book club review :
1. Title, author: The Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan
2. Viewpoint/What is the author arguing? He's searching for a way of measuring intelligence. Also arguing for the search for quantities meaning of intelligence. 3. Main ideas/ Evidence: The main ideas include speculations on the evolution of Human and animal intelligence through things such as genes. As well as how we evolved from fish, reptiles, and early mammals. It also talks about the brain and how we use it, even during sleep. 4. Interesting facts: - Our brain has a core that could rightly be considered reptilian - The emotional part of our brain develops much faster than the rational part - The big difference between human and other animals brains is the evolution of the rational part of the brain - Oldest part of limbic system is the olfactory cortex - If an animal where to take over the world it would be apes - Dogs usually dream about hunting 5. Vocab you need to look up: - Prosimian- a primitive primate of a group includes lemurs and bushbabies. - Neo cortex- part of cerebral cortex - Limbic system- complex system of nerves and networks in the brain, involving several areas near the edge of the cortex concerned with instinct and mood. It controls the basic emotions (fear, pleasure, anger) and drives (hunger, sex, dominance, care of offspring). -Interspersed- scattered among or between other things -Endocranial- internal cast of the cranium -Mesozoic Era- development of of flying reptiles, birds, and flowering plants, and extinction of dinosaurs -zygote- the cell formed by the union of the nuclei of two reproductive cells, especially fertilized egg cell 6. Things you don't understand or understand fully or don't make sense: -It was hard to understand a majority of the chapter Brains and Chariots. The main thing in that chapter that was hard to interrupt was the R-Complex. Another thing that stumped us was how dreams occur. -Cosmic calendar -How they know dogs dream of hunting 7. Favorite things you learned so far: We learned a ton about the brain. all of us in our group didn't know anything much about the brain just the simple things, like it is the main controller of our nervous system. The examination of the brain towards the beginning of the book told me a lot about the brain that i didn’t know before. It brought a clearer understanding about the functions and evolves. Also that bloodhounds have such a great sense of smell that they can track down a kidnapped person who was taken hours earlier. They have to be able to tell the difference between characteristics in body molecules with many different background sounds and smells. Also when dogs fall into a deep sleep they dream of hunting. This can be seen by the movement in their legs during their sleep. 8. You may be surprised to find out that this book has nothing to do with dragons, it actually has to do with evolution of the brain. In the Dragon of Eden, Carl Sagan takes us into the brain, offering his vivid insight Into the brain of man, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most important organ. Personally for us, being people who are not very interested in this subject, it was very difficult for us to get hooked to the book. It wasn't an easy sit down and read we had to be focused and constantly be rereading sentences. It can be a difficult read, with high level vocabulary that many people can not comprehend. To an unintelligent high school student this book may be beyond them. Considering most high students read books that should be read by fifth graders and under. This book is full of useful and interesting information. If you are someone who is into evolution than this is a book for you. This story has the ability to expand your views and knowledge on the contained topics. The most interesting parts are when he talks about the evolution of the brain and how it develops emotionally before it develops rationally. When we read that, we wondered how? For me the most interesting topics in the story were about the dreams. We personally liked hearing about why and how dreams are a thing. We do want to know how these studies are proven and we can imagine others would too. This book shows how the brain works while developing dreams. Also about how the limbic system has to do with a lot of different parts of daily routines including dreams. Some of the most complex things happening in your brain happen while you are unconscious. The main problem of this story is the fact that it is an old book. Carl Sagan wrote this in 1977 and there have been new discoveries since. The book is full of wonder and new information, for those people who are wanting to gain knowledge about evolution of intelligence, we suggest giving this book a shot. |
reflection:In all this unit was a very informative unit. I learned so much about the evolution of everything. Before this lesson I knew nothing much about evolution, I knew it was something present in our earth but didn't know how it occurred. My favorite part of this project was making our transitional spices videos. i also really liked participating in dissections. I think as a group we all worked very well together and could collaborate well. We did a good job listening to each others ideas and input on what everyone thought we should do. I do think we could improve on going more into depth on research and also when we don't understand something we put in more effort to figure it out. Two things I didn't like would have had to have been the amount of time we had for dissections and that we didn't get to learn more about creationism. seminar reflection:I found this discussion very very interesting. I believe we all got a lot out of it. Me being someone who is very very un-religious knew close to nothing about creationism, took out a lot from this conversation, not saying i am now a believer of creationism but I have a better understanding now. Some people probably could have come into the conversation a little more open minded though. I thought I came in very open minded and ready to hear other peoples ideas, others not as much. The conversation would have been very enjoyable if people didn't get so offended and feel like they need to give supporting evidence for what others would ask or point out. I also wish some people where a little more considerate in the sense that they shortened some of their talks to give other people the opportunities to give out their opinions.
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