Re: Children's Book: Suggestions Solicited

[Stephen Schellenberg <schellen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Oops, I meant "Scala Naturae", not "Scalae Naturae", but I really missed
my own point! Yes, as Matt Fraser just commented, Roy's title is "cool"
and one must engage student interest first. I was mainly concerned with
the usage of "climb", which is often interpreted as movement TOWARDS
something (i.e., teleology). For example, "climb the mountain" is often
interpreted in terms of a goal, that is, TO GET TO THE TOP.  Of course,
this goal-oriented approach has been (hopefully) completely abandoned in
historical science and I am largely preaching to the choir. 

Robert O'Hara has published a neat paper that may be of interest for
teaching evolutionary history to students, regardless of level. Heck,
O'Hara even refers to the US cartoon characters found on many of our
office doors: Calvin and Hobbs! 

O'Hara, R. J., 1992. Telling the tree: Narrative representation and the
study of evolutionary history: Biology and Philosophy 7:135-160.

Stephen

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Stephen A. Schellenberg
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Southern California	213.740.5818 Office
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740		213.740.8801  Fax

Negativism to the pain and ferocity of life is negativism to life.