evolution is true, there is no way that it couldn't be. We can see the evidence change over our life time, however, larger scale evolution seems unlikely. Their is evidence supporting and denying it so it could go either way. Millions of years is quite a long time for a species to evolve though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH4j5NiJAiE Here is a cartoon explaining the situation a little more. Their is obviously some heavy bias, but still interesting to see how it was explained.
Factual Question: What philosopher wrote Fear and Trembling under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio? A: Soren Kierkegaard
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Question: In what situations in your life do you rely on faith? Do you think faith can ever be rational?
Comment: I loved our discussion on evolution! Whether or not you believe in macro evolution, it's fascinating to imagine what the human race will be like in another million years.
Link: Here's another article by Clare Carlisle about Fear and Trembling that was published by The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/29/kierkegaard-philosophy-abraham-isaac
It is an interesting thought. What if creationists and evolutionists were both right?
ReplyDeleteFactual Question: What was Marx's most famous work? Communist Manifesto
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Question: Can people more closely relate to people in their same economic class or people within their nation?
Comment: Even though I have no interest in evolution, I still enjoyed our discussion.
Link: Here's the link to the Manifesto http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf