Dear All - Of the suggestions made, I would echo Ken Leonard's avoidance
of Dawkins' latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth. It is too long,
has several factual mistakes scattered throughout, and frankly, is
boring to read. Jerry Coyne's book, Why Evolution is True, covers much
of the same material, but in many fewer words, and is the superior work
as well as much more suited for non-majors.
I would not leave out having these students read Darwin's Origin of
Species. There are two nice companion books for this: Jim Costa's "The
Annotated Origin", and David Resnick's "The Origin: Then and Now". And
while Tim Berra's biography of Darwin is getting a lot of play these
days, Cyril Aydon's biography is better. It is a gem of book, highly
suitable in both length and tone for non-science majors, and it's a
shame it seems to have gotten overlooked by everyone. It is much better
than either Berra's or Quammen's biographies.
Enjoy!
Howie Neufeld
--
Dr. Howard S. Neufeld, Professor
Department of Biology
572 Rivers Street
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
email: [email protected]
departmental webpage: http://www.biology.appstate.edu/faculty/neufeldhs.htm
personal webpage: http://www.appstate.edu/~neufeldhs/index.html
Tel: 828-262-2683
Fax: 828-262-2127
