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Skidmore College
First-Year Experience

Summer Reading 2017

On Darwin and His Theory

"Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the fifth of six children of wealthy and well-connected parents.

The young Charles had a quietly Christian upbringing, but his family life was one of openness to new ideas. His grandfathers had both been important figures of the Enlightenment: Josiah Wedgewood, industrialist and anti-slavery campaigner, and Erasmus Darwin, a doctor whose book Zoonomia had set out a radical and highly controversial idea - that one species could 'transmute' into another."  Read more of the Darwin Timeline on the BBC website >>  

The Evolution Institute

"Evolution Institute connects the world of evolutionary science to the world of public policy formulation. We bring evolutionary experts together with other experts for a respectful and constructive dialogue, resulting in a new agenda for basic scientific research, policy formulation, and policy implementation."   Visit the Evolution Institute website >>

THE MAKING OF A THEORY: DARWIN, WALLACE, AND NATURAL SELECTION