Final Essay - All You Need Is Biology?

All You Need Is Biology?

            Love is arguably one of the most complicated human emotions but can also be argued as the most simple of all the emotions. Humans covet love and struggle their whole lives to find their “soul-mate”. Well, what if this magical human emotion could be explained scientifically? Would humans still believe that love can heal all wounds or would our views change over time? Even though human biology and chemistry may play a big role in our emotions – love reaches beyond the world of scientific terms and chemical reactions.

There are scientists and philosophers who continue to work on finding a scientific explanation for the common feelings of love that humans feel. In their article, “Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Attractiveness”, Berhnard Fink and Ian Penton-Voak choose three factors of human behavior to explain how we choose a mate. “Evolution psychology has focused on the perception of three major cues that may underpin biologically significant assessments of mate value: (a) symmetry, (b) averageness, and (c) nonaverage sexually dimorphic features” (Fink & Voak, 155). The article continues to describe those three factors as being the main reasons we pick a mate (at least in the category of their facial features). Scientists are striving to pinpoint aspects of love and match them with our “lovey-dovey” feelings. But in the case of Fink & Voak, does facial attractiveness outweigh other decisions when we find our soul-mate? Despite the intriguing data and conclusions about evolutionary psychology, the findings do not encompass the entire emotion of human love.

Helen Fisher and her associates are spending their time to further the research of human love. In the article, “Romantic Love: A Mammalian Brain System for Mate Choice”, Fisher et al. relate the brain systems of other mammals to human brain systems in an effort to see some similarities.

“A number of groups have reported that the basic human motivations and emotions arise from distinct systems of neural activity and that these brain systems derive from mammalian precursors. Thus, it is parsimonious to suggest that a mammalian brain mechanism for courtship attraction is also active in Homo sapiens. Moreover, because human romantic love is a universal human phenomenon, because romantic love’s central characteristic is mate preference and because ‘being in love’ exhibits many of the other traits associated with mammalian courtship attraction, it has been hypothesized that human romantic love is a developed form of this mammalian neural mechanism for mate choice” (H. E. Fisher et al., 2174).

            Even though the data from this article is clear and thoroughly supported with other resources, it still seems to short-change the common idea of romantic love. Finding a neural mechanism for mate choice (or even specifically romantic love) does not explain our human nature to “fall in love” and spend the rest of our lives living happily ever after.

If love were solely a matter of chemistry and biology, we as humans would not care about finding our “true” love or our “soul mate”. We would view love as a situation “for the moment”, we would date others without intention of marriage or life-long monogamy. We would view physical attraction as a type of natural order and sexual intercourse would be mostly for procreation. Having children would only be for populating the Earth, not for the joy and happiness that a child brings to a family. Courtship would only be for obtaining another mate, not for finding a life-long partner. Changes in our beliefs about love would not only affect our behavior but it would drastically affect our institution of marriage. Marriage would be obsolete – why get married if biology dictates our lives and biology tells us to have many partners? Living in a world without marriage is a hard concept to wrap my brain around and it almost seems like a scary though. The institution of marriage is so deep-seeded in to our culture and is one the strongest traditions in the United States. Without marriage, our current beliefs about love and relationships would become naïve.

Our culture would observe a drastic change if love and relationships were matters of chemistry and biology. We are a culture that values love – so much so that almost every single song ever made has to do with some type of love (and of those, mostly romantic love). My generation values love as the one thing that can make you truly happy; we’re seeing more and more younger couples getting married without having a set career or plan in life because “love it all that matters”. If everyone gave up on finding their true love, I think a lot of us would feel empty and that is something that science cannot explain. Just because human romantic love is outside the boundaries of science should not stop scientists (and all others) from continuing research about love as a human emotion. Research and knowledge can only further our understanding of love even without scientific terms.

Works Cited

Buss, David. “The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating.” Academic   Communities/Disciplinary Conventions. Ed. Bonnie Beedles and Michael Petracca. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2001. 261-277.

Fink, Bernhard & Penton-Voak, Ian. “Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Attractiveness." Current Directions in Psychological Science Oct. 2002: 154-158. JSTOR. Web. 12 Sep. 2010.

Fisher, Helen E., Aron, Arthur, & Brown, Lucy L. “Romantic Love: A Mammalian Brain System for Mate Choice.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences Dec. 2006: 2173-2186. Google Scholar. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. 


Images One and Three were found at http://love-theonlyrule.tumblr.com/
Image Two was found at http://weheartit.com/entry/5340947

Greatest Hits - Lauren

Lauren Spencer - Greatest Hits

Good luck with the rest of the semester! We can all see the light at the end of the tunnel. First, I would like to say that has been a pleasure reading your blog. I have always looked through your posts to hear your opinions and take on the weekly posts. I admire that although you have personal opinions and preferences – you keep them out of your writing for the most part. You have done an exceptional job of analyzing the readings and taking them at face value. Good luck with the rest of this course but honestly, if you just keep doing what you’ve been doing I’m sure you’ll do great.

Can We Be Good Without God?

I chose this as one of your greatest hits because I absolutely love this post. It is amazing to see that although you have had a specific upbringing in a particular religion, you can still see both sides to an argument. Its okay to pick a side every once in a while but it’s nice to see that you believe that not everything has to be black and white.

Nature and the Natural Instinct

This is a phenomenal post. You introduce the topic with clarity and reasoning but again mention that not everything can be black or white – “but who are we to judge or say what is natural or unnatural?”  Your views about nature tie perfectly in to its relation to homosexuality and you are able to express yourself clearly. This posts organization is very clear and flows nicely which makes it a lot easier to read and understand. Great job.

Music and Dancing

I chose this as another one of your greatest hits simply because of your ability to say, “honestly, I see it both ways”. Your thoughts of sexuality in the music industry are clearly outlined and although you may have a very specific opinion – you are also able to explain both sides of the argument and support both views. I hope you understand what a great characteristic this is to have in your writing – being able to express both sides clearly and without bias is a tremendous accomplishment and I admire you for it. 

Greatest Hits - Armando

Armando Teran Jr. – Greatest Hits

Good luck with the rest of the semester! It’s almost over, thank goodness. I’ve picked some “greatest hits” of yours and talked about them below but I thought I’d give some general feedback. Your posts throughout the semester seem to be very informative, you write clearly and your writing is easy to follow as a reader. I noticed that sometimes your posts jump from informative to opinionated very quickly, opinions are great but maybe adding more of a transition in your organizational process would help adapt the reader. Overall I enjoyed reading your blog and wish you the best of luck with the rest of the semester.

Directed Free Write/Page 443

I chose this as one of your greatest hits because this post has fantastic voice. Your ideas and opinions come through loud and clear without being overly opinionated. On top of the great writing in the post, the organization is perfect – you introduce the topic, orient the reader and then explain your views. Great job.

Prompt 1/Page 418

This post is a perfect example of good organization in writing. The explanation of materialism is genuine and the writing is easy for a reader to follow. You were able to use in-text citations accurately and they supported all of your claims but were not used excessively. You mentioned that you wrote your essay 3 on the topic of materialism and I’m glad you did because this is one of the better blog posts that I have read throughout the semester.

Strange Comparisons

I really enjoyed reading this post. You were able to take our assigned reading, interpret it and then clearly express your opposing view points. I also enjoyed that you aren’t afraid to say how you feel in your writing, you never sugarcoat what you mean to say and it really shows through in your writing. 

Week 12 Blog Reviews

Amity

We The People

This is a very well-written free write. There are a few spelling errors in your first paragraph that may trip up the reader. Also, a few of your sentences seem very long and run-on (paragraph 2, the last sentence). Other than these few editorial issues, you raise some interesting questions about our government. This could be developed so that you pinpoint your own political views more specifically but overall, this was an interesting piece that was easy to follow.

Buy Low and Sell High

I enjoyed reading this post because it flowed nicely and incorporated the text accurately. I would only suggest revising some of your organization – all three paragraphs seems to be talking about the same things just in a different way. This could be transformed in to a bigger writing piece by elaborating on both the specific social, economic and technological changes and then what theories and discoveries were found to help the field of finance.

Hilary

View of the Continuum

You did a great job of expressing your views of the political continuum without being too persuasive either way. This post was easy to follow and although you did not use any support from our text, your ideas were still clearly expressed. If you wanted to expand on this post you could research a political party that holds most of your same views and write about it.

For Those Who Work in Finance…

You decided to take a different approach on this topic than most of the rest of us. Instead of boring us with the history of the finance field (which we all read anyway), you took a different stance and told us some of the qualifications it takes to be in the finance field and why people chose this as a profession. I enjoyed reading this post because it was different, good job.

Directed Freewrite P. 455

Money has always been a central part to our society. Economics is talked about in relation to government, social class, peer groups, etc. Humans work to make money to support their families and take care of the necessities; food, water and shelter, but we are always looking for more money to take care of our wants; fancy cars and expensive clothes. People that ventured in to the discipline of finance want to better understand the science of money; they realized that other people may also be curious about their banking and investments.

The discipline of finance really started to grow after World War II. America had a huge growth of the work force due to women starting to work and the machinery and technology was growing at a rapid rate. Americans were making more money and needed to be educated about this new money. This is where finance comes in – scientist of finance set out to use advanced mathematics and risk formulas to aid the banking companies. Finance analyzes the variables that affect money and investments in order to uncover discrepancies in the banking process.

Because of the growth in the interest of finance, practitioners of this discipline were able to break their way in to academia; teaching a new wave of students the ropes about finance. The academic side of finance opened up new job opportunities and a whole new realm of economics. 

Cypherpunks

In Josh McHugh’s article, “Politics for the Really Cool”, he brings to light the growing revolution that is taking a stand against Big Government and Economics by supporting cryptography. “Cryptography is the science of scrambling messages so they cannot be read by prying eyes”(435). These “cypherpunks” embrace cryptography and are using it as tool to reform against our big government today. By supporting cryptography, these Libertarians are pursuing an economy that is free from the Big Brother. They are fighting for a market where their banking and investments are hidden from government and hold out hope that the government will respond by giving some slack to their reins that hold the economy where it is today.

Now, just like with everything else in our world, these political and economic views fall on a spectrum. The man from Hugh’s article, Sameer Parekh, seems to fall on a more extreme side of the spectrum. And the opposite side of that spectrum would be a belief that the government plays a delicate role in our economy and that role must be sustained to continue on this path of a Democratic government. So much for the buildup, but I’d like to choose a stance on the spectrum that falls somewhere in the middle.

The picture that is painted by the Libertarians is intriguing but also provokes some insecure feelings. I’d love to see the use of cryptography in America; we’d feel safer from the ever-seeing Big Brother and we’d feel the safety of controlling our own money but with rewards also comes consequences. Who’s going to regulate the cryptography software? How will the Jones’ family’s bank account be safe from criminals if the criminals are also enjoying the cryptic software? Libertarians wouldn’t want anyone to regulate any part of the economic system and the extremists seem to want anarchy and no government at all. I believe there needs to be some middle ground where both sides of the spectrum can come to a compromise.

Week 11 Blog Reviews

Amity:

P. 418 – 10/27

This post starts off really strong, you use your text quotes fantastically – they support your statements but I can still hear your voice coming through your writing. I really admire that because a lot of people can let the quotations overpower their writing and you feel like you’re not even reading original work. My only suggestion for this post would be to elaborate more (and I know that this is just a weekly assignment – not a rough draft or anything) – specifically on why “the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism paved the way”, this statement is general but I know that if you had the need to elaborate, you could.

Another Side of the Foreign Worker – 10/28

I loved, loved, loved this post. Clearly, you were able to do some research (again, not enough to overpower your own writing) and as a reader, I could tell that you understood what you were writing about. This post was informative but not overwhelming to me as a reader. It could have easily turned in to another boring writing piece about foreign workers but you drew upon your own experiences and laid it all out clearly to your reader. I don’t have any suggestions, this was great.

Hilary:

Materialism – 10/26

I enjoyed reading this post, it was very thorough and informative – I still would have been able to follow along if I had not read Twitchell’s article. The organization is great with an introduction, pros and cons but the last paragraph seems to get a little messy. The last paragraph should be used to wrap up your writing, even if it’s just sentence but in this post you open up new negative aspects to materialism. I like that you included the point about Christmas but adding a last, concluding paragraph would strengthen this post.

German Influence – 10/28

I also enjoyed reading this post, it was clear and to the point. You didn’t need any extra fluff to support your claims and I learned that Barbie was German first! Also, good job on relating the German influences back in to our economy – I feel like it could have easily been just a piece on the influences of Germany but you made sure to include the economic undertone and that really kept the reader focused on the “bigger picture”.

Capital Economies Pg. 426

The United States has been a country of immigrants since the beginning. We are a country of outsiders trying to live together in this “land of the free”. Each one of our ancestors left their homeland in search of freedoms; the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, and the freedom to make their own money how they best see fit. The impact of each separate ethnic and immigrant group has contributed to our American economy today.

            Some argue that immigration (legal or illegal) is harming our economy but where would be without the original immigrants of America who contributed their hard-work in to building their new life in America? Each culture - African Americans, Koreans, Italians, Irish, etc – brought their values and work ethic to the new country and instilled those in to our current generation. Stereotyping these cultures that lead us to where we are today is a huge insult. It is upsetting to realize that so many of these ethnic sub-groups are being negatively stereotyped while their ancestors helped build this economy and nation. 

To Buy or Not to Buy?

Page 418 - #1

Materialism is a central quality to our American culture today. We buy and sell in a relentless cycle – and why? Many argue that this “hunter/gatherer” trait has been around since the beginning when humans first started acquiring food, tools and other goods. In his article, “Two Cheers for Materialism”, James Twitchell brings up some very good points about our need for materialism as a culture.

Twitchell suggests a few positive outcomes from our materialistic nature that cannot be overlooked. Materialism is a way of showing our capitalistic freedom. As Americans we have established this capitalistic socioeconomic structure and flaunting our materialism is actually a way of flaunting that we are ABLE to be materialistic. By establishing one’s self in this capitalistic society, they can also show their new-found wealth through material items like BMW’s and expensive clothes and accessories. Materialism gives us the individual freedom to buy what we want (despite how necessary the item may be), and also gives us the freedom to choose which service we would like – restaurants, hotels, travel agencies, etc. We live through our material good and services and use them as an identity (Twitchell, 389-391).

To have a fully-rounded opinion of materialism, we also have to discuss the negative qualities of such a materialistic culture. Materialism can lead to immense personal debt, depression, anxiety, etc. It is all an endless cycle, one stresses about paying a credit card bill and uses a different credit card to pay that bill and the cycle continues down a terrifying road. Our views of materialism have also led to gender-specific stereotypes claiming that women are the ones spending the money. While this can be true, Twitchell states that men were the first ones to materialistic in the dynamic and it only shifted to women after the men had bought the “necessities”. Now women are branded with a “shop till I drop” stereotype that will probably never be erased.

These “pros and cons” of materialism are simply a rough framework for an introduction into materialism but I feel that from Twitchell’s article, I better understand Americans need for material items. Whereas before I just felt as though we were spending leisurely, I can now see that there are two sides to every story.

Week 10 Blog Reviews

Amity:

Tragic Events of Recall – 10/19

First off, I would like to say I’m looking forward to being in your group for this unit and I hope I can offer some support. I really loved this post, your voice and flare for writing really shines through. I agree with Hilary in the sense that, I was a little confused also when reading who Jane – whether she was the mother or daughter. Other than that, the post was simple and to the point and was beautifully written. You were able to take a personal experience and twirl it into a sad story about recalls, good job!

Sing It – 10/21

I’m fascinated in how you are able to get to your point so precisely without seeming rushed. Your posts are well-written and clearly lay out your point without an extra (unnecessary) fluff. This article has a great introduction, overlaying what you’ll be talking about and then you quickly cut to your point and bring about the important part that even though women are stereotyped in the music industry – women artists do the same thing to men. Each party is to blame and that is a very valid point to include in this post. I have no suggestions, this post was awesome and I’m a little intimidated about being in your group, haha!

Hilary:

The Joys of a Consumer – 10/19

Firstly, I would like to say that I’m looking forward to being in this unit 3 peer group with you. I hope I can offer some support and criticism throughout this unit. I loved this post (great job on the images!) because you seem to layer the story very nicely. As a reader it was easy to follow and understand your frustration. The last paragraph seemed to wrap up very quickly – maybe it would strengthen your point with a little bit more of a conclusion. However, this was more of a narrative piece anyway so maybe my suggestion isn’t necessary haha. Other than that, this post was very interesting to read and you did great finding real life examples for consumerism.

Women in Music – 10/21

Likewise, I also enjoyed this post. Your point comes out very clearly and you pulled from the text to explain and support your writing. It was easy to read and understand why you felt this way versus another way. My only suggestion would be to add a little bit more of an introduction – maybe just a sentence or two about the music industry, it’s not necessary but it may give more organizational support to your post. Great job!

What Happens In Vegas...

Many of us enjoy taking vacations from our everyday lives, even if it’s just a weekend trip. I recently had a weekend road-trip planned to Las Vegas to celebrate my birthday and my sister’s birthday. The travel and tourist industry is huge, especially in one of the most talked about American cities like Las Vegas. I was more than ecstatic when the five of us had arrived at our hotel and excited to start my vacation.

We stayed in a hotel that was off the main strip of Vegas and although we knew the hotels on the strip were more luxurious than ours, we were willing to sacrifice some extravagance to save a few bucks (which we ended up using to pay for cabs anyway). When I use the term “sacrifice”, I really had no idea what I was getting in to. Our hotel was absolutely terrible. We had the worst customer service when trying to check in and we were told that one of our rooms was still not ready. We waited for about an hour in our other room and were told to check back in later. The second room was finally ready and I was ready to get settled in and rest for a minute before leaving for a night on the town. After entering the second room, which was intended for my best friend and I, we were completely disgusted with the cleanliness and upkeep of our room. The sprinkler in the bathroom was being held in place by some electrical tape and the fire alarm was hanging from the wall by its wires! Clearly I wasn’t expecting extravagant amenities but I also was not expecting blatant fire hazards either.

Aside from these safety issues, our room had obvious sanitary issues also. There seemed to be long, black hair EVERYWHERE; on the floor, in the beds, in the bathroom sink, everywhere. At the foot of one of the beds it looked like there was, what I can only assume, a blood stain. Seriously, how disgusting is that? Not only was I paying to stay in this hotel for 2 nights but the entire staff was rude about my issues and neglected my requests for a maid service.

I was not let down by a single product but by a hotel in the service and travel industry that was working toward the “American Dream” in corporate, capitalist America.

Week 8 Blog Reviews

Amber:

After All, Maybe It’s Biology

This post was really well-written and easy to read. You use real-life examples about pheromones to support your ideas. My only suggestion would be to elaborate more on your specific points and maybe eventually write which view you support – love as a chemical or biological function or love is too complex for science. I really love the introduction of this post, “Thinking about love and courtship in a chemical and a biological standpoint doesn’t seem romantic at all” – your opinion comes through but isn’t too strong or wordy.

Directed Freewrite – Natural Behavior in Animals

This was also a very reader-friendly post; your viewpoints come across clearly and in an academic manner. You also did a very thorough job in using the text to support your claims. The third paragraph gets a little confusing – organization wise. I would just clean that up a little bit, otherwise this post was great.

Jordan:

What’s Chemistry Got to Do with It?

I really enjoyed reading this post. Your ideas are clear and although you didn’t necessarily “pick a side”, you were able to explain the chemical/biological actions and also explain why love cannot be explained by these sciences. My only suggestion would be to expand on your ideas and use some more textual support but this would be a really great start to a full essay.

No blog post for 10/7

What is Natural?

Ideas about what is “natural” are completely subjective to almost every single person on this planet. Even the term “natural” is so vague that it should be thrown out as a descriptive quality. Natural could mean without human interference, occurring independently or we could be really specific and say that natural means solely a component of nature like grass, flowers, sunshine, etc. Because natural is such an ambiguous term, it is shocking to learn that it is used in discussions of homosexuality and other human behaviors.

Both supporting and opposing sides of homosexuality use the term natural to support their argument. Supporters of homosexuality may believe that homosexual behavior is a natural human behavior and argue on the basis that what is natural should be accepted among our society. The arguments against homosexuality may state that sexual behavior between a man and a woman is what is natural for humans and by engaging in homosexual behavior, people are being unnatural. Ideas of what is natural can be twisted and manipulated in to whatever the speaker wants you to believe. 

All You Need Is Biology?

For the sake of argument, I will be writing from the perspective that love and relationships are based on chemistry and biology. Personally, I believe love is beyond the realm of science even though there are some scientific components related to loving feelings (hormones, pheromones, etc.). The articles we read this week are asking us to adopt the viewpoint that love and relationships are formed because of chemical and biological aspects of life.

If love were solely a matter of chemistry and biology, we as humans would not care about finding our “true” love or our “soul mate”. We would view love as a situation “for the moment”, we would date others without intention of marriage or life-long monogamy. We would view physical attraction as a type of natural order and sexual intercourse would be mostly for procreation. Having children would only be for populating the Earth, not for the joy and happiness that a child brings to a family. Courtship would only be for obtaining another mate, not for finding a life-long partner.

Changes in our beliefs about love would not only affect our behavior but it would drastically affect our institution of marriage. Marriage would be obsolete – why get married if biology dictates our lives and biology tells us to have many partners? Living in a world without marriage is a hard concept to wrap my brain around and it almost seems like a scary though. The institution of marriage is so deep-seeded in to our culture and is one the strongest traditions in the United States. Without marriage, our current beliefs about love and relationships would become naïve.

Our culture would observe a drastic change if love and relationships were matters of chemistry and biology. We are a culture that values love – so much so that almost every single song ever made has to do with some type of love (and of those, mostly romantic love). My generation values love as the one thing that can make you truly happy; we’re seeing more and more younger couples getting married without having a set career or plan in life because “love it all that matters”. If our beliefs about love changed, our entire culture would change.

         I believe it would a sad world if we believed that love was biologically based. Everything would be very black and white or right and wrong. If everyone gave up on finding their true love, I think a lot of us would feel empty and that is something that science cannot explain.

Week 7 Blog Reviews

Jordan

Love, Homo Sapien Style

This post contained a lot of strong ideas about marriage and you expressed your thoughts clearly and effectively. You started by stating why you believe in marriage and why it should not be abolished and this is a good topic which you seemed to be passionate about. However, in the third paragraph you introduce an entirely separate branch of marriage by talking about gay marriage. Although the paragraph is organized, opening up a new topic is misleading to the reader. And because you have opened two topics, the conclusion of your post does not sum up the necessary ideas. I would suggest sticking to one main idea and topic and concluding it thoroughly before starting another one.

No blog post for 9/28

Amber

Marrying to Get Divorced

Firstly, I admire you for supporting your belief so strongly because it is definitely different than the traditional norm. This blog post was very clear and your voice and tone made it easy to read. My only suggestion would be to add some more textual support – by adding more quotes your thoughts and opinions can be supported by an outside source. Other than that, this post was intriguing and you able to express your beliefs clearly.

Sex, Lies and Conversation Directed Freewrite

This was a fantastic real-life example bases on the readings from our textbook. You did a great job describing the situation and what specific actions made you upset. Then you were able to relate it to a specific quote and area in the related article. This was a great post and I don’t have any suggestions.

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychology is a relatively new field of study that strives to determine and analyze human mating strategies and behavior. (Buss, 264). To understand evolutionary psychology, one must first understand Darwin’s theory of evolution – survival of the fittest. Darwin believed that all species on Earth adapt based on the qualities, the individuals with the best qualities for survival were chosen for reproduction and therefore their genes were passed on to the next generation. Darwin’s theory works as a sort of “weeding out” process until the population is filled with the most admirable individuals. Evolutionary psychology uses Darwin’s ideas and applies them to human sexual behavior and mating processes. According to evolutionary psychologists, we (as the human race) do not need heterosexual, monogamous marriages. There is a lot of supporting evidence that one must sort through before coming to an informed decision. I would certainly agree with the evolutionary psychologists in believing that we do not need heterosexual, monogamous marriages.

From the evolutionary standpoint, the only purpose of forming a union would be to produce offspring. Men must spread their seed to as many women as they can, so as to pass along their own genes so they will not be left in the dust. Women must hold true to some type of standard to ensure their offspring obtains the best qualities (strength, intelligence, etc.). Many would argue that men have the upper-hand from this evolutionary standpoint but without female consent men would not be able to project offspring, “Female preferences, in short, determine many of the ground rules for male contests” (Buss, 269). This means that there is some deliberation on both parts before consenting to the reproduction of children.

Robert Wright goes in to adamant explanation as to why humans are not meant to be monogamous, “The good news is that human beings are designed to fall in love. The bad news is that they aren’t designed to stay there” (Wright 280). Wright goes on to explain that humans were not made to be monogamous; our hearts want to be monogamous because we believe that will bring us true happiness, but our bodies are biologically and evolutionarily pre-disposed to be promiscuous – and even to some extent polygamous.

I feel that we as a society need marriage because it has been one of the longest standing traditions that I can think of. Marriage is such an institution; especially here in the United States that I feel a lot of us would be doomed without it. But, in saying that, I do not believe that heterosexual, monogamous marriage is what we NEED. We live in a society with ever-changing values and to limit our tolerance to just heterosexual and monogamous marriages would be ignorant. We no longer need marriage as a form of reproduction, we are very much overpopulated. I feel that we need marriage to stay in our society but not to shape us in to cookie-cutter relationships. As long as we do not let the human population die off, which is highly unlikely according to evolutionary psychologists, we should try to cherish the tradition of marriage for what it truly is, without worrying about reproduction and offspring – that will take care of itself. 

Rules of Conversation

I would like to believe that I am a good conversationalist - I follow all the rules, take turns and offer feedback when necessary. Along with these rules, I truly value eye contact in a conversation, I feel like eye contact assures me that the other person is really listening and comprehending what I am saying. In some of my previous classes I have learned that during a normal conversation, it is socially acceptable to maintain eye contact for 75% of the time and I completely agree - I don't need to be stared at without blinking but I would like my conversation partner to look me in the eyes for some part of the conversation.


According to Deborah Tannen, my expectations of eye contact may be too high for a conversation with a member of the opposite sex. Men do not feel the need to keep eye contact or even use it periodically. This used to drive me nuts with a previous boyfriend, he would barely keep eye contact with me, even when the conversation was important! I used to get so frustrated that sometimes I would take both of my hands and put one on either side of his head and make him look at me to make sure he understood how important my message was (this wasn't used for long conversations haha). I felt that he was being so in-attentive that I needed to force him to physically look me in the eyes. Tannen explains that men (and boys) do not customarily face each other when speaking and don't hold that much eye contact; "I found that at every age, the girls and women faced each other directly, their eyes anchored on each other's faces. At every age, the boys and men sat at angles to each other and looked elsewhere in the room...But the tendency of men to face away can give women the impression that they aren't listening even when they are" (Tannen, 242). Men do not realize they are listening in a different way than women listen, they don't understand that women need more interaction and attentiveness. Men listen to women the same way they listen to men and that's why women feel they aren't being heard. 


With this knowledge that men listen differently than women explains why so many women feel that the men are not listening, understanding, or supporting. Tannen has explained that even though men may look like they are not listening, they may be hearing every single word. If all women knew about the research and study of these cultural communication differences, I feel that they would all be much more understanding of their boyfriends, husbands, etc. 

Week 6 Blog Reviews

First off, hello! I'm excited to be part of a new group for unit 2 and to be able to read other blogs.


Amber:
Real Wild Women
I found your Real Wild Women blog post to be super easy to read and very informative. I have seen (and own!) Mr. and Mrs. Smith but if I had not, I still would have been able to understand your post on an intellectual level. You did a great overview of the movie without taking the summary too far and then related it back to the articles. Great job!


The American Family
This blog post has a great introduction and you really develop what you believe to be true about american families. Although, I sort of feel like the post just ends without any kind of conclusion of ideas or final thought. The post ends by talking about money and how it affects the family but there is no concrete ending to that thought. It seems like a great start to a bigger piece of work though - I would just suggest a little bit more development of a main thesis or idea.


Jordan: 
Real Wild Women/Wild Real Men
I really enjoyed reading this post. Your thoughts were clear and well-organized. You took specific examples from the show and related them back to the articles to support your claims. Although I am not familiar with the show Chuck I was able to follow your essay and understand the point you were trying to get across. My only suggestion would be to be a little bit more specific with your examples from both the show and the book.


Hidden Histories
This post contains a lot of opinions without the support from textbooks or outside sources that is needed to back-up the claims. I didn't recognize a clear thesis or main idea and the flow of the paragraph was a little jumpy. I'd recommend a little better development of ideas along with textual support of outside sources.

Homosexuality, Capitalism and Technology

In D'Emilio's essay, titled Capitalism and Gay Identity, he argues that homosexuality originated with the capitalist movement in the United States. He suggests that capitalism allowed for homosexuals to freely identify with a sexual identity - even though some were previously engaging in homosexual behavior, they were now able to identify with a larger group in common society. D'Emilio says, "The fact that capitalism had drawn far more men than women into the labor force, and at higher wages. Men could more easily construct a personal life independent of attachments to the opposite sex, whereas women were more likely to remain economically dependent on men...College educated white women, far more able than their working-class sisters to support themselves, could survive more easily without intimate relationships with men" (D'Emilio, 231). So, he says that due to the growth of wage labor, both men and women were free to live independently from one another and this spurred identification with homosexual identities. I can see why D'Emilio believes this to be so, but my opinion differs slightly. I feel there was homosexual behavior and identity around before capitalism - but capitalism can definitely be named as a contributing factor to the growth of the homosexual revolution. 


As our current economic and social life changes, our family dynamics change. I believe it is important to keep record of the socio-economic shifts, although I think we all have to remember that the social economic standards can change drastically in a heart-beat. To dwell on why the standards change now versus how they changed before can teach us a lot but those standards are going to continue to change rapidly while we keep up. The current state of the American family is much different than it was in the 1970's and the new American family will be remarkably different than today's family. Any changes to the ideal that D'Emilio proposes are related to the changing economic structures of today's American family. The economic and social structures are flexible are will continue to stretch and form in to new standards for the next generation. 

Peer Review - Reposted from Blackboard

Lauren,

Your essay has a great central topic and you seem like you have done a lot of research to create solid groundwork for your essay.  The essay looks like it can really turn in to something great with a little clean up. I would focus on more transitions between paragraphs – a few of yours ended with citations and kind of leaves the reader open-ended. But besides that everything looks awesome, you have a strong topic and attention-grabbing introduction. You use outside sources to support your views and they tie in nicely, organization-wise. I can’t wait to see your final product, good luck!

Jacqueline,

            I loved your essay describing Kahlo’s life and artwork. You did a fantastic job of describing the artwork and also interpreting your own ideas and analysis into your essay. I only have a few suggestions; first, you have added some citations to your introduction paragraph and although they transition well with the paragraph, it threw me off a bit as a reader. Usually an introduction just lays some groundwork for what is to come in your essay. Second, and I have no idea is this is “allowed” but I’d love to see some images incorporated into the essay word document – I don’t know if that is at all possible but it’s just a suggestion. Other than those minor details it seems like you have a really awesome essay and I’m sure the final draft will be great!

Tasha,

            Your voice in the essay was just fantastic, I really felt like we were just talking and you were telling me about this new thing you learned about. It was really easy to read and follow along. You used outside sources well, although I would love to see maybe a direct quote from one of your sources in there, just for some support. The essay had wonderful transitions and flowed very nicely. I’m positive your final draft will be just as phenomenal – good luck!

Analytic Essay on Consciousness

With the ever-growing population of scientists and researchers, many of them still cannot decide on a single, true definition of consciousness - I believe this is where the debate begins and thrives. What is consciousness? Is it cognitive alertness? Is it the ability to formulate thoughts and opinions? And does that include being able to express and communicate those thoughts and opinions? My definition of consciousness is a state of cognitive functioning that allows the physical brain to identify "self-awareness, emotion, perception, and reasoning" (Hazen 95). Based on this definition, consciousness is much more than the physical neurological data that we can analyze - which is why I choose to believe that the study of consciousness is not scientific. At least, not yet.

For a concept such as consciousness to be scientific, there must be a clear question and a process in which to find an answer. The study of consciousness as a science has yet to meet those qualifications; groups of researchers cannot define consciousness, so is the main question “what is consciousness?” or something deeper? Now, let’s say that there is a central definition of consciousness – the next step would be to research and create experiments, collect data, make observations, and come to some type of conclusion. Many scientists are arguing that this will happen one day, but I am very skeptical. Consciousness is so abstract and such a unique human quality that I believe we are decades, maybe even centuries, away from being able to classify consciousness as a science. So if consciousness is not scientific, what is it? Many argue that the key to understanding consciousness is understanding neuroscience.

Although the knowledge of neuroscience adds an intriguing realm to consciousness, I do not believe that it is the “key” to the mystery of consciousness. I feel we keep trying to answer a scientific question that is completely unscientific. Understanding cognitive functions will not help us understand consciousness, although neuroscience does paint an interesting picture and aids in our understanding of the human brain. John Searle argues exactly the opposite – Searle believes that not only is consciousness scientific, but he clearly lays out instruction for how to study it. I am not arguing that neuroscience is irrelevant to consciousness because there is physical evidence of cognitive alertness - “Perhaps we are wrong to think that neurons and synapses are the right anatomical units to account for consciousness, but we do know that some elements of brain anatomy must be the right level of description for answering our question. We know this because we know that brains do cause consciousness in a way that elbows, livers, television sets, cars and commercial computers do not, and therefore, we know that the special features of brains, features that they do not have in common with elbows, livers, etc., must be essential to the casual explanation of consciousness” (Searles, 1935). I would be naïve to believe that the brain does not aid in consciousness because our brains and consciousness sets us apart from inanimate objects. Simply, I believe that although neuroscience is central to understanding consciousness, it is not a sole explanation to the idea of consciousness.

Alright, so consciousness is not scientific and it cannot be explained by neuroscience. So you’re probably thinking – what is it?! Well, I do not have an answer. Consciousness is the way the sun feels on your skin after you’ve been in a chilly room, it is knowing when to comfort a friend, it is being able to make small talk and jokes with a stranger on a train. I know that these are only examples but for consciousness to be scientific, we must be able to explain WHY humans are able to do these specific things and others like them. E. Roy John proposes a theory for consciousness that I have come to adopt as my own belief, “The key to consciousness lies in understanding how meaningful perceptions are generated in the brain from discrete discharges in huge populations of neurons” (John, 244). John is saying that the brain generates messages of meaningful perceptions – so there is a neurological component of consciousness but the real mystery of it is that the perceptions of consciousness are meaningful. What causes those messages from the brain to be meaningful and important? This is the main question in which we may never find an answer.

I believe we are trying to answer a question that is not specific enough to yield the type of answer that we want. We are offering only black and white options when consciousness may be a grey area. Before we can start analyzing consciousness and testing it in experiments, we must find a common definition and agree about the creation/origin of consciousness. I feel we are still way beyond our years in coming to a conclusion about the concept of consciousness but I am excited to be a part of the continuing research and academia.

Works Cited

Hazen, Robert M. “The Great Unknown.” Academic Communities/Disciplinary Conventions. Ed. Bonnie Beedles and Michael Petracca. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2001. 93-95.

John, E. Roy. "A Theory of Consciousness." Current Directions in Psychological Science Dec. 2003: 244-250. JSTOR. Web. 14 Sep. 2010.

Searle, John R. "How to Study Consciousness Scientifically." Philosophical Transcations:            Biological Sciences 29 Nov. 1998: 1935-1942. JSTOR. Web. 14 Sep. 2010.

Week 4 Blog Reviews

Lauren Spencer:
Robotic Beings Rule the World
I enjoyed reading about your viewpoint on artificial intelligence and how you feel machines can never be smarter than humans. I would only suggest that you create more of a central thesis in your writing; if you can stem from one central idea your writing will be able to mesh better. With this robot post I felt your ideas were a bit scattered and it was hard to find sentences that related to other sentences. Although you were able to express your opinion, it was a bit hard to follow as a reader. 


Cristina My Sister
I loved everything about this Frida Kahlo post and you wrote about her art so beautifully. You were able to not only describe the physical painting but also analyze and interpret the meaning behind the piece. Good job!


Jacqueline Pridgett:
Can Machines Think?
This article started out very strong and clear - you stated what Wright believes and how your views are opposing. You used fantastic direct quotes from the reading to support your ideas. But the last paragraph threw me, there was a whole new topic of God and conciousness introduced when I thought you'd be talking more about computers/machines thinking. Although your ideas about God and consciousness are intriguing, the paragraph was not transitioned well in to the earlier part of your post. My only suggestion is to keep one central idea and conclude it before starting another. I have no doubts that your writing will be fantastic. 


The Broken Column
This post was fantastic, your writing was wonderfully descriptive and I could really see and understand what you were describing. Your image did not show up in my browser, it may just be a glitch but you did such an awesome job of describing the painting that I did not even need the visual aid. 


Tasha Cerimeli: 
Can Computers Think?
Your post was just phenomenal. Seriously, I have no constructive criticism or thoughts other than this was amazing and well-versed. Everything flowed nicely. Your transitions and strong sense of personal voice made this post extremely easy to read and interesting.


My Grandparents, My Parents, and I
You did a wonderful job of describing the physical painting and every detail was mentioned. I wish you had talked a little bit more about how you personally interpreted the painting and what feelings were brought up when you look at the painting. You analyzed the painting with a great objective standpoint. 

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was an amazing woman and a very talented Mexican painter. Her main work is composed of self portraits but it is her other works of art that are truly astonishing. They capture the entirety of human emotion on a canvas. I have chosen a painting titled Diego and Frida (1929-1944). 

In the painting we see a head composed of two sides of different faces. The left side is Frida's husband Diego Rivera's face and the right side is Frida's face. Underneath their combined neck is some type of pouch/sac that has veins branching off from it - almost like a tree. In the upper right hand corner we see a moon (that has a face), and underneath that there is the sun, and then almost directly underneath the head, there is a conch shell and a what looks like a scallop shell. The background of the painting is a deep crimson red. 


My first impression of this painting was that a kind of weirded-out feeling - I mean, come on - the head has two halves of different faces! But as I looked and studied the painting in more detail I could truly appreciate what Kahlo was trying to portray. There are two halves to the face to symbolize the union that Diego and Frida shared, when you love someone that much you truly are half of their whole. Frida continues with a dichotomy of relationships in the painting to express the companionship and whole-ness that she feels with Diego. The painting includes the moon and the sun - equal and opposite pairs but both need each other. At the bottom of the painting there are two separate sea shells which are touching, showing their partnership and love for each other. 


I love everything about this painting and the more Kahlo art that I research, the more I like it. Kahlo seems like an amazing artist and I am sad that I missed her time and impact in the art world.

Works Cited

Kahlo, Frida. Diego and Frida 1929-1944. 1944. Private Institution. Ocean's Bridge. Web. 9 September 2010