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Presenting Partners
Delve
Websites
- The Smithsonian Human Origins Program: Hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, this site offers a "Hall of Human Ancestors" featuring movies of fossil skulls in the Smithsonian's collection. The Resource Guide explains various subjects of human evolution. http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/index.htm
- Presented by the Institute of Human Origins, “Becoming Human” explores human evolution in "a broadband documentary experience" with video, articles, news and debates in paleoanthropology and a Web guide. Watch an introductory video overview of evolution with guide Donald Johanson, read paleoanthropology news and book reviews, and visit the learning center for educational activities and lessons. The site also features a glossary of terms and recommended web sites. http://www.becominghuman.org/
- “Origins: A History of Beginnings” The blog of the American Association for the Advancement of Science explores the origins of everything under the sun – “handedness,” beads, microbes, language and beyond. http://blogs.sciencemag.org/origins
- Cambridge University is celebrating its 800th anniversary and also honoring the 200th birthday of one of its most illustrious alumni, Charles Darwin. Cambridge colleges, libraries, museums and gardens hold the world’s largest collection of all things Darwinian. www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk
- The Institute of Human Origins brings together a diverse group of scientists in the investigation of human evolution and its contemporary relevance. Through innovative research, education and the sponsorship of scholarly interaction, the institute fosters a multidisciplinary approach to tackling the most important issues of the human trajectory. http://iho.asu.edu/
- The PBS “Evolution” web site complements a seven-part, eight-hour television broadcast series. This rich and impressive site features video clips from the series, simulations, animations, interactive timelines, expert commentary, primary sources, and extensive links to evolution-related learning resources worldwide. Among the special educational features are a free, 40-page teacher's guide available and an eight-session course for high school teachers, four 15-minute videos that highlight the teaching of evolution in real classrooms around the country, online lessons that use multimedia formats to enhance students' understanding of evolutionary and a multimedia library that provides Web access to more than 150 multimedia resources and concepts. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
- “The TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy.” Talk.origins is a newsgroup devoted to the discussion and debate of biological and physical origins. Most discussions center on the creation/evolution controversy, but other topics of discussion include the origin of life, geology, biology, catastrophism, cosmology and theology. http://www.talkorigins.org
- “The Tree of Life Web Project” is a collection of information about biodiversity compiled collaboratively by hundreds of expert and amateur contributors. Its goal is to contain a page with pictures, text, and other information for every species and for each group of organisms, living or extinct. Connections between Tree of Life web pages follow phylogenetic branching patterns between groups of organisms, so visitors can browse the hierarchy of life and learn about phylogeny and evolution as well as the characteristics of individual groups. http://tolweb.org
Bibliography
- Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
By Adam Gopnik
224 pp. Knopf. $24.95 hardcover, $14.95 paperback. Published 2009.
Few may know that on February 12, 1809, two revolutionaries were born on either side of the Atlantic. To the East, Charles Darwin arrived at a well-to-do estate in the English countryside; to the West, Abraham Lincoln entered the impoverished log cabin of a Kentucky farmer. Intriguing coincidence or a significant symbol of the analogous lives that both men would come to lead? Gopnik credits Darwin for proving our capacity to adapt and strengthen over time through evolution, while he deems Lincoln responsible for revealing our ability to empower and reform our nation through democratic government. Through parallel histories of these progressive icons, Gopnik recounts the origins of modern liberal thought. - The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
By Denis Dutton
288 pp. Bloomsbury Press. $25 hardcover. Published 2008.
The Art Instinct combines two fascinating and contentious disciplines, art and evolutionary science, in a provocative new work that may change the way we think about the arts, from painting to literature to movies to pottery. Human tastes in the arts, Dutton argues, are evolutionary traits, shaped by Darwinian selection. They are not, as the past century of art criticism and academic theory would have it, just socially constructed. - California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current
Geographical Names
By Erwin G. Gudde and William Bright (Editor)
495 pp. University of California Press. $25.95 paperback. Published 2004.
The curious traveler or resident, as well as the serious student, will find a wealth of description and history in these names, as rich and various as the California landscape itself. This edition concentrates on the origins of the names currently used for the cities, towns, settlements, mountains, and streams of California, with engrossing accounts of the history of their usage. - Charles Darwin: Voyaging (1 of 2 Volumes)
By Janet Browne
622 pp. Princeton University Press. $25.95 paperback. Published 1996.
When we think of Charles Darwin, we habitually envision a scavenging radical in the thick of the Galápagos Islands, tagging various specimens of finches and rambling about on the HMS Beagle. However, the “real” Darwin was a man born to an elite and scholarly family who grew up with the staunch support of the Victorian gentry, studied at Cambridge University, and secured financial stability for the rest of his life by marrying his wealthy cousin. Though none of these details detract from the profound significance of his academic contributions, Darwin’s noble origins and cerebral, famously solitary nature makes his history that much more complex. In Voyaging, Browne focuses the first part of her two-volume biography on Darwin’s personal life prior to the publication of the Origin of Species, chronicling how “one of the most ordinary of men” developed theories that would come to topple fundamental principles of science, religion, and society. - Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2 of 2 Volumes)
By Janet Browne
600 pp. Princeton University Press. $25.95 paperback. Published 2003.
Picking up where the first volume of her definitive biography left off, Janet Browne opens The Power of Place with Charles Darwin’s weary completion of the Origin of Species, and goes on to detail the tidal wave of events that brought the Darwin family legendary fame and controversy. Browne not only describes Darwin’s personal consequences following the publication of Origin, but also illustrates Victorian society at the time, offering readers a thorough understanding of why Darwin’s thoughts on evolution by means of natural selection were at once so enlightening, horrifying, and captivating. Comprehensive, insightful, and remarkably lucid, Browne successfully narrates Darwin’s own evolution from reclusive intellectual to household name. - The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language
By Christine Kenneally
368 pp. Penguin. $16 paperback. Published 2008. *From clippings folder
In her introduction, Christine Kenneally explains that “The ultimate goal of this book is to present fragments from an epic about an animal that evolved, started talking, started talking about the fact that it was talking, and then paused briefly before asking itself how it started talking in the first place.” Perhaps this simplification sounds straightforward, yet the “epic” that Kenneally so casually mentions is one that commenced at the dawn of mankind and will continue tomorrow. Language evolution is a discipline that has not only intrigued great minds such as Noam Chomsky, but has also triggered entirely new fields of science, such as ape language research and the digital modeling of speech. Where did this all start, and where are our studies taking us? With clarity and an unhurried pace, Kenneally begins to expose the origins of one of our most fundamental human properties. - Journeys in Family History: The National Archives’ Guide to Exploring Your Past & Finding Your Ancestors
By David Hey
320 pp. UK National Archives. $49.95 hardcover. Published 2004.
This book is The National Archives' major new guide to family history nationwide and is the one family history book that you will not want to do without. You might be starting out on your ancestral search or seeking fresh genealogical avenues: here you are offered a wealth of reliable advice covering the repositories, records, the processes and more. However, this major new family history publication goes further than most, recognising that the business of establishing lines of descent is enriched by the exploration of ancestral times. Starting with the twentieth century, it looks down the centuries to cover not just finding our ancestors' names but also how this influenced the records they left behind. You will find that family history is as much an imaginative journey as an exercise in research; this is the unique 'family history perspective'. This title covers five hundred years of family history, from DNA research back to manorial records. It is essentially two books in one; the ingenious format combines genealogical guidance with social history sections in full color. - Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
By Nick Lane
352 pp. W.W. Norton & Co. $26.95 hardcover. Published 2009.
Darwinians believe that mankind as we know it is one of the many products of evolution. However, what more can we attribute to nature’s spellbinding creativity? According to biochemist Nick Lane, the origins of life are only one of ten equally spectacular innovations, such as the creation of DNA, photosynthesis, the evolution of complex cells, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness, and death. With all of these developments, Lane seeks to demonstrate “how each one transformed the living world, and how we humans have learned to read this past with an ingenuity that rivals nature herself.” Thus, this text not only celebrates life’s “marvelous inventiveness,” but also our own resourceful achievements that gradually allow us to expose how we came to be. - Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins
By Donald C. Johanson and Kate Wong
320 pp. Harmony. $25 hardcover. Published 2009.
Known as “the spokesperson for human evolution,” Lucy is a 40% complete, 3.2 million year old skeleton of a female hominin, or a transitional creature between apes and humans. However, for paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson, Lucy is much, much more. As the dedicated fossil hunter that unearthed her in Hadar, Ethiopia, Johanson not only relays the scientific magnitude of Lucy’s bones, but also the private consequence of such a momentous discovery. Since her finding in 1974, Lucy has become the most renowned and studied fossil hominid in history, yet Johanson’s text is not purely centered on her ability to provide the most celebrated link in the chronicles of our family tree. Rather, Johanson couples his research with personal anecdotes, ranging from the tedium of fieldwork to how Lucy received her Beatles-inspired name. For those that seek to uncover our origins without obtaining a Ph.D., this is a must-read. - On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
By Charles Darwin
First published in 1859.
In the most famous work of scientific literature to date, preeminent naturalist Charles Darwin proposes and explains his theory of natural selection, and thus launches the long, intricate, and continually emerging field of evolutionary biology. Though some of his claims have proven to be flawed during the century and a half since the text’s publication, there is no doubt that the Origin of Species and its account of common descent has become the unifying theory of modern life sciences. However, Darwin’s influence stretches much farther than biology: he permeates the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, philosophy, religion, and foreign policy, to name a few. While his language may be arduous for the scientific neophyte, Darwin’s thoughts on our origins are too mind-bogglingly significant for any reader to abandon. - The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition
By Richard Dawkins
384 pp. Oxford University Press. $19.95 paperback. Published 2006.
Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since. - Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design
By Stephen Meyer
624 pp. HarperCollins. $28.99 hardcover. Published 2009.
Signature in the Cell is the first book to make a comprehensive case for intelligent design based upon DNA. Meyer embarks on an odyssey of discovery as he investigates current evolutionary theories and the evidence that ultimately led him to affirm intelligent design. By defining what ID is and is not, Meyer shows that the argument for intelligent design is not based on ignorance or "giving up on science," but instead upon our growing scientific knowledge of the information stored in the cell. A leading proponent of intelligent design in the scientific community, Meyer presents a compelling case that will generate heated debate, command attention, and find new adherents from leading scientists around the world.
- Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens:
Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up
By K.C. Cole
416 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $27 hardcover. Published 2009.
As a young man Frank Oppenheimer followed in his famous brother's footsteps growing up in a privileged Manhattan household, becoming a physicist, working on the atomic bomb. Tragically, Frank and Robert both had their careers destroyed by the Red Scare. But their paths diverged. While Robert died an almost ruined man, Frank came into his own, emerging from ten years of exile on a Colorado ranch to create not just a multimillion dollar institution but also a revolution that was felt all over the world. His Exploratorium was a "museum of human awareness" that combined art and science while it encouraged play, experimentation, and a sense of joy and wonder; its success inspired a transformation in museums around the globe. In many ways it was Frank's answer to the atom bomb. K.C. Cole a friend and colleague of Frank's for many years has drawn from letters, documents, and extensive interviews to write a very personal story of the man whose irrepressible spirit would inspire so many.
- Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World
By Michael Dowd
448 pp. Plume. $16.00 paperback. Published 2009.
Both Reverend and Darwin enthusiast, Michael Dowd has established himself as the foremost speaker on the “sacred epic” that is our history—an epic that can be proven by biology, but an epic that is also spiritually satisfying. Dowd treads lightly when it comes to evolutionary data such as fossil records and the human genome project, choosing to focus on his faith instead. However, his efforts in trying to lead conservative Christians toward open-mindedness and even newfound understanding are palpably valiant. Drawing on his own personal transformation from a Young Earth creationist minister to a self-proclaimed “evolutionary evangelist,” Dowd certainly relieves, if not reconciles, the controversy between biblical explanation and scientific evidence for our origins.
- Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body
By Neil Shubin
240 pp. Pantheon Books. $35.95 hardcover, $13.95 paperback. Published 2008.
When Neil Shubin was asked to direct the human anatomy course at the University of Chicago’s medical school due to unexpected faculty departures, he couldn’t help but question his credibility as an educator of future physicians. Shubin is a paleontologist who spends most of his summers in the Arctic Circle searching for prehistoric fish bones—a far cry from dissecting cadavers in a classroom. However, Shubin’s encounter with the human body led to an engrossing expedition: to follow the origins of our structure back in time, until he reached the same fish bones that he had already become so familiar with. In this way, Your Inner Fish is not only a story of anatomy, anthropology, and biology, but also a relatable tale of the joys of personal discovery.
