This week on the Fossil Friday. I answer a special request from last week’s winner, Gerald Wilgus. Gerald thought we’ve had too many invertebrates lately, and maybe we should throw the vertebrate people a bone—no pun intended! So this week, I bring you some not-so-tiny toes! These…
There are probably better motivations for reading William Jennings Bryan’s In His Image (1922) than wanting to avoid unpacking boxes, but needs must when the devil drives. The book contains Bryan’s James Sprunt Lectures, delivered in 1921 at the Union Theological Seminary in Richmond,…
The British government recently clarified and extended its ban on teaching creationism in academies, according to a June 18, 2014, press release from the British Humanist Association, which congratulated the government "on its robust stand on this issue." Academies, including free schools…
This post was written by Stephanie Keep and Peter Hess. When comforting our children at the doctor’s office after a shot, we can say, “I know it hurts, but it’s better than getting sick.” Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who don’t feel the same way. California has just…
The Discovery Institute’s Evolution News and Views blog was recently pleased that there are now five hundred reviews on Amazon.com for Stephen C. Meyer’s screed Darwin’s Doubt (2013). I don’t begrudge the anonymous author his or her pleasure. There wasn’t much in the legislative season…
Last week on Fossil Friday, I gave you a fickle footprint fossil to figure out. What could have left those tiny impressions? Turns out it was a prehistoric spider! Wired magazine has the scoop: "These are footprints left behind when a tarantula-size arachnid crawled over the sand of…
Eugenie C. Scott Eugenie C. Scott, the former executive director of NCSE and the current chair of its Advisory Council, will receive a Presidential Citation for Science and Society from the American Geophysical Union at a reception in Washington DC on June 17, 2014. The award…
My family has had a long relationship with England. My grandmother did theater with Vivian Leigh and Lawrence Olivier in the late 1930s and left only when she had to due to the approach of WW II. She and my grandfather bought a house in Kent in 1960 and my dad more or less grew up there. My…
Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, Claremont, California. This week on Fossil Friday, I bring you, by special request, a trace fossil. What is a trace fossil? Well, it's a fossil that doesn't show the organism's structure itself, but rather its activity. Trace fossils …