Science Is Constantly Evolving
Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.
After my three-parter on fossils, I was sure you'd be sick of them, but there was a request (seconded by a few people) to talk about one particular aspect of paleontology that I didn’t cover yet: How do you know how old a fossil is? It turns out to be a pretty interesting question. …
"Overall, Latin Americans embrace the idea that humans and other living things have evolved over time." That was the upshot of a Pew Research Center survey on "Religion in Latin America" (PDF) which included a question about evolution: "Thinking about evolution, which comes closer to your view?…
Last week on Fossil Friday, I presented a fossilized animal that you had seen before—and recently! What was it? Why it was from the antilocapridae family, hailing from the Hemphillian North American Stage (about 5-10 million years ago) found in what is now Nevada. From the University of Texas…
Over at PopMatters (September 18, 2014), Iain Ellis, who teaches English at the University of Kansas, devoted a column to the Scopes trial, emphasizing the role of the journalist and critic H. L. Mencken—indeed, the column is entitled, “Mr. Mencken Went to Dayton and the Culture Wars Began.”…
This week’s fossil should be quite easy to identify because you’ve seen it once before—recently! Well, not this particular fossil, but one from the same species. So my question to you is...what little prance could this tooth have come from? Where was it found? And from what time period did it…
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, James Watson explained his decision to auction off his Nobel Prize medallion (won, with Francis Crick, for discovering the double-helix structure of DNA). He claimed that since his controversial comments about race in 2007, “I was an ‘…
All previous “Thank a Teacher Thursday” posts have been about the positive inspiration science teachers can provide. And you know I believe they deserve a lot more recognition for the huge but largely invisible role they play in inspiring the next generation of scientists and building a…
"[T]he White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) is launching a new Climate Education and Literacy Initiative to help connect American students and citizens with the best-available, science-based information about climate change," according (PDF) to a December 3, 2014,…
A federal court dismissed a creationist lawsuit seeking to prevent Kansas from adopting the Next Generation Science Standards on the grounds that doing so would "establish and endorse a non-theistic religious worldview." In a December 2, 2014, order (PDF) in COPE et al. v. Kansas State Board…