On Wilderness

I took Introduction to Outdoor recreation last fall, and it was driving me crazy b/c I couldn't remember the wording in class:

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value."

-The Wilderness Act of 1964

I think some of the key elements are 'untrammeld by man', 'man does not remain' and retaining 'primeval character and influence'.

-Jessica

One of the great questions has always been where did I come from. Most groups believe that they (and everything else) was created by in a higher power.

Other groups noticing that everything changes over time coined the term evolution. The problem is that while evolution can explain a great deal about our planets past, it can not answer the above stated question. Life had to evolution from something.

In the beginning something had to create life. It comes down to would you rather think of yourself as a creation, or as a cosmic accident.
George

I just wanted to clarify something I was unable to do so in class yesterday. When I asked if the science community was resistant to any other train of thought when it comes to the beginning of life, I was not trying to infuse religion into the discussion. Calling intelligent design creationism is a fallacy. This would be like me automatically calling someone who believes in evolution an atheist. Is that a true statement? I hope we would agree it is not. Just because the science community has agreed as of late that the theory of evolution is probable without any proof, does not mean we should take it as fact or stop searching for alternatives to the age old question "where did we come from?".

You requested it, so here it is....

Greetings everyone,
You asked for it so here it is, the Critical Thinking Blog space for our class. Hopefully this will work well. I hope you all are enjoying this class, I certainly am.
Please feel free to post ideas here, but let's remember to continue to respect ideas different than our own, while being open to disagreeing and presenting an alternative point of view.
Cheers,
Michael