This week, I’m attending the seventh annual Think Evolution Institute at UC Berkeley. It’s a week that mixes three of my favorite things: educators, evolution, and the crew behind Understanding Evolution and Understanding Science. Knowing I’d be otherwise engaged all week, I wrote my posts on the…
Astronaut Roger Chaffee and geologist Elbert King explore the Grand Canyon, March 5-6 1967. I believe the person standing directly beside and behind Chaffee is astronaut Michael Collins (based on the account and photographs in King’s memoir), with an unidentified person crouching behind. Collins…
Josh Rosenau and I have just returned from NCSE’s annual rafting trip down the Colorado River and through the spectacular geology and biology of Grand Canyon. Our two motorized boats were packed with an eclectic mix of scientists, teachers, NCSE members, and people who wanted the ultimate…
In “Whence Fact, Theory, and Path?” I was talking about what I described as “a familiar threefold distinction between evolution as fact, evolution as theory, and evolution as path.” It’s a current distinction, with its modern locus classicus T. Ryan Gregory’s “Evolution as Fact, Theory…
"[T]he entire west coast" of Canada is "moving away from creationism," reports the Vancouver Observer (July 23, 2015). The article noted that James Lunney, a Member of Parliament representing a federal electoral district in British Columbia, quit the Conservative Party earlier in 2015…
A milestone: there are now over 110,000 fans of NCSE's Facebook page. Why not join them, by visiting the page and becoming a fan by clicking on the "Like" box by NCSE's name? You'll receive the latest NCSE news delivered straight to your Facebook Home page, as well as updates on evolution-related…
We returned last week to Germany’s stunning Jurassic Solnhofen limestone. I gave you the somewhat useless hint that I wouldn’t ever eat one of these creatures, let alone their extant relatives. The reason? I do not eat invertebrates. I find them downright terrifying when they are dead and being…
We returned last week to Germany’s stunning Jurassic Solnhofen limestone. I gave you the somewhat useless hint that I wouldn’t ever eat one of these creatures, let alone their extant relatives. The reason? I do not eat invertebrates. I find them downright terrifying when they are dead and being…
We’re going back to the Solnhofen this week because I just can’t help bringing you another example of how breathtakingly gorgeous these specimens are. I mean…just look at it! The details! These are 155-million-year old details, people! Nature is amazing. But what is it? I’ll give you a hint that…