Last week, on the Fossil Friday, I asked you to come up with the scientific names and common nicknames for one fossil. KC came up with the most names in the shortest amount of time. Go KC! So, who did this skull belong to? From Eric Meikle (one of NCSE's anthropologists): "This specimen is…
Well, you might have seen it coming. In my post about the National Academy of Sciences’s 1923 statement on evolution, approved but never used, I asked, “And what about the Smithsonian’s statement on evolution?” and answered, “Well, as with the NAS statement, [Ellis] Yochelson provided only a…
This week on Fossil Friday, we're bringing you another skull. Eric Meikle, one of our house anthropologists, says that guessing this week's skull might be too easy. But this skull has had several scientific names and nicknames over the many years. Choosing which one to…
I’ve always liked Tim M. Berra’s books, ever since, in college, I read his Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (1990), a wonderfully clear and succinct refutation of creationism. Berra focused mainly on young-earth creationism, since “intelligent design…
A recent paper in Current Biology1 offers some important insights into a question creationists have long raised about the Cambrian explosion, the grand diversification of animals that occurred between about 530 to 520 Ma (millions of years ago). To wit: Was the geologically fast…
What if they gave a conference and everybody (except the hosts) came? That was my surreal experience at a tri-agency confab for 100 climate educators organized by professionals from NASA, NOAA, and NSF. Thanks to the federal shutdown, the organizers couldn't legally attend the meeting held at a…
“You seem to be traveling all the time” is a comment I get a lot. I don’t actually travel all the time, but some months are busier than others. Some of my travel is to give presentations, which are listed with all NCSE staff and board member presentations here. When a staff member gives a talk…
NCSE is pleased to announce that the latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education is now available on-line. The issue — volume 33, number 5 — features Steven Newton's "Reflections on Human Odyssey: The California Academy of Science's New Human Evolution Exhibit and Tim…
If you’re interested in making fun of creationism, it’s not too hard to do it. Indeed, there have even been a few book-length efforts, such as Robert S. Dietz and John C. Holden’s Creation/Evolution Satiricon: Creationism Bashed (1987) and Barrett Brown and Jon…