Latest Discovery Institute campaigns Stories
Biologist Kenneth Miller speaks at AAAS Meeting Feb. 18 Vicious, winner-take-all competition in nature is an essential pillar of evolutionary theory, but it frequently describes the mindset people have about how, or whether, to teach the subject. Religious students sometimes come to class thinking that science and religion are in deliberate opposition, like two lionesses fighting over a kill. When Brown University biologist and practicing Catholic Kenneth Miller teaches evolution, he also...
INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A bill approved today by the Indiana Senate to allow the teaching of creationism in public schools is being criticized as bad science education by Discovery Institute, the nation's leading intelligent design think tank. If made law, Indiana Senate Bill 89 (SB89) would allow creationism, a religious view on the origin of species, into the Hoosier state's biology classrooms. In 1987, the Supreme Court struck down similar...
Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Union College (Schenectady, N.Y.) have found that people's death anxiety can influence them to support theories of intelligent design and reject evolutionary theory.Existential anxiety also prompted people to report increased liking for Michael Behe, intelligent design's main proponent, and increased disliking for evolutionary biologist Richard DawkinsThe lead author is UBC Psychology Asst. Prof. Jessica Tracy with co-authors Joshua Hart,...
LOS ANGELES, July 12 /PRNewswire/ -- In a press conference held here today at the Los Angeles Press Club, former George Mason University professor Dr. Caroline Crocker officially announced the publication of her book Free to Think (published by Leafcutter Press) which details her experience at GMU, including claims that a signed 3-year contract in 2004 was not honored by GMU officials because of a cheating student's incorrect report that she taught creationism. She also announced the...
High school and college students who understand the geological age of the Earth (4.5 billion years) are much more likely to understand and accept human evolution, according to a University of Minnesota study published in the March issue of the journal Evolution.The finding could give educators a new strategy for teaching evolution, since the Earth's age is typically covered in physical rather than biological science classes.Researchers Sehoya Cotner and Randy Moore, professors in College of...
The Texas Board of Education rejected efforts to continue to require children to study pros and cons of scientific theories, including evolution. Lawrence Allen Jr., who voted against including the strengths and weaknesses language, called for the board to do better at representing everybody in the process and not just our individual ideologies, the Austin American-Statesman reported Friday. The board was considering draft language crafted by a committee of teachers and education experts who...
The Texas Board of Education convened a public hearing Wednesday on proposed new standards for the teaching of science in Texas classrooms.The issue receiving the most attention is whether the state will continue to require teachers and textbooks to cover both the strengths and weaknesses of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, The Dallas Morning News reports.Curriculum review committees composed of science teachers and academics have recommended Texas scrap its long-standing requirement for...
Critics of earlier drafts say the final draft of the Texas science curriculum will provide students with a 21st century education, especially on evolution.The draft changed a requirement that schools teach the strengths and weaknesses or strengths and limitations of scientific theories, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reports. In the third draft, the curriculum now requires that students be taught to evaluate models according to their limitations in representing biological objects or...
By Lorentzen, Laura I don't remember when I first learned about the theory of evolution, but nowadays I find myself reading of it a great deal in the popular press and hearing it discussed in the media. As my daughter enters elementary school, I find myself anxious to discuss with her teachers what they will cover in science class and where in their curriculum they plan to teach evolution. OUR COUNTRY HAS LAWS THAT SEPARATE church and state. Public institutions like schools must be neutral...
In many ways, much has changed since the famous Scopes Monkey trial of 1925. In recent years, US courts have consistently ruled that teaching explicitly religious alternatives to evolution in public schools is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. But in a new essay published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, political scientist Michael Berkman and his colleagues show that despite these many legal victories, a surprising number of public high school biology...
