Welcome to the webpage for the History of Life course at The College of Wooster! You will find here our syllabus (a "living syllabus" which is added to every week) and the details of the course itself. For each week's topics I post links, images and other items to provide additional information (and alternative views) as we explore the wonders of life's history through the semester. This page is essentially a required blog for the course, as well as a set of resources we will use in class. To keep our material as up-to-date as possible, I post supplementary information only a week in advance. I thus expect registered students in the course to visit this site at least once a week. If you have ideas about items you would like to see posted here, please send me e-mail (mwilson@wooster.edu) or talk to me in class. I hope you enjoy the course! You may also want to visit our "Invertebrate Paleontology at Wooster" general page, our Invertebrate Paleontology course page, and our Paleontology Independent Study webpages.

Mark A. Wilson

Department of Geology

The College of Wooster

Wooster, OH 44691 USA

mwilson@wooster.edu

Schedule of Lectures

(With Weekly Links to Other Web Resources)

 

Lectures are in Scovel Hall Room 105 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8:00 - 8:50 a.m.

January 14-18

Web Resources for Week #1:

Geologic time is a fascinating topic. It is so unimaginably long it has been called "deep time". Please learn the Geologic Time Scale as soon as possible because it is the chronological language of this course. Here is a clever test you can take on the Web when you think you've learned the terms. If you want to see ALL the time terms geologists use, check out this PDF of the geological time scale. You need to know only the eras, periods, and Tertiary and Quaternary epochs. William Smith was an Englishman responsible in many ways for the principles behind our use of geologic time. James Hutton was a Scot who first effectively described and applied the concept of "uniformitarianism" in geology, which requires vast amounts of time. NOTE: Because the required terms of the Geological Time Scale for this class are unclear from the above links, I've posted a MicroSoft Word version of our time scale as well as our own pdf version. You will see that I recognize the Ediacaran Period before the Cambrian.

Geologists distinguish between relative and absolute time, with the first being the ordering of events, and the second using measurements of time. We will most often use relative time (such as the "Cambrian Period") in this course, but also occasionally cite absolute time ("65 million years ago").

The concepts of radioactive decay and its use in the dating of Earth materials take some time to master. The University of Waikato in New Zealand has an excellent explanatory website on radioactive dating. On this site called "popcorn" you will see an Applet display of decay demonstrating its spontaneity and constant rate. (It loads slowly but is worth it.) A more detailed explanation of how half-lives are really calculated is shown here. See what I have spared you?

As an introduction to the fun of paleontology, there are plenty of dinosaur animation sites on the Web. Try searching for "dinosaur" on YouTube and you'll get thousands of odd videos! (Including, of course, "Walk the Dinosaur" of happy memory.) You will also want to visit The Paleontology Portal which is "a central entryway to paleontology on the Web". It is an excellent link to thousands of paleontological resources.

You are in a course on a scientific topic which has a dedicated opposition. Most "young earth creationists" believe that the Earth and the Universe are at most a few thousand years old, which is radically different from the billions of years cited by scientists (scientists like me). Their arguments appear scientific, but you will quickly see that they are based on misconceptions, misrepresentations, mysteries and zealotry. Take a look at this page of links citing "evidence for a young Earth" from Answers in Genesis. These are the people who are the proud producers of the multimillion-dollar Creation Museum in Kentucky. We will often list here links to creationist resources so that you are not surprised by the controversies stirred up by a course on the History of Life. Don't confuse their work with real science.

Geology in the News:

January 21-25

Web Resources for Week #2:

This week we begin discussing evolution. (The "e word" as a high school administrator once told me.) Start with a good definition of evolution, for you will soon see that most dorm room conversations on the topic usually have significant errors and misconceptions. You can then visit "Frequently Asked Questions About Evolution" at TalkOrigins Archive. The University of California Museum of Paleontology at Berkeley has an excellent website on the history of evolutionary theory, including good sections on pre-Darwinian thinkers. The Berkeley pages on "Understanding Evolution" are the best on the web. Charles Darwin is well represented on the Web, and Alfred Russel Wallace is the subject of this excellent website by Charles Smith of Western Kentucky University (who also has a useful site entitled "Early Classics in Biogeography, Distribution, and Diversity Studies: To 1950".) The full text of Darwin's most famous work, The Origin of Species, is available on-line. It is not scintillating reading, at least not on a computer, but you may want to peruse the preface and the conclusions. Another good general source for concepts of evolution is the recently-written "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science" by the National Academy of Sciences.

The public opposition to evolutionary theory is deep and strong in this country, and it has spread internationally. Anti-evolutionists are very diverse, and many of their beliefs are mutually contradictory. Here is a graphical and textual classification of beliefs on origins and evolution. I maintain a webpage on "The New Creationists", which contains links to anti-evolution sites. Please do not misunderstand me: I believe that "Scientific Creationism" and other anti-evolution movements are founded on nonsense, ignorance, wishful thinking and a deep undercurrent of anti-intellectualism, but they are part of democracy's fabric and the public discourse on science. We should listen to them closely and try to understand the social and political forces behind their strong beliefs (and still vigorously teach evolution). Some creationist websites are very sophisticated, such as that of the Institute for Creation Research and Answers In Genesis (AiG). (Three years ago I debated Mr. Ken Ham of AiG on a radio talk show in New York City. That was an experience.) These sites and others provide easy access to the primary tenets of scientific creationism. I especially recommend the questions-and-answers page of AiG and the Handy-Dandy Evolution Refuter. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is the best known defender of evolution in American public schools. The Creation-Evolution Reference Database is a good place to start for anyone who wishes to study this topic in detail, although it is no longer updated. The American Scientific Affiliation is dedicated to the simple and seemingly obvious observation that scientists with religious faiths need not be creationists.

For an insight into the most recent political implications of anti-evolutionism, you can't do better than to read the opinion of Judge John E. Jones in the recent Dover, Pennsylvania, "Intelligent Design" court case (a long pdf).

For more information on the rock and fossil samples you received last week, you can go first to this webpage on Indiana geology for information on the rock itself and its context (found with a Google search on "bedrock" and "Indiana"), and this webpage for photos and descriptions of the typical fossils in these rocks. This is some of the most fossiliferous rock in the world.

Geology in the News:

Jan 28 - Feb 1

Web Resources for Week #3:

The Big Bang Hypothesis is an extraordinary concept. Readable, albeit short, explanations of Big Bang ideas can be found at "Stephen Hawking's Universe", and another much more extensive set of resources at "Hot Big Bang". Given your first preparation question, you will want to especially see the page on the awesome singularity. Want an artist's view of the Big Bang? For you humanities majors, how about Big Bang Philosophy? You can ponder many universes beyond the Big Bang with Stephen Hawking. And it wouldn't be the web without a site like "The Big Bang is Wrong!" For those of you looking for a simple red shift explanation, click away here or on this other simple red shift webpage from PBS. The last even has an exercise you can try. There is a very cool Big Bang animation on this French website; I may use it in class (despite the French). I'm not sure what the point is of this next Big Bang animation, unless it is to make us feel insignificant.

This star formation site is good, but also very technical. Here's a JPL-NASA planet formation site with "artist's conception" images and a movie you can download. Some exquisite photographs of the Moon's surface are also posted by NASA. This webpage from NOVA has superb animations of the "Big Whack" hypothesis for the origin of the Moon.

An astronomer named Neil Comins wrote an interesting little book called "What if the Moon Didn't Exist?" The Moon is critical to the maintenance of life on Earth, which I find amazing. Also, here is the homepage of NASA's brilliant "Stardust" project, which brought to Earth the "dust" of a comet. Now you know the importance of this study to our ideas about the origin of the solar system, for comets are samples of the original nebula frozen in time.

Now for the complex and contentious ideas about the origin of life. "How life emerged" is a huge site with all sorts of interesting essays and illustrations. (Unfortunately it is also belabored by too many animations and sound effects. Fortunately for you I haven't figured out how to do these yet!) Our friends in the Chemistry department at Beloit College have this origins webpage with animations of the Miller-Urey experiment. (Here's the nice animated Miller-Urey experiment webpage I may use in class.) The Creationist opposition to all naturalistic theories for the origin of life is characteristically strong, but their slick webpages have numerous errors. Don't forget those panspermians who avoid the issue of origins altogether -- they say life came from space, where it always was!

If you are interested in being on the e-mailing list for the Department of Geology, please send me a note (mwilson@wooster.edu). Our list has the names of students who enjoy geology, maybe to the point of considering it as a major. You will receive departmental announcements about upcoming lectures, picnics, field trips, and internship opportunities.

Geology in the News:

February 4-8

Web Resources for Week #4:

Our week will begin with continued discussions of origins, especially hypotheses about the origin of life. Please be sure to look at the links listed for last week on this topic. We will also look at the earliest fossil record, which now goes back to just over 3.8 billion years. The University of Arizona has a nice page on the six kingdoms of life, which makes a good starting point. Another website to examine would be the one on fossil bacteria at the University of California, Berkeley. This site also has an excellent page on cyanobacteria and stromatolites, which are the first easily-recognized fossils. Check out their Archean page, though, and find the critical error! (It is in the first paragraph.) Here is another stromatolite page. Queen's University in Ontario also has a good early life online museum website. There is chemical evidence for life which even predates the oldest stromatolites. In fact, the NASA page on the origins of life is especially good for finding additional links. For an excellent short summary of "the emergence of complex life", you can't beat this colorful page from the University of Michigan.

I recently learned of the discovery of a very large virus named Mimivirus. (I'm apparently about four years behind on this one!) This virus is extraordinary: it is larger than some small bacteria, and it has over 1200 genes. It blurs the distinction between life and non-life (like all viruses) and may well represent a fourth domain of life. It may even tell us that viruses, far from being derivative parasites, may actually be the primary life form from which all else evolved. This is the most exciting news I've heard on the origin of life issue for years. When we learn that most of the genetic material on Earth is held by the viruses, we must consider that maybe we're overlooking a big story! For more on Mimivirus and other similar topics, you can't beat the aptly-named giantvirus.org.

We are now beginning to order geological and evolutionary events in time. You might want to refer to this annotated timeline as a reference. Do not take it too literally, though, because there are some events either not recorded or now known to have occurred at different times. Again, the events you should be most concerned about are those we cover in our lectures.

Geology in the News:

February 11-15

Web Resources for Week #5:

Our topic this week is the rise of animal life on Earth, and the early development of marine communities. A good place to start on the Web is Berkeley's "Vendian Animals" page with its many illustrations and links (in class we will refer to this time interval as the "Ediacaran"). Queen's University of Canada also has a good Ediacaran fauna page. (Canadians are big on the Precambrian.) There is also a very professional Ediacaran Page from an amateur in New Zealand. His Cambrian and Ordovician pages are excellent as well. We will spend considerable time on the rise of skeleton-bearing invertebrates in the Cambrian. Please visit Berkeley's Cambrian page, especially their subpage on the "Tommotian" (the earliest Cambrian). I hope you will be fascinated with the Burgess Shale (this is the Smithsonian's main page on it), found in the Middle Cambrian. This is the Smithsonian's Burgess Shale reconstruction image. A site called "Prehistoric World" has some great little Burgess Shale animations. The Cambrian also was the most important time for those fascinating little critters, trilobites. You can join the Yahoo Trilobite Club if you like and have access to an extraordinary number of images and links for these extinct animals. The "Palace of Trilobites" (these people are VERY enthusiastic) is in Japanese, but the universal binomial nomenclature and beautiful images will help you out. There are many more of these out there in cyberspace. For some photographs and brief studies of Ordovician fossils in the Cincinnati area, you can't do better than Wooster's own "Keck Ohio" pages (although they are getting a bit dated in this fast-paced webworld). The Palaeos webpages on the Ordovician are very well done and updated often.

Here is sample test #1 for your preparation. Remember that the test will begin at 7:55 a.m. on Friday. Don't forget to know the Geologic Time Scale so well you can recite it in your sleep. It will be the last problem on your test.

Geology in the News:

February 18-22

Web Resources for Week #6:

Our primary topic this week is the Theory of Plate Tectonics, with an emphasis on how the dynamic Earth has affected the evolution of life. We can start with this beautiful world map, showing continents, mountains, ridges, transform faults and trenches in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Here are some maps of the ancient Earth, with helpful color coding. This site (from an astronomical observatory in South Africa) has a good long page summary of plate tectonic theory. (It is a bit slow, but worth the wait.) NASA can show us by satellite laser ranging data the modern rates of plate movement. (One of my brothers used to work on this project.) The Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno, has an excellent page on plate tectonics and earthquakes. And who would have guessed that by just typing in the address "www.platetectonics.com" we could find such a beautiful set of graphics and text? This is an extraordinary site, complete with on-line research articles. The University of Texas hosts The Plates Project which concentrates on producing accurate plate reconstructions of the past. Of course, plate tectonics is an ideal subject for web animations. PBS reviews plate tectonic theory with a simple and clear set of images and animations. Here is a global history of continental movement in the last 750 million years from UC Berkeley. The University of Kentucky has some very cool animations of the last 150 million years you control with the cursor. This page also takes a few seconds to load because of the sophisticated graphics.

As for the primary effect of plate tectonics on us, visit the real-time global earthquake website maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey. You will see how very common earthquakes are around the world, and where you do not want to buy a house. You can further investigate temblors at The Virtual Earthquake website. PBS has a nice set of animations of earthquakes from a global perspective, along with volcanoes and the geological phenomenon we now know all too well, tsunamis. (Here is a summary page on the devastating 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.)

This week we also begin a discussion of the causes of the Permian Mass Extinctions -- the greatest disaster in the History of Life. An excellent website is this one from England on the Permian Extinctions, complete with a discussion of an impact as a possible cause. Paleogeographic maps of Pangaea at the end of the Permian can be found on the Scotese website (note that it was not "99% of all life" which went extinct) and on the Permian Page from Northern Arizona University. Wikipedia has a good Permian Extinctions article, although the topic is controversial enough that some parts of it may be edited by partisans of one cause or another.

The first test results: the score range is 35-100% (quite a spread), and the average is 81% (which is good).

Geology in the News:

February 25-29

Web Resources for Week #7:

Vertebrates! At last, our cousins appear. The best place on the Web for simple and thorough descriptions of the chordates and their history is at the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Check out their pages on the urochordates (tunicates), cephalochordates, and chordates in general. The Berkeley tetrapod (four-legged) webpage is especially useful for us. This page on limb evolution from an anti-creationist website is very useful, even if the illustrations are a bit clunky. I like this website lovingly devoted to the ancient coelacanth fish Latimeria. It has many illustrations and an extensive history of what we know about this remarkable evolutionary survivor. The Tree of Life page on terrestrial vertebrates will show you current ideas about the relationships of fish and early amphibians. It is a rich source of further links. Our class lecture outline on the early vertebrates is found here. I'm giving this to you directly not to replace your notes but to give you a thorough and concise source for the concepts and vocabulary.

Here is a good general page from Norway on amphibians. Berkeley also has an amphibian page, but it is considerably shorter. If you're looking for a lot of frog images, look no further. If you want to freak out your roommate right now, try amplifying a few frog calls from your computer.

Geology in the News:

March 3-7

Web Resources for Week #8:

The eighth week already. It must be time to really "conquer the land" as we say too often. The reptiles are an enormously successful class, and their diversity is reflected in the websites devoted to them. I can only give you links to a few of the many groups we will discuss in class this week. (Just wait until we get to the dinosaurs!) You will want to review the wonders of the amniotic egg. For the technically inclined, here's a complex page designed for those studying the amniotes. Here's an introductory page to the turtles (anapsid reptiles), and then another for the diapsids. One of our favorite synapsids is the reptile Dimetrodon. Here's a Dimetrodon image, a coloring page to print out (for your little brothers and sisters). Everything you want to know about the therapsids ("mammal-like reptiles") can be found here. To round out our initial survey of early reptiles, here is the "living fossil" tuatara. The best general reptile page I've found is from Heidelberg, Germany. It has many very informative (and richly illustrated) pages in English. I'm sure you'll like this mosasaur page from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Museum of Geology. I enjoyed this page on Cretaceous marine life from the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska.

A pivotal event in Mesozoic reptile evolution was the Triassic mass extinction, which is well covered on this webpage from the University of Bristol. The rise of the dinosaurs starts soon after. A set of more technical links to the Triassic extinctions has been put together by a German paleobotanist at the Universität Würzburg.

You need some silly links to ease you into Spring Break. This is fruitcake pseudoscience, but you'd be surprised how many people believe these things. Some crackpots, for example, look at the evidence for plate tectonics and instead turn it into proof of an expanding earth? Crazy talk. These guys always sound a bit desperate, craving scientific approval. An expanding earth, by the way, is the only way some people can explain the "surprisingly massive sizes" of dinosaurs. Here are some very nicely done videos of the expanding earth concept by a Neal Adams. You're supposed to give these to your geology professors to show what fools they've been. This guy is fond of satirical, angry letters to scientists, especially geologists, because they just don't seem to recognize his genius. Plate tectonics can't work anyway because the reptiloids of the inner earth wouldn't have their cozy underground caverns for millions of years. The Cretaceous extinctions, as a digression, were not caused by a natural disaster but were instead the result of a war between "two enemy alien groups". Here's something new -- a man working very hard to convince you with NASA photos that there are forests on Mars. All this time the government has been keeping this amazing news from us (while apparently still releasing the photos, silly Feds).

Remember the "scientific creationists"? I hope you haven't forgotten that there is a vigorous political and religious opposition to everything we do in this course. (I'm reminded almost daily in my email.) Compare these two pages: transitional fossil FAQs and the "Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter" on evolution and the fossil record. I hope by now you see the extraordinary flaws in creationist arguments. (My feelings on this issue have grown stronger over the years. Pseudoscience does no one any favors, especially those promoting it.)

Geology in the News:

March 24-28

Web Resources for Week #9:

As you may imagine, the Web is rich with dinosaur pages. Some of these websites are excellent, some are horrible, most are tolerable (and long). Let's begin our explorations at the University of California Museum of Paleontology at Berkeley, which has by far the best dinosaur site. In fact, they invented the concept of the "on-line museum". Start with their general dinosaur page, which has numerous images and links. Then take a guided tour of the Berkeley Dilophosaurus exhibit and their "T. Rex Expo". I suggest ending your Berkeley dinosaur visit with their "Dinobuzz" page which has excellent explanations and discussions of the latest dinosaur research. Other impressive dinosaur websites include that of Paul Sereno, one of the most productive dinosaur paleontologists in the world and virtually an industry to himself. The "Journal of Dinosaur Paleontology" doesn't seem to be a real journal, but it contains some interesting discussions of dinosaur biology. Of course, I hope you've all seen the extraordinary series "Walking With Dinosaurs" on the Discovery Channel. The webpage for this series is superb.

A new link for me: The Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette (which will keep you busy if you like everything dinosaurian).You might also want to "download-a-dinosaur" to make folded-paper dinosaurs for all your friends. (Notice, though, that some of the dinosaurs listed are not dinosaurs.) The National Geographic website has an excellent presentation on dinosaurs. We cannot forget, of course, all the wonderful evidence that dinosaurs and people lived together. (I hope my sarcasm is apparent.) We'll talk about dinosaur extinction later, but for now you might want to see why the creationists don't believe it was due to an extraterrestrial impact. (If only they could take History of Life, then they'd understand ...) Or, as we said last week, how about the idea that dinosaur size can be explained with an Expanding Earth? I love this craziness!

Here's another creationist page on dinosaurs you must see, beginning with this quotation: "This article will discuss the possibility that there may have been an ongoing effort since the earliest dinosaur 'discoveries' to plant, mix and match bones of various animals, such as crocodiles, alligators, iguanas, giraffes, elephants, cattle, kangaroos, ostriches, emus, dolphins, whales, rhinoceroses, etc. to construct and create a new man-made concept prehistoric animal called the dinosaur." So, apparently this David P. Wozney thinks scientists just made up dinosaurs.

Geology in the News:

March 31 - April 4

Web Resources for Week #10:

Time flies, and now so do vertebrates. We will discuss the origins of vertebrate flight this week. The University of California Museum of Paleontology has an excellent set of pages on flight origins, which includes information on birds, bats and pterosaurs. For details on the latest pterosaur research, try The Pterosaur Database. For more popular questions, you can't beat the Pterosaur FAQs webpage. Wikipedia does a nice job with pterosaurs as well, although you always have to be a bit careful with this source. Stanford University and the National Geographic Society actually want to make a flying replica of a pterosaur. Here's a strange link: "evidence" that pterosaurs lived until the 17th Century, believe it or not. (I suggest "not").

And here is the link to sample test #2 for your enjoyment.

Geology in the News:

April 7-11

Web Resources for Week #11:

Can it really be the 11th week? Time for plants to make their formal appearance on this website. They've been there for awhile, of course, as a sort of leafy background to tetrapod evolution. The best place to start a general survey of our very distant green cousins is with Berkeley's fossil plants page. Their fossil plants range chart may be especially useful, although we won't be using most of the names given there. By far the most detailed plant website is the University of California on-line paleobotany lab. The diagrams and hierarchical systems of detail here are most impressive. You may want to scan these pages for the beautiful line drawings alone, but the clear and simple text will trap you. If you want professional detail of fossil plant systematics and distribution, click into the homepage of the International Organisation of Palaeobotany. Berkeley's "Deep Green" website on plant diversity is also very impressive. Finally, here's a ginkgo webpage for everything you want to know about this wonderful tree common on our campus (although it is hardly the only "link between the primitive and modern plants").

If you want to take another geology course next semester, I highly recommend Geology 200 (Processes and Concepts of Geology). It is a survey of all the geological subdisciplines, with a tectonic and historical thread through it. You may also consider Geology 260 (Sedimentology & Stratigraphy) taught by your trusty professor.

Here is our memo describing the Final Examination in this course.

Geology in the News:

April 14-18

Web Resources for Week #12:

We will finish our plant section on Monday (see previous links) and then spend the rest of the week looking at the incredible story of the Cretaceous Mass Extinctions, sometimes called the "K/T" Extinctions (or "KTX" for the cognoscenti). The "Impact Hypothesis" was developed at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980 (when I was there as a graduate student, to my great fortune). It seemed absolutely bonkers at the time, but now we see it as one of those intellectual breakthroughs which changed our perspective on the History of Life. Our first website to visit, appropriately, is Berkeley's Cretaceous Extinctions page. You'll love it. It has enough detail to keep us very busy. Note that dinosaurs were apparently cut down in their prime, although there is still much debate about this. (Read that last article very carefully for a little surprise in it!) We will emphasize the Impact Hypothesis in this course because I think it is the one best supported by the evidence. The volcanic hypothesis is still alive, though. Some of its supporters are bitter, claiming that the K/T extinction argument has been thoroughly corrupted by politics; they even ask for a Congressional inquiry! Seems a bit of sour grapes, but read their page. In contrast with the reasonable (more or less), there are many more exotic ideas about dinosaur extinctions, some tallied here and here. And finally, let's not forget that many more organisms than the dinosaurs were affected by the Cretaceous Extinctions.

Here again is the Final Exam Information Sheet. All you need to know about your last test in this course.

Geology in the News:

April 21-25

Web Resources for Week #13:

We had our introduction to mammals back in the Triassic. They were ratty little critters then, for the most part, but now that the dinosaurs are gone mammals have become very serious. (Remember, though, that we now know of a raccoon-sized Mesozoic mammal that ate dinosaurs for lunch, albeit small dinosaurs!)

So many mammal groups appeared in the early Cenozoic that we cannot cover them all in this course, or even mention many of them. That diversity dilemma is actually part of the story of the extraordinary adaptive radiation of the mammals, which has been made more complex by recent genetic findings that mammal diversification was not entirely due to the dinosaur extinctions. Note in that story that the three-part division of mammals we see today (monotremes, marsupials and placentals) began in the Cretaceous. This story also introduced me to the "wolf-like cow" Andrewsarchus. Again, the webpages from Berkeley will be highlighted here because they are organized in the most useful ways for us. You will want to look at their short rodents page, and of course make a side visit to the Rat and Mouse Club of America (where one of their ethical principles is that they don't sell their pets to the Snake and Tarantula Club). Now jump WAY up to the proboscidean (elephants, mammoths, mastodons) page, just to delight in the wondrous variety in modern mammals. There are many pages devoted to mammoths, mastodons and other "Ice Age" mammals, including the Pleistocene exhibits at the Russian Paleontological Institute. Carnivores are always interesting, and are in themselves highly diverse. They include wolves, dogs, cats, raccoons, bears, weasels, hyenas, seals, and walruses. A hero to your cat is the ancient sabretooth, highlighted in special exhibits this year at Berkeley and the Illinois State Museum. You can now make another mammal diversity leap to our unlikely cousins the cetaceans (whales and dolphins; here's an Eocene whale recently found in Egypt). The ungulates, or hoofed mammals, are an excellent group to use in a study of evolutionary patterns. The artiodactyls (cloven-hoofed mammals) include the prosaic sheep, goats, camels, pigs, cows, deer, giraffes, and antelopes (and now whales!). Their relatives the perissodactyls ("odd-hoofed" mammals) include rhinos, horses and tapirs today, but they were much more diverse in the past. The evolution of the horse is a classic story, told well at the "Fossil Horses in Cyberspace" site at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Clearly most of this material will be continued into next week.

Here again is the Final Exam Information Sheet. All you need to know about your last test in this course.

Geology in the News:

April 28 - May 2

Web Resources for Week #14:

During this last week we will concentrate on primate and specifically human evolution. We look closely at our own lineage not just because it is of immediate interest to us, but also because we can directly apply concepts of evolutionary theory to organisms intimately familiar to all of us. The Web has almost as many sites on issues of human evolution as it does on dinosaurs, so most of the addresses I can link you to will provide you with many other connections. Start first with the Institute of Human Origins, now based at Arizona State University. They have an excellent additional website called "becoming human". "A look at modern human origins" is another thorough, updated website, as is the one called "Archaeology.info". The Journal of Human Evolution is online; you can skim the current issue to see what's hot in the field. For still more detail, try the "Dental Microwear Homepage", which has excellent descriptions and images of the microscopic features paleoanthropologists use to suggest the diets of ancient hominids. Try the interactive "skull module" website where you can take pieces of a human skull and manipulate the images on your screen. Very cool. Think evolution here, especially of the mandibles and cranium. "Evolution's Arrow" is a provocative and stimulating online book by John Stewart (not Jon Stewart!) considering the future of human evolution. You should also pay one last visit to the University of California Museum of Paleontology at Berkeley, which has served us so well on this webpage. Their page on primates is not yet complete, but it does have several links to other resources. As you examine these websites, please also keep in mind that the fossil record of hominid evolution has produced numerous competing hypotheses, so you will find many disagreements, even on what seem to be basic observations. (Note, for example, the popular pseudoscience surrounding the "aquatic ape hypothesis".) As an example of the hype and expectations which have dogged the study of human evolution for over a century, here is an excellent TalkOrigins webpage on Piltdown Man.

Here is an excellent and clickable hominid-climate evolution diagram from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Columbia University) I will show you in class. Remember that we are not using all the hominid names you find on sites like this.

Here again is the Final Exam Information Sheet. All you need to know about your last test in this course.

Geology in the News:

The History of Life course is a broad overview of the evolution and diversification of life on Earth. It is an introduction to science in general and to evolutionary biology and historical geology in particular, but science majors as well as non-scientists will find the material interesting and challenging. This course, in fact, counts toward the major in geology. It is all great fun, especially when you see that the material not only changes every semester, it changes every week. And wait until you see what strange and marvelous events have happened in the History of Life!

We will meet at 8:00 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for lectures in Scovel 105. Attendance is required. You are expected to be in the classroom before 8:00 a.m., especially if there is a quiz. If you have trouble getting out of bed for a morning lecture, this is not the course for you.

The grade in this course will be based on two hourly tests, a final examination, and twelve "pop" (unannounced) quizzes. A student not present in class when a quiz is given (even if it is the beginning of the class) will receive a zero for that assignment. Missed quizzes cannot be "made up" for any reason (except a scheduled and conflicting college event), but the lowest two quiz grades will be dropped at the end of the semester. You will also receive a list of preparation questions before each lecture or accompanying some special reading. Occasionally your written answers to these questions will be collected and graded as a quiz. Please note the dates for all the regularly scheduled tests -- these dates will not be changed except under unusual circumstances. In every class at Wooster you should receive a major graded assignment before the drop date. That major assignment in this course is the first test on February 15. I keep all the grades on a spreadsheet so I can quickly calculate your cumulative course average. It is, however, your responsibility to stay informed about your course performance. Just ask me if you have questions about your scores.

This course has been completed by many students, so there are many notebooks out there filled with pages of lecture details. Because ideas, emphases, and even "facts" change rapidly in biology and geology, use old class notes with caution.

It is possible to take this course "S/NC", unless you plan to major in geology. The minimum letter grade for an "S" in this course is C, which is a final average better than 75% on tests and quizzes. I do not encourage the S/NC option -- usually students taking it earn high grades anyway, or they fail with scores below C.

This course is administered under the Code of Academic Integrity, which you should review in your copy of The Scot's Key. Violations of the Code in this course include consulting notes or other student papers during tests and quizzes. My penalties for cheating start with an F in the course and then get worse.

The faculty of the College has recently approved a new policy regarding conflicts between extracurricular and academic events. I agree with it and will simply provide the suggested syllabus statement from the discussion: "The College of Wooster is an academic institution and its fundamental purpose is to stimulate its students to reach the highest standard of intellectual achievement. As an academic institution with this purpose, the College expects students to give the highest priority to their academic responsibilities. When conflicts arise between academic commitments and complementary programs (including athletic, cultural, educational, and volunteer activities), students, faculty, staff, and administrators all share the responsibility of minimizing and resolving them. As a student you have the responsibility to inform the faculty member of potential conflicts as soon as you are aware of them, and to discuss and work with the faculty member to identify alternative ways to fulfill your academic commitments without sacrificing the academic integrity and rigor of the course."

Wicander, R. and J.S. Monroe. 2006. Historical Geology: Evolution of Earth and Life Through Time. (Fifth Edition) Thomson, Brooks/Cole; 440 pages; ISBN 0495012041. [Recommended readings are listed in the lecture outline as "W&M". You do not need to sign up for any online programs, but you are welcome to do this on your own.]

From its title you see that this book covers much more than just the history of life. The reason for such diversity, you will quickly learn, is that life and physical environments are inextricably connected -- life itself is a geological process. I have recommended readings primarily in the origins, evolution and tectonics sections of the textbook, but please don't hesitate to read the more geological portions as well. The publisher has an elaborate textbook companion website with numerous resources including flashcards, animated images, quizzes, online field trips, and more. This site is well worth at least one visit per chapter.

This textbook is not required for the course. The tests and quizzes will be entirely from lecture notes. Most of your reading will be from websites and handouts in class.

Elyssa Belding, a junior geology major, is our teaching assistant this semester. Elyssa will also serve as a tutor for this course. She can be most easily reached by e-mail (ebelding09@wooster.edu).