Darwin revelation

My Darwin revelation has to do with the cultural impact of Darwin's findings. I didn't realize how strongly people felt about the topic of evolution and intelligent design. Doing the readings and seeing all of the video clips have shown me how much of a debate the topic really has become. I thought that some of the debate (although it was rather unanimous) was really interesting and provided more insight on the culture behind Darwin's discoveries. I found it interesting that Darwin himself also did not consider the fallout from his discoveries. "Though Darwin focused primarily on the biological evolution of animal species and almost never addressed the cultural or social consequences of this evolution for humans" (Dennis). I also found it interesting that even the Vatican and the Pope study this further. Darwin's findings really had a larger impact than what I thought before coming into this class. "In the many interviews I had with priests, each expressed a sophisticated theology that seemed far more abstract than what you might find occupying the mind of an average believer" (Mason). I found that Richard Dawkins also shed light onto how the progression of thought about evolution came to be "I myself flatly refused to believe Darwin's theory when I first heard about it at a child. Almost everybody throughout history, up to the second half of the 19th century, has firmly believed in the opposite" (Darwin). The other thing that I thought impacted me this semester was the movie we watched about evolution in schools. I found that to be very interesting, especially since schools around here (VT) don't seem to have the problems like these other schools have on weather or not to teach evolution or intelligent design. The reactions of people in these video clips blew my mind, I was unaware that people felt so strongly about what their children were learning. Overall, this class opened my eyes to a much different viewpoint and debate to the topic.





I found that this video, although a cartoon, illustrated perfectly some of the arguments that people get into. The culture behind the debate sometime seems to be made of of lame points and assumptions. Also, it causes conflict and issues among people who feel strongly one way or the other. This was evident even in class when we were having discussions on topics that certain people felt strongly about in one way or another.





Darwin, Charles. “Selections from Darwin’s Work.” pp 67-254 in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed . New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

Dennis, Rutledge M. “Social Darwinism, Scientific Racism, and the Metaphysics of Race.”
Journal of Negro Education. Summer 1995. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_199507/ai_n8730395

Mason, Michael. "How to Teach Science to the Pope." Discover Magazine. August 18, 2008. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/18-how-to-teach-science-to-the-pope