Ancients and Moderns on Human Nature, Study notes of Evolutionary biology

Download Ancients and Moderns on Human Nature and more Study notes Evolutionary biology in PDF only on Docsity! Ancients and Moderns on Human Nature Integrated Studies, 2022-23 Each year the Benjamin Franklin Scholars (BFS) Program selects an extraordinary group of incoming freshmen to pursue the liberal arts intensively, guided by some of Penn's brightest lights. For students in the College, BFS begins with the Integrated Studies Program (ISP), an exclusive, year-long residential learning experience in which you will survey the broad territory of the arts and sciences while living alongside fellow students and faculty in Hill College House. The program brings together the humanities, social sciences, and sciences into a coordinated exploration of the great ideas that continue to drive our understanding of the world and the human place in it. One key element of ISP is working to develop an understanding of how methods and contents from distinct disciplines can inform one another so as to produce a deeper understanding of a range of questions. A mix of lectures, small seminars, and guest speakers, Integrated Studies fulfills a portion of the College's General Education requirement while building the solid foundation needed for any major area of study you decide to pursue. By the end of their first year, BFS students have not only pursued an intensive introduction to four different disciplines, but engaged in some of the most challenging and important complex thinking which lies at the heart of the liberal arts. We are looking for bold thinkers who become more excited by ideas the more complex they get. During the academic year of 2022-23, you will study "Ancients and Moderns on Human Nature" and examine a wide range of ideas about human nature. Combining History of Evolutionary Biology, Ancient Intellectual History, Ancient Philosophy, and Cognitive Neuroscience, you will experience rich exposure to Ancient thought, together with extensive engagement with more recent history of the biological human, and careful thinking about the contemporary frontiers of knowledge about the human brain. Admissions questions 1. Why is integrating the humanities, natural sciences/math and social sciences important to you as you contemplate your college career? (100 words or fewer) 2. After your year in the Integrated Studies Program, what would be the mark for you of having achieved success in the Program? (100 words or fewer) 3. You will be studying the History of Evolutionary Biology, Ancient Intellectual History, Ancient Philosophy, and Cognitive Neuroscience. It will be challenging to excel in all four areas. How do you anticipate approaching what might be a new kind of academic challenge for you and what value might you find in not always excelling? (100 words or fewer) 4. Following these questions, you will find syllabi for the year in ISP. Please read these syllabi and then review Week 9 of the upcoming ISP course on "Becoming Human" (see the Fall 2022 syllabus below) and Week 12 of the upcoming ISP course on “Curiosity: Ancient and Modern Thinking about Thinking” (see the Spring 2023 syllabus below). For the former, note how the planned History of Evolutionary Biology and Ancient Intellectual History lectures can complement or be in tension with one another; similarly for the latter, note how the planned Ancient Philosophy and Cognitive Neuroscience lectures can complement or be in tension with one another. Choose either the Fall 2022 pair of courses or the Spring 2023 pair of courses (but not both) and answer the following question. If you choose Fall 2022, choose an assertion or finding from one discipline or the other and explain why this is useful (or not) to a topic brought up in the other discipline. For example, is it useful or appropriate to draw upon an ancient text on the moral life of an individual with a well-ordered soul to discuss the implications of the biological idea of eugenics? If you note a tension between the two disciplines’ topics, state it clearly and then carefully analyze whether this tension is productive or furthers the research and understanding of the overall theme, or if the tension is something that needs to be resolved in favor of one or the other discipline’s understanding – perhaps suggest how this latter goal might be achieved. If you see the two disciplines as complementary on your chosen topic, again state the complementarity clearly, and then suggest ways in which having the two distinct perspectives is illuminating (or not). If you note a tension between the two disciplines’ topics, state it clearly and then carefully analyze whether this tension is productive or furthers the research and understanding of the overall theme, or if the tension is something that needs to be resolved in favor of one or the other discipline’s understanding – perhaps suggest how this latter goal might be achieved. If you see the two disciplines as complementary on your chosen topic, again state the complementarity clearly, and then suggest ways in which having the two distinct perspectives is illuminating (or not). If you select Spring 2023, consider the common view in cognitive neuroscience that the locus of cognition is the brain. Compare and contrast that view with Aristotle’s claim that the locus of cognition is the soul. By “soul” Aristotle meant a form, or organizing principle, embedded within the material body. Are the two claims mutually exclusive? If so, how? If not, why not? (250 words or fewer) 5. Finally, please read the following paragraph and indicate that you have read it in your application by stating: "I have read the description of the Integrated Studies Program, and I understand the nature of it." ISP is a rigorous program. It is a liberal arts and sciences intensive course of study for your first year, involving just less than half of your course load of your first year. As the gateway experience to being a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, it is designed to be challenging, and asks you to try new and often difficult tasks, not all of which you’ll find easy. Its challenges are part of the program’s mission – next-level, complex thinking. Students who complete this program go on to an enormous range of professions, including in medicine, law, or business, but if you want to follow a straight and narrow path to a particular profession, ISP is likely not the right choice for you. Students who participate in ISP gain an intellectual breadth and agility to approaching complex problems, and narrower pre-professional skills are deemphasized in favor of multidisciplinary thinking. Week 9 Eugenics. Early 20th c. work linking selection and genetics raised the prospect of intentional selection on human populations, reinforcing old views of the superiority of certain human families and groups. This week, we discuss the dark history of eugenic ideas in the 19th and 20th centuries—a history that carries much farther into the 20th c. than is commonly known. We also consider the potential genetic implications of emerging personalized approaches to medicine rooted in genomics, and the looming prospect of human germline genetic manipulation. Readings will include: Comfort, N. 2013. Is individuality the savior of eugenics? Sci. Amer. guest blog, 23 Aug. 2013. (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/is- individuality-the-savior-of-eugenics/) Lynch, M. 2016. Mutation and human exceptionalism: our future genetic load. Genetics 202, 869-875. Roth, F.P., and J. Wakely. 2016. Taking exception to human eugenics. Genetics 204, 821-823. Lynch, M. 2016. Mutation, eugenics, and the boundaries of science. Genetics 204, 825-827. Plato’s utopian thought-experiment: social engineering/eugenics or rational, humane public policy? Plato’s Republic is usually read as a work of political theory, though in fact its main concern is the proper ordering of an individual’s psychological faculties for a moral life. For Plato politics in the Rep. is mainly an analogy for the workings of the soul, a more accessible way to think about how and why people behave the way they do. In the middle books, Plato proposes a state that functions according to strictly rational principles, but some of his recommendations begin to sound like modern arguments for eugenics. In book 5 of the Republic, for example, Plato suggests that in his ideal state, ‘the best men must mate with the best women…and the worst with the worst in the fewest, and…the offspring of the one must be reared and that of the other not, if the flock is to be as perfect as possible. And the way in which all this is brought to pass must be unknown to any but the rulers…’ We explore this week Plato’s attempt to engineer a rational, just state through top-down legislation and whether it is useful, or inappropriately anachronistic, to align his thinking with eugenic theorizing of the 19th and 20th centuries. [Readings: selections from Plato: Republic] Week 10 Behavior in evolutionary context. New ideas about the evolution of animal and human behavior emerged from the recognition that behavior can be influenced by genetics. We discuss the development of the scientific study of animal behavior—and attendant controversies—this week, ranging from early studies in ethology to the relatively recent development of a field that calls itself “evolutionary psychology”. Plato on humans in ‘their natural state’. Plato had much to say about the question of what divides humans from other animals. In particular he was deeply concerned how one moves from biology to moral behavior, from nature to culture (and whether there really is or should be a distinction between the two for humans). Does ‘might’ make ‘right’ for humans, as it seems to in the animal world. Week 11 What runs in families? III. The molecular revolution in biology. With the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, much emphasis in biological research shifted to molecular-level explanations. This week, we survey the history and outlines of molecular biology as it emerged in the late 20th c. Greek ‘Atomists’ The origins of Greek atomic and molecular thinking in a pre-microscopic era. Philosophical and empirical arguments for atoms; anti-atomism and other theories of matter. Aristotle’s ‘hylomorphism’ (matter + form) and ‘homoiomeres’ (uniform substances). Week 12 Evolution and human health Evolution potentially provides new explanations for, and new approaches to treating, human conditions and diseases such as aging and cancer. This week, we explore the implications of a field called “evolutionary medicine”. Epicurean atomism, religion and ethics Democritean atomism was taken up by the Hellenistic philosopher Epicurus, whose concerns were largely ethical (how to achieve happiness) but rooted in a mechanistic atomic theory that also tried to account for ‘free will’. His atomism also implied an unorthodox theology which denied traditional Greek conceptions of the gods. Week 13 What runs in families? IV. Genomics. The DNA of a human genome was sequenced for the first time in 2003. Information on the sequences of human genomes and those of other species has expanded at a tremendous rate since then. This week, we discuss scientific, medical, and ethical implications of genomics. Human nature: intrinsic or learned and acculturated? The medical scientist Galen (2nd C CE) pondered this question in several treatises, approaching the problem empirically and theoretically. We explore his thinking this week on inherited traits, temperament, ‘child psychology’, the teachability of moral behavior and the intransigence of personality. Week 14 Evolution and human affairs. As an active area of research, evolutionary biology is continually changing as old ideas are modified or rejected and new ideas emerge. Yet the field as a whole is secure and provides the fundamental scientific basis for thinking about the development of life on Earth, including human life. This week, we consider some of the big questions that evolution raises about human affairs and the meaning of human life, discussing these questions in light of the background we have covered during this course. Teleology: the question of purpose The Greeks were as interested in the question of (what we call) ‘intelligent design’ and its opponents (arguing for cosmic randomness, chance, or some variation on this) as we are. Stoic theorizing about divine purpose and intelligent design; Galen’s intellectual frustration as he tries to work out how and why human beings come into being and develop as embryos in the specific ways they do. INTG002: Spring 2023 Curiosity: Ancient and Modern Thinking about Thinking Ancient Philosophy: “Hmmm, what is that?” The ancient thinkers that invented philosophy 25 centuries ago started from a question like this. Soon enough that question turned on itself. Someone started to wonder about why we wonder about things, and the study of curiosity was born. Where does that desire to know come from? What kinds of entities feel it? What does it propel them to do? What results do they experience? What results do they produce? We will focus in this part of the course on the extraordinary ideas on these questions that come from two formative thinkers from antiquity: Plato and Aristotle. This will be a deep dive into one of the precious few survivals of human cultural material from the deep past, as a way for us to reflect on an enduring and still mostly unanswered question about human nature. We’ll see that the question of human curiosity pushed Plato and Aristotle to a very broad inquiry, into human nature and the nature of the world that provokes humans to want to know it. If curiosity is a desire for knowledge, these thinkers needed to solve a prior question about what knowledge is in the first place. Is it a perception? An organization of perceptions? Something else altogether? They had to think through where knowledge was generated and resided inside a human being. What is the nature of the mind? Is it reducible to the material organs that make up our tactile selves? And then, where does this desire to know come from? Is it natural to us? A part of our instincts? And if we are acting on instinct, where did our instincts come from? If they come from nature, where did nature’s inclination to produce the impulses that it does produce in us come from? Then, there are a whole bunch of questions around what kinds of things we know. When we know something, what is it that we know? When we achieve a state of knowledge, something internal to us seems to have changed. What is it that is now inside us that wasn’t inside us before? If we get to know a basketball, it isn’t as though the basketball is now inside us. So, what is? Is the thing inside us our own concoction? That seems to raise doubts about whether it’s real, or just our fantasy. If it’s just our fantasy some corrosive doubts emerge. And if we think it must be real, and not just our own imagination, then where did that thing that we know come from? What is it? And if it exists separately from us, what does this say about the nature of the reality we are curious about? These are just a few of the questions we’ll spend the semester puzzling over. Cognitive Neuroscience: What we know today about the neural basis of curiosity has capitalized on conceptual frameworks and empirical advances across many fields of science. The disciplines that have contributed the most to this conversation in recent years include biology, psychology, neurology, and psychiatry, spanning the gamut from basic science to clinical medicine. Although an exact definition of curiosity from a neuroscience perspective has remained elusive, most scientists and practitioners would agree that curiosity is accompanied by some sort of information-seeking behavior. A particularly important characteristic of this behavior is that it appears to be internally motivated, meaning that no one forces a person to be curious. Naturally then, the scientific study of curiosity tends to uncover the motivations for and neural correlates of information-seeking behavior. Notably, information seeking can be characterized by the types of information that the subject seeks and by the manner in which the information is sought. Indeed, the practice of curiosity can differ across individuals, may change with age and cognitive development, and is likely impacted by stress and socio-economic status, as well as prior experience. Intuitively, the practice of curiosity could be impatient or enduring. It could involve seeking completely unknown information or vaguely familiar information. It could involve gathering the new information and keeping it logged separately like bits of trivia, or it could involve determining the links between bits of information, fitting them in to one’s existing body of knowledge. While these manners of curiosity are intuitive, it remains difficult to precisely define them, categorize them into classes, write down mathematical formulations for their nature, and form generative models for their processes. In other words, we lack a science of the practice of curiosity. In this course, we develop the conceptual foundations for such a science. We suggest that the practice of curiosity can be defined as knowledge network building. This proposition offers an interdisciplinary perspective on curiosity that is informed by neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and network science. By drawing on concepts and tools across these disciplines, we suggest that knowledge can be represented mathematically as a network. While prior scholarship has focused on definitions of curiosity more akin to the force that enables us to seek knowledge, we focus on the manner of network growth in our minds, and the potential to quantitatively characterize and mathematically model that growth using tools from network science. The proposal formalizes many of the intuitions that we have about the practice of curiosity, and by that formalization provides the foundations from which to construct explicit hypotheses that can be tested empirically in humans.