Summary Why Evolution Is True BIO120 Guide to Coyne PDF

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Download Summary Why Evolution Is True BIO120 Guide to Coyne PDF

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BIO120: Explanation of Readings for Lectures 1 to 12, Laurel Duquette Readings for Lectures 1-12: “Why Evolution is True” by Jerry Coyne: All nine chapters are required. I will not provide any written summary of this book and there will be a few questions on Test 1 that will be based on information in this book. Some chapters are more important than others and I will identify which chapters are most relevant to each lecture. This book is a fun book to read and I will point out important passages from the book from time to time. You will gain the most from this book if you read as we move through the lectures.

The following guide to the book “Why Evolution is True” was written by Prof. Barrett for the Fall session of Bio120. It is a useful guide for the Summer session as well. Coyne – “Why Evolution is True” Required reading – all chapters. “Why Evolution is True” is not the typical science textbook required in first year. They are commonly the size of a phone book, cost a fortune, and are crammed full of facts that need to be learned. This is a book that you can relax with and enjoy as you might any non-fictional work. I suggest you start reading the book before my section begins. Instead of trying to memorize large portions you should simply try to understand the main arguments and concepts and concentrate on the nature of the evidence for evolution and why it is hard to refute. Coyne’s approach in the book is based on scientific reasoning as he carefully shows why creationist arguments and those from intelligent design are simply not consistent with the observed facts. Some books that are read during undergraduate years can have a profound influence on student career paths and intellectual development. I hope you enjoy this book and that for some of you it may change the way you see the world. 1. Preface & Introduction. There is much here that I hope will engage you and these introductory pages provide an excellent taste of what is to come. There are some shocking statistics on scientific illiteracy and many thought-provoking questions are posed. 2. Chapter 1 – “What is Evolution”. This chapter summarizes what evolution is. It identifies six components (tenets) to the evolutionary process and goes through each one in turn. Concepts such as common ancestry are introduced and a phylogeny (evolutionary tree) is illustrated. There is an important discussion of the misunderstood term “scientific theory” and the chapter ends by pointing out that a scientific theory must be testable and make verifiable predictions. Evolutionary predictions from the six tenets are then made. 3. Chapter 2 – “Written in the Rocks”. The material in this chapter will not be covered in lecture so it is important that you read this chapter carefully. It provides a nice summary of how fossils provide evidence for evolutionary change. I will not be testing you on the details of the figures in this chapter (e.g., the names of periods in Fig. 1 or the times of the appearance or Latin names of various fossils). I am more interested in making sure that you know what we can and cannot say about fossils and evolution and appreciate that the tempo of change in the fossil record is sometimes gradual, but can also be more rapid. Other important topics in the chapter include missing links, transitional forms, the origin of birds, the colonization of land from water, and the return to water by some groups such as marine mammals.

4. Chapter 3 – “Remnants: Vestiges, Embryos and Bad Design”. This chapter is about vestigial organs, atavisms, and genes that no longer function and examples of bad evolutionary design. The chapter is a good rejoinder to arguments about so-called “intelligent design” and also contains answers to fascinating topics such as why humans have an appendix. As with Chapter 2, I will not be covering this material in any detail in class so again I encourage you to read the chapter carefully so that you understand the main ideas. 5. Chapter 4 – “The Geography of Life”. This chapter is about the distribution of plants and animals on earth – the field of biogeography. Ideally, read this chapter before my lecture on what Darwin saw on the voyage of the Beagle (Lecture 2), as it will provide a good background to some of the examples I present, including those from the Galápagos. The main lesson from this chapter is that only evolution can explain the diversity and distribution of life on continents and islands. Topics included in the chapter include convergent evolution, dispersal to islands and how it favours some groups and not others, human origins in Africa, and differences in the biotas of continental vs. oceanic islands. 6. Chapter 5 – “The Engine of Evolution”. Adaptation and natural selection are central concepts in evolutionary biology and are the main topics of this chapter, which in my view represents the very heart of the book. It provides many fascinating examples of how adaptations function and how natural selection operates to “increase the fit” between organisms and their environment. Coyne dispels the common misconceptions that everything in evolution is random (“happening by chance”), and also that adaptations evolve for “the good of the species” (group selection), rather than, as we know today, by selection acting among individuals within populations. The chapter also covers the random process of genetic drift and how it is important to distinguish between selection and drift when explaining genetic changes in a population. Other topics include animal and plant breeding, experimental evolution in the test tube, the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, evidence for evolution in the wild, and how evolutionary complexity can evolve. It is a long chapter but highly relevant to several of my lectures, particularly Lecture 5 and Lecture 6. Chapter 6 – “How Sex Drives Evolution”. This chapter provides another perspective on the importance of sex in evolution and complements material in Lecture 7. Coyne begins by discussing sexual selection and the evolution of sexual dimorphism and moves on to why sex evolved in the first place. The chapter is full of fascinating detail: Do you know the world record for the number of children born to a single human female and the number sired by a male, and why such a difference occurs? – Read on! 8. Chapter 7 – “The Origin of Species”. Named after Darwin’s famous book this chapter focuses on speciation, a topic for which Jerry Coyne is the undisputed world authority. Indeed a few years ago he co-authored, with his former graduate student Allen Orr (now at the University of Rochester), what is generally regarded as the most authoritative and scholarly treatment of speciation ever written. Chapter 7 begins by pointing out that Darwin’s book is probably misnamed (it was mostly about adaptation) and goes on to discuss species concepts, particularly the biological species concept. Other topics that you should understand in this chapter include geographical, sympatric, and polyploid speciation, all of which will be covered in class and I recommend that you read this chapter before Lecture 10. 9. Chapter 8 – “What About Us?”. This chapter is about human evolution, a topic that is covered in detail in Lecture 12. It covers an historical account of the fossil record of human ancestry, from Neanderthals to Lucy to Homo erectus, and discusses some of the key changes that characterized human evolution: bipedal walking, large brain size, and tool making. The evidence demonstrates unequivocally that we evolved from ape-like ancestors and after reading the chapter it is hard to believe that any reasonably intelligent person could think otherwise. One of the most intriguing facts that we learn in this chapter is that we have had many close evolutionary relatives all of whom have gone extinct, raising the interesting question “why?”. The chapter ends by considering our genetic heritage and the controversial issues surrounding human “racial”

differentiation. The key modern genetic finding that comes from molecular studies is that a relatively small fraction of all genetic diversity in human populations distinguishes so called races—most variation occurs among individuals within races. 10. Chapter 9 – “Evolution Redux”. In the final chapter of the book, Coyne points out that the major tenets of Darwinism have now been verified through countless observations and experiments and that today—apart from a fundamentalist minority who choose to believe ancient religious pronouncements rather than modern scientific evidence—evolution is an accepted fact. This is not to say that there aren’t many intriguing questions that remain unanswered, and this is why evolutionary biology is a thriving discipline with hundred of laboratories refining our ideas about the details of the evolutionary process. The misguided view that the acceptance of evolution robs human life of meaning and purpose and inevitably leads to a weakening of moral values is a major hurdle for some in the recognition of evolution as a key scientific theory. Coyne points out that most scientists obtain deep spiritual satisfaction from contemplating the wonders of the universe and of nature and there is not a shred of evidence to indicate that scientists are less moral than anyone else....