Allen MacNeill
Senior Lecturer
with Allen MacNeill
Allen MacNeill first came to Cornell as a freshman biology major in the fall of 1969. He completed his undergraduate and graduate work at Cornell, and has been teaching introductory biology and evolution at Cornell since 1976. As a Senior Lecturer in the Learning Strategies Center, he has assisted students in the introductory biology course for non-majors (currently BIOG 1109/1110), and has also served as the TA trainer for those courses. His research has focused primarily on human evolution and philosophy of science, with an emphasis on the evolution of human mating systems and the capacity for religious experience. He is also a classically trained Shakespearean actor and performs with the Ithaca Ballet and other local and regional theatre companies. He currently resides in Sapsucker Woods with his wife, Leah, and their four children.
References
- Evolution: A Very Short Introduction B. & C. Charlesworth, Oxford University Press, 2003
- From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books Charles Darwin (E. O. Wilson, ed.), W. W. Norton, 2005
- The Autobiography of Charles Darwin Charles Darwin (Nora Barlow, ed.), W. W. Norton, 1993
- The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates Michael Ruse, Rutgers University Press, 2000
- Evolution PBS show on evolution
- Understanding Evolution University of California Museum of Paleontology
- The Evolution List Allen MacNeill's blog
- Wikipedia entry
Published 150 years ago, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species provided the foundation for the modern science of biology. It also set in motion a revolution in the sciences and in our understanding of ourselves and our place in nature.
This CyberTower Study Room is a brief introduction to Darwin's theory and its implications. Beginning with an overview of Darwin's predecessors, we learn how Jean Baptiste Lamarck set the stage for Darwin's monumental achievement with his Philosophie Zoologique, which advanced a theory of evolution by means of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Darwin, whose academic training at Cambridge University was in Anglican theology, became an acclaimed naturalist and science writer following the five-year voyage of HMS Beagle. Using the notes and specimens that he had collected during the voyage, Darwin spent twenty years refining his theory, first published in 1859, of evolution by natural selection.
In the last segment of this Study Room, we visit the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, whose director, Dr. Warren Allman, discusses the importance of such museums to the science of evolutionary biology. We also hear from Cornell professor William Provine, who discusses Darwin's work and its importance to the history and philosophy of biology.