Just following up on my earlier suggestion, there is a positive review
of "The Tangled Bank" in the recent American Biology Teacher:
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1525/abt.2010.72.3.13
“For students of evolution or scholars who want to know the specifics
about particular evolutionary processes, this is an excellent read. The
fact that it is understandable to beginners and fascinating to
scientists makes this book truly unique and valuable.”
I would also recommend Carl Zimmer's excellent blog The Loom
(http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom) as a companion to any course on
evolution.
I like some of the other suggestions in this thread as well, especially
Sean Carroll's book. Coyne is very good too, and Dawkins new book is
probably dependable in getting the students' attention (I haven't read
it). The Selfish Gene is too old to be used as a general text for a
course on evolution. Moreover, with Coyne and Dawkins, I'd worry about
alienating some of the religious-minded students. I would hesitate to
use those in a non-majors class here in the central valley of
California, for example. In fact, I suspect that Coyne's book may have
played a role in pushing one of my own students (a grad student no
less!) away from Biology because the evidence/arguments in that book
were too strong for this religious student to handle. Of course that end
result was good in some ways, but it depends on what your goals are with
the class. Besides, your audience in Princeton (presuming it hasn't
changed in the decade since I was there) will be rather different from
what I face here in Fresno - so your mileage may vary!
__________________________________________
Madhusudan Katti
Assistant Professor of Vertebrate Biology
Department of Biology, M/S SB 73
California State University, Fresno
Fresno, CA 93740-8034
+1.559.278.2460
[email protected]
http://www.reconciliationecology.org/
__________________________________________
