Science Is Constantly Evolving
Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.
How would you like to be confronted with a pop quiz on day one of a class? If the thought doesn’t make you giddy with competitive vim and vigor, be glad that you aren’t taking introductory biology at Brandeis University with professor James Morris. Morris, coauthor of the textbook Biology: How…
A recent article in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Siege of Miami,” details disturbing consequences of sea level rise in Florida. The future will bring higher seas, but we normally think of climate change consequences happening nearer to the year 2100, an…
When writing up the Fossil Friday post last week, I was tempted to give a clue, but then thought better of it. You guys don’t need clues, right? Plus the clue I wanted to drop would have narrowed the field too much. What I would have said was, “This creature’s backbone is a thing of beauty.” And…
From flooding in Florida to digging into the evolution of dogs, this week’s reading contains plenty of big issues, so you may not really need the magnifying glass—although the glass of beer (or is it cola?) may still be welcome! The Siege of Miami, The New Yorker, December 21 and 28,…
Ooh, have I got a good one for you this week! A personal favorite, actually, and no, it’s not a sloth (sorry, Steve). The first person to guess it gets all the bragging rights…
Have you ever wondered how to address climate change, or even just fossil fuels and energy, with young students? A complex and potentially heated topic, many people have argued that elementary school is too early to talk about these issues. Some teachers might even try to avoid the potential…
Chapter 5 of Hell and the High Schools (1923), T. T. (the initials are for Thomas Theodore) Martin’s unforgettably titled indictment of the teaching of evolution, is “Evolution Repudiated by Great Scientists and Scholars.” It contains, as is usual in creationist books of the Scopes era…
Public opinion about climate change was reviewed in the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators (PDF) 2016. Climate change, according to the NSB's report, "remains a central, and often divisive, environmental issue for the American public." The report…
Public opinion about evolution and the Big Bang was reviewed in the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators (PDF) 2016. In the 2014 General Social Survey, respondents were asked whether "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals"…