I suck at writing papers...
I'm supposed to write a reaction paper on a lecture that I heard a month ago. I have the slides and the guy's nasally voice... But that really doesn't help. I understand what I'm supposed to do... kind of... 1: Identify something in the lecture that interested me. 2: Explain in detail what it was and as though you are talking to an idiot. 3: Explain what it was that made it interesting or significant. 4: Finally, state whether or not you agree or disagree with the statement, that you (or in this case I) brought up.
Ok, I can do 1, 3 (kind of), and 4. It's that damn number two that is getting to me. Here is what I have so far:
1st paragraph: In evolution, man is the final goal. Does this mean that animals will in some time become like man, both in body and in mind? Or have we, man, just hit a dead end and all of the other animals are heading down a path to a greater, better, smarter creature?
2nd paragraph: Evolution is the process of change in a species. There are fossils that show creatures like us that were bipedal (walked on two legs) but had teeth and skull structures like that of a chimp. Over millions of years these fossils can be found, and they show that these creatures’ teeth and skull slowly change into that of a modern day human. The teeth, specifically the canines, would get smaller...
I understand that I would need to explain what evolution is and how the hell we get to this "final goal" from something that is thought to be "not so complex." What exactly am I supposed to say? How about this for my second paragraph?:
By natural selection we slowly evolved and because of this fact we (man), as far as we can tell are no longer evolving into something that is better suited for survival, are the end product. That we are the best suited for survival? In reality it is not the fact that we are best suited for survival but that we have cheated natural selection. Natural selection is more or less survival of the fittest. This means that the animal better suited for surviving, will. In my evolution of the brain class I learned that in order for natural selection to occur: first is must be varied. The trait must have some difference to the rest of the traits that the species has. For example, a frog has a longer tongue, which means that it can catch insects that the rest of the frogs of its species can't, due to their shorter tongues. Second, it must be genetic. The trait has to be able to be passed on to the next generation of offspring. Otherwise what is the point of the trait for the species? If the frog with the longer tongue ended up becoming sterile, in able to have offspring, because of the trait then the trait will die off no matter how much more effective it was. Finally, not everyone in the species can survive. This speaks for itself almost. The weaker of the species die off, perhaps because all the bugs are out of reach, leaving only the better adapted to live on, because they were able to actually eat.
I don't fucking know... My rambling seems better then when I was actually thinking about it... Which is scary...
I'm working on it little by little but I think I'm going to try and stick with my second revision of the second paragraph. I'll eventually post the final one to see how well it played out.