IS LESS MORE?1

Abstract

With the blossoming of evolutionary developmental biology and evolutionary genomics following on the heels of the recent molecular revolution in evolutionary biology, the field is arguably expansive and integrative than ever. This growth has infused an air of excitement and anticipation into the discipline, as it appears to be on the verge of providing long-awaited answers to questions such as the structure of the tree of life, the origin of body plans, the genetic changes that underlie speciation, and the genetic basis of those traits that make us uniquely human (Avise 2003; Coyne and Orr 2004; Carroll 2005; The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium 2005). At the same time, the fact that the pageantry of research in evolutionary biology is so diverse presents vexing questions for those of us faced with teaching undergraduate courses in evolutionary biology: how much of this vast discipline should we attempt to cover in a single course, and what is the best way to organize the material? The question of how much to cover is certainly not unique to evolutionary biology. Indeed, recent examples of streamlined textbooks for other survey courses such as ecology (e.g., Molles 2005), genetics (e.g., Hartl and Jones 2006), and general biology (e.g., Cain et al. 2006), suggests a growing sense that biology students in general may be best served under a less is more model of education. It is debatable whether this trend is motivated by the impracticalities of squeezing a rapidly expanding discipline into a single course, or by the reality of facing students who are poorly prepared for college science courses. However, one additional contributing factor is certain; most students in an upper level survey course in biology have no intention of pursuing a career in that biological subdiscipline. Thus, only a small fraction of students in such a course hunger for the subtle nuances of the field. As instructors, it is clear that these self-motivated students do not present our greatest educational challenge. Rather, our challenge in survey courses, including evolutionary biology, is in helping the uninspired majority learn both the central concepts and the ways of approaching questions in the major fields in biology. Given that challenge, it is difficult to argue against the less-is-more philosophy. Ironically though, it is probably safe to say that the majority of those who currently teach undergraduate courses in evolutionary biology cut their eye teeth while chewing (figuratively, one hopes) on the famously dense, exhaustively integrative, and encyclopedic Evolutionary Biology (Futuyma 1979, and subsequent editions). But while such a textbook provided abundant inspiration for students destined to become evolutionary biologists, its very strengths made it a