Evolutionary Science Resources

[Domino Quartz]

Where could I find some articles, videos, etc. about evolutionary science (specifically, evolutionary biology, taxonomy/phylogeny, and population mechanics)? I've looked myself, but what I've found has been either too technical for my level of education on the subject, or a brief overview without much depth.

Thanks in advance.

[Knaight]

Joseph Felsenstein's Theoretical Evolutionary Genetics is a textbook released for free, legally. If you start at the beginning and read slowly, making sure you get the material you should be fine, and this gets the population mechanics just fine.

You can also roll with outdated textbooks (that tend to be cheap), including a bunch for classes literally named "Evolution" or similar.

[Domino Quartz]

Joseph Felsenstein's Theoretical Evolutionary Genetics is a textbook released for free, legally. If you start at the beginning and read slowly, making sure you get the material you should be fine, and this gets the population mechanics just fine.

You can also roll with outdated textbooks (that tend to be cheap), including a bunch for classes literally named "Evolution" or similar.

Thank you very much! That's a good start.

[Mechalich]

For taxonomy/phylogeny, you can try palaeos.com (http://palaeos.com/index.html). The site is kind of a mess (understatement), but the systematics (http://palaeos.com/systematics/index.html) section is quite good, as are a number of individual clade subsections if you're willing to wade into the weeds.

[halfeye]

I suggest investigating books on "ethology" which tend to be about behaviour and it's evolution.

"The Selfish Gene" is great, it's about genes being selfish, not a particular gene for selfishness (which probably doesn't even exist).


Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethology

[Lord Torath]

Looks like videos 9-20 from Crash Course Biology (https://thecrashcourse.com/courses/biology?page=2) cover Evolution and Genetics.

[JamesForeCast]

Try to read Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species. It's a core of all but some themes probably will be hard to understand. Though, many things changed since then. Darwin didn't know about genetics at that time for example.

[deuterio12]

Try to read Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species. It's a core of all but some themes probably will be hard to understand. Though, many things changed since then. Darwin didn't know about genetics at that time for example.

Baby steps, baby steps. Humanity evolves by pooling and filtering knowledge generation after generation.

Another important bit Darwin missed that it's not enough for the fittest to survive, the fittest must also reproduce.

His detractors thus pointed to the peacocks, whose giant tails definitely don't do them any favors in surviving in the wild. Nowadays we know that said giant tails are however essential for the peacock to get mates and pass on its genes, but Darwin ended up developing a deep hatred of the shiny birds.

[Knaight]

Baby steps, baby steps. Humanity evolves by pooling and filtering knowledge generation after generation.

Another important bit Darwin missed that it's not enough for the fittest to survive, the fittest must also reproduce.

His detractors thus pointed to the peacocks, whose giant tails definitely don't do them any favors in surviving in the wild. Nowadays we know that said giant tails are however essential for the peacock to get mates and pass on its genes, but Darwin ended up developing a deep hatred of the shiny birds.

They're not essential for the peacock to get mates - they merely increase the likelihood. For all that individual processes are easier to intuitively understand, and for all that early biology education tends to focus on individual processes the actual mechanisms involved are deeply statistical. In the case of something like peacock tail size/brightness (or most other sexual signaling) you have a range of sizes/brightness (or whatever else), in a particular distribution that's usually center weighted. The likelihood/frequency of mates/mating is then weighted such that it's higher on the high end than the low end, which causes a marginal shift in the next generation.

[halfeye]

They're not essential for the peacock to get mates - they merely increase the likelihood. For all that individual processes are easier to intuitively understand, and for all that early biology education tends to focus on individual processes the actual mechanisms involved are deeply statistical. In the case of something like peacock tail size/brightness (or most other sexual signaling) you have a range of sizes/brightness (or whatever else), in a particular distribution that's usually center weighted. The likelihood/frequency of mates/mating is then weighted such that it's higher on the high end than the low end, which causes a marginal shift in the next generation.

Or, no shift at all if the cost is already at the limit of bearability. If the tail is so cumbersome that on average the bird gets eaten, then there is no expansion of the tendancy, it may even shrink if it's previously gone too far. Again, I recommend The Selfish Gene, and a good book on statistics.