Principles of Evolution

Course Description

Principles of Evolution is a survey of modern evolutionary biology, including the evidence that supports the theory of evolution, the natural processes that cause evolution, patterns and mechanisms of speciation, and methods for estimating evolutionary relationships.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, PCB is the Process Biology prefix. The University of West Florida publishes this at 3 semester hours through the Department of Biology, College of Science and Engineering. It is offered at approximately 3 Florida institutions.

Evolution is the organising theory of biology, and it is usually taught last. That ordering is deliberate rather than dismissive: genetics, ecology, development and molecular biology all supply evidence the course draws on, and the argument is far more convincing when a student already holds the pieces.

⚠ Note what UWF lists first — "the evidence that supports the theory." This is a course about how a scientific claim is established and tested, not only about what the claim says. That framing is worth taking seriously, because it is also the part most often misrepresented in public argument.

The methods component is quietly the most employable part. Phylogenetic inference — estimating evolutionary relationships from sequence data — is now routine in epidemiology, conservation genetics, forensic science and agriculture. Tracing a pathogen outbreak, identifying trafficked wildlife, and assigning a fish species to a market sample are all the same computation.

⚠ A word on the terminology, since it causes avoidable confusion: in science a theory is an explanatory framework supported by extensive evidence, not a guess. The colloquial and the scientific senses of the word are different, and conflating them is the root of a great deal of public misunderstanding.

⚠ The contact-hour figure is derived — the University of West Florida publishes none

UWF's catalog publishes a credit value in semester hours, the college and department, prerequisites and co-requisites, and fee notices. It does not publish contact hours, a lecture and laboratory split, or terms of offering for any course. Every contact-hour value in a UWF guide in this repository is derived. The figure applies the standard lecture convention of 15 contact hours per credit, giving 45 hours for 3 semester hours. Confirm the meeting schedule with the department.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the historical development of evolutionary theory.
• Describe the lines of evidence supporting evolution and evaluate their strength.
• Describe the fossil record and its interpretation and limits.
• Describe comparative anatomy, homology, and analogy.
• Describe molecular and genomic evidence for common descent.
• Describe biogeographic evidence and its interpretation.
• Describe the sources of genetic variation.
• Apply Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and state its assumptions.
• Describe natural selection and its modes.
• Describe genetic drift and the effects of population size.
• Describe gene flow, migration, and population structure.
• Describe mutation as an evolutionary process.
• Describe sexual selection and its consequences.
• Describe adaptation and evaluate adaptive explanations critically.
• Describe species concepts and their limitations.
• Describe mechanisms of speciation and reproductive isolation.
• Describe macroevolutionary patterns including extinction and radiation.
• Construct and interpret phylogenetic trees.
• Describe methods for estimating evolutionary relationships.
• Describe molecular clocks and their calibration and limits.
• Apply evolutionary reasoning to medicine, agriculture, and conservation.

Optional Outcomes

• Read and interpret a primary research paper in the field.
• Relate the material to a Florida ecosystem, organism, or health problem.
• Describe current research directions in the area.
• Describe how the material supports graduate or professional study.
• Seek undergraduate research experience related to the topic.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• History of evolutionary theory
• Evidence for evolution
• The fossil record
• Comparative anatomy, homology, analogy
• Molecular and genomic evidence
• Biogeography
• Sources of genetic variation
• Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
• Natural selection and its modes
• Genetic drift and population size
• Gene flow and population structure
• Mutation
• Sexual selection
• Adaptation and adaptationist reasoning
• Species concepts
• Speciation and reproductive isolation
• Macroevolution, extinction, radiation
• Phylogenetic tree construction and reading
• Methods of phylogenetic estimation
• Molecular clocks
• Applied evolutionary biology

Optional Topics

• Primary literature
• Florida applications
• Current research directions
• Graduate and professional preparation
• Undergraduate research

Resources & Tools

• An evolution text — Futuyma and Kirkpatrick's Evolution is the standard; Herron and Freeman's Evolutionary Analysis is the more problem-driven alternative.
• Understanding Evolution (evolution.berkeley.edu) — free; the best general-audience treatment available, and particularly good on the misconceptions students arrive with.
• MEGA software (megasoftware.net) — free; phylogenetic analysis you can run yourself on real sequence data, and the standard teaching tool for this.
• NCBI and BLAST — free; pull real sequences and build a tree from them. Doing this once makes phylogenetics concrete in a way no lecture does.
• Nextstrain (nextstrain.org) — free; live phylogenetic tracking of pathogen evolution, and the clearest demonstration that this is an operational science rather than a historical one.
• The Tree of Life Web Project and Open Tree of Life — free; current phylogenetic hypotheses across all of life.
• NCBI (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) — free; PubMed, GenBank, BLAST and the rest of the toolkit, used professionally rather than only pedagogically.
• A UWF librarian — included in enrolment; an hour on database searching pays for itself across a whole degree.

Career Pathways

• Biological technicians — SOC 19-4021; the common direct entry point with a bachelor's degree.
• Biological scientists — SOC 19-1020; ⚠ independent research roles generally require a doctorate, and this is worth knowing early rather than late.
• Medical and clinical laboratory technologists — SOC 29-2011; ⚠ note that Florida licenses clinical laboratory personnel, so a biology degree alone does not permit bench work in a clinical laboratory — see the MLS prefix guides.
• Biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry — research associate, quality control and manufacturing roles; molecular technique competence is the entry currency.
• Environmental and conservation science — SOC 19-2041; Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, water management districts, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and consulting firms.
• Marine and coastal science — a genuine Florida strength, including NOAA, Florida Sea Grant, Mote Marine Laboratory and the estuarine programmes on the Gulf coast near UWF.
• Public health laboratories — the Florida Department of Health Bureau of Public Health Laboratories.
• Science teaching — SOC 25-2031; ⚠ Florida K-12 teaching requires state certification that a biology degree alone does not provide.
• Professional and graduate pathways — medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, physician assistant, pharmacy, and research doctorates. This prefix is the core of a pre-health undergraduate plan.
• ⚠ An honest note on laboratory experience. Coursework laboratories are necessary and not sufficient — undergraduate research with a faculty member is what distinguishes a competitive graduate or professional applicant, and it is arranged by asking, usually earlier than students think.

Special Information

⚠⚠ The queue title says "Honors"; UWF's course is not an honors course

• The statewide inventory title for this number carries the word "Honors." UWF publishes it as a regular upper-division course with no honors designation.
• The likely explanation is that another Florida institution offers this number through an honors programme, and that institution's title entered the inventory. The number is not inherently an honors number.
• ⚠ If you need this course to satisfy an honors requirement, confirm it with your honors programme — honors credit generally depends on the section being designated as such at the offering institution, not on the course number.
• This does not affect transfer of the course itself. SCNS equivalency runs on the number and the content, and the honors designation is a separate institutional layer on top.

⚠ Offered concurrently with the graduate PCB5675

• UWF teaches this alongside PCB5675, with graduate students assigned additional work. The pattern is routine at UWF and is confined to 4000-level courses across the corpus.
• The effect on an undergraduate is a section with graduate students in it and reading pitched to work at both levels. Undergraduate requirements are lower by design — the differential is in the additional graduate work.
• ⚠ For a student considering graduate study it is a useful preview, and the instructor sees you working next to the standard you would be held to.

⚠⚠ The asterisk in a UWF prerequisite means the course may be taken at the same time

• UWF marks a concurrent course with an asterisk, defined on the catalog's Course Information page as: "This course may be taken prior to or during the same term."
• ⚠ A prerequisite written WITHOUT an asterisk must be completed first; one written WITH an asterisk may be taken in the same term. Reading an asterisked prerequisite as sequential adds a term for no reason.
• UWF also uses an explicit Co-requisite: field, which is the stricter form — conventionally meaning the same term rather than prior-or-same. Both notations appear in this prefix.
• Confirm with an advisor; the registration system, not the catalog text, is what enforces it.

⚠⚠ Biology laboratory safety

• Know the location of the eyewash, safety shower, fire extinguisher and spill kit before you start work. That is a real instruction rather than a formality.
• ⚠ Eye protection and a lab coat are required, closed shoes are required, and never eat, drink or store food in a laboratory.
• Microbiological work is conducted at the containment level the organism requires, and ⚠ cultures are never opened outside the appropriate containment. Everything is autoclaved or disinfected before disposal.
• ⚠⚠ Human tissue, blood and body fluids are handled under Standard Precautions and are treated as infectious regardless of source. Sharps go into a sharps container at the point of use, and needles are never recapped by hand.
• Chemical hazards are real in a molecular laboratory — some nucleic acid stains and fixatives are mutagenic or carcinogenic, and phenol and chloroform cause chemical burns. Read the safety data sheet before first use, not after.
• ⚠ Ultraviolet transilluminators cause eye and skin burns; use the shield.
• Report every spill, cut and exposure immediately, however minor it seems.
• Tell the instructor if you are pregnant or immunocompromised; several standard laboratory materials and organisms warrant substitution.

Course format and position in the curriculum

• Lecture with examinations and problem work.
• ⚠ No "permission is required" marking appears anywhere in the PCB prefix, unlike UWF's clinical health prefixes — enrolment is gated by prerequisites rather than by cohort admission.
• UWF publishes no contact hours, lecture and laboratory split, or terms of offering for any course. Confirm the offering pattern with the department.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement. ⚠ For biology the specific transfer hazard is the split-versus-integrated question: UWF numbers lecture and laboratory separately where many institutions use one C course, and SCNS equivalency does not cross numbers. Carry a syllabus, and expect a transfer evaluation of either half to be done by hand.

PCB4673 is 3 semester hours at the University of West Florida.