As part of its efforts to encourage and support members of the clergy who acknowledge the scientific importance of evolution, the Clergy Letter Project is seeking scientists who are excited about the possibility of explaining the beauty and power of science to clergy members and their parishioners…
Nick Matzke, Public Information Project Director, is leaving NCSE to begin a PhD program at the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He came to NCSE in early 2004, planning to spend a year here before starting a PhD program; we feel fortunate to have had him…
Writing in The Smart Set -- a new independent on-line magazine supported by Drexel University and named for the literary magazine that flourished in the 1920s -- Jesse Smith relates his trip to Answers in Genesis's Creation Museum. Bookending his visit with trips to Big Bone Lick…
In a press release dated August 7, 2007, the Texas Freedom Network accused Don McLeroy, who recently was appointed as the new chair of the Texas state Board of Education, of harboring "a shocking hostility to both sound science education and religious tolerance." TFN's charge was based on the…
Norma Gabler, the conservative textbook activist, died on July 22, 2007, at the age of 84, in Phoenix, Arizona. Born Norma Elizabeth Rhodes in Garrett, Texas, on June 16, 1923, she married Mel Gabler (1915-2004) in 1942. The couple was known for their critiques of textbooks used in Texas's…
The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology expressed its concern about the misrepresentation of science in Answers in Genesis's creation "museum" in a press release issued on July 17, 2007. "The Creation Museum's fossil exhibitions, though artistically impressive, include a vast number of…
NCSE's Education Project Director Louise Mead will be teaching a course on teaching evolution, on-line through Montana State University, from September 17 to December 7, 2007. The course description: Evolution is a powerful and generative concept that is fundamental to a modern understanding…
Speaking to a group of Italian priests on July 24, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI again addressed the topic of evolution. Referring to debates over creationism in Germany and the United States, he suggested that evolution and belief in God the creator are presented "as if they were alternatives that are…
Paleontologist Kevin Padian reviews (subscription required) three books about Kitzmiller v. Dover, in which teaching "intelligent design" creationism in the public schools was found to be unconstitutional, in the July 19, 2007, issue of Nature (448: 253-254). "A gullible and…