Hello and welcome to this open online
course on Charles Darwin and evolution.
Coming to you from Charles Darwin University
based here in the city of Darwin,
Northern Territory, Australia.
My name is Doctor Steven Reynolds
and i'll be not so much your instructor,
but your mentor and moderator for this course.
Much of the input and interaction will
come from you.
In this 4 week course we will look at Charles Darwin himself,
the development of the theory of natural
selection and the general progress of
evolutionary thought.
In the first part,
we will examine the life of Charles Darwin,
his early years, the voyage of the Beagle
and also how he came to frame his theory of natural selection and descent by modification
or transmutation as it was known then.
As with all great thinkers, and people in general,
Darwin was a product of his upbringing and
the times in which he lived.
So we will try to convey a sense of the intellectual climate,
and the understanding of the world
in the mid-nineteenth century.
We will then examine evolution more closely,
looking at the mechanism and some of
the refinements of the theory,
the modern synthesis, evidence for
evolution and modes of speciation.
We will use the animal inhabitants of the Galapagos as examples of adaptive radiation.
During week 3 we introduce Alfred
Russell Wallace.
He was younger than Darwin and he also
traveled extensively,
to the amazon,
and to the malay archipelago.
Wallace thus spent over a decade traveling
in the tropics.
Wallace also independently discovered
the mechanism of evolution by natural
selection and forced Darwin to final
publish the Origin of Species, a book
that would change the world and the way
we think.
And his ideas on biogeography are still
influential today.
The last part of the course will bring things
closer to home,
here in the monsoonal north of Australia.
We will look at the various environments
including the monsoon forests, the mangroves, the savannah's and the flood plains.
And the animals and plants that have evolved within the context of this environment.
I'm sure you will enjoy this course and gain a lot from it,
The course will included quizzes,
animations,
readings
and interactive learning materials.
Hopefully it will provoke you into thinking more deeply about evolution,
and as a result
it will provide a greater understanding of
biology in general. Okay, lets begin..
