Rating: 
- Makes evolutionary biology interesting
Evolutionary biology can be extremely tedious for undergraduate students if one insists on teaching the more arcane debates as Fisher versus Shifting Balance. That might be good for a second course for future professionals, but if one starts with such stuff, students will lose all the interest in evolution they came with.
Evolutionary Analysis is interesting, wel-informed and up to date, and is meant for general biologists. It cannot be used as a reference book for neo-darwinian debates, so the better.
Rating:
- horrible
Bought this one for Evolution class. It is a horrible excuse for a textbook. Do not buy this book unless it is for a middle school student. If the authors think this book has been written for an advanced audience, then I would suggest that anyone interested in learning evolution not attend University of Washington.
Rating: - Please use a better text, if you are an instructor
So there is a new evolution instructor at our school and he is using this text and lecturing out of it directly - ie no supplementation with other material. Very bad combination, boring simple lectures on what is actually a complex interesting topic. It would be different if the text was comprehensive and challenging but it is not.
Positives of the text:
Easy to ready
Entertaining examples
Negatives of the text:
1.Very, very frustratingly simplistic
2.Overlooks controversial topics or only presents one side of an issue. Example, no coverage of Wright's shifting balanced theory as opposing Fisher's mass selection theory. Doesn't even indicate there IS another theory out there.
3.Simplifies primary literature. Does not detail assumptions or boundaries of experiments.
4.Inadequate index and glossary (for example, epistatis, is in neither)
The entire book reminds me of justso stories my mama read to me as a wee pup, not a scientific examination of evolution.
The authors say this is book is at undergraduate level. But given the lack of complexity and depth, I'd say it is more suited for say an 5-6th grade class level.
Rating: - This book is like a lazy college student's lab report:
This book is all long winded examples and no depth. Whenever I want depth I go back to my freshman (actually high school) campbell book. Does that sound a little strange to you? A student taking a course on evolution (yes an advanced one as the lectures are QUITE difficult to follow) looking at campbell for depth when he has a text with a formidable sounding name like Evolutionary Analysis? It is true. This book reminds me of the crap I write to fool my lab graduate TA into thinking I actually know what I am doing in my lab reports. The authors start out chapters and subsections with fascinating titles, they make you think you are about to learn something fantastic from them and then let you down at the end, they never quite get to the punchline of any topic they discuss. Not to be forgotten is the ridiculous amount of time they spend defending evolution from creationism. There is no place in a course on evolution for the stupidity of religion. They don't discuss this religious crap in a course on neuroscience,why should they discuss it in a course on evolution? There is a certain university on long island whose professors use this book, I hope you two read this and realize what a mistake you've made in choosing it for your course, It is not worth the liquid the ink was dissolved in before its printing. I FEEL BAD GIVING IT ONE STAR, BUT I CANNOT CHOOSE ZERO, I'll try and make myself feel better by saying that the star is for its pretty cover and that cool hologram on the back that says "genuine authentic valid security"
Rating: - Disheveled
I have to use this book for my evolution class. Ideally, I think an introductory book should include primarily theory with a minimum of examples. The few examples should be detailed enough to present all the caveats of the research. In this respect, this book fails miserably. The book is packed with plenty of examples that draw from recently published papers, each of which is oversimplified in a failed attempt to reach a wider audience. The broad scope of ecology makes it possible to argue almost any point using examples from a few papers, even if the point lacks validity.
Consecutive subsections are reasonably comprehensive, but they are never connected explicitly. IMO, the math presented requires reform - not because the techniques aren't presented accurately - but because better methods are available and this textbook does not give the readers the tools necessary to generalize the math presented.
- Makes evolutionary biology interestingEvolutionary biology can be extremely tedious for undergraduate students if one insists on teaching the more arcane debates as Fisher versus Shifting Balance. That might be good for a second course for future professionals, but if one starts with such stuff, students will lose all the interest in evolution they came with.
Evolutionary Analysis is interesting, wel-informed and up to date, and is meant for general biologists. It cannot be used as a reference book for neo-darwinian debates, so the better.
Rating:
- horribleBought this one for Evolution class. It is a horrible excuse for a textbook. Do not buy this book unless it is for a middle school student. If the authors think this book has been written for an advanced audience, then I would suggest that anyone interested in learning evolution not attend University of Washington.
Rating:
- Please use a better text, if you are an instructorSo there is a new evolution instructor at our school and he is using this text and lecturing out of it directly - ie no supplementation with other material. Very bad combination, boring simple lectures on what is actually a complex interesting topic. It would be different if the text was comprehensive and challenging but it is not.
Positives of the text:
Easy to ready
Entertaining examples
Negatives of the text:
1.Very, very frustratingly simplistic
2.Overlooks controversial topics or only presents one side of an issue. Example, no coverage of Wright's shifting balanced theory as opposing Fisher's mass selection theory. Doesn't even indicate there IS another theory out there.
3.Simplifies primary literature. Does not detail assumptions or boundaries of experiments.
4.Inadequate index and glossary (for example, epistatis, is in neither)
The entire book reminds me of justso stories my mama read to me as a wee pup, not a scientific examination of evolution.
The authors say this is book is at undergraduate level. But given the lack of complexity and depth, I'd say it is more suited for say an 5-6th grade class level.
Rating:
- This book is like a lazy college student's lab report:This book is all long winded examples and no depth. Whenever I want depth I go back to my freshman (actually high school) campbell book. Does that sound a little strange to you? A student taking a course on evolution (yes an advanced one as the lectures are QUITE difficult to follow) looking at campbell for depth when he has a text with a formidable sounding name like Evolutionary Analysis? It is true. This book reminds me of the crap I write to fool my lab graduate TA into thinking I actually know what I am doing in my lab reports. The authors start out chapters and subsections with fascinating titles, they make you think you are about to learn something fantastic from them and then let you down at the end, they never quite get to the punchline of any topic they discuss. Not to be forgotten is the ridiculous amount of time they spend defending evolution from creationism. There is no place in a course on evolution for the stupidity of religion. They don't discuss this religious crap in a course on neuroscience,why should they discuss it in a course on evolution? There is a certain university on long island whose professors use this book, I hope you two read this and realize what a mistake you've made in choosing it for your course, It is not worth the liquid the ink was dissolved in before its printing. I FEEL BAD GIVING IT ONE STAR, BUT I CANNOT CHOOSE ZERO, I'll try and make myself feel better by saying that the star is for its pretty cover and that cool hologram on the back that says "genuine authentic valid security"
Rating:
- DisheveledI have to use this book for my evolution class. Ideally, I think an introductory book should include primarily theory with a minimum of examples. The few examples should be detailed enough to present all the caveats of the research. In this respect, this book fails miserably. The book is packed with plenty of examples that draw from recently published papers, each of which is oversimplified in a failed attempt to reach a wider audience. The broad scope of ecology makes it possible to argue almost any point using examples from a few papers, even if the point lacks validity.
Consecutive subsections are reasonably comprehensive, but they are never connected explicitly. IMO, the math presented requires reform - not because the techniques aren't presented accurately - but because better methods are available and this textbook does not give the readers the tools necessary to generalize the math presented.