Spring Break
Happy birthday to Darwin and theory of evolution
Sanjai Tripathi
Issue date: 2/18/09 Section: Forum
Whether by chance or Divine Providence, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day, Feb. 12, 1809. That was 200 years ago last Thursday.
This November will also mark the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Darwin's famous work, "On the Origin of Species," in which he laid out the theory of evolution: that all life on Earth, including humans, evolved from a common ancestor by a process of change and natural selection.
A Gallup survey taken this month showed that fewer than four in 10 Americans believe in the theory of evolution.
This bugs me because biology is important and evolution is its grand, unifying theory.
Not everyone has to know about evolution or believe in it, but the problem is that Creation literalists, deniers and "skeptics" are trying to junk up the education system by putting pseudoscience and fraudulent claims of scientific controversy in biology classes.
They are trying to muddy the waters because evolution bothers their sensibilities. But make no mistake - without clear lessons on evolution, the biology curriculum is neutered, impotent and unfit.
To that end, I've long tried to come up with a way to explain to the lay public how scientists know evolution is true.
That is hard to do because the science itself is technical, and explaining the evidence for evolution to people feels like teaching an upper-division college course in biology, statistics and genetics.
So in celebration of Darwin's birthday and the anniversary of his book, I've decided to take a different approach.
Perhaps the key to getting non-scientists to understand the veracity of evolution is to help them understand what a theory is, how theories create testable predictions and how the theory of evolution has survived many important tests over the years.
The word "theory" has a different definition in science than it does in colloquial use. What many people call a theory, a tentative and untested explanation for some observation, is called a "hypothesis" in science.
This November will also mark the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Darwin's famous work, "On the Origin of Species," in which he laid out the theory of evolution: that all life on Earth, including humans, evolved from a common ancestor by a process of change and natural selection.
A Gallup survey taken this month showed that fewer than four in 10 Americans believe in the theory of evolution.
This bugs me because biology is important and evolution is its grand, unifying theory.
Not everyone has to know about evolution or believe in it, but the problem is that Creation literalists, deniers and "skeptics" are trying to junk up the education system by putting pseudoscience and fraudulent claims of scientific controversy in biology classes.
They are trying to muddy the waters because evolution bothers their sensibilities. But make no mistake - without clear lessons on evolution, the biology curriculum is neutered, impotent and unfit.
To that end, I've long tried to come up with a way to explain to the lay public how scientists know evolution is true.
That is hard to do because the science itself is technical, and explaining the evidence for evolution to people feels like teaching an upper-division college course in biology, statistics and genetics.
So in celebration of Darwin's birthday and the anniversary of his book, I've decided to take a different approach.
Perhaps the key to getting non-scientists to understand the veracity of evolution is to help them understand what a theory is, how theories create testable predictions and how the theory of evolution has survived many important tests over the years.
The word "theory" has a different definition in science than it does in colloquial use. What many people call a theory, a tentative and untested explanation for some observation, is called a "hypothesis" in science.
Note: writers will not reply to comments.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Gillian
posted 2/18/09 @ 4:06 PM PST
A good and basic review of Darwin's theory in form of Q&A can be found here: http://www.biology-questions-and-answers.com/evolution-theory.html
Post a Comment
Comments by registered users are approved by default.