WHY STUDY DARWIN ? SYLLABUS TEXTS READER ORIGIN OVERVIEW QUESTION POOL E-MAIL:
laporte@cats.ucsc.edu-- Who was Charles Darwin ?
-- What exactly did he do?
-- When did he do it?
-- Why was it important then?
-- Is it still important today?
We will review the events leading up to Charles Darwin's five-year voyage on HMS Beagle; his experiences thereon that eventually led to his writing of On the Origin of Species , a close reading of that seminal work to understand its carefully reasoned argument and why it had the scientific impact it did; and discuss Darwin's influence on current evolutionary theory and modern debates about Creationism, Social Darwinism, and evolutionary ethics.
Léo F. Laporte, Earth Sciences
Univ. of California, Santa Cruz 95064