Science Is Constantly Evolving
Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.
In Miller’s Crossing (1990), one of my favorite movies of all time, the corrupt chief of police O’Doole speculates that the boss of the town, Leo O’Bannon, is losing his grip, whereupon O’Bannon’s right-hand man Tom Reagan reproaches him, ending, “there are plenty of coppers I know who…
I love desktop sticky notes. I use them for everything, including keeping track of ideas for Misconception Monday posts. At the top of the stack is this: “Things that people think are controversial but aren’t (peppered moth, horse evolution, embryos, etc.).” I realize, however, that these topics…
This week on Fossil Friday, I went out on a limb and gave you what I thought would be an easy paw of an answer. But no—people actually found this one tricky! We got a vote for a Dimetrodon and a vote for a Eusuchia, but a mystery guest was the first to get the…
The physicist and popular science writer Victor J. Stenger died on August 27, 2014, at the age of 79, according to the Friendly Atheist blog (August 29, 2014). Toward the end of his long career as a research scientist, Stenger began devoting his efforts toward popular writing. He continued…
Worried that K-12 students aren't learning about climate change? Guess what—neither are college grads. Grads with BS and MS and PhD degrees in biology, ecology, and related subjects. At least, it seems that way.At a recent Ecological Society of America conference, I interviewed scores of…
This week on the Fossil Friday, I give you one more item from our fossil friend, Gerald. This one I love—long, thin phalanges with nails that are deeply in need of a manicure. Can you tell from this photo what it was? Any guesses what it ate? How it moved? Where it lived? Doing some research…
I really wanted this next installment to be a Well Said! But then I found this short video in the It’s Okay To Be Smart series, produced by PBS Digital Studios, and I couldn’t resist. The video starts off with the narrator, Joe Hanson (a Ph.D. in biology, for what it’s worth), introducing…
NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of Seth B. Darling and Douglas L. Sisterson's How to Change Minds about Our Changing Climate (The Experiment, 2014). The preview consists of chapter 9, "Climate is too complex to model or predict," in which Darling and Sisterson discuss "the…
In my last post, “The Curious Incident of the Fly in the Night,” I told a story about Mimi Shirasu-Hiza as an example of how scientists sometimes find that—in Shirasu-Hiza’s words—“what might look like ‘noise’ is potentially ‘signal’.’” Noting that her fruit flies were more likely to get sick and…