Myths adapting

The relationship between medicine and biochemistry has important imphcations for the former. As long as medical treatment is firmly grounded in a knowledge of biochemistry and other basic sciences, the practice of medicine will have a rational basis that can be adapted to accommodate new knowledge. This contrasts with unorthodox health cults and at least some alternative medicine practices, which are often founded on httle more than myth and wishftil thinking and generally lack any intellectual basis. 

Throughout the book I have tried to constrain the wonders of imagination inspired by the subject by using simple calculations. Can all of the water on the Earth have been delivered by comets if so, how many comets How do I use molecular spectroscopy to work out what is happening in a giant molecular cloud Calculations form part of the big hard-sell for astrochemistry and they provide a powerful control against myth. I have aimed the book at second-year undergraduates who have had some exposure to quantum mechanics, kinetics, thermodynamics and mathematics but the book could easily be adapted as an introduction to all of these areas for a minor course in chemistry to stand alone. 

ADAPTING A MYTH OR FAIRY TALE A FIRST EXAMPLE... 

From the very beginning of the film industry, fiction and drama have proved unending sources of film stories, and it has been our experience in many years of teaching that adapting a myth or fairy tale offers the novice screenwriter an immediate way to learn how to structure a short script. 

The myth we have chosen to adapt is the Fall of Icarus. Briefly, the story material we are working from is this Daedalus (which means "cunning artificer") was both a renowned artist and a brilliant architect and inventor. Jealous because his nephew and favorite pupil Perdix seemed likely to surpass him in every way, he took the boy to the top of the Acropolis and hurled him off. For this he was condemned by the authorities, but he managed to flee to the island of Crete with his young son Icarus. 

Some contemporary adaptations of myths and fairy tales done by students working collaboratively in workshops given by coauthor Pat Cooper include the following ... 

NINTH ASSIGNMENT FINDING A MYTH OR FAIRY TAFE TO ADAPT... 

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