Date, Topic and Reading

Tuesday, Aug 26
How Do We See "Prehistoric" People?
Video

READING: Carefully read this entire syllabus.

Wednesday, Aug 27
DISCUSSION: Creation Stories

READING:
Click below to read several creation stories from around the world:

"The Separation of Heaven and Earth"
"Yahweh"
"Creation by and from the Self"
"Birth in the Dawn"
"Life from Moon and the Stars"
"The Powerful Ones"

Thursday, Aug 28 What is History -- And Does Biology Have Anything to do with It?

READING: Carl Sagan, The Universe in a Year (handout).

Click to read an August 23, 2005 New York Times article, "Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution"

Click to read an June 25, 2007 New York Times article, "Life as We Know It," on the development of evolutionary thought since Darwin.

Link to 2008 Washington Post stories on the search for life on Mars

Tuesday, Sep 2 What's It Feel Like for a Girl?
Does Evolution Cause the Sexes to Behave Differently?
Audio

FILM (to be shown in class):

Gender: The Enduring Paradox.

Audio

READING: Excerpt from Robert Wright, The
Moral Animal, in Course Reader, pp. 1-16.

Wednesday, Sep 3 Discussion

Thursday, Sep 4 Can We Learn About Humans from Apes?

Audio

READING: Click to read about a recent study comparing human and chimpanzee genomes, New York Times September 1, 2005;
McNeill, pp. xiii-6.