so I started to write my paper about the history of evolutionary theory, but then i got distracted...anyway while researching i came across this poem that i wanted to share with the class. it's by Darwin's grandfather:

Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.

Erasmus Darwin. The Temple of Nature. 1802.

Yesterday in Prof. Dalke's discussion section, we talked about whether it was more effective to conceive of our eduction in terms of defined, separate disciplines or in terms of an interdisciplinary approach. We seemed to have a very difficult time coming up with an answer; some people, for instance, thought that we have the responsibility to teach people about "social Darwinism" (and the ways in which Darwin's theories have been co-opted) in a biology class, and others felt that that should be the territory of a history class.