How to Win the Evolution War: Teach Macroevolution!
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Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals
UNDERSTANDING THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONIST MOVEMENT: ITS TRUE NATURE AND GOALS A POSITION PAPER FROM THE CENTER FOR INQUIRY OFFICE OF PUBLIC POLICY AUTHOR: BARBARA FORREST, Ph.D. Reviewing Committee: Paul Kurtz, Ph.D.; Austin Dacey, Ph.D.; Stuart D. Jordan, Ph.D.; Ronald A. Lindsay, J. D., Ph.D.; John Shook, Ph.D.; Toni Van Pelt DATED: MAY 2007 ( AMENDED JULY 2007) Copyright © 2007 Center for Inquiry, Inc. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for noncommercial, educational purposes, provided that this notice appears on the reproduced materials, the full authoritative version is retained, and copies are not altered. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the Center for Inquiry, Inc. Table of Contents Section I. Introduction: What is at stake in the dispute over intelligent design?.................. 1 Section II. What is the intelligent design creationist movement? ........................................ 2 Section III. The historical and legal background of intelligent design creationism ................ 6 Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) ............................................................................ 6 McLean v. Arkansas (1982) .............................................................................. 6 Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) ............................................................................. 7 Section IV. The ID movement’s aims and strategy .............................................................. 9 The “Wedge Strategy” ..................................................................................... -
A Threat to Geoscience Education: Creationist Anti-Evolution Activity in Canada Jason R
Document generated on 10/02/2021 4:16 p.m. Geoscience Canada A Threat to Geoscience Education: Creationist Anti-Evolution Activity in Canada Jason R. Wiles Volume 33, Number 3, September 2006 Article abstract The rejection of biological and geological evolution is a pervasive problem in URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/geocan33_3com01 science education. Recent events in the United States have brought anti-evolution activity to the forefront in media coverage of science education, See table of contents but Canadians are often unaware that such creationist, anti-evolution activity is present in Canada as well. In this article, various foreign and Canadian-based anti-evolution efforts that threaten biology and geoscience education are Publisher(s) discussed. These creationist organizations and their activities may adversely influence Canadian science curricula and public understanding of evolution The Geological Association of Canada and science in general. ISSN 0315-0941 (print) 1911-4850 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Wiles, J. R. (2006). A Threat to Geoscience Education: Creationist Anti-Evolution Activity in Canada. Geoscience Canada, 33(3), 135–140. All rights reserved © The Geological Association of Canada, 2006 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. -
PE1530/L: National Center for Science Education Letter of 7
420 40th Street, Suite 2 Oakland CA 94609-2688 510.601.7203 • 800.290.6006 FAX 510.601.7204 • www.ncse.com Defending the teaching of evolution and climate science November 7, 2014 Submission regarding PE01530 I am writing on behalf of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) to express support of petition PE01530: Guidance on how creationism is presented in schools, which calls for “official guidance to bar the presentation in Scottish publicly funded schools of separate Ann Reid, Executive Director creation and of Young Earth doctrines as viable alternatives to the A DVISORY C OUNCIL Eugenie C. Scott, Chair Bruce Alberts, U.C. San Francisco established science of evolution, common descent, and deep time.” Francisco J. Ayala, U.C. Irvine Frederick Borsch, L.T.S.P. Stephen G. Brush, U. MD NCSE is a non-profit organization based in the United States that works Sean B. Carroll, U. WI Johnnetta B. Cole, Smithsonian Joel Cracraft, AMNH to defend the integrity of science education. NCSE is religiously neutral, Brent Dalrymple, OR State U. James E. Darnell Jr, Rockefeller University supporting the right of every individual to hold, practice, and advocate Richard E. Dickerson, UCLA Robert H. Dott Jr, U. WI their beliefs, religious or non-religious. NCSE is affiliated with the Niles Eldredge, AMNH Milton Fingerman, Tulane Douglas J. Futuyma, SUNY Stony Brook American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Alfred G. Gilman, U. Texas SMC Laurie Godfrey, U. MA Science Teachers Association. Ursula Goodenough, Wash. U. St Louis James Hansen, NASA Goddard Donald Hornig, Harvard Duane E. -
Introduction to Macroevolution
Spring, 2012 Phylogenetics 200A Modes of Macroevolution Macroevolution is used to refer to any evolutionary change at or above the level of species. Darwin illustrated the combined action of descent with modification, the principle of divergence, and extinction in the only figure in On the Origin of Species (Fig. 1), showing the link between microevolution and macroevolution. The New Synthesis sought to distance itself from the ‘origin of species’ (= macroevolution) and concentrated instead on microevolution - variation within populations and reproductive isolation. “Darwin’s principle of divergence derives from what he thought to be one of the most potent components of the struggle for existence. He argued that the strongest interactions would be among individuals within a population or among closely related populations or species, because these organisms have the most similar requirements. Darwin’s principle of divergence predicts that the individuals, populations or species most likely to succeed in the struggle are those that differ most from their close relatives in the way they achieve their needs for survival and reproduction.” (Reznick & Ricklefs 2009. Nature 457) Macroevolution also fell into disfavor with its invocation for hopeful monsters in development as well as its implication in some Neo-Lamarckian theories. Interest in macroevolution revived by several paleontologists including Steven Stanley, Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the latter two in the context of punctuated equilibrium. They proposed that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – including species selection. Niles Eldredge, in particular, has written extensively on the macroevolutionary hierarchy. -
Comparative Evolution: Latent Potentials for Anagenetic Advance (Adaptive Shifts/Constraints/Anagenesis) G
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 85, pp. 5141-5145, July 1988 Evolution Comparative evolution: Latent potentials for anagenetic advance (adaptive shifts/constraints/anagenesis) G. LEDYARD STEBBINS* AND DANIEL L. HARTLtt *Department of Genetics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; and tDepartment of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine, Box 8031, 660 South Euclid Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63110 Contributed by G. Ledyard Stebbins, April 4, 1988 ABSTRACT One of the principles that has emerged from genetic variation available for evolutionary changes (2), a experimental evolutionary studies of microorganisms is that major concern of modem evolutionists is explaining how the polymorphic alleles or new mutations can sometimes possess a vast amount of genetic variation that actually exists can be latent potential to respond to selection in different environ- maintained. Given the fact that in complex higher organisms ments, although the alleles may be functionally equivalent or most new mutations with visible effects on phenotype are disfavored under typical conditions. We suggest that such deleterious, many biologists, particularly Kimura (3), have responses to selection in microorganisms serve as experimental sought to solve the problem by proposing that much genetic models of evolutionary advances that occur over much longer variation is selectively neutral or nearly so, at least at the periods of time in higher organisms. We propose as a general molecular level. Amidst a background of what may be largely evolutionary principle that anagenic advances often come from neutral or nearly neutral genetic variation, adaptive evolution capitalizing on preexisting latent selection potentials in the nevertheless occurs. While much of natural selection at the presence of novel ecological opportunity. -
The Origin and Early Evolution of Dinosaurs
Biol. Rev. (2010), 85, pp. 55–110. 55 doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.2009.00094.x The origin and early evolution of dinosaurs Max C. Langer1∗,MartinD.Ezcurra2, Jonathas S. Bittencourt1 and Fernando E. Novas2,3 1Departamento de Biologia, FFCLRP, Universidade de S˜ao Paulo; Av. Bandeirantes 3900, Ribeir˜ao Preto-SP, Brazil 2Laboratorio de Anatomia Comparada y Evoluci´on de los Vertebrados, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘‘Bernardino Rivadavia’’, Avda. Angel Gallardo 470, Cdad. de Buenos Aires, Argentina 3CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient´ıficas y T´ecnicas); Avda. Rivadavia 1917 - Cdad. de Buenos Aires, Argentina (Received 28 November 2008; revised 09 July 2009; accepted 14 July 2009) ABSTRACT The oldest unequivocal records of Dinosauria were unearthed from Late Triassic rocks (approximately 230 Ma) accumulated over extensional rift basins in southwestern Pangea. The better known of these are Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, Pisanosaurus mertii, Eoraptor lunensis,andPanphagia protos from the Ischigualasto Formation, Argentina, and Staurikosaurus pricei and Saturnalia tupiniquim from the Santa Maria Formation, Brazil. No uncontroversial dinosaur body fossils are known from older strata, but the Middle Triassic origin of the lineage may be inferred from both the footprint record and its sister-group relation to Ladinian basal dinosauromorphs. These include the typical Marasuchus lilloensis, more basal forms such as Lagerpeton and Dromomeron, as well as silesaurids: a possibly monophyletic group composed of Mid-Late Triassic forms that may represent immediate sister taxa to dinosaurs. The first phylogenetic definition to fit the current understanding of Dinosauria as a node-based taxon solely composed of mutually exclusive Saurischia and Ornithischia was given as ‘‘all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of birds and Triceratops’’. -
Microevolution and the Genetics of Populations Microevolution Refers to Varieties Within a Given Type
Chapter 8: Evolution Lesson 8.3: Microevolution and the Genetics of Populations Microevolution refers to varieties within a given type. Change happens within a group, but the descendant is clearly of the same type as the ancestor. This might better be called variation, or adaptation, but the changes are "horizontal" in effect, not "vertical." Such changes might be accomplished by "natural selection," in which a trait within the present variety is selected as the best for a given set of conditions, or accomplished by "artificial selection," such as when dog breeders produce a new breed of dog. Lesson Objectives ● Distinguish what is microevolution and how it affects changes in populations. ● Define gene pool, and explain how to calculate allele frequencies. ● State the Hardy-Weinberg theorem ● Identify the five forces of evolution. Vocabulary ● adaptive radiation ● gene pool ● migration ● allele frequency ● genetic drift ● mutation ● artificial selection ● Hardy-Weinberg theorem ● natural selection ● directional selection ● macroevolution ● population genetics ● disruptive selection ● microevolution ● stabilizing selection ● gene flow Introduction Darwin knew that heritable variations are needed for evolution to occur. However, he knew nothing about Mendel’s laws of genetics. Mendel’s laws were rediscovered in the early 1900s. Only then could scientists fully understand the process of evolution. Microevolution is how individual traits within a population change over time. In order for a population to change, some things must be assumed to be true. In other words, there must be some sort of process happening that causes microevolution. The five ways alleles within a population change over time are natural selection, migration (gene flow), mating, mutations, or genetic drift. -
What Is Macroevolution?
[Palaeontology, 2020, pp. 1–11] FRONTIERS IN PALAEONTOLOGY WHAT IS MACROEVOLUTION? by MICHAEL HAUTMANN Pal€aontologisches Institut und Museum, Universit€at Zurich,€ Karl-Schmid Strasse 4, 8006 Zurich,€ Switzerland; [email protected] Typescript received 14 June 2019; accepted in revised form 15 October 2019 Abstract: Definitions of macroevolution fall into three cat- intraspecific competition as a mediator between selective egories: (1) evolution of taxa of supraspecific rank; (2) evolu- agents and evolutionary responses. This mediating role of tion on the grand time-scale; and (3) evolution that is guided intraspecific competition occurs in the presence of sexual by sorting of interspecific variation (as opposed to sorting of reproduction and has therefore no analogue at the macroevo- intraspecific variation in microevolution). Here, it is argued lutionary level where species are the evolutionary units. Com- that only definition 3 allows for a consistent separation of petition between species manifests both on the macroevolution and microevolution. Using this definition, spe- microevolutionary and macroevolutionary level, but with dif- ciation has both microevolutionary and macroevolutionary ferent effects. In microevolution, interspecific competition aspects: the process of morphological transformation is spurs evolutionary divergence, whereas it is a potential driver microevolutionary, but the variation among species that it pro- of extinction at the macroevolutionary level. Recasting the Red duces is macroevolutionary, as is the rate at which speciation Queen hypothesis in a macroevolutionary framework suggests occurs. Selective agents may have differential effects on that the effects of interspecific competition result in a positive intraspecific and interspecific variation, with three possible sit- correlation between origination and extinction rates, confirm- uations: effect at one level only, effect at both levels with the ing empirical observations herein referred to as Stanley’s rule. -
Creation, Design and Evolution: Can Science Discover Or Eliminate God?
University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy Volume 4 Issue 1 Fall 2009 Article 5 January 2009 Creation, Design and Evolution: Can Science Discover or Eliminate God? Peter M.J. Hess Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.stthomas.edu/ustjlpp Part of the First Amendment Commons, Law and Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Peter M. Hess, Creation, Design and Evolution: Can Science Discover or Eliminate God?, 4 U. ST. THOMAS J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 102 (2009). Available at: https://ir.stthomas.edu/ustjlpp/vol4/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UST Research Online and the University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy. For more information, please contact the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected]. CREATION, DESIGN AND EVOLUTION: CAN SCIENCE DISCOVER OR ELIMINATE GOD? PETER M. J. HESS, PH.D.* NATIONAL CENTER FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth his handiwork." Psalms 19:1 INTRODUCTION: THE PLAYING OUT OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT IN THE WEST Every culture has its views about the universe, about the human person, and about the great metaphysical questions that confront us. How ought we to think about the relationship between cosmology, anthropology, and theology? This may be a challenge for us in our increasingly secular post- modem culture, but for most of human history it was not an issue. In the Judeo-Christian tradition these areas of human reflection were naturally bound up together, as in the Hebrew psalmist's proto-statement of the argument from design: "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth his handiwork."' The scholastic university culture of the High Middle Ages held as its ideal the "unity of knowledge," or unitas scientiae, approaching the study of the universe as a coherent and knowable whole. -
Uniting Micro- with Macroevolution Into an Extended Synthesis: Reintegrating Life’S Natural History Into Evolution Studies
Uniting Micro- with Macroevolution into an Extended Synthesis: Reintegrating Life’s Natural History into Evolution Studies Nathalie Gontier Abstract The Modern Synthesis explains the evolution of life at a mesolevel by identifying phenotype–environmental interactions as the locus of evolution and by identifying natural selection as the means by which evolution occurs. Both micro- and macroevolutionary schools of thought are post-synthetic attempts to evolution- ize phenomena above and below organisms that have traditionally been conceived as non-living. Microevolutionary thought associates with the study of how genetic selection explains higher-order phenomena such as speciation and extinction, while macroevolutionary research fields understand species and higher taxa as biological individuals and they attribute evolutionary causation to biotic and abiotic factors that transcend genetic selection. The microreductionist and macroholistic research schools are characterized as two distinct epistemic cultures where the former favor mechanical explanations, while the latter favor historical explanations of the evolu- tionary process by identifying recurring patterns and trends in the evolution of life. I demonstrate that both cultures endorse radically different notions on time and explain how both perspectives can be unified by endorsing epistemic pluralism. Keywords Microevolution · Macroevolution · Origin of life · Evolutionary biology · Sociocultural evolution · Natural history · Organicism · Biorealities · Units, levels and mechanisms of evolution · Major transitions · Hierarchy theory But how … shall we describe a process which nobody has seen performed, and of which no written history gives any account? This is only to be investigated, first, in examining the nature of those solid bodies, the history of which we want to know; and 2dly, in exam- ining the natural operations of the globe, in order to see if there now actually exist such operations, as, from the nature of the solid bodies, appear to have been necessary to their formation. -
Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong/By Jonathan Wells
ON SCIENCE OR MYTH? Whymuch of what we teach about evolution is wrong Icons ofEvolution About the Author Jonathan Wells is no stranger to controversy. After spending two years in the U.S. Ar my from 1964 to 1966, he entered the University of California at Berkeley to become a science teacher. When the Army called him back from reser ve status in 1968, he chose to go to prison rather than continue to serve during the Vietnam War. He subsequently earned a Ph.D. in religious studies at Yale University, where he wrote a book about the nineteenth century Darwinian controversies. In 1989 he returned to Berkeley to earn a second Ph.D., this time in molecular and cell biology. He is now a senior fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (www.discovery.org/ crsc) in Seattle, where he lives with his wife, two children, and mother. He still hopes to become a science teacher. Icons ofEvolution Science or Myth? Why Much oJWhat We TeachAbout Evolution Is Wrong JONATHAN WELLS ILLUSTRATED BY JODY F. SJOGREN IIIIDIDIREGNERY 11MPUBLISHING, INC. An EaglePublishing Company • Washington, IX Copyright © 2000 by Jonathan Wells All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans mitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including pho tocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. -
PRISCUM the Newsletter of the Paleontological Society Volume 13, Number 2, Fall 2004
PRISCUM The Newsletter of the Paleontological Society Volume 13, Number 2, Fall 2004 Paleontological PRESIDENT’S Society Officers COLUMN: Inside... President Treasurer’s Report 2 William I. Ausich WE NEED YOU! GSA Information 2 President-Elect by William I. Ausich Reviews of PS- David Bottjer Sponsored Sessions 3 Past-President Why are you a member of The Paleontology Portal 5 Patricia H. Kelley The Paleontological Society? In PS Lecture Program 6 Secretary the not too distance past, the Books for Review 9 Roger D. K. Thomas only way to receive a copy of the Journal of Book Reviews 9 Treasurer Paleontology and Paleobiology was to pay your dues Conference Announce- and belong to the Society. I suppose one could Mark E. Patzkowsky have borrowed a copy from a friend or wander over ments 14 JP Managing Editors to the library. However, this was probably done Ann (Nancy) F. Budd with a heavy burden of guilt. Now, as we move Christopher A. Brochu into the digital age of scientific journal publishing, Jonathan Adrain one can have copies of the Journal of Paleontology and Paleobiology transmitted right to your Paleobiology Editors computer. It actually may arrive faster than the Tomasz Baumiller U.S. mail, you do not have to pay anything, and Robyn Burnham you do not even have to walk over to the library. Philip Gingerich No need for shelf space, no hassle, no dues, no Program Coordinator guilt – isn’t the Web great? The Web is great, but the Society needs dues-paying members in order Mark A. Wilson to continue to publish in paper, digitally, or both.