“When the Paleontological Research Institution opened its Museum of the Earth in 2003, its director Warren Allmon realized that the floor educators and volunteer docents needed accessible, accurate, and current information on evolution. This volume updates the original, in terms of both new scientific advances and external legal and social events,” writes reviewer Robert “Mac” West.

“Natural scientists … often react with disbelief and dismay when they read polls about how many Americans do not believe in human evolution and resist its teaching in public schools. They’re not sure what (if anything) can be done about it in our exceptionally religious-minded society,” writes reviewer George F. Bishop. “But it may take highly capable political scientists, such as Berkman and Plutzer, to pave the way to effective reform by telling us what goes on behind those classroom doors, and why.

Reviewer Steve Rissing describes the writing of The Tangled Bank as “clear, concise, and very user-friendly,” its science as “remarkably current and complete” and its art as “fantastic [and] surprisingly ample and effectively colorful.”

Published in 1998 under the auspices of the National Academies of Science, which provides authoritative scientific advice to the federal government, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science is addressed to "the teachers, other educators, and policy makers who design, deliver, and oversee classroom instruction in biology. It summarizes the overwhelming observational evidence for evolution and suggests effective ways of teaching the subject. It explains the nature of science and describes how science differs from other human endeavors.