From Darwin to Derrida: The Evolution of Meaning and Purpose
OEB 128
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
The seminar will read my recent book (of the same name as the course) intended for a general educated readership. The seminar would be suitable both for science students and for non-science students who wish to learn some evolutionary biology. Natural selection is a purposeless process that has evolved purposive creatures. The key innovation in the evolution of life was the origin of a textual record of past choices of natural selection contained within genetic sequences. The information in genes comes from the environment that selects. The textual record evolves as organisms are judged by the performance of the text in environmental context.
Available for Harvard Cross Registration