Storytelling can stimulate learning by delivering scientific content within a narrative that increases comprehension and engagement. In this article I describe the coevolutionary arms race between toxic newts and predatory garter snakes. This engaging story centers on the use of a deadly neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin (TTX) as an antipredator…

Case studies are valuable tools for instruction but are often limited to a single topic and a single class period. Courses such as evolution that synthesize multiple concepts around a common theme, however, can use a single case study type project that extends over the entire semester to develop and link core concepts. A central theme in…

This lesson is designed to teach students that behavior is a trait shaped by both genes and the environment. Students will read a scientific paper, discuss and generate predictions based on the ideas and data therein, and model the relationships between genes, the environment, and behavior. The lesson is targeted to meet the educational goals of…

Are you interested in using argument-driven inquiry for high school lab instruction but just are not sure how to do it? You are not alone. This book will provide you with both the information and instructional materials you need to start using this method right away. "Argument-Driven Inquiry in Biology" is a one-stop source of expertise,…

Presents models that ascribe social behavior, such as altruism and parental sacrifices for the young, to a kind of genetic imperative wherein individuals maximize their genetic contribution to the next generation. (GS)

The fates of phrenology and evolutionary theory in the 19th Century are studied in order to assess the current status of sociobiology and predict its future. (Author/AM)

Presents the idea that social systems evolve to increase the genetic fitness of individuals in specific environments. Cites examples of animal behavior and environmental influences that may indicate why different social systems have evolved. (GS)

Contemporary evolution biology has recognized the role of development in evolution. Evolutionarily oriented psychologists have similarly recognized the role that behavioral plasticity, particularly early in development, may have had on the evolution of species, harking back to the ideas of Baldwin (the Baldwin effect). Epigenetic theories of…

Gilbert Gottlieb's data and epigenetic approach support the conclusion that organisms are functionally-whole agents at each phase of development rather than simply incompletely developed adults prior to sexual maturity and deteriorated adults in old age. This implies that organisms construct distinct ontogenetic niches at each phase of…

There are some important similarities between biological and societal evolution, but these similarities should not blind the enormous differences between them. Each system must be analyzed on its own merits and according to its own peculiar properties and principles. (Author/AM)

There is no clearly defined, universally accepted evolutionary theory that social anthropologists must accept. There has been great progress in the understanding of genetic mechanisms, but there are still major controversies. The most fundamental problem comes from postulating genes to account for behaviors. (Author/AM)

Mice from replicate lines, selectively bred based on high daily wheel-running rates, run more total revolutions and at higher average speeds than do mice from nonselected control lines. Based on this difference it was assumed that selected mice would find the opportunity to run in a wheel a more efficacious consequence. To assess this assumption…

This article addresses the following questions: (1) What are the aims and claims of contemporary sociobiology? (2) How does the enterprise fit into the history of ideas? and (3) Does sociobiology have the earmarks of being the beginning of a major synthesis? (Author/AM)

Attempts to emphasize some of the rather precise analytic and predictive values of evolutionary theory, applied to parental behavior. (Author/RK)