Instructor Zachary Sharp, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 337 Northrop Hall, Phone 277-4204; email; zsharp@unm.edu

Office Hours: MWF 10:00 – 11:00 AM;

Prerequisites: None

Texts: Only the course notes on the web.

Course notes at this site. . .

http://epswww.unm.edu/facstaff/zsharp/106/eps106.htm

Scope: An introduction to the fundamental ideas of evolution and the basic facts regarding time and the age of the Earth

Format: Two 50-minute lectures per week.

Exams/Grading: Lecture: 2 midterms, 1 comprehensive final.

*Exam material will be taken from lectures – attendance is required*.

COURSE GRADE

The final course grade will be compiled from your lecture exams. The letter grade will be determined on the basis of a class curve. Points will be distributed as follows:

Midterm I 100 points April 8th

Midterm II 100 points April 29th

Comprehensive Final 200 points

(Final will be Wednesday, May 8th, 10-12 am same room (105 Northrop Hall).

Total: 400 points
 
 

I am not fond of makeup exams. They cause all of us more problems. Makeups will only be accepted with prior notice. Makeup exams are not fun for me to make (and less fun to take), so try to avoid them.

Qualified students with disabilities needing appropriate academic adjustments should contact me as soon as possible to ensure your needs are met in a timely manner. Handouts are available in alternative accessible formats upon request.

Syllabus (note: This will change as we go along). Because there is no assigned reading, attendance is mandatory.

Part I. Introduction & Early Ideas

• Why do we care?
• Theory vs. Fact: The example of global warming
• Aristotle, Biblical ideas, Spontaneous Generation.The rock at right gives you a PDF version.
• Scientific Method (NEW) 
• Biblical Chronology:
• de Maillet’s ‘older Earth’. Age of Earth 
• Steno and Supperposition 

Part II. Animal Classification

• Classification: How to classify animals? When does a cat become a cat?
• Animal Tree: John Ray, Carolus Linnaeus, Cuvier 

Part III. The Earth grows older

• Geological based ideas of the Age of the Earth: (No beginning, no end: James Hutton 
• Catastrophists and Gradualists: The geological record, fossils
• James Hutton and Charles Lyell.

Part IV. Time for Evolution

• Jean Baptiste de Lamark, inheritance of acquired characteristics 
• Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, adaptive radiation, natural selection, sexual selection.
• Examples of Evolution  And Power point presentation 

In the rock record; horses, ammonites

and modern; moths.
 
 

Part V. Conflicts with Genesis

• This is in direct conflict with a literal interpretation of bible.

Noah’s Ark. (No other science ‘suffers’ from these problems).

• Earth as center of the Universe
• Scopes trial. Asimov’s prophecy (1960).
• Reinventing creationism, the fundamentalists ‘second wind’.

Part VI. Life and the Cell: The organization of animals

• What is life? Are viruses alive?
• Cells, cell colonies (seaweed) , regeneration (a one-celled animal is immortal!).
• Coelenterata up to Chordata
• Inside Chordata

Part VII: Where do we come from? Genetics

• How are animals ‘replicated’
• Gregor Mendel and the peas.
• Chromosomes
• DNA

Part VIII: Genetic change

• Mutations
• Gradualism vs. Punctuated equilibria.
•  

Part IX: The birth and diversity of Man

• Evolution of Humans
• Out of Africa 

Part ? Daisyworld 

Part X: Just how old is the Earth?

• Where Kelvin went wrong – Radioactivity:
• Click for the geological timescale 
• The Atom and isotopes 

PROBLEM SET: Due Nov. 6th, 2000 

• Radioactive decay
• Half–lives (a bit of math here).
• Radiogenic dating:
•  

• The oldest rocks. Why so ‘young’?
• Plate tectonics.
• The meteorites and the moon.

• In the beginning – The Big Bang Click HERE for slide show (requires Powerpoint)
• Origin of the Earth 
• Origin of Life 
• Precambrian Life – the development of our atmosphere

• The evidence: Wegener and others 
• More on plate tectonics 

Part XIV: The Future? Life on other worlds?

• Where do we go from here?
• Population changes.
• Is there life outside of Earth

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