Jeff's Lunchbreak: Recommended Reading

Tree of Life I write quite a bit about evolution, but if you're new to this site or the subject of evolution, it might be a little overwhelming to just browse through the site and read the articles at random. So, this page offers some recommendations on entries to start off with, to give you a good foundation before moving on. I very strongly recommend reading the first five essays in the Foundation section. And if you happen to doubt evolution for religious reasons, and have seen presentations or read material from some of the more prominent creationists (e.g. Answers in Genesis, Kent Hovind, Discovery Institute, etc.), then I'd also recommended the entries from the 'Responses to Misunderstandings and Creationist Arguments' section.

The Foundation

Understanding Evolution - The Basics
This covers mostly concepts and theory without delving too much into evidence, but these are key concepts to understand about evolution. Understanding these concepts will help greatly in understanding all the other essays.
Understanding Evolution - Development of Eyes
This explains some important concepts about the branching pattern of evolution, using the development of eyes as an example.
Understanding Evolution - Origin of Limbs
This entry looks at the evolution of limbs as an example of how complex traits can evolve through small, incremental changes.
Understanding Evolution - Transitional Forms
This entry offers many examples of transitional forms. It's not so much in depth as a broad overview.
Ein Sophistry's Genetic Evidence of Evolution
This gets a little technical, but offers one of the best brief explanations of why evolution is so likely, including just the right amount of actual, hard data.

Exploring Other Evolutionary Concepts

Understanding Evolution - The Big Picture of Geologic Time
Explores just how long 4.5 billion years really is, as well as highlighting some of the major events throughout the history of Earth.
Understanding Evolution - Balancing Selection Pressures, Or Why All Features Are Tradeoffs
Explores selection pressures, and why every trait of an organism is a compromise.
Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? And a Discussion of the Fuzziness of Species
This is very useful for understanding how fuzzy the concept of 'species' actually is.
Genetic Evidence for Evolution - Vitamin C Pseudogene
A look at pseudogenes, and how they are strongly indicative of universal common descent (similar to Ein Sophistry's Genetic Evidence of Evolution, but focused on just one example).
Understanding Evolution - How Humans and Apes Fit Into the Tree of Life
A little clarification on how humans and other apes are related, and how we all fit into the bigger tree of life.
If Humans Went Extinct, Would Something Like Us Evolve Again
Highlights how the evolution of humans is not inevitable, or some target for evolution to reach. Also covers the concept of 'convergent evolution'.
Evolution in Action - Visualizing Bacteria Evolving Antibiotic Resistance
A case study in how mutation and selection can change a population.
Evolution in Action - The Ongoing Speciation Event of Apple Maggot Flies
An example of how speciation occurs, and that even though it may be 'sudden' in geologic time, it's still gradual in human terms.

Responses to Misunderstandings and Creationist Arguments

The first two of these are probably the most informative. They're also rather long. I took the time to respond in decent detail to a myriad of misunderstandings and misconceptions about evolution. The third is offered as a kind of example of the bad arguments many creationists use.

22 Responses to 22 Creationist Misconceptions
Just like the title suggests - address 22 creationist misconceptions, mostly about evolution, but a handful about the Big Bang.
A Response to Ben Carson's Creation vs. Evolution Video
Carson gave a presentation where he used many common misunderstandings about evolution, and this entry responds to most of them. Also touches on the Big Bang.
Response to Kent Hovind Video - Bird Evolution
A look at bird evolution, with a good deal of focus on archaeopteryx. This offers one of the worst examples of dishonest creationist tactics.

Further Reading, This Site

I've written quite a bit more about evolution and creationism. You can find most of it in the following archives.

Science & Nature Archive
Evolution will be mixed in here along with a variety of other science topics. These entries tend to be more straight science.
Skepticism, Religion Archive
These tend to be focused on skepticism, so the evolution related articles mixed in here will be more in response to creationists.
My Quora Profile
Okay, this isn't exactly this site, but I do write a bit about evolution on Quora, and only adapt some of those answers for this blog. Evolution related answers will be mixed in with all my other Quor answers.

Further Reading, Other Sources

I'm actually going to link to a Quora answer I wrote with those types of sources. You can also see what others suggested.

Image Source: DavidPratt.info