Science Is Constantly Evolving
Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.
Biblical fundamentalists and their opponents on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum of belief often share one significant assumption: in order to contribute to modern science you have to be an atheist. That is, you cannot at the same time believe in a personal God and accept the scientific…
It is a credit to the professionalism of the staff at the California State Library in Sacramento that my request for a bound volume of the journal The Mariner’s Mirror from 1975—a request, I’m willing to wager, unique in their experience—raised not a single eyebrow. Had they asked,…
Last week I received an invitation from the White House to attend the launch of the National Climate Assessment on May 6th. After checking my busy schedule to see if there were any pressing conflicts (there were oddly none), and getting Secret Service clearance (I passed—phew!), I now find…
NCSE's Mark McCaffrey will be discussing the educational use of the third National Climate Assessment at a panel in the White House on May 6, 2014. The panel will be streamed live from the White House between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. (Eastern) on May 6, 2014; McCaffrey’s presentation will take…
Photo Credit: Scott..? via Compfight cc Last week on Fossil Friday, I introduced you to what I thought would be an easily identified fossil! It's one that everyone knows and most people love, so I tried to make it tricky by supplying as little information as possible. Maybe too little! No one…
I recently wrote a review of New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, and had a chance to chat with Kolbert about the book for about half an hour. The bulk of the interview, covering de-extinction and conservation planning and how…
On slow and rainy days over at the paleontology museum, I often slip into the back archives to poke around. Opening drawers can be a mystery in itself—will I find myself diving into a cabinet full of marsupial teeth, camelops bone fragments, T. rex toes? The fossil for this week is…
“Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me” —Traditional mnemonic for stellar classification Pickering's "Harem." Back row (L to R): Margaret Harwood (far left), Mollie O'Reilly, Edward C. Pickering, Edith Gill, Annie Jump Cannon, Evelyn Leland (behind Cannon), Florence Cushman, Marion Whyte…
What is it with the surname Moore? It’s common, of course: the eighteenth most common surname in the United States according to the census results for 2000. Even so, the creationism/evolution controversy seems to attract more than its share of Moores: James Moore, the author (with Adrian Desmond…