Adam M. Goldstein

Evolution by Example

Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract. . . .The greatest writers—Homer, Dante, Shakespeare—are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures. If the experiences of Walter Mitty, of Molly Bloom, of Rabbit Angstrom have seemed for the moment real to countless readers. . . it is because the details used are definite, the terms concrete. . . .[A]ll the significant details are given, and with such accuracy and vigor that readers, in imagination, can project themselves into the scene (Strunk and White 2000, 21–22).

The NCBI Databases: an Evolutionist’s Perspective

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) organizes information resources for life scientists on an evolutionary scheme. This facilitates research about present-day organisms. The recent discovery of a new arenavirus, the LUJO virus, illustrates the utility of adopting evolution as a central architectural principle for life sciences databases: using the NCBI’s resources, clinicians were able to classify the new virus in real time—soon enough to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of a hemorrhagic fever caused by the LUJO virus. Topics fundamental to the study of evolution, often thought of as useless, are indeed vital because they inform how life science information ought to be organized.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful and Most Wonderful

It has been a pleasure to serve as guest editor of this issue of Evolution: Education & Outreach. Editorsin-Chief Niles and Greg Eldredge and Managing Editor Mick Wycoff showed enormous support for my efforts to solicit and identify the highest quality submissions and to develop each to its potential. The professionals at Springer made it easy for editors and authors alike to focus on scholarship. Referees, drawn from an impressive pool of teachers and researchers across many disciplines, exemplified the dignity that is rightly accorded to the ideal of peer review as a safeguard against bias and as a mechanism of the kind of cooperation and community input that is so important to the success of the scientific method.

Human, All Too Human

The basic premise of Dr. Carin Bondar’s Nature of Human Nature is that human behavior and intentions and the adaptive strategies of ants, birds, spiders, nonhuman primates, and fish can illuminate one another. After a brief introduction explaining natural selection and introducing the question, Are humans a part of nature?, Dr. Bondar puts this premise to work in a series of vignettes that are divided into two main parts, “survive” and “reproduce.” These are further subdivided into chapters, each of which focuses on a different aspect of survival or reproduction. Each chapter consists of twoto three-page unnumbered sections, each of which centers upon a different animal behavior. Dr. Bondar focuses on kinds of behaviors that might seem to us to be especially characteristic of our species, or perhaps unique to us. For example, surely there cannot be, in the animal world, behavior analogous to the human institution of dietary supplements and professional advice from dietitians and scientists? Dr. Bondar addresses this issue in “oxidatively stressed” (p. 50). No doubt human abilities such as reasoning and careful observation are required to discover that certain fruits and vegetables are high in antioxidants, believed to fight cancer and even aging itself. One important point that a dietitian would want to make to a patient is that fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants are dark in color, purples and dark blues having the highest levels. Not only can scientists discover what nutrients are good for us but they also can help guide us to those foods with that simple rule.

Evolution in Action: David Sloan Wilson’s Forthcoming The Neighborhood Project

The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve my City, One Block at a Time (Wilson 2011), David Sloan Wilson’s next book, is set for publication in July 2011, by Little Brown. Wilson has been hard at work on Evolutionary Studies, known also as “EvoS,” which is a general approach to teaching and research that extends evolutionary thinking to all aspects of human life. The Neighborhood Project complements Evolution for Everyone (Wilson 2007), which was published at roughly the same time that SUNY Binghamton’s EvoS was in the early stages of implementation under Wilson’s directorship. While Evolution for Everyone represents Wilson’s thought at the point at which his experiences with EvoS were beginning, The Neighborhood Project represents them after the point at which the program’s early successes now afford him the time to reflect. The difference between the two books is exemplified by their subtitles. Compare “How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives,” to “Using Evolution to Improve my City”— on the one hand, merely thinking about how evolution

A New Digital Edition of Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species

The Darwin Manuscripts Project (http://darwin.amnh.org) is publishing a new digital edition of the London 1859 edition of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, which, alongside a copy built of scanned pages, extends opportunities for Internet readers. The new digital edition is warranted by the absence of good digital copies of the 1859 London edition online: though many will find this hard to believe, it is nonetheless true. The new edition is described in the context of the reader’s experience and in the theoretical context of the nature of texts as a kind.

Digital Tools for Bringing Evolution to Everyone

Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) programs, conceived of in the terms elaborated by David Sloan Wilson in his book Evolution for Everyone, are intrinsically interdisciplinary. They are also intended to bring individuals and organizations outside the university teaching and research environment together with academe. Internet technologies in use at present are designed for the purpose of promoting such collaboration and community building. This paper explains several such technologies, describing their best uses and the differences between them, in the context of a project management framework.

Richard Owen’s “Most Interesting Department of Natural History ... Its Very Soul”

We have seen that the members of the same class, independently of their habits of life, resemble each other in the general plan of their organisation. This resemblance is often expressed by the term “unity of type;” or by saying that the several parts and organs in the different species of the class are homologous . . . . This is the most interesting department of natural history, and may be said to be its very soul. What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include the same bones, in the same relative positions? . . . Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes. The hopelessness of the attempt has been expressly admitted by Owen in his most interesting work, On the Nature of Limbs. (Darwin 1964, pp. 434–5)

Exploring Phylogeny at the Tree of Life Web Project

The University of Arizona’s Tree of Life Web Project organizes information about the biological taxa on the model of the tree of life itself. This creates intuitive and informative pathways for browsing. The Project has a well-articulated protocol for checking on the quality of information published on the site, which is evaluated a number of times as it is added to the site. This paper is intended to be an entreé to the site for teachers at all levels and the general public.

The Origin Manuscripts at the “The Darwin Manuscripts Project”

I announce the launch of the Darwin Manuscripts Project (http://darwin.amnh.org) and describe its importance as a source of professional-grade manuscripts by Charles Darwin. Some of its importance is due to the transcription of manuscripts, which records all information about the changes Darwin made as he wrote. A guide to understanding how to read a manuscript transcription is presented. This is intended to be the first in a series of papers which, together, will constitute a user’s guide to the site.