User Login
Biology of Belief
Quiz on Monday covers 4 lectures & 2 texts – bring notes and books for open-book part. Study for closed-book.
Letters of recommendation: Ask at least 3 weeks ahead, more is better. (Sean wrote 37!) Include your application letter. Why? Be sure to provide information on where to send – better to provide a stamped envelope. Many colleges want on-line, but many faculty will request that you find out how to mail. If you haven’t worked with someone recently, when you request a letter from her include a paragraph or two on what you’ve been doing since she last worked with you. Be sure to fill out all the parts of the forms before giving them to your recommender. (Sign the waiver if offered.)
DSM – IV PDR & Merck
Bookstore returns all unsold books this week. Buy or Summit or photocopy.
Topic choice due Thursday to your seminar leader at 11 a.m.
Presentations for 3 or 4 minutes on Thursday – on Biology of Belief or any reference in it (higher effort).
Prepare tomorrow. Give one presentation to yourself – outloud. Time your presentation. Give a practice talk to your buddy on Wednesday at 11 a.m. Tell your buddy that s/he should give you thorough feedback – both “positive” and “negative”.
Start with a 3 or 4 point outline on the blackboard. Use no notes (or just a single half-sheet with big font.) We’ll ask you to tell us who you practiced with and to note your start and stop time.
Toastmasters: 1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2. tell them, 3. tell them what you told them. PRACTICE!
Set a time with your buddy today. If you can’t set a time with your buddy, meet in LH 3 at 11 a.m. – and teem up with others.
karma – be sure you read Dalai Lama’s discussion – so you know not to use the term incorrectly – as many do
The Theory of EVOLUTION
Theory means a MODEL supported by a HUGE body of evidence. e.g. QUANTUM THEORY, Theory of Relativity
Any model will change with time... and be seen as part of some larger, better model in the future.
What might Evolution theory evolve into?
Hints: competition versus cooperation – e.g. liver cells cooperate to form liver and heart + lungs cooperate
quantity versus quality.... evolution theory assumes purposelessness or purpose is SURVIVAL, not QUALITY of life
Dalai Lama suggests that it’s a metaphysical assumption that the mental arises from the physical and not vice versa.
Darwin had read Malthus’s famous Essay on Population (try “Malthus Darwin” in Yahoo or Google)
"In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long- continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The results of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then I had at last got a theory by which to work".
Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876)
What is “Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection” ?
1. VARIATION: random variation in structure or habits (Darwin)
random variation in genes (modern biology)
random => “blind” => purposeless = meaningless
2. SELECTION: when things go bad in the environment, those creatures will survive with adaptive variations
“natural selection” selects those who survive .... “survival of the fittest” Malthus - inspired
3. HEREDITY: survivor must pass on the variations to subsequent generations
BIOLOGY of BELIEF – our personal beliefs matter to our physical and psychological health by attracting (or filtering) your thoughts and emotions and thus behaviors – such as how we respond to “stress”, how we care for ourselves and our planet, how we engage with life, other people, and ---survivability as a by-product of increase in quality of life (and increase in awareness)
MINDWORKS – the next step. How to recognize and examine our beliefs and how to change beliefs.
MINDWORKS is a longer and more challenging read than Biology of Beliefs. Start early next weekend!
Seminar Questions: Read both of the following sentences: p. 109 7th line “It is evident that ...” and p. 113 Line 8 “Using prescription drugs ...” Discuss Note that the first sentence (p. 109) refers to doctors, but the second sentence refers to patients.
Details: 1. enucleation and metaphor. 2. butter and bread metaphor 3. Table of cell versus body versus computer (entries: nucleus, membrane, receptor-effector proteins, gonad, brain, reflex action, hard drive, seminconductory chip, keyboard/CPU) 4. define epigenetics 5. metaphor of shirtsleeve and arm (as protein and DNA) 5. What does Lipton include in “environment”? 6. agouti mice – details of observation and conclusions 7. define iatrogenic
