Today I walked into my upper-level Eukaryotic Genetics class and saw we were going to be studying Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the bajillionth time. One of my biggest pet peeves as a biology undergraduate is learning the same stuff over and over again. I understand there’s some need for review – sometimes you didn’t learn it well the first time, or maybe you’re just rusty and need a refresher. But eventually it becomes a tad bit ridiculous. If you’re a junior or senior Genetics major (aka, people in this class), I would hope you’d have the basics pretty fucking down by now. Let’s see the running total on how many classes have had me review these concepts for far:
Basics on DNA:
Pre-College: 5
College: 13
Mitosis and Meiosis:
Pre-College: 5
College: 10
Mendelian genetics:
Pre-College: 4
College: 7
Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium:
Pre-College: 2
College: 9
Even if you came from the worst high school ever, you should have been taking the college classes. Granted, I’ve taken some electives that go towards these totals…but at least 4-6 of those classes are mandatory for biology majors. The sad thing? Some people are still confused or lost about these topics. Really? I mean, I understand needing help with three-factor crosses, or elaborate signaling cascades or something…those can be confusing even if you’ve heard it once before. But it’s beyond me how you can get to your final years in a biology program and still not understand the fundamentals. How the hell have you made it this far?
If you’re a upperclassman undergraduate and don’t know what’s wrong with this picture, plz drop out of biology now kthx
We spend so much time reviewing concepts we should have mastered already that I hardly feel like I’m learning anything new from my classes. Most of my intellectual growth has come from working in a laboratory for the past two years, or reading up on science at my own leisure. We’ve yet to cover a new topic in Eukaryotic Genetics, and there are only four weeks of class left. I want to say that I absolutely love the vast majority of my biology Professors, including the one for Eukaryotic Genetics. I don’t blame them for the review, because it seems like so many people need it. The problem is our educational system is catering to the people who are lagging behind, and they end up dragging everyone down with them. I guess I was spoiled being in honors/accelerated programs in high school, but I wish there was some sort equivalent for biology courses here.
This also leads to the scary realization of how low the requirements are in order to get your degree. While I’m at the top of my class, I still feel like there is so much about genetics and evolution that I don’t know yet. I still read journal articles with some difficulty because I’ve never been taught most of the concepts they talk about. In fact, to be a Genetics major you only need to take ONE upper level genetics class, in addition to your “core” introductory biology courses. Same for the Evolution degree – just take the one upper level evolution class, and you’re done. You have to take other upper level biology classes as electives from a list, but you can pick some that aren’t directly relevant.
I realize this post may come off as pretentious/whiney, but I can’t help but be annoyed. It just scares me that I, along with my classmates, will be considered qualified in our field when we’ve learned so little. What’s even scarier is that while I recognize how much more there is to learn and I want to go to graduate school, there are people who still don’t understand punnett squares and they want to become doctors. Yikes. Let’s just hope there’s a difference between “want to become” and “will become.”
Is this a biology specific problem, or do other majors experience this?
Volunteering
Yesterday morning the Society of Non-Theists (which I am president of) participated in a campus wide day of volunteering. Over a thousand students got dispersed throughout the town helping out with random tasks residents need help with. Our little group was washing windows, raking leaves, and putting down mulch. I usually only volunteer for academic stuff (tutoring, helping with Science Olympiad), but I have to admit it was really rewarding. It was peaceful being outside on a nice day and just doing some work for a while, knowing you’re helping out some random people.
In the future we’re going to try to do a lot more volunteering. Any suggestions on positive things we can do for the community? Keep in mind we have a limited budget. I’d love to do a Day of Reason blood drive, but it’s always during or after finals week.
Creationists make Jen’s brain go boom
This gem of a letter was published in the opinion section of our student newspaper today. It’s kind of hilarious until you realize that it probably isn’t a Poe, and this student is attending a Big Ten university that prides itself in science.
Evolutionists fear possibility of God’s existence
In reference to Ms. DeWeese’s March 31 column, thank you so much for writing on an important subject. Unfortunately, Ms. DeWeese’s approach does not permit open debate about the origin of our universe and of mankind. Evolution has many gaps that should be openly discussed in the classroom. The Darwinists are terrified of scrutinizing evolution and fear the possibility that God exists. Fossils don’t even prove that an organism reproduced, let alone evolved. Evolution is a theory that argues that everything came from nothing. Knowing this, they are justified in their fear of debate.
I thought that the foundation of science was questioning. If schools insist on teaching the philosophy of evolution, then there should be an open discussion. Darwin’s book was not called “Adaption of Species”; it was called “Origin of Species.” If you choose to believe that you came from nothing, where did you get your value? If evolution is true, then people are just an accident. Evolution says the strongest should live, and the weak should die. I believe that all people have intrinsic value because they were created by God. I recognize that my belief in the Bible is faith, just as evolutionists’ belief in “Origin of Species” is faith. If evolutionists are so confident that their theories are factual, then wouldn’t they encourage discussions about the weaknesses of evolution?
As a high school student, I bought into the ideology of believing in God and evolution. After exploring opposing arguments, I realized that belief in God and evolution are logically incongruent. A director cannot use an undirected mechanism to create. While this discussion cannot be settled in 300 words, it’s a reminder that there are two sides. Even though evolutionists will attack the intelligence of theists, there is another side of the story. It’s worth considering.
John Westercamp
Junior, School of Management
I don’t even know if it’s worth replying any more, but I feel duty-bound. I’ve had about three pro-evolution letters published since I started school here. The idea that people can spew this kind of imbecilic bullshit and not have someone lay the smack down on them saddens me. At the same time, I have physics homework to do, and the only response I can come up with is “You are an ignorant baffoon, please do not procreate.”
I have a feeling that wouldn’t help the situation much.
Creationists make Jen's brain go boom
This gem of a letter was published in the opinion section of our student newspaper today. It’s kind of hilarious until you realize that it probably isn’t a Poe, and this student is attending a Big Ten university that prides itself in science.
Evolutionists fear possibility of God’s existence
In reference to Ms. DeWeese’s March 31 column, thank you so much for writing on an important subject. Unfortunately, Ms. DeWeese’s approach does not permit open debate about the origin of our universe and of mankind. Evolution has many gaps that should be openly discussed in the classroom. The Darwinists are terrified of scrutinizing evolution and fear the possibility that God exists. Fossils don’t even prove that an organism reproduced, let alone evolved. Evolution is a theory that argues that everything came from nothing. Knowing this, they are justified in their fear of debate.
I thought that the foundation of science was questioning. If schools insist on teaching the philosophy of evolution, then there should be an open discussion. Darwin’s book was not called “Adaption of Species”; it was called “Origin of Species.” If you choose to believe that you came from nothing, where did you get your value? If evolution is true, then people are just an accident. Evolution says the strongest should live, and the weak should die. I believe that all people have intrinsic value because they were created by God. I recognize that my belief in the Bible is faith, just as evolutionists’ belief in “Origin of Species” is faith. If evolutionists are so confident that their theories are factual, then wouldn’t they encourage discussions about the weaknesses of evolution?
As a high school student, I bought into the ideology of believing in God and evolution. After exploring opposing arguments, I realized that belief in God and evolution are logically incongruent. A director cannot use an undirected mechanism to create. While this discussion cannot be settled in 300 words, it’s a reminder that there are two sides. Even though evolutionists will attack the intelligence of theists, there is another side of the story. It’s worth considering.
John Westercamp
Junior, School of Management
I don’t even know if it’s worth replying any more, but I feel duty-bound. I’ve had about three pro-evolution letters published since I started school here. The idea that people can spew this kind of imbecilic bullshit and not have someone lay the smack down on them saddens me. At the same time, I have physics homework to do, and the only response I can come up with is “You are an ignorant baffoon, please do not procreate.”
I have a feeling that wouldn’t help the situation much.
Resolution to Panel Situation
So, there’s somewhat of a resolution about the panel debacle I was in on Thursday. I talked with the diversity program dude I mentioned before, and he reassured me that this professor has had panels many times in the past that went well, and that she’s very understanding of diversity and sought us out in order to be more inclusive. He suggested I email her telling my concerns and how I felt about the situation, along with some advice on how to have this go better in the future, which I did.
It turns on the professor actually wasn’t the one running the talk. The prof was out of town and had asked one of her TAs to lead the discussion…the TA just never introduced herself, so I wrongly assumed she was the professor. She was incredibly apologetic (sincerely) and assured me that she didn’t want any such situation to happen, and that she would like to have my help in the future with dealing with non-theism issues. It seems what happened was a lack of communication between her and her TAs, and the TAs and us due to her being out of town.
I know there will probably be some cynics out there who think this is all just a big cover up, but I consider myself a pretty good judge of character, and this all seems to be a big misunderstanding. Trust me, I’ve been in malicious situations against non-theists, and I can tell the difference. If anything, take this as a warning against automatically jumping to conclusions and being hasty. I would have hating going straight to the Dean or whatever some of you suggested only to find out it was something minor. The last thing I want to do is accidentally alienate allies to non-theists because of paranoia.
Update
We’re having a quick break at the conference, so I wanted to thank Hemant for asking people for help about my panel problem, and for all the advice that I’ve received. Last night I wrote a long email detailing what happened and my concerns, and sent it to the head of one of our main diversity programs here at Purdue. He was the one initially asked if he knew any non-theists who could participate, and he has been very friendly to us in the past. I wanted his advice before going straight to a TA or the professor or a dean. Like I said, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt (innocent until proven guilty and all), so I didn’t want to stir up trouble for no reason. Saying that, I made clear that I believe they should both know about my concerns so at the very least this doesn’t happen again in the future.
I’ll keep you updated on what happens. Until then, back to my biology conference!
Duped and Annoyed
I’ll be leaving for a three day biology conference in Nebraska early tomorrow morning. If the blog is dead, that’s why.
On Monday I agreed to be a part of a panel for a class here titled Communicating Across Cultures…one of those required classes everyone loves to take. All I was told is the class was discussing religious oppression on campus, and that needed a non-theist for a panel to answer questions from the audience. I said sure. I asked for more details about what specific questions were going to be asked, but they never replied. I shrugged it off, thinking it was just short notice, and along with my agnostic friend (who was the one who directed them to me), went to the panel this morning.
Unfortunately, I felt like I’d been duped.
Maybe duped is too harsh of a word. I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt that they’re not being malicious, but either way, I was seriously annoyed. I arrived about ten minutes early and sat waiting with Agnostic Friend until class was going to start, with no real instruction from the professor. She then asked us to sit down with the other panelists…one of which is a middle aged man. Okay, I think, maybe he’s in charge of some diversity program.
She introduces us to the class, and says that we’re going to take about 5 to 7 minutes to explain why we believe what we believe, and then we’ll open it up for questions. Agnostic Friend and I exchange looks of “Eep, wish she would have warned us about that.” Unfortunately for him (and thankfully for me), she asked him to start first. He talked for about 2 minutes, basically just briefly defining what it meant to be an agnostic. It was then my turn, and I probably stammered on about atheism for about 3 or 4 minutes. It’s hard enough listing all the reasons why you’re an atheist in less then five minutes when it’s taken you a decade to figure out, but I tried my best. I thought I did a pretty good job for having absolutely no notice about the question.
That is, until the next person spoke. The older guy wasn’t just some diversity person…he was a professor and doctor at our student health center. And not only was he presenting the Christian view point, but he had a typed up perfectly organized speech, full of all the usual horrible arguments for God and Christianity (which I will talk about after the biology conference). On top of all that, he’s beautifully eloquent, charismatic, and filling his introduction with personal, emotional, funny stories. I know they’re horrible arguments, but that they’re going to sound amazing to the audience, especially after my improvized talk. To make matters worse, the fourth panelist was a graduate and former head of the Muslim Student Association…and had an actual Powerpoint presentation that he had obviously given many times before.
You can understand why I’m pretty annoyed. The two non-theist junior undergraduates are sitting up there, not even notified what the main question (or even PURPOSE) of the presentation is, while two eloquent, older, and more prepared theists make us look like unprepared fools. It was honestly embarassing…not because I’m not able to make good presentations or arguments (because I can *grumble*), but because I had absolutely no warning while they obviously did. Not only am I personally embarassed, but I regret losing this opportunity to present atheism to a large group of students who 1. probably never encountered it and 2. now won’t ever want to encounter it again.
Of course, even if I was prepared, would it really have been fair facing me off against Mr. Professor Doctor “I’ve Traveled the world and dined with Kings” Former Atheist Saw the Light Jesus Cures What Even Medicine Can’t? I’m fairly certain even the brightest 21 year olds with the best arguments will look foolish when debating a charismatic “adult” with horrendous arguments.
The cherry on top was that because the format was Q&A, I never got a chance to refute any of the garbage the Christian and Muslim were saying. I guess that gives me some blogging material for after my trip.