Mitch M > Recent Status Updates

Re-reading this book because my lab mates all got a copy and are talking about it.

What a lovely read so far. Not the direction I was expecting a cancer patient with the knowledge that he has months to live to take, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Goodness, the essay on Plague was hauntingly beautiful. It's so incredibly important to practice empathy, especially towards those experiencing hardships in rates greater than us. A terrible situation need not result in a terrible response. We must be better.

"Rivers keep going, and we keep going, but there is no way back.. But the memory still holds me together." Damn John Green, I didn't realize how poetic you were.

Goodness, the last few chapters of Detective Stillwell travelling around talking to Dwayne and Calvin were TENSE! This is seriously good writing.

Boy does this book start out with a bang! I'm loving it so far. It's also really exciting reading a fictional novel and recognizing the locations the characters go to.

Very interesting so far. This book is much more scholarly than the last book I read on Darwin, but this does a much more in-depth dive into the obvservations Darwin made along the Beagle's voyage and the eventual conclusions he would reach in his theory on coral reefs.

Another dense work of Darwin's. He essentially begins the book with 3 chapters extensively defining the 3 forms of coral reefs that he's observed. He also includes many examples with explicit details.

Man, it's a shame that Darwin ended up being wrong on his explanation of the parallel roads of Glen Roy. It was a really intriguing hypothesis, but after all it was glaciation that explained them. But hey, he's still famous for his theory of evolution, so what does it really mean in the end?

Darwin's observations on coral reefs and how it later influenced his theory on subsidence and uplift of the Earth's crust is so cool. Chapter IX was really enjoyable to read.

This book is a really cool summary of Darwin's learning and adventures leading up to his famous voyage of the Beagle so far. I'm only early into the history of his voyage, but already there are so many cool clues to the geological theories and conclusions he would later reach when he published the Origin.

Chapter XIII was incredible. The fact that the evidences of this chapter, those being the natural classification of organisms described through descent from common ancestors, morphological similarities across classes, the similarity of embryological structure across vastly different classes, and the presence of rudimentary or aborted organs, were enough for Darwin to believe in evolution is incredible!