Interested in updating your evolution lectures? Pressured to address religiously-based "alternatives" to the theory of evolution? Come check out evolution education in the 21st century. A session at the 2008 California Science Education Conference.

In working on the front lines of the creation/evolution fight, NCSE's Josh Rosenau has found that creationist arguments rely on widespread misconceptions about science and about evolution in particular. Just as parasites exploit weaknesses to gain access to new hosts, creationist ideas spread by preying on these misconceptions. By clearing up those misconceptions, we can help prevent those bad ideas from spreading.

Josh Rosenau and Peter Hess, staffers at the National Center for Science Education, describe the threat creationist attacks on evolution education pose to our society, and the ways in which religion can aid in the defense of science education.

Hess is NCSE's Faith Project Director, and Rosenau is NCSE's Public Information Project Director. They will be speaking at a dinner hosted by Seattle's Society for Sensible Explanations, a skeptic group based in the Puget Sound Area. There is an admission fee, which will cover the cost of your entree.

Over the course of two thousand years of Catholic tradition, the world view of the Christian West has changed quite beyond recognition. The geocentric cosmos serving as backdrop for the biblical drama of human salvation has disappeared, working a progressive and profoundly dislocating affect since the Middle Ages. But beneath the changing form of the natural sciences, there are at least two constants in the Catholic view of the world: creation is perceived as fundamentally good, and the unity of knowledge is an ideal for which we must strive. This talk will explore the theme of the integrity of the Catholic world view during the formative years of modern science, and how that integrity can help us navigate increasingly turbulent waters of science, religion, and ethics.