Textbooks for GCE Advanced Level Biology have provided over-simplified and inaccurate accounts of Charles Darwin's contribution to the study of evolution over a period of many decades. They have credited him with field skills and insight that he did not possess, and repeated several historical inaccuracies. Darwin's strength was as a synthesiser…

The debate over teaching evolution has once again reached a fever pitch in the United States. Earnest nineteenth-century clashes between scientific and religious worldviews have given way to the politically charged arguments of creation science and now intelligent design. The Web site of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE;…

Presents experiments using wild birds as predators and pastry as prey and colored stones as background to demonstrate natural selection. Describes the exercise as an exercise in simulating natural selection. (Author/CW)

Examines the content and methodology of the teaching of human evolution in the schools of the People's Republic of China. Reviews the aims and goals of science teaching and their effects on the teaching of evolution. Emphasizes evolution, compatibility with China's political doctrines, and includes illustrations of instructional materials. (ML)

Discusses Mechanics' Institutes and British working-class intellectual life during the nineteenth century (a time period later than generally studied) as a contributor to the spread of evolutionary socialism. Many people preferred non-vocational subjects such as geology and physiology; they were concerned with natural history and new evolutionary…

Presents the background and rationale for the Science as a Way of Knowing Project. Also offers suggestions for incorporating the teaching of science as a way of knowing into science classes in general and in the teaching of evolution in college courses in particular. (JN)

Examines issues and events related to Liberty Baptist College's (LBC) request to have the Virginia Board of Education approve LBC's biology program for teacher training. Criteria used in evaluating the program and interpretations of various individuals involved in the controversy are included. (JN)

Details of the backgrounds of witnesses in the courtroom challenge to Arkansas' Act 590, which mandated inclusion of creationism in the school curricula, are given. Creationists look forward to the upcoming challenge of a Louisiana law. Public poll results favoring teaching of creationism in public schools are cited. (MSE)

Presents arguments against the recent "punctuated equilibrium" point of view expressed by evolutionists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge. Reviews evidence for continuous and gradual change, as recently cited by four anthropologists in the July 9 issue of "Nature." (CS)

Compares and contrasts the theories of creationism and evolution. Includes a National Science Teachers Association position statement on the inclusion of nonscience theories in science instruction. (SK)

Examines competing claims of two explanations of sex differences in social behavior, social role theory, and evolutionary psychology. Findings associated with social role theory are weighed against evolutionary explanations. It is suggested that evolutionary theory better accounts for the overall pattern of sex differences and for their origins.…

Introduces a paleontology curriculum that focuses on the concepts of observation and inference, setting up an experiment, collecting data, and developing and testing a hypothesis. Features units such as Nature of Science, Paleontology of Florissant, and Evolution. (YDS)

Explains changes in the scientific world view. Describes the classical mechanistic-reductionist paradigm and some modern examples of changes including evolution, self-organizing universe, non-linearity, subjectivity, and software. (YP)

Discusses magnetic polarity stratigraphy as a tool for correlation of fossiliferous terrestrial deposits. Explains the strengths, weaknesses, limitations, preferred conditions, sampling, laboratory analysis, and applications of this technique. A table of paleomagnetic studies on vertebrate-bearing terrestrial sections arranged by age and locality…

Reports that creationism has been specifically banned from the Provincial curriculum as a legitimate scientific subject in all public schools and level one private schools in British Columbia. (DDR)