General

Carroll, S.B. 2005. Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. An accessible exploration of evolutionary developmental biology by one of the leaders in the field.

Dobzhansky, T. 1973. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Am. Biol. Teach. 35:125–129.

Wilson, E.O., ed. 2005. From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin’s Four Great Books. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. A one-volume compendium of the four great works of Charles Darwin: Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle (1845), The Origin of Species (1859), The Descent of Man (1871), and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).

The Evolution of Life on Earth

Barrick, J.E., and R.E. Lenski. 2013. Genome dynamics during experimental evolution. Nat. Rev. Genet. 14:827–839.

Byrne, R.T., A.J. Klingele, E.L. Cabot, W.S. Schackwitz, J.A. Martin, J. Martin, Z. Wang, E.A. Wood, C. Pennacchio, L.A. Pennacchio, et al. 2014. Evolution of extreme resistance to ionizing radiation via genetic adaptation of DNA repair. eLife 3:e01322.

Dawkins, R. 2004. The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gould, S.J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Boston: Harvard University Press. The last contribution from one of the great popularizers of evolutionary biology.

Hanczyc, M.M., and J.W. Szostak. 2004. Replicating vesicles as models of primitive cell growth and division. Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 8:660–664. A summary of some current efforts to re-create a protocell in the laboratory.

Kirschner, M.W., and J.C. Gerhart. 2005. The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Lazcano, A., and S.L. Miller. 1996. The origin and early evolution of life: Prebiotic chemistry, the pre-RNA world, and time. Cell 85:793–798.

Lincoln, T.A., and G.F. Joyce. 2009. Self-sustained replication of an RNA enzyme. Science 323:1229–1232. Yes, RNA molecules are capable of self-replication.

Mayr, E. 2000. Darwin’s influence on modern thought. Sci. Am. 283(July):78–83. A terrific explanation of how Darwin has affected the way in which all of us approach our world.

Orgel, L.E. 2004. Prebiotic chemistry and the origin of the RNA world. Crit. Rev. Biochem. Mol. Biol. 39:99–123. An excellent summary of the field exploring prebiotic chemistry.

Woese, C.R. 2004. A new biology for a new century. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 68:173–186. A thoughtful appeal for some new approaches in biology.

Zimmer, C. 2001. Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. New York: HarperCollins Books. The companion volume to the PBS (WGBH) series on evolution.

Zuckerkandl, E., and L. Pauling. 1965. Molecules as documents of evolutionary history. J. Theor. Biol. 8:357–366. One of the first articles to recognize that much of evolutionary history is documented in the genomes of existing organisms.

How Scientists Do Science

Bryson, B. 2004. A Short History of Nearly Everything. New York: Broadway Books. Easy to read, this book provides an excellent lay description of how scientists approach problems.

Dennett, D.C. 1995. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Touchstone.

Feynman, R. 1999. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman. New York: Helix Books/Perseus Books.

Kosso, P. 2009. The large-scale structure of scientific method. Sci. Educ. 18:33–42.

Medawar, P. 1979. Advice to a Young Scientist. New York: HarperCollins.

Sober, E. 2008. Evidence and Evolution: The Logic behind the Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Working Group on Teaching Evolution, National Academy of Sciences. 1998. Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. www.nap.edu. This excellent resource is available as a free download.