Meeting 1: Introduction

First meetings of courses are often short, trivial occasions. I see no reason why ours must be. We'll begin by discussing the structure of Darwin's theory, its origin and subsequent elaboration in the context of improved genetic knowledge, and how it has been confirmed to such a dramatic extent. This will put us in a position to begin to address the conceptual questions about evolutionary biology which will detain us for the bulk of the course.

I hope you'll have a chance to read some of the following as background to our discussion. To access these, you will need to log in to Blackboard (if you're registered in the course, you should have access to the blackboard page now --- or you will shortly). If you have not yet registered or are a WSU student, please send me an email and I'll send you a link from which you can download them.

Optional/Recommended Reading:

• Mayr, chapter 2 and chapter 6 of One Long Argument
• Kitcher, "Darwin's Achievement"
• Ridley, chapter 4 of Evolution: this chapter on variation and natural selection may be useful reading for those who feel a bit shaky about their biological background.

See you in class on Wednesday the 14th!