Carla Louise Bulacan Bayquen August 27, 2014

BS Biology Comm 2 Section L WF 11:30-1:00 2012-41569

Fragments of Aesthetics
Attraction is never definite. The truth is its a personal magnet. Each one of us has
different preferences and one of the products of this phenomenon is the subdivision of
disciplines. But we all do have one goal and it is to find the truth, which again is relative and
subjected to series of verifications. Why do we do this? Simply because we aim to satisfy
ourselves with knowledge that fulfils us.
What are we missing? Reading the article entitled Pearls Before Breakfast by Gene
Weingarten made me question what life really is about. Are we chasing the right things? Are we
taking the right path? Wait, whats the criteria on being right? I am beaming with questions to
start with my first point; everything is unpredictable. In the article, Slatkin a music director was
tasked to hypothesize the probable events that will take place during Joshua Bills public
performance, which took place in a chaotic metro station beside a lottery booth where thousands
of people race to be on time in their offices and whereabouts. His predictions were of conviction
but then it just remained as is unlike the other article I read by Sara Foote entitled: Evaluating the
influence of evolution on human brain size. Slatkin based his prognosis on Bills talent and
violin skills and only a little on what most likely will happen during the rush hour. While the
hypothesis by Foote are based on existing studies and she was so open to possibilities in stating
the assumptions on the type of selection the human cerebral cortex undergoes and the effect of
two microcephaly-associated genes.
According to Regina Bailey the cerebral cortex encompasses about two-thirds of the
brain mass and is the most highly developed part of the human brain and is responsible for
thinking, perceiving, producing and understanding language. The article tackles about it being
the most recent structure in the history of brain evolution. I only have a little to no background
on higher evolutionary biology. The article was hard to understand if you are not a biology
person since the paper was technically written by a biology scholar to another. Things were
getting more complex as I read the article. On the other hand Weingartens paper was more
conversational and creative with a lot of supporting lines from poets and musicians, it was an
amateurs approach but never compromised. It was interpretative, the reader is questioned a
multiple times and parts of it were more of a report like Footes paper that was depending on a
lot of references and pre-existing facts which she just developed to understand her hypothesis but
still it was intellectually written.
The third difference between the two articles is their evidences. Weingarten had direct
evidences on the impact of music to busy moving people passing by a superb violinist. It was
caught on tape, recorded. While Foote relied mostly on supporting evidences to build up a new
fact. She used fragments of facts so that as a collective it can support his hypothesis which then
is used to conclude her paper. There were no methods stated since it was just a critically made
essay to understand and link information that can explain the evolution of the human cerebral
complex. Whereas the article on Joshua Bill is basically standing on its own foundation which
greatly relies on studies already conducted that did not involve any experimentation but more of
making the ends meet by the use of existing data. Also the whole idea of Bills performance is
the experiment itself, filled with emotion and character which is not essentially found on
scientific papers.
Amidst these differences both are still similar in investigating the beauty in and of our
existence. It might have been two different approaches but still somewhere fragments of these
works will meet. At the end of the day it is our wish to understand and of course survive life.
After all it is a continuous cycle; a series of ups and down, questions and answers which feed us
intellectually.
Everything we see is written in the corners of our heads, after all history exists because of
our beliefs which are influenced by evidence thats convincing enough. Writing is an art whether
its creative or technical we need to maintain balance; the equilibrium which holds everything
together.