Final set of readings

For this, the last week of classes, the readings are:

Tues 31 March

Ghiselin: chapt 9 Sexual Selection

Darwin: excerpt from The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, chapt 6 [this is the longest excerpt I have given you to read, at 12 pages, but it's well worth reading the whole thing]

Fri 3 April

Ghiselin: chapt 10 Conclusions

Darwin: excerpt from The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, chapt 8

The excerpts from Darwin's books are posted on the course schedule webpage.

Readings for 24 and 27 March

Please read the following for class:

24 March

Ghiselin: chapter 7 Variation

Darwin: excerpt from Variation of Animals and plants under Domestication

27 March

Ghiselin: chapter 8 An evolutionary psychology

Darwin: excerpt from Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals

The excerpts from Darwin's books will be posted on the course schedule webpage.

Readings March 17th and 20th

This week's readings are:

17 Mar: chapters 4 and 5 in Ghiselin. In class we will read a page or two from Darwin's Barnacles

20 March: chapter 6 in Ghiselin, and a short piece from Darwin's Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species (now available on the course schedule page)

I am going to get Drs Lougheed and Eckert to come and discuss these chapters with us on Tues and Fri, respectively. I would prefer that you focus on the Ghiselin readings in advance of those lectures.

Marking scheme

As I mentioned a couple of times in class, I have modified the marking scheme to better reflect the amount of effort (both time and intellect) that I expect you to put into each assignment. To be entirely fair, since it is rather late in the course to be changing the marking scheme, I will calculate your final mark both ways and give you the higher of the two

Annotated Darwin

I have now posted an example for the Annotated Darwin project here and some more detailed instructions here. Don't forget that this is due on 15 March, to be sent to me as a pdf attached to an email.

As I mentioned in class, I am really looking for some variety in the annotations and figures, and for annotations that have some depth (not just definitions, although a couple of these would be OK, especially if they are interesting). I would also prefer that you don't rely on wikipedia for all of your info and pictures.

Finally, please be careful that you do not plagiarize stuff from the web. That means you are not allowed to lift sentences from websites, and simply change a couple of words. Everything must be written in your own words. I apologize to those of you who are tired of hearing about plagiarism but, for reasons I do not completely understand, a few students just do not seem to get the point. On the example I posted, I deliberately used only wikipedia but I made sure that everything I took from that source was reworded well enough that there would be no hint of plagiarism, so that you could see an example of what is acceptable.

Attendance

I am sorry to see that attendance has fallen off to about 2/3 since Reading Week. Don't forget that participation is an important part of this course, and you will miss what I think is the most useful, and painless, as pet of this course if you miss class.

Readings: Mar 10th and 13th

This week we are focusing on arguments about natural selection in the Origin. That means we will be reading only chapt 3 in Ghiselin, plus two different readings from Darwin:

10 Mar: the first part of chapter 4 (Natural Selection) in the Origin

13 Mar: an excerpt from the middle of chapt 7 in the 6th edition of the Origin, where he deals with various objections to his theory that were raised by a prominent zoologist of the day, St. George Jackson Mivart (see picture to the right)

The first Darwin reading is rather short so I would suggest reading all of the Ghiselin chapter before the tuesday class

As always, pdfs for the Darwin readings are posted on the course schedule