Science Is Constantly Evolving
Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.
Are we heading for a radically altered, roasty-toasty, potentially unlivable planet? Or might we make choices to steer toward a future Earth that is warmer than today but much more livable than the hot-house version? And given such starkly different scenarios, how do we convey the risks and…
Genie Scott and I share a fondness for the songs of Tom Lehrer, the satirical songwriter of the 1960s. The NCSE holiday party where we were prevailed upon to sing his Christmas carol (“Christmas time is here, by golly, / Disapproval would be folly / Deck the halls with hunks of holly / Fill the cup…
Today, November 12, 2013, is the forty-fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Epperson v. Arkansas, which struck down a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in Arkansas’s public schools. The Arkansas law provided: It shall be unlawful for any teacher or other…
In honor of the 100th anniversary of Alfred Russel Wallace’s death, I thought I’d post an essay I wrote for a special biogeography issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach. Wallace, in addition to being a co-discoverer of evolution through natural selection, is also the father of…
Last week, in a desperate attempt to do anything but a skull, I gave you an invertebrate specimen from our planet's past. Who was this delightful shrimp-like creature? It was the infamous Waptia fieldensis from the Burgess Shale in what is now British Columbia. According to the…
What do Canadians think about climate change? "Relative to respondents in the U.S., Canadians are more convinced that climate change is occurring, more concerned about it, and more willing to pay to address the issue," according to a researcher quoted in a November 6, 2013, press release from…
Photograph by Steve Newton Congrats! You survived the month-long Day of the Dead Skull-a-thon. In celebration of our first non-skull Fossil Friday in a long time, I decided to go non-vertebrate...or rather, invertebrate, as some might say. Who was this lucky fellow?…
A friend e-mailed the other day wondering just how many people in the United States are young-earth creationists. The answer begins with a question the Gallup poll has been asking since the early ’80s: Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development…
Genie Scott to retire; Ann Reid to take the reins Ann Reid is joining NCSE as Executive Director, starting January 2, 2014. She will replace Eugenie C. Scott, who has led NCSE in fighting the good fight for science education for 27 years. As a molecular biologist at the Armed Forces…