NCSE has now signed up more than 1,000 Scientists named Steve.

The National Center for Science Education has now signed up more than 1,000 scientists named "Steve." Here's the petition that all 1082 Scientist Steves have signed:

Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools.

Continue ReadingNCSE has now signed up more than 1,000 Scientists named Steve.

Charles Darwin’s exceedingly dangerous idea

In Darwin's dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Daniel Dennett describes Darwin's idea as the "best idea anyone has ever had."

In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and a physical law. But it is not just a wonderful scientific idea. It is a dangerous idea.

What exactly was Darwin's dangerous idea? According to Dennett, it was "not the idea of evolution, but the idea of evolution by natural selection, an idea he himself could never formulate with sufficient rigor and detail to prove, though he presented a brilliant case for it." (42) Dennett considers Darwin's idea to be "dangerous" because it has so many fruitful applications in so many fields above and beyond biology. When Dennett was a schoolboy, he and some of his friends imagined that there was such a thing as "universal acid,"

a liquid "so corrosive that it will eat through anything! The problem is: what do you keep it in? It dissolves glass bottles and stainless steel canisters as readily as paper bags. What would happen if you somehow came upon or created a dollop of universal acid? With the whole planet eventually be destroyed? What would it leave in its wake? After everything had been transformed by its encounter with universal acid, what would the world look like? Little did I realize that in a few years I would encounter an idea-Darwin's idea-bearing an unmistakable likeness to universal acid: eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks are still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways.

(63) Darwin's idea is powerful, indeed. Many people see it as having the power to ruin the meaning of life.

People fear that once this universal acid has passed through the monuments we cherish, they will cease to exist, dissolved in an unrecognizable and unlovable puddle of scientific destruction.

Dennett characterizes this fear is unwarranted:

We might learn some surprising or even shocking things about these treasures, but unless our valuing these things was based all long on confusion or mistaken identity, how could increase understanding of them diminish their value in our eyes? (82)

Continue ReadingCharles Darwin’s exceedingly dangerous idea

A program that gets college students enthusiastic about the scientific theory of evolution

David Sloan Wilson has written some terrific articles on the topic of evolution. I recently ran across a 2005 article he wrote for PLoS Biology www.plosbiology.org titled "Evolution for Everyone: How to Increase Acceptance of, Interest in, and Knowledge about Evolution." The article explains the method by which Binghamton University has successfully infused its undergraduate curriculum with real-life applications of evolutionary theory. The EvoS program began in 2002. Here's the mission of EvoS:

The mission of EvoS is to advance the study of evolution in all its manifestations, including all aspects of humanity in addition to the biological sciences. Many organizations and websites promote the study of evolution, but EvoS is unique in two respects.

• EvoS is based on the realization that evolutionary theory will probably never be generally accepted--no matter how well supported by facts--unless its consequences for human affairs are fully addressed. Once evolution is seen as unthreatening, explanatory, and useful for solving life's problems, then it becomes not just acceptable but irresistable to the average person (see the tutorial for more).

• EvoS makes a connection between evolutionary theory and the unification of knowledge, which has always been the goal of a liberal arts education and contemporary efforts to integrate across disciplines. The same kind of unification that took place in the biological sciences during the 20th century is now taking places for the human behavioral sciences and humanities--but is not yet reflected in the structure of higher education. EvoS is the first program to diagnose this problem and comprehensively provide a solution at a campus-wide scale.

David Sloan Wilson explains that the Binghamton program makes use of 50 faculty members representing 15 departments. The program was created based on the following assumption: "Evolution can be made acceptable, interesting, and powerfully relevant to just about anyone in the space of a single semester."

Continue ReadingA program that gets college students enthusiastic about the scientific theory of evolution

Rejection of evolution across the pond

Great Britain is catching up to the U.S. when it comes to the rejection of evolution by natural selection.  Consider the following from The Guardian: Half of British adults do not believe in evolution, with at least 22% preferring the theories of creationism or intelligent design to explain how the…

Continue ReadingRejection of evolution across the pond

What does it mean to be a primate? One of many paths through the phylogenetic tree.

Strap on your seat belt and learn about the reality of primates:

“Primates” are collectively defined as any gill-less, organic RNA/DNA protein-based, metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally-symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tryploblast, opisthokont, deuterostome coelemate with a spinal chord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system in an enlarged cerebrial cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside a jawed-skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward-oriented fully-enclosed optical orbits, and a single temporal fenestra, -attached to a vertebrate hind-leg dominant tetrapoidal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavical, and wrist & ankle bones; and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lactal mammaries, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermis with chitinous nails on all five digits on all four extremities, in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid, leading to a placental birth and highly social lifestyle.

See here for the full transcript. This video constitutes a highly condensed summary of some of the basic principles of evolutionary biology so often overlooked by creationists. The author goes to pains to point out that scientists don't just make claims about evolutionary development because they want to make these claims. Rather, the conclusions of evolutionary biology are compelled by an elaborate well-documented scheme of development based on massive collections of evidence, verified by thousands of scientists over hundreds of years, including more than a few scientists who were conservative Christians. Using this evidence, we can trace the development of a species from antecedent related species , but the phylogenetic tree of life . . . can be just as objectively confirmed from the top down when re-examined genetically. This is why it is referred to as a “twin-nested hierarchy.”

Continue ReadingWhat does it mean to be a primate? One of many paths through the phylogenetic tree.