Science is a process for learning about the natural world, and also the knowledge generated through this process.

One of the most challenging concepts in thinking about evolution is the idea of "deep time," the profoundly different timescale involved in geological and evolutionary processes than those we deal with in our daily lives. It is rare for those of us in North America to see buildings that are more than 100 years old. If the geological history of the world were represented by the height of the Empire State Building, the time since mastodons walked across North America 14,000 years ago would be represented by the thickness of a single dime.

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Understanding why living organisms resemble each other has fascinated human beings for millennia, long before evolution provided a unifying concept for biology.

The word "evolution" can evoke a variety of meanings, especially for students and members of the general public. For some, evolution is equated with natural selection. Others think that evolution addresses the origin of life. Still others impose a distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Part of the issue stems from an unclear understanding of what evolution is in a scientific sense.

By Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams