Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session
Description
“The tide of evolution carries everything before it, thoughts no less than bodies, and persons no less than nations.” -George Santayana
Evolution is a central organizing principle in modern biology. Evolution and Society provides a broad conceptual and historical introduction to scientific theories of evolution and their place in the wider culture. The course embraces historical, scientific and anthropological/cultural perspectives. It is grounded in relevant developments in the biological sciences since 1800 that are largely responsible for the development of the modern theory of evolution by natural selection. However, it extends thematically into other historical sciences (e.g., cosmology, historical geology, paleoanthropology, archaeology, evolutionary psychology) as appropriate; and it locates key developments in all of these sciences within wider cultural debates about the ethical, religious, cultural and political significance of evolution.
The course is taught by a combination of weekly lectures and discussion hours led by the instructor and a graduate TA. The instructor and the graduate TA meet on a weekly basis to discuss set readings, identify key issues and determine teaching plans. The discussion hours provide an opportunity for students to deliberate on key ideas and issues. They will include two organized debates, in each of which individual students will adopt specific roles in relation to a socially contested question. In the first debate, students will take roles in the historical debate that followed the publication in 1859 of Darwin’s Origin of Species; and in the second debate, students will take roles in the ongoing debate in the U.S. about the teaching of evolution and creation in the public schools.
Calendar
| SES # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction and Course Overview | |
| 2 | The Nature and Scope of the Historical Sciences | |
| 3 | Natural History and Natural Theology | Assignment 1 handed out |
| 4 | The Birth of Historical Geology | |
| 5 | Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism |
Assignment 1 due Assignment 2 handed out |
| 6 | “Victorian Sensation” – Chambers’ Vestiges | |
| 7 | Voyages of Exploration, Part I: Darwin | Assignment 2 due |
| 8 | Voyages of Exploration, Part II: Wallace and Bates | Assignment 3 handed out |
| 9 | The Path to The Origin of Species | |
| 10 | “Mr Darwin’s Hypotheses” | |
| 11 | Guest Lecture: Andrew Berry | |
| 12 | The Reception of Darwinism | |
| 13 | The “Gospel of Evolution” in the Late-19th Century | Assignment 3 due |
| 14 | Evolution and Eugenics | Assignment 4 handed out |
| 15 | The “Eclipse of Darwinism” in Biology Around 1900 | |
| 16 | The “Eclipse of Darwinism” in the Social Sciences After 1900 | |
| 17 | Evolution and the Rise of Christian Fundamentalism | |
| 18 | Movie: Inherit the Wind | |
| 19 | Darwinism, Mendelism and the Birth of the “Modern Synthesis” | |
| 20 | Changing Understand of Human Origins | |
| 21 | Darwinism and Behavior: From Ethology to Sociobiology | |
| 22 | The Creation Controversies: From “Scientific Creationism” to “Intelligent Design” | Assignment 5 handed out |
| 23 | Guest Lecture | |
| 24 | Reclaiming Evolution for the Social Sciences: the New Evolutionary Psychology | Assignment 4 due |
| 25 | Evolutionary Humanism, from Julian Huxley to E.O. Wilson | |
| 26 | Stocktaking: What Makes Evolutionary Biology Special? | Assignment 5 due |
Grading
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Attendance and participation | 20% |
| Written papers (4) | 50% (total) |
| Final “debate” paper + presentation | 30% |
