Preliminary Table of Contents Unit 1 The Evolutionary Perspective 1.The Facts of Evolution,Michael Shermer, formWhy Darwin Matters,Evolutionary theoryis rooted in a rich array of data from the past. While the specifics of evolution are still being studied and unraveled, the general theory is themost tested in scienceover the past century and a half. 2.Evolution in Action,Jonathan Weiner,Natural History,November 2005 More than 250 scientists around the world aredocumenting evolution in action.Some of the most dramatic cases result from theecological pressureswhich human beings are imposing on the planet. 3.How the Dog Got Its Curly Tail,David Sloan Wilson, fromEvolution for Everyone,by David… Sloan Wilson, Delacorte Press, 2007, pp. 42-50 The fact thatdomestic animalshave become tame byretaining their juvenile traitshas revealed an important corollary to the concept thatheritable variationis shaped by natural selection:not all traits are so purely and simply adaptive. 4.You Can Blame it on Mom,Lisa Seachrist Chiu,When a Gene Makes You Feel like a Fish,Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 66-74 Only with hindsight have we discovered thatsome genes affect males more than females,some families more than others and elites more than commoners. Who could have known that a mutation forhemophiliawould turn out to behistory in the making? 5.15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense,John Rennie,Scientific American,July 2002 Opponents of Evolutionare trying to tear down real science by setting forth a serious of specious arguments. In reality, they intend to useintelligent design theoryas a "wedge" in order to re-open science classrooms to discussion ofGod.This article consists of a series of rebuttals to some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against the idea of evolution. 6.Why Should Students Learn Evolution?Brian J. Alters and Sandra M. Alters,Defending Evolution,Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Inc., 2001 In explaining how organisms of today got to be the way they are, theevolutionary perspectivehelps us to make sense out of thehistory of lifeand explains relationships among species. It is anessential frameworkwithin which scientists organize and interpretobservations,and makepredictions about the living world. 7.Designer Thinking,Mark S. Blumberg, fromBasic Instinctby Mark S. Blumberg, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005 When we are confronted with complexity and see no path to how that complexity came about, the appeal of theargument from designis immense. Yet, says the author, the complexity of life can be accounted for by thetrial and error process ofnatural selectionwith a result that has the appearance of being designed. Unit 2 Primates 8.The 2% Difference,Robert Sapolsky,Discover,April 2006 Now that scientists have decoded thechimpanzee genome,we know that we share98% of our DNA.So how can we be so different? The answer lies in the fact that avery few mutationsmake for somevery big differences. 9.The Mind of the Chimpanzee,Jane Goodall, fromThrough a Window,Houghton Mifflin, 1990 It has long been recognized that the differences in anatomy and physiology between apes and humans is a matter of degr