Science Is Constantly Evolving

Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.

Misconception Monday! Natural Selection and Evolution, Part 1
This perhaps should have been the first up in my exploration of common misconceptions, since it is arguably more fundamental than what “survival of the fittest” means (or doesn’t mean). But all of these misunderstandings and ideas are so entangled that there really can’t be a “right way” to…
Fossil Friday!
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! This week on Fossil Friday, I’m bringing you a special request from last week’s winner—a mammal. This genus is found everywhere, except for Antarctica and Australia, but this fossil in particular comes from Nebraska. Go USA! You might think that these teeth…
Everitt versus Midgley, Part 1
Back in 2007, the philosopher Mary Midgley published a pamphlet entitled Intelligent Design Theory and other ideological problems (PDF) with the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. Prompted by controversies over the teaching of evolution in both the United States and…
Three Reasons Why Cosmos Was One of the Best Things to Happen to TV: Part 2
Buzz Aldrin paused and looked out over the audience. It was July 25, 2009, just five days after the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. On that day four decades earlier, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became, with one small thud on the lunar surface, the first humans ever to…
"Creationism comes to the county fair"
Writing in the July 2014 issue of the American Geoscience Institute's magazine Earth, Scott K. Johnson relates his experience in engaging in evolution outreach in a not-so-usual venue: at his local county fair. In 2012, he explains, he became aware of a booth "pitching the ideas and…
In the Orbit of McLean
There was a minor anniversary recently: June 19, 2014, was the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards v. Aguillard, establishing the unconstitutionality of teaching creationism in the public schools. I opened the box of materials in NCSE’s archives on the…
RNCSE 34:4 now on-line
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 34, number 4 — features Adam Benton's "Creationist Ministries Present a Distorted View of Human Evolution" and Alexandra Contosta's "A Land…
A preview of Going Ape
NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of Brandon Haught's Going Ape: Florida's Battles over Evolution in the Classroom (University Press of Florida, 2014). The preview consists of chapter 1, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," which details the "red-hot anti-evolution…
Misconception Monday! Survival of the Fittest, Part 2
In Part 1 of this post, I introduced my new series, Misconception Monday, and let you in on the secret to my misconception know-how: student test papers. In this conclusion, I want to get into some ways that this misconception—that natural selection eliminates all bad variations—could be…

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