Here’s the pitch:

And an example of a very well done video for another of Baba’s tunes:

Evolution: Education and Outreach

Volume 3, Number 4 / December 2010

• 489-490

  Editorial

  Niles Eldredge and Greg Eldredge

• 491-494

  How Systematics Became “Phylogenetic”

  Niles Eldredge

• 495-498

  Introduction to the Special Issue

  Sagas of the Children of Time: The Importance of Phylogenetic Teaching in Biology

  Daniel R. Brooks

• 499-505

  Why Trees Are Important

  Edward O. Wiley

• 506-519

  How to Read a Phylogenetic Tree

  Deborah A. McLennan

• 520-525

  The Gummy Tree Challenge—Building Connections One Treat at a Time

  Marcus Kumala

• 526-531

  The Neverending Story—Using the Narrative as a Fundamental Approach to Teaching Biology and Beyond

  Marcus Kumala

• 532-538

  A Natural History of You

  Marcus Kumala

• 539-547

  Characters Are Key: The Effect of Synapomorphies on Cladogram Comprehension

  Laura R. Novick, Kefyn M. Catley and Daniel J. Funk

• 548-557

  Sociobiology and the Comparative Approach: One Way to Study Ourselves

  Deborah Ann McLennan

• 558-562

  The Biodiversity Crisis: Lessons from Phylogenetic Sagas

  Daniel R. Brooks and Deborah A. McLennan

• 563-572

  Evolutionary Trees from the Tabloids and BeyondAnastasia Thanukos

• 573-575

  Why Are There Still Monkeys?

  William Eric Meikle and Eugenie C. Scott

• 576-584

  Brocchi, Darwin, and Transmutation: Phylogenetics and Paleontology at the Dawn of Evolutionary Biology

  Stefano Dominici and Niles Eldredge

• 585-594

  Brocchi’s Subapennine Fossil Conchology

  Stefano Dominici

• 595-604

  College Students’ Perceptions of Intelligent Design

  Craig Tollini and Jess White

• 605-613

  “Force-Talk” in Evolutionary Explanation: Metaphors and Misconceptions

  Ross H. Nehm, Meghan A. Rector and Minsu Ha

• 614-620

  Creationism and the Teaching of Evolution in PolandBartosz Borczyk

• 621-628

  Teaching Tree-Thinking to Undergraduate Biology Students

  Richard P. Meisel

• 629-632

  Do Americans Believe Modern Earth Science?

  Allan Mazur

• 633-640

  Considering Adaptation and the “Function” of Traits in the Classroom, Using Wiki Tools

  Sean A. Rands

• 641-660

  Scientific Authority in the Creation–Evolution Debates

  Finn R. Pond and Jean L. Pond

• 661-667

  Should the Teaching of Biological Evolution Include the Origin of Life?

  Antonio Lazcano and Juli Peretó

• 668-674

  Exploring Phylogeny at the Tree of Life Web Project

  Adam M. Goldstein

• 675-676

  Book Review

  A Specialized Reference and Then Some: Chronology of the Evolution-Creationism Controversy
  Chronology of the Evolution-Creationism Controversy, by Randy Moore, Mark Decker, and Sehoya Cotner. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2010. pp. xx+455. H/b $85.00.

  Lawrence S. Lerner

• 677-678

  Book Review

  God Versus the Human Genome
  Inside the Human Genome: A Case for Non-Intelligent Design, by John C. Avise. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xi + 222. H/b $19.95.

  Adam M. Goldstein

• 679-686

  Other Media Reviews

  Paleontology and Evolution in the News

  Sidney Horenstein

I carried out a 4th-year research project in Dr. Wood’s lab on fish physiology and behaviour, and continued to work in the lab as a researcher over the following summer. I can say without reservation that this experience had an enormous impact on my scientific thinking and solidified my desire to pursue an academic career. Indeed, I consider this time one of the most important formative experiences in my development as a scientist. I believe my own approach to running a research group has been heavily influenced by Dr. Wood’s early example. In particular, I attribute learning the following important lessons to Dr. Wood’s mentorship:

• Even if one has a large research group (as he always did), an advisor should be familiar with the details of each project and should maintain a strong relationship with each lab member. I note that Dr. Wood and I have remained in contact for more than a decade after I completed undergraduate research in his lab.
• Regular lab meetings are extremely important, especially in a large group where they allow the advisor to keep track of projects and because they create opportunities for peers to encourage and assist each other.
• Research can be planned in great detail on paper, but the only way to succeed is to get one’s hands dirty and to identify and solve the inevitable problems that arise in real experiments. This is a lesson I still teach to every new student in my lab.
• Setting an example by being knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the research is critical for maintaining strong lab morale. Dr. Wood excelled in this capacity.
• One can have very high standards for excellence in research and expect a great deal from students while still making the lab an enjoyable and engaging place to work.
• That it is important to provide students with the equipment and other resources that they need, and to make it clear that they have the support of the lab for completing their research. This helps to inspire confidence in students.
• Social activities as a lab group are important. Dr. Wood is well known for hosting barbecues, for celebrating the accomplishments of lab members, and for building camaraderie through events such as an annual lab golf tournament. I make a point of emphasizing a team atmosphere in my lab and encourage social activities as a group.
• That students, including undergraduates, should be given the opportunity to publish their work and to present it at conferences. In fact, my first three publications were with Dr. Wood, based on research carried out in his lab during my undergraduate program. Collectively, these papers have been cited 180 times to date:

Gregory, T.R. and C.M. Wood (1999). The effects of chronic plasma cortisol elevation on the feeding behaviour, growth, competitive ability, and swimming performance of juvenile rainbow trout. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 72: 286-295.

Gregory, T.R. and C.M. Wood (1999). Interactions between individual feeding behaviour, growth, and swimming performance in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fed different rations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 56: 479-486.

Gregory, T.R. and C.M. Wood (1998). Individual variation and interrelationships between swimming performance, growth rate, and feeding in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 55: 1583-1590.

I am extremely grateful to Dr. Wood for the opportunity to have worked in his lab, and for the long-lasting influence that his mentorship has had for me and my own students.

Please provide examples of mentoring (e.g. critical moments or sustained interactions) that illustrate the nominee’s success at mentoring you.

Even after more than 12 years, several things stand clearly in my mind about my time in Dr. Wood’s lab. A few examples:

• At the beginning of a late night of data collecting, Dr. Wood confided in me that one of the times in his career in which he worked the hardest was as an undergraduate researcher, due to the major time constraints involved. The only time that surpassed this in intensity, he said, was the first year as a faculty member. He was quite right about this – but recalling what he said helped me to get through the challenging first year as a professor.
• It was Dr. Wood himself who showed me how to use some of the equipment that I needed, and he even allowed some significant modifications to be made to a major apparatus for my project. The fact that he took a personal interest and expressed this confidence in my project meant a great deal to me.
• Halfway through my project, I asked to re-start the experiment based on various things I had figured out during the first run. After some convincing, Dr. Wood allowed me to do so and the study was much stronger for it, even though this meant additional time pressure for my thesis. To this day, I still tell students that their first attempt at any experiment is unlikely to go as planned, and that their job the first time is to figure out what the problems are. Being able to convey this up front helps students to avoid frustration or self doubt when they encounter problems early on.
• After completing my undergraduate thesis, Dr. Wood offered me a summer research position in the lab. Rather than having me assist with other projects, he told me to design and conduct my own studies. These were ultimately published, and since then I have always made efforts to allow students at all levels to take ownership of projects whenever they show potential. It is no coincidence that undergraduates in my lab have also generated publishable research.

Please identify aspects of practice and personality that makes the nominee a successful mentor.

Dr. Wood exemplifies what it means to be an outstanding mentor. He is extremely knowledgeable about his area of research, and he is able to conduct research himself and regularly does so (including in the field). He maintains a calm demeanour and a good sense of humour while still inspiring very high levels of output among his students. In addition, he exudes enthusiasm about his work even after a long and distinguished career, and he still finds excitement in the latest successful grant, new research question, or accepted manuscript. He is well-organized and able to oversee a large group, including being familiar with the specifics of each study and making himself available for discussions with individuals whenever they are needed. Finally, he remains in contact with former lab members and continues to support them even if they have moved on to other areas of research – this is certainly true in my case, in that he has nominated me for two awards and has always been willing to provide recommendation letters even though I have not worked in his field for over a decade.

Congratulations to a great mentor on a well deserved award!

The title of this post is sure to upset lots of readers. Before you react, let me put the statement into context. “Professional”, in the sense I intend it, refers to having a “profession” — as in, a career. “Scientist”, in the sense I am using it, means someone who is engaged in scientific research, regularly publishes in peer-reviewed journals, is supported through peer-reviewed grants*, and has a long-term career trajectory along these lines. Both terms can be defined much more broadly (professional = you get paid for it, scientist = anyone who does an experiment), but that isn’t useful in my opinion.

So what are graduate students, then? They are scientists in training, assuming they are planning to go on in science. Otherwise, they are people who want some more advanced experience in science but not a career science. There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking at it this way. One is not a chef in culinary school, nor a lawyer in law school, nor a medical doctor in medical school. Graduate school is an apprenticeship as much as anything.

Graduate students do most of the day-to-day research in science, no question. Many students are self-funded with scholarships (their stipend, anyway — not equipment or travel or reagents). A significant portion of them come up with quite independent research and get by with minimal guidance. I was one of those — I never received a paycheck from my adviser, I published several single-author papers, and I did not need regular supervision. But I was not a professional scientist at that time, I was a scientist in training.

I did not realize just how much more there is to being a scientist until I started as a junior professor. Suddenly I had a totally new respect for my former advisers. Writing grants, supervising students, developing courses, serving on committees, reviewing manuscripts, editing theses, coming up with or at least guiding and facilitating research projects by a group of students, and all the other things that profs do is miles away from the good old days of graduate school or postdocdom.

Graduate students are critical to the scientific endeavour. But they are still in training and hopefully are aware that they have a lot to learn before they can head out on their own. :)

Of course, I welcome comments — I suspect a lot of grad students will disagree, but again, take my claims in their proper context.

See also Postdocs always overestimate their intellectual contributions by Drug Monkey a couple of years ago for another interesting, if contentious, discussion. And Why would advisors encourage students to publish? here at Genomicron for more about my very positive view of graduate students and their contributions.

* People really hate this one. Fine — take it off the list if you disagree strongly (e.g., because it excludes industry scientists). That won’t suddenly alter the conclusion given what this post is trying to say, namely that graduate students are scientists in training but that they have not yet taken up a career or profession in science.

UPDATE: One of the major distinctions that is important is that graduate students have research projects, professional scientists (in my terminology) have research programs. Maybe there are better terms, since “professional” seems to annoy many people?

UPDATE: I probably shouldn’t have cited DrugMonkey’s post, since apparently he thinks this post is “idiotic” and that I have been “dancing around” the issues. Nevermind that he draws clear distinctions between PIs and postdocs and his otherwise irrelevant re-post linking to this one clearly describes grad students as “in training”. Oh, and the only description he provides of himself is as “an NIH-funded biomedical research scientist”. Oh well.

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED ON THIS POST. Any further discussion will be continued here.

Miesel, R.P. Teaching Tree-Thinking to Undergraduate Biology Students. Evolution: Education and Outreach, in press.

Other references:

Baum DA, Offner S. Phylogenies and tree-thinking. Am Biol Teach. 2008;70:222–9.

Baum DA, Smith SD, Donovan SS. Evolution: the tree-thinking challenge. Science. 2005;310:979–80.

Crisp MD, Cook LG. Do early branching lineages signify ancestral traits? Trends Ecol Evol. 2005;20:122–8.

Goldsmith DW. The great clade race: presenting cladistic thinking to biology majors & general science students. Am Biol Teach. 2003;65:679–82.

Gregory TR. Understanding evolutionary trees. Evo Edu Outreach. 2008;1:121–37.

Gregory TR. Understanding natural selection: essential concepts and common misconceptions. Evo Edu Outreach. 2009;2:156–75.

Halverson KL. Using pipe cleaners to bring the tree of life to life. Am Biol Teach. 2010;72:223–4.

Meir E, Perry J, Herron JC, Kingsolver J. College students’ misconceptions about evolutionary trees. Am Biol Teach. 2007;69:e71–6.

Novick L, Catley K, Funk D. Characters are key: the effect of synapomorphies on cladogram comprehension. Evo Edu Outreach, in press

O’Hara RJ. Population thinking and tree thinking in systematics. Zool Scr. 1997;26:323–9.

Omland KE, Cook LG, Crisp MD. Tree thinking for all biology: the problem with reading phylogenies as ladders of progress. BioEssays. 2008;30:854–67.

Perry J, Meir E, Herron JC, Maruca S, Stal D. Evaluating two approaches to helping college students understand evolutionary trees through diagramming tasks. CBE Life Sci Educ. 2008;7:193–201.

Sandvik H. Tree thinking cannot be taken for granted: challenges for teaching phylogenetics. Theory Biosci. 2008;127:45–51.

Smith JJ, Cheruvelil KS. Using inquiry and tree-thinking to “march through the animal phyla”: teaching introductory comparative biology in an evolutionary context. Evo Edu Outreach. 2009;2:429–44.

As part of one inquiry case, we will be exploring the issues surrounding freshwater mussels in the Great Lakes region, including the native diversity and the impacts of invasions by zebra mussels and quagga mussels.

Last week I was in Michigan with my friend and colleague Dave Zanatta of Central Michigan University filming vignettes about mussel research. Here is just a sample (note: unedited and unannotated) of the footage we shot.

A few of the papers are free online, but others require a subscription.  Some positive news announced in the editorial by Niles and Greg Eldredge, though:

We have great news! After a temporary hiatus, when Evolution: Education and Outreach became no longer completely free online at www.springer.com, we are poised to come back free online—the better to serve our educational outreach mission.

Thanks to the imagination, dedication, and hard work of Andrea Macaluso, Editorial Director, Springer Science + Business Media (and the founding genius behind this journal in the first place), we have made arrangements with the National Institutes of Health online library PubMed Central (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/) to provide our journal once again completely free online.

As we write, the backlog at PubMed Central will require another month or so for E:E&O to appear. Our arrangement with PubMed Central requires a one-year embargo—meaning that as soon as the backlog clears, our entire Volumes 1 and 2 will appear on their website. In March of 2011, all four issues of Volume 3 (2010) will be added, and so forth.

But there is more. We are currently offering John Thompson’s and Rodrigo Medel’s stellar issue on Co-evolution (Volume 3 #1) free online at the Springer site indefinitely. Editorial and educational articles will continue to be free online at the Springer site in perpetuity.

And, in addition, we have begun to post issues from the archives, starting with Volume 1 #1, for three-month intervals at our journal’s website at www.Springer.com/12052. And be sure to keep following us on MySpace and Facebook for more resources as well. Also, many of our articles are supported for free online access through the authors or their institutions.

Finally, most institutions of higher learning, as well as research centers in the natural sciences, provide subscriptions to E:E&O available to their immediate community. And a subscription to E:E&O, which includes four handsome printed issues, remains only $40.00. For subscriptions, consult our website or write to Andrea Macaluso (Andrea.Macaluso@Springer.com) directly.

Rest assured—E:E&O will continue to be available to all, and we are particularly happy that teachers of the primary and secondary grade levels will be able to continue to utilize our articles and educational resources as they prepare their lessons on the complete gamut of evolution-related topics.

This is a great step, and a testament to the dedication of the editors. Sadly, my special issue on eye evolution remains inaccessible online — however, it sounds like this will be rectified in time.  I definitely miss being part of the journal, but I have to stick with my decision to leave unless/until free access is reinstated.  It’s fantastic that my friends at the journal seem to have found a potential solution.

Editorial
Niles Eldredge and Gregory Eldredge

What’s a Nice Midwestern Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?
Andrew J. Petto

The Theory of Evolution is Not an Explanation for the Origin of Life
Justin W. Rice, Daniel A. Warner, Clint D. Kelly, Michael P. Clough and James T. Colbert

Three Wishes for Genie
Glenn Branch

The Evolution of Creationist Movements
Nicholas J. Matzke

Should Students Be Able to Opt Out of Evolution? Some Philosophical Considerations
Robert T. Pennock

It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Intelligent Design Movement’s Recycling of Creationist Strategies
Barbara Forrest

Lessons from the Social Psychology of Evolution Warfare: Good Science Alone is not Enough
Raymond Arthur Eve, Susan Carol Losh and Brandon Nzekwe

Cosmic Evolution
Lawrence M. Krauss

How Old is Earth, and How Do We Know?
Robert M. Hazen

How to Win the Evolution War: Teach Macroevolution!
Kevin Padian

From the Classroom to the Courtroom: Intelligent Design and the Constitution
Jay D. Wexler

Evolution—by the (Text) Book
Kenneth R. Miller

Apprehension and Pedagogy in Evolution Education
Brian Alters

Evolution and the Media
Carl Zimmer

Listening to Teachers
Eugenie C. Scott

Complete Bibliography of Eugenie C. Scott
Adam M. Goldstein and Glenn Branch

Communicating Evolution as Science
Anastasia Thanukos

Problem Concepts in Evolution Part II: Cause and Chance
Louise S. Mead and Eugenie C. Scott

Biosemantics: An Evolutionary Theory of Thought
Crystal L’Hôte

Darwinian Morality
Catherine Wilson

Geology as Theater: The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802–1856, by Ralph O’Connor
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 541. H/b $45.00.
Steven Newton

A Bulldog of Your Owen: The Philosophies Behind the Huxley–Owen Debate
Owen’s Ape and Darwin’s Bulldog: Beyond Darwinism and Creationism, by Christopher E. Cosans. Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 2009. Pp. xxvi + 166 P/b $21.95
David M. Lovelace

Richard Owen’s “Most Interesting Department of Natural History … Its Very Soul”
On the Nature of Limbs: A Discourse, by Richard Owen, edited by Ron Amundson, with a preface by Brian K. Hall, and introductory essays by Amundson, Kevin Padian, Mary P. Winsor, and Jennifer Coggon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. cii + 119. S/b $20.00.
Adam M. Goldstein

Thirteen Essays on Evolution and Creationism in Modern Debates
Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson (eds): Reading Genesis after Darwin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. xiv + 254. S/b $24.95
Kim Paffenroth

Not Just for Ornithologists
Speciation in Birds, by Trevor Price. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts and Company, 2007. Pp. x + 470. S/b $59.95
Beatrice Kondo

Paleontology and Evolution in the News
Sidney Horenstein

I have tried to tackle these in my previous series of reviews in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach. Sadly, despite some moves in the right direction, these are still not freely available from Springer.  (You may recall that I resigned as associate editor over the lack of access).

However, if you want to send a PDF to someone who is confused about these topics, you can get the papers at the links below.

Gregory, T.R. (2009).  Understanding natural selection: essential concepts and common misconceptions.  Evolution: Education and Outreach 2: 156-175.

Gregory, T.R. (2008). The evolution of complex organs.  Evolution: Education and Outreach 1: 358-389.

Gregory, T.R. (2008). Understanding evolutionary trees.  Evolution: Education and Outreach 1: 121-137.

Gregory, T.R. (2008).  Evolution as fact, theory, and path.  Evolution: Education and Outreach 1: 46-52.

Hack: A clever use of technology, software, or modified items to solve a problem or increase efficiency.


Academe: The community of scholars and students engaged in higher education and research; also known as academia or acadème.


Hackademe: A website devoted to sharing clever uses of technology, software, or modified items to solve problems related to information overload, time management, organization, productivity, and other challenges faced by academics on a daily basis.