Studied charter schools as social innovations using an evolutionary approach to study the environmental characteristics that drive the perceived need for innovation and the promotion of experimentation. Findings using data from North Carolina and the U.S. Census show that school districts in need of choice do have a higher mean charter school…

Ohio's new set of science standards, adopted in December 2002, require that the state's public-school students learn Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as well as be allowed to criticize evolution in the classrooms. Includes a sidebar about some school boards' attempts to accommodate both sides in the evolution debate, and an article,…

Contends that social and human sciences are going to be changed by the new ideas and knowledge concerning the evolution of complex systems that is emerging from the natural sciences. Suggests that the work on self-organization theory and synergetic phenomena can serve as the basis for a new science that will allow the study of human systems in…

Discusses incidents of brush-ins with student proponents of the theory of creation science. Provides and answers eight questions typical of both the misinformation spread in creation science literature and the lack of research done by students. (MVL)

Darwin's weak influence on developmental psychology is traced. It is explained by (1) developmentalists' commitment to an ideology of meliorism; (2) conceptual issues relating to ontogeny and phylogeny; and (3) methodological problems. Suggests that developmentalists use evolutionary theory as a heuristic for structuring new research. (BC)

Maintains that "Individual Development and Evolution: The Genesis of Novel Behavior" (Gilbert Gottlieb) is one of the most creative, integrative, and important works in the field of developmental comparative science. Gottlieb's work has provided scientific basis for the concept that developmental systems, and not genetic reductionism, is the only…

Provides insight on the concept, punctuated equilibrium, in the hope of enhancing evolution education. (ZWH)

Presents an activity that provides students an opportunity to explore the tempo and mode of evolution by analyzing data and constructing two evolutionary trees, one gradualistic and one punctuated. (ZWH)

Explores conditions that facilitate or obstruct the internationalization of social science knowledge. Distinguishes among facets and types of knowledge and meanings of internationalization. Illustrates the international applicability of knowledge through examinations of classical economics and development theory. Identifies conflicting forces that…

Includes "The Way We Are: On Being Peculiarly Human" (Yamamoto); "Restoring the Foundations of Freedom" (Moellenberg); and "The Body as Dream, the Body as Metaphor" (Moore). (SK)

The rhetorical abuse of language by creationists is discussed. Suggestions for how to expose such abuses in a discussion or debate format are provided. (CW)

Describes a real life example of natural selection that can be used instead of computer simulation to teach evolution to students. (ZWH)

Draws on evolutionary biology to provide implications for the case study method, to promote a better understanding of contingency, and to confirm the status of case study. Argues that contingency unites the details that make the case portray part of a greater category and that make it a unique instance. (DSK)

Examines Lewis Mumford's scholarship and his contribution to the emergence of media ecology as both an intellectual tradition and a theoretical perspective on the study of technology, media, and culture. Focuses on Mumford's epochal historiography of technology, the techno-organicism in his thinking about technology and human development, and his…

Argues that Darwinian evolution provides a framework for understanding how a polymer such as RNA might have arisen and perpetuated itself in a changing environment. Also explains how one genetic system invents another. (DDR)