Final report topics

Let's compile a list of our texts/topics, as we have them.

• The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins - Chris
• Everybody's Story by Loyal Rue - Pete (probably)
• The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation by Randall Fuller AND The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy by John Dewey (Don's volunteered to go first, on Jy 25]*
• Varieties of Religious Experience by William James AND Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan - Sarah [but she presumably won't be doing a presentation, so if anyone else wants to do this as well, it's okay]
• 
  

Updated suggestions for final report:

• Darwin: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Howard
• Agnosticism: A Very Short Introduction by Robin LePoidevin
• Evolution: A Very Short Introduction by _____
• Humanism: A Very Short Introduction by Stephen Law
• The Origin by Irving Stone
• God, the Devil, and Darwin by Niall Shanks
• Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller
• Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution by Randal Keynes
• Evolution by Carl Zimmer
• Taking Darwin Seriously by Michael Ruse
• Cambridge Companion to Darwin 
• Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution by Gertrude Himmelfarb
• Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore
• Darwin's Sacred Cause by Adrian Desmond and James Moore
• Evolution vs. Creationism by Eugenie Scott
• The Tree of Life by Peter Sis
• The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner
•  Science and Human Affairs From the Viewpoint of Biology by Winterton C. Curtis
• Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby
• Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen
• Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution by Loyal Rue
• Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett
• The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy by John Dewey
• Darwin's Dogs by Emma Townshend
• Darwin's Ghosts by Rebecca Stott
• Living With Darwin by Philip Kitcher
• Charles Darwin-Voyaging by Janet Browne
• Charles Darwin-The Power of Place by Janet Browne
• Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life by Adam Gopnik
• Five best books on evolution, acc'ing to Jerry Coyne - pick one
• 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania by Matthew Chapman
• The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation by Randall Fuller
• The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us by Richard O. Prum
• The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will by Kenneth R. Miller
• Why Darwin Matters: The Case for Evolution and Against Intelligent Design by Michael Shermer
• Varieties of Religious Experience by William James AND Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan
• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
• The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins
• The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
by Richard Dawkins

Also see: Evolutionfaq.com... Frequently asked questions about evolution (pbs)...TalkOrigins FAQs on evolution... Darwin online...Darwin discussion questions, quotes etc. here...Jay Hosler,Sandwalk Adventures (a graphic novel)... Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr, Darwin: A Graphic Biography... Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist...Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution... Winteron C. Curtis, "A Defense Expert's Impressions of the Scopes Trial" from D-Days at Dayton: Fundamentalism vs Evolution at Dayton, Tennessee (1956)... "A damned-yankee professor in Little Dixie" (1957)... Michael Boulter,Darwin's Garden: Down House & the Origin of Species... Hanne Strager, A Modest Genius: The story of Darwin's life and how his ideas changed everything

Final report presentations. Select a third text to use as a primary resource for your final report, which you can think of as a book report/review consisting of an in-class presentation and a blog post.These are some possibilities, but feel free to discover your own...

We'll have objective-format quizzes over the readings in each class, and a final exam drawn from the quizzes. We'll all submit quiz questions, discussion questions, and relevant comments posted to this site in advance of each class. Write down your answers to the quiz questions, we'll go over them in class. I'll encourage us all to be peripatetic whenever possible (so plan to dress accordingly, with particular attention to footwear).

Again, everyone should post quiz questions, discussion questions, and relevant comments to this site in advance of each class. In the scorecard game I'll explain, you get a base for each of those... and an entire run if you post a relevant weekly essay of at least 250 words. (4 bases = 1 run).

The two students with the most runs at the end of the summer do not have to take the final exam.