Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on May 7, 2008
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2008 48(2):175-188; doi:10.1093/icb/icn023
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Trickle-down evolution: an approach to getting major evolutionary adaptive changes into textbooks and curricula
Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Correspondence: 1E-mail: kpadian{at}berkeley.edu
Although contemporary high school and college textbooks of biology generally cover the principles and data of microevolution (genetic and populational change) and speciation rather well, coverage of what is known of the major changes in evolution (macroevolution), and how the evidence is understood is generally poor to nonexistent. It is critical to improve this because acceptance of evolution by the American public rests on the understanding of how we know what we know about the emergence of major new taxonomic groups, and about their adaptations, behaviors, and ecologies in geologic time. An efficient approach to this problem is to improve the illustrations in college textbooks to show the consilience of different lines of fossil, morphological, and molecular evidence mapped on phylogenies. Such "evograms" will markedly improve traditional illustrations of phylogenies, "menageries," and "companatomies." If "evograms" are installed at the college level, the basic principles and evidence of macroevolution will be more likely taught in K-12, thus providing an essential missing piece in biological education.
From the symposium "Evolution vs. Creationism in the Classroom: Evolving Student Attitudes" presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, January 2–6, 2008, at San Antonio, Texas.