Difference between revisions of "Classic Works in Evolutionary Biology"

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The 'master list' is a list of classic works in evolutionary biology that I (Kurt Schwenk) compiled and partially annotated during the course of the semester.  It was created based on my own choices as well as suggestions from EEB colleagues and various web sources.  Obviouly there are potentially as many lists of 'classic works' as there are evolutionary biologists - this list is not intended in any way to be definitive.  It reflects, to some degree, my own personal biases.  However, some attempt was made at being inclusive; for example, there are a number of very important plant references (thanks largely to Carl Schlichting), as well as obviously important works in population genetics and molecular biology.  As much as possible, I included only works that are generally important to evolutionary biology, as a whole, rather than many papers that are of narrower, if nonetheless critical importance within particular subdisciplines (e.g., phylogenetic analysis) or particular taxa.  Finally, I excluded books and papers that are too recent.  Thus, while there is no doubt that (for example) Schlichting and Pigliucci's ''Phenotypic Evolution'' (1998) will be considered a classic in the future, it is simply too recently published to have achieved that status at this time (we might want to add a separate, oxymoronic section entitled 'Modern Classics' for such works).<br/><br/>
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The 'master list' is a list of classic works in evolutionary biology that I (Kurt Schwenk) compiled and partially annotated during the course of the semester.  It was created based on my own choices as well as suggestions from EEB colleagues and various web sources.  Obviouly there are potentially as many lists of 'classic works' as there are evolutionary biologists - this particular list is not intended to be definitive.  It reflects, to some degree, my own personal biases.  However, some attempt was made at being inclusive; for example, there are a number of very important plant references (thanks largely to Carl Schlichting), as well as obviously important works in population genetics and molecular biology.  As much as possible, I included only works that are generally important to evolutionary biology, as a whole, rather than many papers that are of narrower, if nonetheless critical importance within particular subdisciplines (e.g., phylogenetic analysis) or particular taxa.  Finally, I excluded books and papers that are too recent.  Thus, while there is no doubt that (for example) Schlichting and Pigliucci's ''Phenotypic Evolution'' (1998) will be considered a classic in the future, it is simply too recently published to have achieved that status at this time (we might want to add a separate, oxymoronic section entitled 'Modern Classics' for such works).<br/><br/>
  
 
== '''A Comment on Modifying the Master List''' ==
 
== '''A Comment on Modifying the Master List''' ==

Revision as of 22:21, 28 April 2008



Under construction.png This article is still under construction.
Expect it to change frequently until this notice is removed.


What is This Page?


This page grew out of a graduate seminar taught in EEB during the spring semester, 2008, by Kurt Schwenk. There was a general consensus that it would be useful to graduate students and the EEB community at large to have continuing access to the papers and book selections that were read during the semester, as well as additional papers included in the master list of 'classic' works in evolutionar biology. Many of these pdfs are available here (below).

What is 'The Master List'?


The 'master list' is a list of classic works in evolutionary biology that I (Kurt Schwenk) compiled and partially annotated during the course of the semester. It was created based on my own choices as well as suggestions from EEB colleagues and various web sources. Obviouly there are potentially as many lists of 'classic works' as there are evolutionary biologists - this particular list is not intended to be definitive. It reflects, to some degree, my own personal biases. However, some attempt was made at being inclusive; for example, there are a number of very important plant references (thanks largely to Carl Schlichting), as well as obviously important works in population genetics and molecular biology. As much as possible, I included only works that are generally important to evolutionary biology, as a whole, rather than many papers that are of narrower, if nonetheless critical importance within particular subdisciplines (e.g., phylogenetic analysis) or particular taxa. Finally, I excluded books and papers that are too recent. Thus, while there is no doubt that (for example) Schlichting and Pigliucci's Phenotypic Evolution (1998) will be considered a classic in the future, it is simply too recently published to have achieved that status at this time (we might want to add a separate, oxymoronic section entitled 'Modern Classics' for such works).

A Comment on Modifying the Master List


A great advantage of using an EEBedia page for this purpose is that it can be edited and ammended by the EEB community (thank you Paul Lewis!). However, I have a request - as much as I would like to see additions, changes, annotations, etc., I ask that a copy of the 'original' master list be preserved. Thus, my suggestion is to post a new list with an appropriate new title, or simply post a list of addenda.

If you make additions to the list, I strongly encourage you, whenever possible, to upload pdfs of the new paper. Since one of the principle purposes of this page is to educate graduate students and to help them prepare for their oral qualifying exams, making it easy to obtain suggested readings would be a great service. Not everything will be available in electronic format, obviously, but often more is available than one might think (i.e., it is available through web sources outside of JSTOR or other library electronic databases) and can be located by doing a Google search on the title. Scanned documents are good, but watch out for memory hogs - they might clog up the system if they are uploaded to EEBedia.