evolution
Stephen Jay Gould: What Does it Mean to Be a Radical?
Marxist biologists Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins remember the life and career of paleontologist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould, and his role in the social criticism of science.
Early this year, Stephen Gould developed lung cancer, which spread so quickly that there was no hope of survival. He died on May 20, 2002, at the age of sixty. Twenty years ago, he had escaped death from mesothelioma, induced, we all supposed, by some exposure to asbestos.
Revisiting the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' - radio feature
In 1925, teacher John T. Scopes was tried in Dayton, Tennessee, for teaching evolution in a science classroom. Stephen Jay Gould pointed out a number of misconceptions relating to the trial, and radio feature this week revisited the small town that became known for one of the most famous trials in US history.
In 2008, the year that marked the 150th anniversary of Darwin and Wallace's ideas on evolution by natural selection first being presented, at least seven US states experienced legal challenges to evolution (most of which died) being taught in the science classroom, and in the past decade, many more states have seen teachers subjected to the whims of creationist lobbyists on school boards.
Darwin 2009
2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On The Origin Of Species. Last year saw the anniversary of Darwin and Wallace's ideas first being presented to the Linnaean Society in London. Books, events, magazines, radio shows have already been marking these anniversaries and even two movies are in the works. Here's a list of some of them, by no means exhaustive...
2008 already saw the 150th anniversary of Darwin and Wallace’s papers on natural selection being jointly presented to the Linnaen Society in London.
'The Wedge' Document - Intelligent Design exposed
In 1998, the Discovery Institute (DI), a conservative intelligent-design think-tank based in Seattle, produced the now infamous 'Wedge' document. The document was meant only for members of the DI but was leaked not long after. The Wedge describes the short and long-term goals of intelligent design advocates, not just in displacing evolution from the science curriculum in US public schools, but with the broader cultural, social, and political aim to 'reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.'
[Originally posted on the NCSE site.]
Note - This is the text of the Discovery Institute's "Wedge Document," prepared in 1998. It lays out "the Wedge strategy" by which the newly-formed Center for Renewal of Science and Culture would promote "intelligent design" creationism.
THE WEDGE
CENTER FOR THE RENEWAL OF SCIENCE & CULTURE
INTRODUCTION
The Creation/Evolution Continuum
Physical anthropologist Eugenie Scott of the National Centre for Science Education explains the variety of beliefs relating to the origin of life and present such views as part of a continuum. Scott's work unfortunately has an over-reliance on Gould's principle of 'Non-Overlapping Magesteria' (NOMA) and typically refrains from outright criticism of non-materialist worldviews, although she is herself an atheist. This NOMA principle is used in much of the NCSE literature as an attempt to persuade religious believers than evolution poses no threat to their religious faith.
Many — if not most — Americans think of the creation and evolution controversy as a dichotomy with "creationists" on one side, and "evolutionists" on the other. This assumption all too often leads to the unfortunate conclusion that because creationists are believers in God, that evolutionists must be atheists.
Steve Fuller and the hidden agenda of social constructivism
Norman Levitt, mathematician and co-author of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science on the motivations of 'secular humanist' sociologist of science Steve Fuller's support of intelligent design creationists in the 2005 Dover Trial.
Department of Mathematics, Rutgers University
Posted [on talkorigins.org] February 19, 2006
Psyching Out Evolutionary Psychology
Interview with philosopher of science David J Buller on some of his criticisms of evolutionary psychology.
Interview by JR Minkel
The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme
Gould and Lewontin's oft-cited paper criticising what they see as the over-reliance on adaptationist explanations of many biologists.
"The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique Of The Adaptationist Programme," Proceedings Of The Royal Society of London, Series B, Vol. 205, No. 1161 (1979), Pp. 581-598.
Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology
Philosopher of science, David J Buller, author of Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature, presents a refutation of some central claims of evolutionary psychology. In this Scientific American article, Buller focuses not on the motivations or political implications of evolutionary psychology proponents, but rather on the evidential claims advanced by those in the field.
Key Points:
* Among Charles Darwin’s lasting legacies is our knowledge that the human mind evolved by some adaptive process.
* A major, widely discussed branch of evolutionary psychology—Pop EP—holds that the human brain has many specialized mechanisms that evolved to solve the adaptive problems of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Kropotkin was no crackpot - Stephen Jay Gould
Well-known evolutionary biologist/science historian Stephen Jay Gould defends Kropotkin's famous thesis that co-operation and mutual aid are factors of evolution at least as important as competition.
