• Serendip's Exchange now has a new design created by Suzanne Gaadt, the creative director of Bryn Mawr's alumnae magazine, which will eventually transform the rest of Serendip too. The interlocking links, Serendip's new logo at the top left, is an ambiguous figure.
• Re-Making the Landscape: The Art and Science of Ava Blitz , one of Serendip's first guest exhibiting artists, Ava Blitz, returns to Serendip with "Cooking Up a Storm" and "Beauty and the Beast."

 Upon beginning Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty just four days after completing Forster’s Howard’s End, I was horrified.  “We are reading the same story all over again!” I thought, “This is going to be the most horrifically boring experience of all time.”  But as I delved deeper into the novel, keeping Howard’s End in the back of my mind, I found myself not only fascinated with the picture of modern society Smith presented, but also with the important connections in themes between the two novels.  These themes were especially accessible due to such a similar plot line.  By reading Zadie Smith’s novel, Forster’s masterpiece makes more sense, enlightening the reader about social evolution within the past century and at the same time providing a critique of society and its progress. Throughout our reading of On Beauty, I began to see the correlation, by reading these two novels together; I achieved knowledge far greater than what I would have attained having read one novel or the other.  The symbiotic relationship between the two presented an image of the social evolution of many social issues, race, class, gender, and religion.

Hayley Reed

April 19th, 2007

An Odyssey of Self-Awareness: Considering the Conscious & Unconscious 

In the class Evolution and Evolution of Stories, we discuss the evolution of universes, species, and populations.  In Darwinian evolution, individuals who are better adapted to their unique environment have a better chance at survival. These biological aspects of evolution can also be used to describe literary evolution.  For example, books that are useful or generative are kept in humanity, whereas books that have no use or readers cannot connect with are rarely read thus become extinct.  Looking further into literary evolution, we can analyze the evolution of a character in a novel and see if the character changes over the course of the novel to adapt to his changing environment.  In Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, the Belsey family does not evolve.  At the start of the novel, Howard and Kiki’s marriage is strained and Howard cannot connect with his kids.  At the end of the novel, nothing has changed within the dynamics of the family.  The relationships of the family members remain unchanged. Biological evolution is seen at the population level, but delving deeper into the levels, we can also say that the unit of selection is the individual.  Although the family unit as a whole in On Beauty does not evolve, do the characters evolve in the novel (in particular Howard Belsey)?

Literature and science are both attempts to explain reality. The story of evolution explains the process through which species mutate, adapt, and evolve. Evolution offers an answer to the question, How did we get here? Literary stories are not as devoted to offering answers to that question, but focus more on the Why are we here?, What is our purpose? Literature is an attempt to tell stories that get it less wrong in terms of the way in which we think about people and their interactions. If we think about science as a process of discovery, we can also think about literary analysis as an attempt to discover the answers to the big questions, and we can use the loopy scientific method to offer insight into literary analysis. Not attempting to find the Truth frees the thinker up to discover other things. For me, this means less pressure and freedom to experiment with ideas rather than having to be Right.

          Throughout the course of this semester, our class has discussed the usefulness of the story of evolution as an explanation of the way life has evolved but also as an explanation for the way other things evolve as well. We have found literature, in particular, to be one such topic that can be explained in terms of the story and mechanics of biological evolution. By reading and discussing E.M. Forster’s Howards End and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, the idea that books can be adaptations of one another, like an adaptation in the biological sense. Literary adaptation, also like biological adaptations, can be successful or not, depending on multiple factors. Unlike biological evolution, though, these factors are mostly dictated by humans, and the environment in which the work is released. Zadie Smith’s style of adaptation, regardless of its inherent generativity, is not the only style of adaptation available to an author. Although not normally thought as a method of adaptation, the art of translation is a useful and fascinating way to adapt a piece of literature.

I can’t imagine being thoughtless as a way of life. The only time I ever think of myself as thoughtless, more or less, is on a tennis court, where tennis is my only thought. Even then, I’m thinking; thinking about the game, the moment, the point. I observe and respond- this is my logic. To be thoughtless, to me, would mean that I act without this logic, without any reasoning. Is it better to be ignorant and simple, or aware and complicated? Is thoughtlessness ignorance? Does being aware necessarily equal complication? I’ve grown up being taught that thinking about issues, about lessons being taught in school, is the most beneficial way to gain the most I can out of my academic life. Now, in this moment, I wonder whether I’d be happier to not have adapted this mentality. I say those dreaded words, wonder that forbidden thought, thinking that life could be much simpler if I didn’t take responsibility for what I see around me.

Lea Rifkin
Biology 202
Professor Grobstein
Spring 2007
Web Paper 2

Great Expectations:
The Effects of Neuroscience on the American Legal System

Most Americans take comfort in the legal system that has been built to protect them. Law in America is generally believed to be stable, secure, and solid. It is a system which has been in existence since the birth of our country itself, and which has served American's well with little modification throughout the years. The legal system in the United States of America has survived cultural change, political turmoil, and scientific discovery in the past, and it will continue to do so in the future. Today, exciting advances in the field of Neuroscience provide new opportunities for the American legal system. However, with new opportunities come new challenges. Brain scan technology could eventually provide us with the ability to determine whether an individual is prone to commit a crime, whether a jury member is biased, whether a convicted murderer was able to make a rational decision, and whether or not an individual is lying. Yet, these possibilities also provoke moral questions as to what responsibility entails, what the domain of the legal system covers, and at what point we consider evidence valid, tested, and accurate.

In many ways, Neuroscience is a new frontier of the legal system in the United States of America. With the use of many Neuroscientific techniques, concepts, tools, and ideas comes the ability to come to conclusions that were never possible before. For example, brain scans are being combined with Implicit Association Tests, or I.A.T.s. This new combination test can be used to test biases, which can be useful when attempting to compile a jury. In preliminary studies, such tests have been used as individuals have been shown images of both black and white people while having their brains scanned. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (f.M.R.I.) is also a relatively new technique with exciting possibilities. The f.M.R.I. technology allows Neurobiologists to see exactly what part of an individual's brain lights up when they partake in specific activities. Thus, although scientists are aware that specific areas of the brain handle specific types of action and information, this test allows them to see variation between individuals. The f.M.R.I. technology is also being used to develop new lie detectors. One of these new types of lie detectors compares the brain activity of liars with the brain activity of truth tellers. Another form of this new technology identifies when an individual recognizes an image, a smell, a person, a sound, or a crime scene that they are shown, versus when an individual is unfamiliar with what is presented to them. A third new development, known as positron-emission tomography, or PET scans, allow for participants to be injected with a solution that contains radioactive markers. These markers illuminate brain activity and allow Neuroscientists to identify damaged areas of the brain. These damaged areas may have caused an individual to have made a specific decisions or may explain why an individual reacted in a specific way. This new technology obviously has strong potential to both bring additional evidence into the court of law and to change the way the American legal system looks at evidence (1).

However, as many who work in both the fields of Neuroscience and the law have noted, it is important to cautiously and slowly analyze how this fusion, which has begun to be called “Neurolaw” will look (1). Along with the many benefits that Neuroscience has the potential to bring to the American justice system, there are challenges as well. The most widespread concern amongst professionals in the field is that the Neuroscientific techniques that are beginning to draw attention and appear attractive have actually not yet “gained general acceptance in the particular field [to] which [they] belong” (2). Although the United States Supreme Court has ruled that evidence should not be considered unless Judges have looked at “whether the underlying theory or technique is testable (and whether it has been tested), whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication, its known or potential error rate, and its general acceptance in the relevant scientific community” (2), even Neuroscientists involved in created in techniques which have the ability to effect the law are wary. In fact, The American Association for the Advancement of Science held an invitational meeting in 2004 to discuss “Neuroscience and the Law” (4). At this meeting, lawyers, Neuroscientists, judges, law professors, psychologists, and psychiatrists all agreed that:
“The use of flawed or incomplete science, or the reliance on scientific predictions beyond what the science is prepared to support, are exactly the kinds of concerns that should be foremost in the public mind when contemplating the potential social impact of predictive technologies or techniques” (4)

However, there are also more specific concerns within the field of Neurolaw. For example, even some of the scientists involved in developing the brain scan and I.A.T. combination tests explained that results cannot necessarily detect bias. They are more apt to notice whether or not participants have an awareness of “social reality,” or the disadvantage that certain groups face (1). Neuroscience based lie detection also brings difficult questions to the table. Currently, Neuroscience based lie detection is only as accurate as traditional lie detection techniques (1). However, even if Neuroscience based lie detection reaches a 100 percent accuracy rate, important legal issues will remain. These include freedom of thought under the Fifth Amendment and concerns over safety issues involved in these tests (4). Thus, unless courts found these tests to be inappropriately invasive, such as stomach pumps, would we force people to testify against themselves? Would the American legal system make lie detection tests mandatory (1)? Another popular use of Neuroscience in law is to determine what is different about a particular criminal's brain. However, as a culture Americans will need to make decisions regarding responsibility and choice. If a criminal had pressure on his or her amygdala or an abnormal cyst nestled in his arachnoid membrane does he or she abdicate all responsibility for his crime (1)? Although in the future Neuroscientists are looking at the possibility of memory downloading, or the ability to retrieve an individuals memory from their brain and store it in an alternative location, which presents numerous issues including whether or not police would need a warrant to search an individuals skull, presently technology is being developed which focuses on predicting the future. This technology aims to predict whether an individual is prone to violence or criminal action and must be utilized with extreme caution (1) as “it is near the core of our justice system that we reward people, punish them, or hold them responsible for their actions, not their thoughts (or potential actions)” (4). If at all flawed, this technology could also lead to the punishment of many innocent individuals.

The possibilities that Neuroscientific discovery provide for the American legal system are ever expanding, inspiring, and thought provoking. While Neuroscience does have the potential to revolutionize the justice system in the United States, more proof must be provided before lives are put at stake. Although brain imaging results have already been utilized in the court of law (3), it has been argued that Neuroscience has less potential to revolutionize the legal system than it does to change the way the public views criminal activity, responsibility, free will, and choice (5). However, as has already been shown, Neuroscience will play a role in American law. Thus, techniques must be further developed and refined, which time will allow for. It is also important that both scientists and those involved in the legal system cautiously analyze both the methods used and the outcomes such methods will provide. Until new Neuroscientific measures can be proven, they cannot be trusted in the court of law. Only time will tell whether our faith and excitement in “Neurolaw” will show fruitful results, or prove to have been just a great expectation?

One of the main issues about the concept of color is whether color is a physical property of something in the world around us or whether it is a mental property which is not present in the external world. (1) I had always tended to take for granted that what I saw in front of my eyes was reality. Similarly, I assumed that color was an external property of the world; the red car that we are driving is universally red, the green tree is always green regardless of whether or not we are there to perceive it. However, upon entering this neurobiology class, I learned quite the opposite; according to what I have now been taught, there are in fact scientific theories that suggest that color is not an exterior property, but rather a construction of the brain completely independent of wavelengths. The fact that there could be two opposite theories, both with substantial and valid evidence supporting their claims, made me question the things that I so readily believed and lead me to investigate each side’s arguments in an attempt to make my own evaluation. I therefore looked into the arguments both of scientists who believed that color was and was not a physical property of the world presented and the research that they believed supported their claim. Their claims rely on elements such as research conducted which proves the existence of conscious color perception in certain blind patients, the existence of color constancy, afterimages and simultaneous color contrasts, and research suggesting that early visual experience is indispensable for normal color perception. This paper will first describe a few of the arguments in favor of color subjectivism and then compare them with research and studies that seem to indicate that there is wavelength realism to color in order to then come up with an opinion on which one must adequately describes color.