So when I applied to study abroad in London for the summer, I did it for several reasons. My first thought was that it’d be awesome to travel to Europe. I mean, as much as I couldn’t wait to jump back into school as soon as I finished my spring semester (sarcasm?), traveling was obviously a considerable allure of the program. My second thought was, “hey, they speak my language in London, that’d sure be smart of me to go there.” I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, but I’ve studied French for many years and have come to the following conclusion: I am not linguistically gifted. And I really don’t want to study French anymore. While I’m sure being in France for an extended period of time and immersing myself into the language and culture would improve my conversational French tremendously, I just don’t have any interest in studying it anymore, and that seems to be what summer school in France is all about: studying French. Then I looked at the subject matter for the London study abroad program. Science, technology, and medicine in Victorian London, eh? Well I like science, I’m studying science, and I want to go into medicine in a sense. I’ve also found my knowledge of history to be a bit lacking, so I’ve been meaning to bone up on that a bit. I don’t know much about technology, or Victorian London for that matter, but all in all the course descriptions made them seem tailor made to my interests. I thought, “wow, what were the odds of my finding such interesting sounding courses offered in a program abroad in a place where they speak my language and have a train that can get me to Paris in 2 hours flat? This is going to be great! Now I know I could not have been more wrong…
Just kidding, it’s great. I’d say the first week of class was interesting-ish for me; it dealt mostly with broad themes of Victorian England, and we looked into the Great Exhibition, which was cool and all, what with the internationalism and the building a giant glass building over trees, but for me, I was still waiting for the sciencey, mediciney aspects of the course. We’re supposed to keep a blog while we’re here (oh hey, this is it now!), so I’ve been keeping my ears open in class and my eyes open while reading (which really helps by the way), listening and looking for things that really make me think, or things that I can relate in some way to my life today. The first week of class I wasn’t super inspired, which was to be expected given the first week is usually the orientation week. However, the second week of class had the light bulbs going off a mile a minute, which is kind of an incompatible combination of expressions, but you get the idea.
So that’s that, now I’ll be picking random tid-bits to jaw about. Since my last blog entry ended sort of abruptly, I thought I’d quickly clarify what the actual point of that blog post was, or at least what it was supposed to be originally. I ended up sort of rambling towards the end of it; I was actually inspired by the whole, “Darwin on the dollar,” observation a couple days before I actually had time to write about it (yes I know, he’s on a pound note, not a dollar, but I wanted the alliteration), and when I did finally write about it I was at a café in Paris (yes, I did make it down to Paris and it was AWESOME) that happened to have wifi, and I was sleep deprived and tired from having such an awesome time in Paris that I’m not totally surprised I sort of lost my point and started to ramble just like I am now, sooooo now on to the point.
What I originally wanted to say was that I was impressed when I learned that Darwin was on the ten pound note. Since then, I’ve learned that such figures as Shakespeare and Faraday have also been immortalized on English currency, which I think is just fantastic. The presidents (featuring Franklin and Hamilton) on American currency were influential and all, and I understand celebrating our founding fathers, but it really sends a different kind of message putting a Darwin or a Faraday on a bill than a Hamilton or a Washington. It celebrates the importance of progress, of invention, of intelligent men using their intelligence not only for the good of mankind, but also because it was what they loved to do. And I would bet that the majority of people in America do not know who Michael Faraday is, despite his giant impact on the world we live in, just sayin’.
But in any case, there is an interesting point that I wanted to ponder last time that I don’t think I ever got around to (writing it anyway, I’m sure I’ve pondered it at some point). I think the fact that science was explored and shared in Britain in the times of Darwin amongst an elite that encompassed gentlemen, clergymen, potentially any well-to-do citizen, meant that Darwin’s findings were weighed fairly by those elite. I’m sure he was given the opportunity to plead his case and display his observations and conclusions to an audience that was not unwilling to hear him, and that was why his theory of evolution was accepted. The clergymen of the time, as a part of the elite, would have also considered Darwin’s findings with an open mind, because their role in society was not confined to just preaching and adhering to traditional religious views. Sure, they did those things, but back then to be a member of the clergy meant that you were probably well educated. More than that, it meant that you probably wanted to be well educated. I think this is a distinction between a member of the clergy today and a member of the clergy in Victorian England. Now it’s all adhering and no learning (a vastly unfair overgeneralization, but I fear it may apply to the majority of cases). And this may have a lot to do with the fact that the church plays a considerably smaller role in society than it used to. Anyway, that was the point I wanted to ponder.
And as for why the US has such a big problem with evolution compared to the UK, I guess I don’t have a simple idea of how to answer that.
Like I said, from now on I’ll be commenting on interesting tid-bits of what I’m learning in my classes while I’m here in London. For now, I’m signing out.
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