Darwin's week

By Mary Bigelow

Posted on 2009-02-10

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth (February 12), the Science Section of the New York Times (February 10, 2009) has several fascinating articles. Even if you don’t teach biology, they’re worth reading! Here are links and the descriptions from the Times:

Darwin, Ahead of His Time, Is Still Influential. It is a testament to Darwin’s extraordinary insight that it took almost a century for biologists to understand the essential correctness of his views.

Seeing the Risks of Humanity’s Hand in Species Evolution. Human predation is causing target species to evolve to reproduce at younger ages and smaller sizes, to their short-term benefit but to the long-term harm of the species.

Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live. Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution.

Crunching the Data for the Tree of Life. Biologists know how species are related but lack the tools to show off their discoveries.

Genes Offer New Clues in Old Debate on Species’ Origins. The study of how species originate, a process known as speciation, is not only one of evolution’s most active areas of study, but also one of its most contentious.

Findings: Darwin the Comedian. Now That’s Entertainment! Richard Milner, a science historian, finds the funny side of Charles Darwin, evolutionary giant.

How many of us have actually read Darwin’s original works? This feature, On Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. includes selections by prominent scientists of their favorite passages and discussions of why these passages are important.

The video Darwin in Song features Richard Milner, a singing Darwinian scholar.

Check your PBS listings this week for NOVA’s Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial The January 2009 edition of Scientific American (which you can read online) has an Evolution theme.
NSTA has published the Tool Kit for Teaching Evolution by Judy Elgin Jensen. It has background information and related resources, lesson plans, and teaching suggestions. A downloadable version is free to NSTA members. And don’t forget to look for related websites in SciLinks. Enter evolution as a keyword for many categories of sites.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA).

Darwin&#039;s week

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Darwin's week