Science Is Constantly Evolving
Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.
As the tenth anniversary of Kitzmiller v. Dover approaches, the York Daily Record (September 11, 2015) devoted a suite of stories to the landmark case, which established the unconstitutionality of teaching “intelligent design” creationism in the public schools. "Q&A with…
A basic understanding of evolution lets us know that we are all descended, with modifications, from a common ancestor. If we trace our lineage back far enough we will find our kinship with fish over 400 million years ago (mya). Moving forward in time from our formerly fishy selves, we find…
Like my last fossil, a common everyday trilobite, this specimen came from the Hunsrueck slate in Germany. You can see the fool’s-gold color typical of pyritization a bit better here. But what is it? I’ve told you the locality (and therefore the age), so I’m not going to feel bad that there is no…
Thomas Henry Huxley’s admiration of William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802) is relatively obscure, at least in comparison to that of Charles Darwin (who wrote to a friend just before the Origin was published, “I do not think I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley’s…
NCSE is pleased to announce that the latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education is now available on-line. The issue — volume 35, number 5 — contains Anila Asghar, Sarah Bean, Wendi O’Neill, and Brian Alters's "Biological Evolution in Canadian Science Curricula…
A milestone: there are now over 120,000 fans of NCSE's Facebook page. Why not join them, by visiting the page and becoming a fan by clicking on the "Like" box by NCSE's name? You'll receive the latest NCSE news delivered straight to your Facebook Home page, as well as updates on evolution-related…
You know how they used to peddle orange juice by saying, “It isn’t just for breakfast any more?” That’s how I feel about informal science education. No, silly: not that it isn’t just for breakfast any more. That it isn’t just for kids any more. (Unlike Trix, silly rabbit, which are…
Last Friday we took a look at a nicely preserved fossil from the Pennsylvanian. Since this is Answer Monday, I will drop the cagey act and tell you now that it is clearly a plant. Here you can see the fossil with scale. Regarding identification, while the UIowa fossil curator places this…
This week on Fossil Friday, we have a lovely specimen. The symmetry, the quality of the preservation: I think it’s quite beautiful. To deliberately confuse you, I’ve removed all reference to scale. How big is it? I won’t tell you. Looks like a plant? Maybe. I’m being cagey on this one. The…