Major Transitions in Evolution

By: Anthony Martin, John Hawks, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Anthony Martin, John Hawks

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Imagine a world without bees, butterflies, and flowering plants. That was Earth 125 million years ago. Turn back the clock 400 million years, and there were no trees. At 450 million years in the past, even the earliest insects had not yet developed. And looking back 500 million years, the land was devoid of life, which at that time flourished in a profusion of strange forms in the oceans.

These and other major turning points are the amazing story of evolution. Given the broad scope of the subject, this course is taught by two professors: Anthony Martin, a paleontologist and geologist at Emory University, and John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each is an outstanding teacher in his field, adept at making the subject interesting and accessible no matter what your background in science.

In 24 lavishly illustrated lectures, you will learn about Earth’s major transitions, each of which brought forth new possibilities for life. You will study the conditions that led to the first complex cells, flying insects, flowering plants, mammals, modern humans, and many other breakthroughs. And in the process of studying the past, you will gain a powerful understanding of the present world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2010 The Great Courses (P)2010 The Teaching Company, LLC

Excellent Course!

I love the evolution courses, especially anything with John Hawks in it. If there were two recommendations I could make to the Great Courses, they would be 1) make more of these available through Amazon’s Signature Collection, so that more people can afford to stream the visuals, which is rather important when the professors are describing fossils. The other would be to add more period-specific courses, such as a course just on the Mesozoic or Cenozoic. I would love to get some Deep History Courses that are more in-depth!

Exceptional Instructors

This Great Course material along with Drs. Martin and Hawks is extraordinary. Twelve hours plus of content may seem long, but the story of the evolution of life on Earth including human evolution is the greatest epic known to humanity (save for maybe the origins of our Universe).

Great

Very much enjoyed lectures, both instructors seemed genuinely interested in subject and eager to share information.

Excellent With One Exception

This is a REALLY good series aurally; however, the PDF is quite disappointing and woefully inadequate.
The lecturers (who are excellent and still manage to be comprehensible) often refer to cladograms and other images which are not in the PDF. Take the PDF out of the equation: an overall five star review. Separately rate the PDF: pretty much two stars; three stars at the absolute maximum. I must note, however, when one considers this handicap, an overall four star rating with information that they still manage to convey with relative clarity is a remarkable achievement.

great lectures, listener must find other visuals

many photos referenced, not in pdf, but easy to find what you need on Google

Still, the subject material is extremely cool and well explained. I've read or listened to a lot of high level evolution/deep time books. and this was my favorite.

Engaging and wanting to know more about Deep Time!

A very informative and enjoyable audiobook. A good introduction on Biology and the beauty of evolution, however, one thing missing for me is the lack of picture samples on the PDF, which the narrator mentions on each lectures. If you're not familiar with the sample he mentioned, you literally need to search it just to have an idea of what the narrator is saying but overall it's a good listen and leaving you excited for the next lecture.

Mostly excellent course but missing few key points.

Covered most of what I wanted to learn but skipped over grasses for instance. Also would’ve liked to hear more about eukaryote beginning

Thorough and Engrossing

it is a very interesting and informative series of lectures. An easy listen on stuff that has a habit of getting dull and laborious

great course

I enjoyed the breadth and explanations of of the interconnectedness of the fossil record. Great book to listen to.

In depth and generally well done

There are two instructors in this course and they cover a lot of details concerning evolution. I found it easy to understand the lecturers and the material was informative.