Science Is Constantly Evolving

Discover the latest in climate change and evolution education news.

Talking Extinction with Elizabeth Kolbert
I recently wrote a review of New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, and had a chance to chat with Kolbert about the book for about half an hour. The bulk of the interview, covering de-extinction and conservation planning and how…
Fossil Friday!
On slow and rainy days over at the paleontology museum, I often slip into the back archives to poke around. Opening drawers can be a mystery in itself—will I find myself diving into a cabinet full of marsupial teeth, camelops bone fragments, T. rex toes? The fossil for this week is…
Cosmos Wars, Episode VIII: Creationist Force Rising
“Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me” —Traditional mnemonic for stellar classification Pickering's "Harem." Back row (L to R): Margaret Harwood (far left), Mollie O'Reilly, Edward C. Pickering, Edith Gill, Annie Jump Cannon, Evelyn Leland (behind Cannon), Florence Cushman, Marion Whyte…
One More Moore
What is it with the surname Moore? It’s common, of course: the eighteenth most common surname in the United States according to the census results for 2000. Even so, the creationism/evolution controversy seems to attract more than its share of Moores: James Moore, the author (with Adrian Desmond…
The Occasional Evolutionist III: Coral Reefs Down for the Count
My visit to Heron Island revealed that evolution does not always generate elegant or even obviously efficient solutions. Instead, the island ecosystem, with its bird-killing trees and turtle-gobbling sharks, is built on what appear to be profligately inefficient exploitation of the rich resources…
Your Inner Monkeyshines
In “Your Inner Monkey,” the third episode of PBS’s Your Inner Fish, Neil Shubin did his usual globe-trotting to meet interesting scientists and fossils. We learned about how our ancestors gained traits that humans now possess—opposable thumbs, finger and toe nails, bipedalism, large…
What If? World War I and the Creationism-Evolution Controversy, Part 7
How would the creationism-evolution controversy have been different if World War I had never happened? Today the question is answered by Adam Laats, Associate Professor of Education and History at Binghamton University (SUNY). He is the author of The Other School Reformers: Conservative…
Friend of Darwin and Friend of the Planet awards for 2014
NCSE is pleased to announce the winners of the Friend of Darwin award for 2014: Eric Rothschild, Stephen G. Harvey, Witold Walczak, Richard B. Katskee, and Faye Flam. The first four recipients led the victorious legal team representing the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005…
Answer Monday!
Last week on Fossil Friday, I presented you with a tooth from a sea animal. What is it? I asked. Where is it from? Many of you were quick to identify it as a shark tooth, but Dr. GS Hurd was the first to get the species right: Otodus obliquus. From the Australian Museum…

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The National Center for Science Education is the only national organization that specializes in defending the teaching of controversial issues (such as evolution and climate change) in public schools. Because of our special expertise and experience, NCSE is often cotacted by members of the press who are writing about the evolution/creationism controversy, or about the teaching of global warming and other climate science issues that have come under political attack. Our staff can provide reliable information about creationism, evolution, climate change, and the state of science education in the United States.

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