How Does Darwinism Matter to Me?

The Link "Why Darwinism Matters?" really made me think about the implications of Darwinism and evolutionary psychology and what it all means.

Here is an excerpt:
"in a recent book called The Moral Animal, Robert Wright says that for the Darwinist, morality is merely an illusion produced by natural selection. As he writes, "There is definitely no reason to assume that existing moral codes reflect some higher truth apprehended via divine inspiration." Instead, the reason we believe certain moral ideas is that they make us adopt behaviors that help our genes survive--like taking care of our children. "What is in our genes' best interest is what seems 'right'--morally right, objectively right."

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If that's right, that means nothing is objectively right or wrong, because the factors that determine what is the good for our genes can change so easily. In fact, historically, many moral standards were promoted by groups of people who only had THEIR BEST INTERESTS in mind, not the whole species. The other link "Origin of Life Q&A" illustrated this very nicely.

Evo Devo (Week 3)

We covered a lot of grounds last week and there were a lot of different concepts and theories mentioned in the articles. FrankIy, I felt a little overwhelmed by the information. I am not sure if I was the only one. Anyway, I did some research and found some sites that explains some of theories well...that certainly helped me to think more deeply about the subject:

Evo Devo:
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/051024crbo_books1

Medel's Genetics
http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_1.htm

Population Genetics
http://library.thinkquest.org/19037/population.html

Here's from the first new yorker evo devo article,
"...evo devo’s key empirical finding: swans, swallowtails, and socialites are all built from the same genes....
Evo devo tells us that animal species look different not because their structural bits and pieces have changed but because they switch on and off the same old bits and pieces in different combinations."

That really made me feel connected to other beings... the oneness of the universe and that everything that seems different is just manifestation of the Oneness. Then again, I feel that when we talked about electrons in the Chemistry class too.

On Evolution

It seems like change is definitely a component in the evolution process. In order to survive, species have to change to adapt to the environment. I wonder as a species, how much humans have evolved since 5000 years ago? If 1,000 years later, humans have genetic changes (which with all the radiation and chemicals that we are bringing forth to ourselves on a daily basis, this idea doesn't seem too far-fetched), then, I wonder, will all the principles we learn from classical chinese medicine text still apply?

How far should we go?

Reflections on the 1/8/07 Biology class

It was one mind-blogging article after another. One common thread that some of the articles share is how far scientists are going in play "God" in manipulating and modifying nature. But how far is too far? And do we have any rights to stopping other people doing all these things?

Is this too far?
http://www.malepregnancy.com/

One personal question I have after reading all these articles is whether I should have children in the future. If it is going to be in such horrible state by 2050, then would I want to have children and let them face the consequence of this generation?

Overpopulation is a problem. But if people stop having children (or at least less), then how would we deal with problems that's brought upon by an aging population?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55582-2005Feb1.html

An ironic phenomenon is that while overpopulation is becoming a threatening problem, the average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s, according to this article:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5525283