Darwin Works Cited and Notes

Annotated Bibliography

Darwin, Charles. The autobiography of Charles Darwin. Champaign, Ill.: Project Gutenberg, 199. Print.

In Darwin's autobiography, Darwin explains himself to his family using morals and anecdotes. The audience gets a sense of what Charles Darwin valued--being about to observe and note patterns (Darwin). As a source, Darwin's autobiography is excellent because it is a primary document showing Darwin's life without pervading bias from his detractors (Darwin).

"Darwin." American Museum of Natural History. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. <http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/darwin>.

The website shows a past exhibition (Nov. 2005-Aug. 2006) of Charles Darwin for the American Museum of Natural History. It includes several highlights such as the world before Darwin, Darwin's childhood, his trip on the HMS Beagle, the formation of his ideas thereafter and the study of evolution today ("Darwin"). The website for AMNH is informative and accurate but fairly general. It is good for background information but not for specific details ("Darwin").

BBC News. "Charles Darwin: Row over 'cheat' claims on S4C's Alfred Russel Wallace programme." BBC [wales] 23 Nov. 2013: n. pag. News Wales. Web. 6 Dec. 2013.

In this article, it was reported that a Welsh TV channel aired a biased documentary about Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace claiming that Darwin purposefully stole the spotlight from Wallace when he had found out that Wallace was meaning to publish about the theory of evolution. A historian pointed out that there is no evidence supporting this claim and that both men got credit for the theory of natural selection in 1858 (BBC News). The newspaper article tries not to take a side in the debate but seems to favor the idea that Darwin had no prior knowledge of Wallace's plans to publish (BBC News).

Freeman, Derek. "The Evolutionary Theories Of Charles Darwin And Herbert Spencer." Current Anthropology 15.3 (1974): 211. Print.

The purpose of this article was to describe the differences between the evolutionary theories proposed by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer and to prove that they do not constitute a unified construction of evolutionary thought (Freeman). It elaborates specific information on the topic and posits a positive connotation on Darwin's work, who tended to limit his discussion of evolutionary development to biology (Freeman).

Grant, Peter R., and B. Rosemary Grant. "Unpredictable Evolution in a 30 year Study of Darwin's Finches." Science 296.5568 (2002): 707-711. Print.

Researchers in the article were able to measure changes in beak size indicative of changing environments showing that Darwin's original case study still has research potential (Grant and Grant). The article was well written and was supported by facts and statistical relationships making it very persuasive (Grant and Grant).

Lenski, Richard E., Charles Ofria, Robert T. Pennock, and Christoph Adami. "The Evolutionary Origin Of Complex Features." Nature 423.6936 (2003): 139-144. Print.

This study used digital organisms to simulate random mutation and natural selection; it confirmed the hypothesis that natural selection and mutations can lead to complex features (Lenski et al.). This article used data and analogies between genetic code and computer code to show how this experiment is relevant to the study of evolutionary biology (Lenski et al.).

Newman, Rebecca. "Galapagos notebook. (Report)." The Spectator 14 Feb. 2009: none. The Spectacle. Web. 6 Dec. 2013.

This article describes a trip that the author took to the Galapagos Islands in order to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species. She describes the impact that people are having on the Galapagos Islands and what we should do to stop it (Newman). The article is informally written and anecdotal (Newman).