A human evolution exhibit in Israel
The biological anthropologist Israel Hershkovitz has a nice essay in Nature discussing a new exhibit at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History’s Dan David ...
All posts tagged with creationism
Link: Yes, we evolved from monkeys
I endorse this message from Holly Dunsworth:
Link: Interview with Ronald Numbers about creationism
A few years ago, historian of science and creationism Ronald Numbers did a great interview with Steve Paulson, which is on Salon: “Seeing the light — of scie...
Young adults in the U.S. increasingly accept evolution by natural processes
After many years of stasis, the acceptance of evolution has taken a noticeable uptick for American adults. Most of this increase comes from the change in you...
Don't sound like a kook
Larry Moran describes a lecture by Michael Behe, an advocate of intelligent design arguments: “Michael Behe in Toronto, Part 1”. Moran didn’t care for the le...
A teaching tool on evolution misconceptions
An article in The American Biology Teacher last month by Norman Johnson and colleagues provides useful answers for teachers to the question, “Why are chimps ...
Evolution road show
Don Prothero and Jerry Coyne are evolutionary biologists, who appeared recently in the BBC film, “Conspiracy road trip: creationism”. The film followed a gro...
Thoroughbreds and bourbon
John Timmer: “Kentucky lawmakers shocked to find evolution in biology tests”.
Is "science literacy" a red herring?
In Slate, Daniel Sarewitz commits science communication heresy: “The Gambler and the Scientist”.
Richard Leakey profile
The Associated Press profiles Richard Leakey: “Scientist: Evolution debate will soon be history”. The article gives a bit of Leakey’s biography and discusses...
Mailbag: Gill slits and Paley
From a reader:
Random Scholar: "Plenty of genuine tails"
I was doing some research involving Aleš Hrdlička, and ran across this curious item published in Science in 1926 (“Human tails: a statement and correction”),...
"American Genesis"
I saw a reference to this new book by Jeffrey Moran: American Genesis: The Evolution Controversies from Scopes to Creation Science. From the description:
Mailbag: Noah's Ark
From a reader:
Hawks lecture at University of Birmingham Sept. 22
I’ll be in the U.K. the rest of this week. The University of Birmingham has invited me to give a lecture for their “Great Read” event as they begin the new a...
Science Pub, day of creationism
I had a wonderful afternoon Sunday at the Madison Science Pub. The featured guest was Ron Numbers, the historian of science at UW-Madison whose research has ...
Scientific American on evolution education
Scientific American has an online feature with new articles by Katherine Harmon, “New Challenges for Evolution Education”. The tagline is, “Five years after ...
Mailbag: Mutations and perfect people
A friend of mine and I were discussing evolution, my friend is a Christian and told me that the human mutation rate is 1 in ten billion cell duplications, an...
Graphic biology teacher survey results
Several people (e.g., P. Z. Myers, Jerry Coyne) have passed along a poster representation of some statistics on evolution, creationism, and other stuff in se...
Mailbag: Chance and evolution
I have read your Evolution blog for a while now. It seemed to me that you might be able to provide a brief comment on the anti-Darwin position put forward he...
Intelligent Design article
Intelligent Design Creationism is not science. I wrote about it a few years ago in a local op/ed.
Texas, the textbook gorilla
The other New York Times Magazine article that I found interesting this weekend (following up on yesterday’s post) is about the Texas State Board of Educatio...
Quote: Marge Simpson on evolution
The local station is playing the “creationism” episode of The Simpsons today – maybe in honor of Darwin this week? A Marge Simpson quote from the end:
The high cost of teacher removal
Ian Urbina in the NY Times reports on the case of a middle school teacher in Ohio accused of creationist leanings:
Simpsons evolution
From The Simpsons:
Fiat lux
From The Onion:
Chumans not chimps
Found in Nature’s year-end Research Highlights:
A view of global creationism
Kenneth Chang reports on a recent conference that gathered academics to discuss creationism in a global context: “Creationism, Minus a Young Earth, Emerges i...
Kansas creationism survey
According to a Fort Hays State University poll, Kansas may be headed for another crisis in science education:
Creation/Evolution free online
Possibly of interest:
"Creationists made me do it"
In last week’s Science, a letter from biologist Patrick Keeling that’s almost too good to be true:
A global evolution survey
From The Guardian, via a reader:
Creation Museum browsed by paleontologists
Seventy-some paleontologists took a field trip to the Creation Museum. Good premise for a story, but hilarity does not ensue:
Texas education standards revision
Good news from Texas:
Creation, Texas, again
Another year, another attempt to institute creationism in Texas:
Quote: "I see no good reason"
Darwin, in the sixth edition of the Origin of Species, pp. 421-422:
Islam, creationism and evolution
Science tackles the topic of Islamic creationism (UPDATE 2008-12-12: DOI not working; here’s a full text link) in its “Policy Forum” section, by Salman Hamee...
Florida evolution education: a Mickey Mouse subject?
There’s a long article by Amy Harmon about Florida biology educator David Campbell and his struggle to get better evolution standards in Florida. It’s a good...
Judson on teaching evolution
Olivia Judson editorializes on the value of teaching evolution:
Catholicism and science
An interesting article from Discover about Catholicism, faith, and science includes an exchange between Richard Dawkins and former Vatican Observatory chief ...
Politics and evolution, reverse-wise
I missed this op-ed by David Barash when it came out last month. It is an argument that commentators on the political left would prefer to ignore evolution j...
Gary Marcus on Jindal, Intelligent Design
Gary Marcus contributes an article to the Huffington Post, reflecting on the new Louisiana creationism law:
Notes in practical evolution
A lot of academic-oriented bloggers write about what they do in their classes. I don’t often blog about my teaching. Mainly, I like to keep my class activiti...
Thirteen hours and change
An essay by Michael Berkman and colleagues in the current PLoS Biology reviews the results of the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers as relevan...
If you absolutely cannot ignore "Expelled"…
...please reconsider, because it is an absolute waste of your time. Spend the time watching Nova's Judgment Day" documentary instead, which actually conveys...
The candidates on evolution, 2008
Ron Bailey at Reason magazine gives an accounting of the beliefs about evolution and creationism of all the major party candidates for U. S. President. This...
Woods Hole sued for firing creationist
From Reuters:
A picture of creationism in geology today
Religion writer Hanna Rosin has an article in the New York Times Magazine on the creationist "avant-garde": trained geologists arguing that Noah's flood can...
Scalzi's creation jaunt
John Scalzi's readers ponied up for him to visit the Creation Museum and post his reactions. Well, he's done it, and it's darned funny. Funny, but not prett...
Judgment on "Judgment Day"
I just watched the new Nova documentary, "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial." The documentary examined the background of the Kitzmiller v. Dover tri...
Kitzmiller trial on Nova next week
On November 13, most PBS stations will be showing a Nova episode called, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial." The film mixes interviews with re-enact...
May I live so long without my mistakes being noticed
New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean writes about a unique retraction by 84-year-old chemist Homer Jacobson:
The Wisconsin Creation Museum on its way?
The paper Wisconsin Dells Events has a story about Bill Mielke's efforts to bring a creation museum to the Dells:
Turkey blocks one million blogs at creationist's request
WordPress.com has been blocked by the government of Turkey, according to WordPress, who have commented on the blockage and reprinted cease-and-desist letter...
Judaism and evolution
The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article by Evan Goldstein about ways that evolutionary theory have been embraced by some Jewish traditions:
Scientists and religion, part 2
Scientific American has put online a long discourse between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins, about how scientists should approach religion.
Scientists and religion, part 1
American Scientist has an article by Gregory Graffin and William Provine on scientists' self-described religious beliefs. They conducted a poll of "prominen...
A new Scalzi creation
Writer John Scalzi takes note of the fact that he's right in the neighborhood of the Creation Museum, and now offers to write a full, "snarkilicious" report...
Answers in the New York Times
So I was reading yesterday's total softball exhibition review in the New York Times, on the new Ken Ham-built Creation Museum:
Darwinian policy briefs?
Patricia Cohen's piece in the New York Times today is headlined, "A Split Emerges as Conservatives Discuss Darwin." It's interesting:
Background to global creationism
The Economist had a recent story about the global reach of creationism. I found the first few paragraphs to be the most informative. First, the article desc...
An "emerging" problem
Notably not good:
Let's de-emphasize Einstein instead
I got e-mailed this terrible article from the Chronicle of Higher Education. It covers some of the discussion from the AAAS meetings last week, where one of...
Creationists protest National Museums of Kenya
OK, I have to take a moment off from Just Science week, to note this AP article about creationist protests of the National Museums of Kenya:
Evolution-doubting and illiteracy, part 3
Last week's Science has an article about "public acceptance of evolution" by Jon Miller, Eugenie Scott and Shinji Okamoto. The article covers results of pol...
Connectedness
Lawrence Krauss has commentary in the NY Times about the recent Kansas State Board of Education elections:
But what does the merit badge look like?
Man, camp has gotten a lot more boring since I was a kid:
Evolution in less than 10 words
Razib has a challenge: "If you had 10 words or less, what would you have the public master about evolutionary theory?"
"A greater fear of boredom than of poverty"
The New York Times has a profile of "Flock of Dodos" filmmaker Randy Olson:
An LDS DNA difficulty
The LA Times is carrying a story by writer William Lobdell about the apparent conflict between the Book of Mormon and DNA evidence for New World settlement....
NASA, don't let the sun go down on me
A great commentary in the Times this morning:
A Darwin Day parable
"We're going to arm you with Christian Patriot missiles," Ham, 54, recently told the 1,200 adults gathered at Calvary Temple here in northern New Jersey. It ...
Janet Monge, Darwinista
The AP is running an article about Darwin Day this Sunday, and Gretchen spotted it on MSNBC accompanied by a photo of Janet Monge!
Skeptic article on Dover trial
Burt Humburg and Ed Brayton have a very readable account of the Dover trial in Skeptic magazine, available now online. The article goes over the recent hist...
Dover ID trial comes to judgment
Check out the judge's opinion if you are interested. Ann Althouse cites from the text, including this portion:
No corporate support for Darwin exhibit
Now this (Sydney Morning Herald) is just sad:
Evolution trial experts speak out
Nature is carrying an interview with Kenneth Miller and Kevin Padian about their recent experience as expert witnesses in the Dover trial:
Minority report
The Kansas Board of Education voted yesterday to accept the proposed changes to the state science education standards, pending outside review, according to ...
Hawks op/ed in Wisconsin State Journal
Thanks to all those who wrote after yesterday's opinion column ran. I really want to thank the WSJ editorial staff, and opinion editor Scott Milfred in part...
The President and the teaching of evolution
In a roundtable interview yesterday, President Bush commented to reporters that "both sides [i.e. evolution and intelligent design] should be properly taugh...
A Scopes trial review
Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy has a review of the 1997 book, Summer of the Gods, the real history of the Scopes trial (via Althouse). The review featur...
You see, the thing about Kansas is…
...it's not Utah. I've lived in both. I've taught evolution in both. I made progress in one.
Looking back on the Scopes trial
In his current Newsweek column, George Will writes a short retrospective on the Scopes evolution trial, which happened 80 years ago. The piece contains no...
Why they stayed away
The NY Times has an article about the scientists' boycott of the Kansas evolution hearings.
Kansas unhinged
MSNBC is carrying an Associated Press article covering the Kansas State Board of Education discussions on evolution and intelligent design.
An insider's view of the Kansas hearings
In an article on AlterNet, plant breeder Stan Cox gives an eyewitness account of the Kansas Board of Education hearings on the proposed statewide science st...
"The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design"
There is very nice article at Kuro5hin with that title. The article covers Paley's Argument from Design, Behe's work, the Avida computer simulations, and Po...
Intelligent design "a sterile philosophy"
The following quote really sums up the problem with "intelligent design" as science, and why it is not taken seriously. It comes from a review by Alan D. Gi...
Back to the drawing board?
I'm from Kansas, and proud of it. I am therefore one of the select few products of public education in Kansas who studies evolution, and in particular the e...
Biochemistry and intelligent design
Thanks to a student, I have a link to an opinion in the online edition of the Valley Morning Star from Harlingen, Texas. The column is a long declaration o...
Link: More on Intelligent Design
An excellent discussion of the legal issues involved in current attempts to put intelligent design in public school curricula is an article by Michael C. Dor...