Engagement with Origin and Modern Biology

Assignment: Discuss how modern scientific research has supported a specific claim or claims made by Darwin in Origin and Descent . To help you get started, here are some claims that Darwin makes:

• Evolution happens
• Evolution has a pathway
• Evolution has a mechanism and it will be natural rather than supernatural
• Evolution has such a mechanism in natural selection
• Evolution has such a mechanism in sexual selection
• Embryology is "the strongest single class of facts in favor of change of forms."
• All animals, including humans, descend from a common ancestor.
• Humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor and arose in Africa
• Gaps in the fossil record will be filled in with key transitional fossils.

Requirement: Reference to six to eight scientific papers, not Internet resources, not Wikipedia. The sources can be online but they must be peer-reviewed scientific articles. You should use the AMA citation style.

Value: 30% of your final grade

Due: Nov 5th @ 3:00pm (Safe Assignment) & 3:15pm (printed). Failure to provide both on time will result in failure of the assignment. No exceptions will be made.

Length: 1500 – 1750 words. Longer or shorter papers will receive a zero.