1Syllabus for Honors Biology 159:An Introduction to Science & BiologyInstructor: David L. Alles (If you wish to contact me, please do so by e-mail at< [email protected] >.)Lecture / Discussion: Tuesday and Thursday 2:00 pm to 4:20 pmCourse Web Site: http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/trent/alles/159index.htmlGrades: Your grade for the course will be based on what you earn out of a total of 550 possiblepoints. The points are divided as follows:Class Discussions—450 points (18 discussions at 25 points each)Final Exam—100 pointsYour final grade for the course will be based on the following percentages of points earned.A+ 96-100% (4.0)A 92-95% (4.0) A range 89-100%A- 89-91% (3.7) B+ 86-88% (3.3)B 82-85% (3.0) B range 79-88%B- 79-81% (2.7) C+ 76-78% (2.3)C 72-75% (2.0) C range 69-78%C- 69-71% (1.7) D+ 66-68% (1.3)D 63-65% (1.0) D range 60-68%D- 60-62% (0.7) F 0-59 % (0.0) FailingCourse Policies:• Makeups assignments will only be accepted if arrangements are made prior to the assignmentdue date and approved by me.• This applies as well if you are sick. If, however, your reason for missing a class discussion issickness, you must, in addition to making prior arrangements, obtain a doctor's or health services'excuse.• Leaving a telephone message or sending an e-mail does not give you prior approval formissing a class discussion.2• All makeup work or other assignments must be turned in before the last week of lectures toreceive credit.• The final test is cumulative. Test questions will come predominately from the materialpresented in lecture.• A note about electronic devices: Manners and rules of decorum have not changed. Rudebehavior is still just rude behavior. Therefore, do not use any electronic devices in the classroom,cell phones for instance, that may interrupt lectures or discussions.-----------------------Required Books for Honors Biology 159Required books for the course are:The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues to Plan and Purpose in Natureby George C. Williams• Paperback: 192 pages• Publisher: Basic Books; (April 1, 1998)• ISBN: 0465072836Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earthby Andrew H. Knoll• Hardcover: 277 pages• Publisher: Princeton University Press; (April 1, 2003)• ISBN: 0691009783Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Originsby Steve Olson• Paperback: 304 pages• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Marine edition (April 1, 2003)• ISBN: 0618352104On the following pages you will find an overall review of George C. Williams' work, a bookreview of Andrew Knoll's Life on a Young Planet, and a review of Steve Olson's book MappingHuman History, all from the journal Science.-----------------------www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 304 28 MAY 20041235CREDITS: (TOP TO BOTTOM) COURTESY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS; SUNY STONY BROOKSTONY BROOK,NEW YORK—On a recent sunnySaturday, scientists from the United States,Canada, and Europe gathered at the StateUniversity of New York (SUNY), StonyBrook, to talk about their research. A geneti-cist from Harvard University spoke aboutpreeclampsia, a potentially fatal conditionduring pregnancy. An ichthyologist describedthe loyalty—or lack thereof—that male fishshow to the mothers of their offspring. Psy-chologists discussed economic decision-making. A psychiatrist reviewed some of thegenes associated with clinical depression.This lineup might seem like a randomtrawl through the sciences. But the researcherswho assembled in the auditorium were there for a common purpose: to honor thelanky, white-bearded man who sat quietly inthe fourth row, GeorgeC. Williams. He maynot be as familiar ashis peers RichardDawkins or the lateStephen Jay Gould.But Williams, whospent 25 years at StonyBrook, is generallyconsidered one of themajor architects of thestudy of evolutionarybiology, and the meet-ing’s far-ranging talksreflected the scope ofhis influence.“George Williamswas instrumental inmaking natural selec-tion an intellectuallyrigorous theory,” saysStephen Pinker of Har-vard University, one ad-mirer who wasn’t at themeeting. “He forced people to think abouthow selection actually works and how we cansee its fingerprints in the natural world.”In the 1950s, when Williams was doinghis graduate work at the University of Cal-ifornia, Los Angeles, the science of evolu-tionary biology had just gone through twodecades of spectacular advances. RonaldFisher and Theodosius Dobzhansky,among others, had used the new science ofgenetics to work out some of the molecularunderpinnings of evolution. Natural selec-tion was now recognized as a change in thefrequency of genes in a population. Yet oneimportant part still hadn’t been naileddown: the nature of adaptations. It wasclear that adaptations evolved, but few bi-ologists had given serious thought to therules that govern the process.Williams was struck by the ad hoc waythat even prominent biologists would explainan adaptation. They’d claim that it hadevolved because it provided some benefit; of-ten, an entire population or species supposed-ly benefited. Williams recalls a lecture heheard by Alfred Emerson, a zoologist at theUniversity of Chicago, about why people ageand die. “He said growing old and dying is agood thing,” Williams says. “We’ve evolvedto do it so we get out of the way, so the youngpeople can go on main-taining the species.”“I thought it was ab-solute nonsense,” saysWilliams. Wheneverpeople like Emersonclaimed that an adapta-tion was for the good ofa species, they neveroffered an explanationof how, from one gen-eration to another, thatpotential benefit pro-duced real evolutionarychange. Williams sus-pected that in most cases, no such explana-tion existed. For him,the primary engine ofevolutionary changewas the one Darwinhad written about in theOrigin of Species: com-petition among individ-uals of the same species. Most biologists inthe 1950s simply failed to think seriouslyenough about how natural selection couldproduce adaptations, he says.Williams wrote a series of papers cri-tiquing the notion that adaptations weregenerally good for a group or a species,rather than an individual. Ultimately, hiswork led to his classic 1966 book Adapta-tion and Natural Selection. In it, Williamsexplained that almost every aspect of bi-ology, no matter how puzzling, was theresult of strict