The mind is the product of countless generations of evolution. We first evolved as mammals, then primates, then apes specializing in intelligence. At some point the meager cultural attainments of this intelligent ape began to accumulate, perhaps as a result of the acquisition of language. Beyond this point, the development of the mind has proceeded through cultural evolution. What we think about and the way we think about it are shaped by our biological as well as our cultural heritage.
We will draw on material from several disciplines including Psychology, Biology, Anthropology, Linguistics, and Religion. The prehistoric focus will look at man as a slowly evolving creature who found a means of survival that took it down a different path than the one taken by the apes. This journey has left its mark on modern humans. To some unknown extent, modern humans still carry the legacy of a million years as a hunter-gatherer. We will look at several attempts to discern what the original shaping forces were and what imprint they left.
The more modern focus will look at what has happened after man settled down and became a literate civilized creature. We will look at various cognitive "inventions" such as writing, law, mathematics, and the idea of natural law and science.
Other topics may include male-female relationships, origins of consciousness, creation myths and modern cosmology, and creationism vs. evolution. These other topics change from year to year. This year's topics will be selected by the class from a list that is far too lengthy to cover in a semester.
About half the class is from Psychology. The rest come from English, Art History, Math, Biology, Chemistry, etc. I have found Psych 94 students to be bright, hard working, articulate, well informed, curious, and willing to enter into class discussions. They are not intimidated by a heavy writing load.
"Fascinating, lively, and humorous. The class format is relaxed, open to discussion and addresses a broad range of topics (many in great depth). The workload is very heavy (reading and writing intensive) and students are expected to be opinionated, informed, verbose, and grammatically correct. Stimulates one to think, question, and marvel 'how did we get here?'. Definitely recommended, but not for passive learners or easy-grade seekers."
Buy it. It has the readings, the assignments, and the 23 bibliographies from which you are to select books to read. Readings for which the royalties were too high are on reserve at the Undergrad.
Last year's grades were based on the seven components listed in the next section plus an oral report. All writing will be done outside of class. Last year the final exam was "take-home." In addition, there are opportunities for positive and negative bonus points. The weights given to the components will be determined by the class along about March.
This course is writing intensive. Below is what last year's class did. (Some papers will not exceed 5 pages. Tests are take-home essays and will have their own page limits.) An average amount of writing for the semester is about 50 pages. Papers will be typed and spell- checked. Grammar will be correct. Later, I will share with you the kinds of grammatical screw-ups that irritate me. Last year a few students had to write a brief essay on the lay-lie distinction and such-like. Or else they had to resubmit a paper with all errors corrected.
A warm-up paper on creationism; (January)The oral report will be on a book you have read for one of your written reports. Opportunities to make reports will begin about the first week of February and continue to the end of the semester. I like for them to not last over about 20 minutes. I may ask that you make your oral presentation in my office. I may ask you to attend at least one other of these sessions.
Grading will be on a 10 point scale. Your grade will be a weighted average (the class will decide the weighting scheme) of the tests, assignments, and the oral report.
I will take attendance. I get irritated if absences get excessive. Consequently each one above four, for whatever reason, will lower the final average by a point.
The papers will have due-dates. Rather than my hassling you about turning in papers on time, I will give a due-date well in advance. You may decide when to turn them in but there will be a three point per day penalty for being late. Weekends count as one day.
There will be opportunities to earn extra points and erase negative points. These go into a separate grading category and will influence your final grade. I will award negative points for misspellings and grammatical errors on the papers. Positive points come from finding grammatical errors in what I've written and in finding neat stuff for the course. Early in the course I will alert you to writing errors (like lay-lie) that annoy me and which I circile with red ink. Beginning with the second paper, each red circle in excess of three will earn a negative point.
The assigned readings will see us through about the first third of the semester and will form a foundation for what follows (which we will decide together). After going through most of the assigned readings, students are free to pursue their individual interests in two books selected from book lists included here.
Below is a record of the spring '96 class.
Class 1: Introduction Class 17: Transitions to civilization
Class 2: Evolution of evolution Class 18: Language I
Class 3: Darwin's theory Class 19: Language II
Class 4: Creationism Class 20: Religion I
Class 5: Creationism II Class 21: Religion II
Class 6: Sociobiology I Class 22: Origins of science
Class 7: Sociobiology II Class 23: Science case study: Cosmology
Class 8: Sociobiology & culture Class 24: Science's creation myth: Modern cosmology
Class 9: Sociobiology controversy Class 25: The future
Class 10: Human origins Class 26: The future II
Class 11: The human family tree Class 27: Evolution of Consciousness
Class 12: the slide show Class 28: Class suggests topics
Class 13: ape human differences Class 29: Several oral reports
Class 14: Allometry
Class 15: Mitochondrial Eve
Class 16: Cognitive evolution This year we may not do any oral reports in class. file: syl98.doc