Description
From Darwin to DNA in the Age of Extinction: Exploring the History of Biology and Nature
This course will explore the history of biology from the birth of Darwinism in 1859, through the identification of the helical structure of DNA in 1953 and the ensuing modern evolutionary synthesis, to the molecular genetic revolution of the 1970s. All of this will be discussed in the context of the modern environmental crises and the political-economic conflicts over it. Topics covered will include: Darwinism, imperialism, and capitalism; American and European eugenics; modern famines and the "Green Revolution"; ecology and the environmental design movement; war and climate change; breeding and genetic modification; demography and Mendelian population genetics; and the often frought relationship between evolutionary biology and the social sciences. Participants will develop an understanding of the last 200 years of the history of the biological sciences as well as some modern political-economi