Gould Book Club
The EEB Grad Book Club Presents:
Musings on.....
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
By Stephan Jay Gould
Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University. 1433 p.
As biologists – and evolutionary biologists at that – we all strive to retain some knowledge of the historical underpinnings of our vast discipline (or multi-disciplines) plus, at the very least, we hope to maintain a cursory understanding of the complex ideas that render evolutionary biology a controversial field. At this informal gathering we will touch upon a number of those contentious topics, and conventional topics for that matter (it’s a given that Gould will have some unorthodox spin on those well-accepted areas), and voila – we will be better EEB graduate students because of it (even if we only improve our vocabulary skills). So bring your copy of Gould and a dictionary and meet us at ….
Meeting Time:
Fridays 5pm @ The Hale
Scheduled Readings:
Date | Location | Readings | Pages |
12 September | The Hale | (Chp 9) The Primary Claims of Punctuated Equilibrium: Data and Definitions; The Scientific Debate on Punctuated Equilibrium: Critiques and Responses | pp 765, 784–812 |
19 September | The Hale | (Chp 8) The Grand Analogy: A Speciational Basis for Macroevolution; Presentation of the Chart for Macroevolutionary Distinctiveness; The Particulars of Macroevolutionary Explanation | pp 714-724 |
26 September | The Hale | (Chp 8 continued...) Reproductive drive: directional speciation; Species selection, Wright's Rule and the power of interaction with directional speciation |
pp 724-735 |
03 October | The Hale | (Chp 8 continued...) Species-level drifts as more powerful than the analogous phenomena in microevolution; The scaling of external and internal environments; Summary Comments | pp 735-744 |
10 October | The Hale | Chp 10: Historical Constraints and the Evolution of Development; Constraints As a Positive Concept *We are waiting on an interlibrary loan of Dennett |
pp 1025-1037 |
17 October | TBA | TBA | |
24 October | TBA | TBA | |
31 October | TBA | TBA | |
07 November | TBA | TBA | |
14 November | TBA | TBA | |
21 November | TBA | TBA | |
28 November | Thanksgiving Break | ||
5 December | TBA | TBA |