NCSE Evolution Education Update for 2009/06/12
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2009-06-12 17:29.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear Friends of NCSE, A new resource on NCSE's website provides the details on seventeen key legal cases in the creationism/evolution controversy. A new issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach is available. And the text of Science's recent interview of Eugenie C. Scott is now posted in NCSE's website.
"CREATIONISM AND THE LAW" Looking for the legal skinny on the court cases that shaped the landscape of the creationism/evolution controversy? NCSE's new Creationism and the Law resource provides the details on seventeen key cases, from Scopes to Selman, that made a difference. Simply click on the name of a case to get a thorough summary; a list of source documents (typically PDFs, arranged in chronological order); and to relevant NCSE news stories, timelines, and presentations; and a selection of links to third-party sources. This new NCSE resource is free and aimed at journalists, lawyers, school administrators, school boards, and anyone interested in the legal history of evolution, creationism, and public school science education. For "Creationism and the Law," visit: http://ncseweb.org/creationism/legal/creationism-law THE LATEST ISSUE OF EVOLUTION: EDUCATION AND OUTREACH The latest issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach -- the new journal aspiring to promote accurate understanding and comprehensive teaching of evolutionary theory for a wide audience -- is now available on-line. Taking transitional forms as its theme, the issue positively teems with exciting paleontology. Among the authors are Jennifer A. Clack writing on "The Fish-Tetrapod Transition: New Fossils and Interpretations," Luis M. Chiappe writing on "Downsized Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary Transition to Modern Birds," Kenneth D. Angielczyk writing on "Dimetrodon Is Not a Dinosaur: Using Tree Thinking to Understand the Ancient Relatives of Mammals and their Evolution," J. G. M. Thewissen, Lisa Noelle Cooper, John C. George, and Sunil Bajpai writing on "From Land to Water: the Origin of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises," and Donald R. Prothero writing on "Evolutionary Transitions in the Fossil Record of Terrestrial Hoofed Mammals." Also included is the latest installment of NCSE's regular column for Evolution: Education and Outreach, Overcoming Obstacles to Evolution Education. In "Transforming Our Thinking about Transitional Forms," NCSE's Education Project Director Louise S. Mead explains, "A common misconception of evolutionary biology is that it involves a search for 'missing links' in the history of life. Relying on this misconception, antievolutionists present the supposed absence of transitional forms from the fossil record as evidence against evolution. Students of biology need to understand that evolution is a branching process, paleontologists do not expect to find 'missing links,' and evolutionary research uses independent lines of evidence to test hypotheses and make conclusions about the history of life. Teachers can facilitate such learning by incorporating cladistics and tree-thinking into the curriculum and using evograms to focus on important evolutionary transitions." For the latest issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach, visit: http://www.springerlink.com/content/120878/ For Mead's article, visit: http://www.springerlink.com/content/501371w1h0h58385/fulltext.html EUGENIE C. SCOTT INTERVIEWED IN SCIENCE (NOW WITH FULL TEXT) Last week's Evolution Education Update summarized Science's interview with NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott. Now, with the kind permission of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the complete text of the interview is available on NCSE's website. For the interview, visit: http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/06/eugenie-c-scott-interviewed-science-004823 Thanks for reading! And don't forget to visit NCSE's website -- http://ncseweb.org -- where you can always find the latest news on evolution education and threats to it. -- Sincerely, Glenn Branch Deputy Director National Center for Science Education, Inc. 420 40th Street, Suite 2 Oakland, CA 94609-2509 510-601-7203 x310 fax: 510-601-7204 800-290-6006 branch@ncseweb.org http://ncseweb.org Eugenie C. Scott's Evolution vs. Creationism -- now in its second edition! http://ncseweb.org/evc Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools http://ncseweb.org/nioc NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today! http://ncseweb.org/membership
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