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Syllabus for Evolution, Biology 380

Professor: Robin Richardson Office: 246 Pasteur and Capstone lab, 264 SLC

Office hours: Posted on my door Phone: 457-5128 email: spider@winona.edu

Text: Futuyma's Evolution second edition

Evaluation: Your grade will rely heavily (as will the success of the class) on your participation in and critical thinking about class discussions. You will lead one discussion and should plan on contributing to all of them. The grade components are specified below.

Grade breakdown;

Discussion Leadership =100 points

Participation and exercises =200 points

Debates (2@ 50 each) =100 points

Exams (3@ 100 each) =300 points*

Total =600 points

*you may design your own grade or point distribution. Come see me about alternatives.

Final grades will be based on a straight percentage (your points earned of the total points offered), with 90% and above an A, 80-90%=B, etc. You should keep track of your scores as we progress if your grade is important to you. My main concern is coverage and stimulating thought on evolution. Grades are a secondary result of the process.

Discussion Leadership: A separate handout outlines the criteria by which this will be graded. It will be vital for you to visit my office at least one week before your turn and I encourage you to visit more. I will have references for you and you will need to do enough reading to become comfortable with your subject. A basic assumption in the discussions will be that everyone has read and reread the chapter, so discussions will focus on interesting, related areas and examples, not on a summary. You should use the Suggestions for Further Reading and the Problems and Discussion Topics parts of your text to direct your discussion.

Participation: Another, separate handout outlines criteria by which your participation will be evaluated. This will not be a mysterious process. In general, if you read and reread you will have something interesting to contribute to discussions and you will be evaluated highly.

I will go through the criteria sheet every class period to determine your daily contribution (from 1-5 points). You need to assess this also and you need 20 periods of acceptable participation to make the grade. You may not be a leader every day but you should be comfortable with participation. This takes practice and the only way to practice is to prepare and then speak up. Don't feel comfortable because no one is talking, participation is not graded on a curve. Attendance is required. If you miss three discussions, you lose one grade from what-ever you accumulate at the end.

There will be a series of exercises that take participation beyond speaking. Look for the asterisks on the topics page and be ready for spontaneous additions.

Schedule: In a separate handout (called “topics”) is an outline of subjects. We will discuss this the first day and you should choose one you would like to lead. I will add the names to the online posting so everyone has access to the schedule. I am taking the first few turns so that no one gets rushed into leading before they have time to read and think.

Many related subjects will be key to our understanding of evolution. Your text introduces most of these subjects but for further reading here are some other books you should think about:

Barlow, Connie (ed.). 1991. From Gaia to Selfish Genes. MIT Press. (2)

Berra, Tim. 1990. Evolution and the Myth of Creationism. Stanford University Press. (4)

Blackmore, Susan. 1999. The Meme Machine. Oxford. (2)

Dawkins, Richard: The Selfish Gene, 1976 (2)

The Extended Phenotype, 19 (2)

The Blind Watchmaker, 1986 (2)

River Out of Eden, 1995 (4)

Climbing Mount Improbable, 1996 (4)

Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998 (4)

Depew, David and Bruce Weber. 1995. Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Geneology of Natural Selection. MIT Press. (5)

Dingus, Lowell and Timothy Rowe. 1998. The Mistaken Extinction: Dinosaur Evolution and the Origin of Birds. Freeman and Sons. (6)

Eldredge, Niles. 2000. The Triumph of Evolution. Freeman and Sons. (4)

Fortey, Richard. 1998. Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth. Knopf. (1)

Futuyma, Douglas J. 1982. Science on Trial. Pantheon. (4)

Gould, Stephen Jay. 2000. The Lying Stones of Marrakech. Harmony Books. (6)

" 1999. Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. Library of Contemporary Thought.

Any of his essay collections: Ever Since Darwin, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, The Panda's Thumb, Bully for Brontosaurus, Eight Little Piggies or Full House. All published by Norton. (3)

Hamilton, W.D. 1996. Narrow Roads of Gene Land. Freeman and Sons. (2)

Himmelfarb, Gertrude. 1959. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. Elephant Edition. (5)

Hull, David. 1988. Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. University of Chicago Press. (6)

Hull, David and Michael Ruse. 1998. The Philosophy of Biology. Oxford. (6)

Jones, Steve. 1999. Darwin's Ghost. Random House. (5)

Kitcher, Philip. 1984. Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. (4)

Lammerts, Walter E. 1970. Why Not Creation? Presb. and Reformed. (4)

Larson, Edward J. 2001. Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galapagos Islands. Basic Books. (6)

McElvaine, Robert S. Eve's Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History. McGraw Hill. (6)

McPhee, John. 1998. Annals of the Former World. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (1)

Michod, Richard E. 1999. Darwinian Dynamics: Evolutionary Transitions in Fitness and Individuality. Princeton. (3)

Miller, Kenneth R. 1999. Finding Darwin's God. Cliff Street Books. (4)

Montagu, Ashley. 1984. Science and Creationism. Oxford. (4)

Morris, Richard. 2001. The Evolutionists. Freeman and Sons. (5)

Morris, Simon Conway. 1998. The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. Oxford University Press. (6)

Raymo, Chet. 1998. Skeptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection Between Science and Religion. Walker and Co. (4)

Ruse, Michael. 1999. Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction? (6)

Schwartz, Jeffrey H. 1999. Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species. Wiley and Sons. (1)

Schopf, J. William. 1999. Cradle of Life. Princeton. (1)

Sober, Elliot and David Sloan Wilson. 1998. Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior. Harvard University Press. (2)

Stearns, Stephen C. and Rolf Hoekstra. 2000. Evolution: An Introduction. Oxford University Press. (7)

Strickberger, R. 2001. Evolutionary Biology. Benjamin Cummins. (7)

Subjects: The numbers in parenthesis (above) refer to the subjects below.

1) Early evolution--time from the origin of life to early in the fossil record.

2) Levels of evolution--where does natural selection operate? Levels include: genes, individuals, kin, and groups.

3) Adaptationism--it is not good scientific thinking to accept all current structures and behaviors as adaptations, we must be able to demonstrate adaptive change (criteria in George Williams' book).

4) Creationism and the relationship of science to religion--we will be looking at the difference between science and other ways of gaining knowledge.

5) Darwinism--an ongoing battle over the original meaning and intentions of the life work of Charles Robert Darwin.

6) Current controversies--social Darwinism, Burgess Shale interpretations, Human origins, Bird evolution, and truth in science.

7) General reference--other perspectives on more than one subject.

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