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Course Logistics
Course Logistics
This twenty-weeks long course is designed to lay foundations of evolutionary thought and to appreciate its importance as the key philosophical foundation of Biology. The course also dwells surprising parallelism between evolution and developmental biology, as Haeckel put it right in his recapitulation theory: " "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny".
Lectures
Videotaped lectures will be available on the Video Lectures part of the course website. The lectures build on each other, so you should view them in the order listed. The few lectures listed as "Honors" or "Optional" will not be covered on the quizzes but are provided in case you want to go into more depth.
Reading
One particularly exciting feature of our course is the free in-course textbook materials. This textbook is not required, but it should be helpful to students who want to read more detailed explanations or additional examples or who want to delve more deeply into topics that fascinate them. Please note that access to the textbook is available only for the duration of the course.
Exercises
Short ungraded exercises will occasionally be embedded into lectures. Each lecture will be followed by ungraded exercises. Answers to these exercises will be given and explained after you reply to the questions. These exercises do not introduce new material, but they enable you to check your understanding of the lectures. If you miss too many of the exercises after a lecture, then you might want to listen to that lecture again.
Time Commitment
You should expect to spend on about 2 hours per week watching the lectures, another 2 hours per week doing the exercises, and about 1 hour on each quiz. You might want to spend additional time doing the reading and participating in the discussion forums.
Syllabus/Course Materials
Syllabus/Course Materials
1. Darwinism and Microevolution: Pre-Darwinian developments, Darwin’s theory of evolution, Artificial Selection: Intentional Vs. Unintentional, Natural Selection, Darwinian Fitness, Adaptation, Overproduction, Types of Selection: Purifying vs. Positive, Co-evolution, Nature of Natural Selection
PowerPoint Slides
Post Darwinism, Modern Synthesis and key concepts
Related: Evolution and Humanity
Reading
Carroll, S.B., Evo-devo and an expanding evolutionary synthesis: a genetic theory of morphological evolution. Cell, 2008. 134(1): p. 25-36.
Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene
SJ Gould - arkiv.certec.lth.se
SJ Gould, RC Lewontin - … of the Royal …, 1979
N Eldredge, SJ Gould - Models in paleobiology, 1972
SJ Gould, N Eldredge - Paleobiology, 1977
Dobzhansky 1973 Nothing in Biology Makes Sense except
Watch excellent talk by Dr. Tejal Kanitkar (TISS, Mumbai)
GB Muller 2007 EvoDevo and extension of MS
Mayr 1981 Modern Evolutionary Synthesis
http://statedclearly.com/videos/what-is-the-evidence-for-evolution/
2. Evolutionary Mechanisms and Population Genetics: Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, Variations, Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, Selection Vs. Drift, Mutation, Gene Flow and Assortative Mating
3. Macroevolution: Concepts: Spandrel, Exaptation, Extended Phenotype, Inclusive Fitness, Kin Selection, Group Selection, Evolutionary Game Theory, Adaptations, Punctuated Equilibrium, Radiations and Extinctions, Evolutionary Time Scale and Dating, Fossils and Paleontology, Origin of life and pre-cambrian, Origin of multicellularity, plants and animals, Evolution of Homo sapiens
PowerPoint Slides
Evolutionary Time Scale, Extinctions, Fossils
Evolutionary Time Scale presentation
Reading
GSA: Geologic Time Scale handout
Geology and dating the rock layers
BAST, F. 2015. A Brief History of Earth. Ocean Digest, 2 (1) p 7-8. ISSN: 23941928 PDF
Shattering DNA may have let gibbons evolve new species
4. Molecular Evolution: Concepts of neutral evolution, Molecular divergence and molecular clocks, Molecular tools in phylogeny, Sequence Alignments, Models of molecular evolution and model selection, distance based methods of phylogeny reconstruction: UPGMA, Minimum Evolution and Neighbour Joining, discrete-character based methods of phylogeny reconstruction: Maximum Likelihood, Maximum Parsimony and Bayesian Inference
PowerPoint Slides
Reading
BAST, F. 2015. Tutorial on Phylogenetic Inference Part-1. Resonance 20 (4) 360-367 PDF
BAST, F. 2015. Tutorial on Phylogenetic Inference Part-2. Resonance 20 (5) 445-457 PDF
Neutral theory - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22046/ , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21995/
Nonsynonymous/ synonymous ratio - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21946/
Natural selection - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22009/
Genetic drift - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21757/
Rate of molecular evolution - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21946/
Allele frequencies - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22048/
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22048/box/A3848/
Variation and divergence of populations - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21757/
Inbreeding - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22049/
Reading on speciation in Nature Education
Reading on phylogenetics in Nature Education
Suggested reading:
TTC - A New History of Life DVD 37 Lectures (Strongly Recommended; For copies approach me)
Darwin, C.R. (1911). On the origin of species by means of natural Selection, or preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. Hurst Publishers, UK.
Dawkins, R. (1996). The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Futuyma, D.J. (2009). Evolution. Sinauer Associates Inc. USA.
Hake, S. and Wilt, F. (2003). Principles of Developmental Biology. W.W. Norton and Company, New York, USA.
Hall, B.K. and Hallgrimsson, B. (2007). Strickberger’s Evolution. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, India.
Lewin, R. (2004). Human Evolution - An Illustrated Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, USA.
Scott, F. and Gilbert, S.F. (2010). Developmental Biology. Sinauer Associates, Inc. USA.
Slack, J.M.W. (2005). Essential Developmental Biology, Wiley-Blackwell, USA.
Mario Livio 2013 "Brilliant Blunders-Darwin to Einstein - Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe, Simon & Schuster (Chapters 1 and 2)
Dawkins R (2015) Greatest Show on Earth-Evidences of Evolution
Suggested essays accessible here
Term Papers and Assignments: Submit Here
Term Papers and Assignments: Submit Here
Instructions and deadlines are in the sheet
Online Discussions/Interactions
Online Discussions/Interactions
Related Resources
Related Resources
General Links
Curated articles on evolution at Scientific American
Podcasts:
University of Oxford Evolution Podcast
About Podcasts: Podcasts are recorded radio shows. One can use apps such as Podcast Addict or iTunes to subscribe to the podcasts. New episodes will be downloaded to the device automatically, and as we listen, old episodes will be replaced with the new ones. Ideal for listening while going for daily strolls!
Related MOOCs
Principles of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, Yale University
Introduction to Genetics and Evolution, Duke University (Through Coursera)
Introduction to Human Evolution (through edX)
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