Courses
Various Boston University courses with a Darwin theme:
CAS BI 119 - Sociobiology Designed for non-science concentrators to fulfill natural science divisional requirements. The evolution of animal and human societies; the development of social behavior; the adaptive significance of social organization; altruism; cooperation; courtship and reproductive behavior; human sociobiology; evolutionary psychology; religion and the impact of evolutionary theory on social thought and philosophy. Three hours lecture plus discussion.
CAS BI 302 - Vertebrate Zoology Methods and principles of comparative vertebrate zoology. Phylogeny, natural history, adaptation, and taxonomy. Laboratory emphasis on correlation among structural, physiological, and evolutionary features of selected vertebrates by both dissection and experimentation. Field trips. Two hours lecture, six hours lab.
CAS BI 309 - Evolution Introduction to modern concepts, controversies, and analytical approaches in evolutionary biology. Topics include adaptation, natural and sexual selection, species and speciation, phylogenetics, comparative analysis, basic population and quantitative genetics, origin of novelty, adaptive radiation, development and evolution.
CAS BI 414 - Ornithology Examines the behavior, ecology and morphology, physiology, classification, and evolution of birds. Flight, navigation, migration, territorial courtship, nesting, and parental behavior. Field trips. Three hours lecture, one hour discussion and demonstrations.
CAS BI 515 - Population Genetics Examines the interaction of basic evolutionary processes, including mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, inbreeding, and recombination, in determining the genetic composition of populations. Covers both classic models of the modern evolutionary synthesis and newer approaches based on coalescent theory.
CAS BI 582 - Seminar in Biology Informal discussion and student reports on subjects of current interest based on an intensive study of the literature. Topics vary. List of approved seminars available at preregistration each semester.
CAS HI 448 - Science and Modern Culture: Darwin, Freud, and Einstein Development of scientific theories of Darwin, Freud, and Einstein; impact of those ideas in different national cultures and their influence on literature, art, religion, and politics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
CAS PH 271 - History of Science The origin and development of modern science, including Galileo, Newton, and the new physics; Lavoisier and the birth of modern chemistry; Darwin and evolution; Mendel and genetics; Einstein and relativity; and Watson, Crick, and the double helix.
CAS EN 466 - Critical Studies in Literature and Society Time and Literature 1800–1930. Examines models of time (pace, narrative, scale) in Romantic, Victorian and Modernist texts during major transformations in science and technology (geology, dinosaurs, Darwin, railways, film and Einstein). Authors may include Tennyson, Hardy, Wells, Proust, and Woolf.
GRS EN 666 - Critical Studies in Literature and Society: Time and Literature 1800-1930 Examines models of time (pace, narrative, scale) in Romantic, Victorian and Modernist texts during major transformations in science and technology (geology, dinosaurs, Darwin, railways, film and Einstein). Authors may include Tennyson, Hardy, Wells, Proust, and Woolf.
RN239 Religion and Science This course explores the historical and contemporary relations between the world's religions and the sciences. The presently pervasive conflict view is examined, along with alternative views. The course assumes no background in any particular science, nor adherence to any particular religious tradition. In honor of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, special attention will be paid to religious responses to Darwinism. Readings are drawn primarily from Ian Barbour's Religion and Science and the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science.
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