Class April 14, part one

 For class April 14, I started it with a sugar cookie! Actually I went to class late because of traffic, and when I saw Kip in the hallway he said they were just doing the IDEA course survey. Phew I already did that. Kip then shouts to the class that he saw someone had already done their survey, and it must have been me instead of someone else. I am embarrassed that he tells the whole class! Ever since grade school I have been conscious of my presence. I give off in the classroom and don’t want to look like I am trying too hard. It stems from my want to not isolate others. But maybe I should focus more on what I like to do and not others? 

Kip asks if we want to hear his paper abstract about Environment, Space, and Place. We all shake our heads vigorously. Essentially it is about asking the question, where is nature's body? 

Nature comes from the Greek word,  φύσις pronounced like Foosis. Surely I will not forget that again! 

As human beings from nature can we then make anything unnatural? I immediately think of Dr. Frankenstein. I decide that you can rewrite the laws of nature (in fiction) and that is something unnatural, but Kip says you can bend the laws. What constitutes a break and what is a bend I wonder?

Caleb, Kip’s son, hates invasive species. So much so that he goes around killing invasive birds with a slingshot. I still like him, I met his wife and walked the Camino for a bit with her so how bad can Caleb be? But I still will not tell my mom who feeds the birds that story! 

We then talk about The Prime Directive in Star Trek. The Prime Directive is the order that all cultures/worlds must develop on their own. The Star Trek The Next Generation third season episode “Who Watches the Watchers” is a great example. This planet that is similar to Vulcans in their biology, is being studied. But uh oh, there is a malfunction of the hideout that the anthropologists are in, and two inhabitants see them and one gets hurt. The prime directive would be to let this man die so as to not interfere with his evolution. They are like stone-age people, and to suddenly bring 24th-century medicine into their lives is…is invasive! But are you really going to let this man die when you could easily save him? Beverly Crusher doesn't think so, she breaks the Prime Directive and saves him. That creates a mess that they spend the whole episode fixing. It is very interesting! In another episode,  Picard says that they follow the Prime Directive because every time (American) humans interfere with an uncontacted culture it just creates more problems down the road. Does it? That is not what Bruce Olson would say.


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