Evolution: Education and Outreach

Penny Gilmer, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University, passes along some information about how to access video of talks by the E. O. Wilson, among others, who spoke at a Florida State Darwin Year conference.

At FSU we had an Origins ‘09 event, with a series of speakers on evolution, all in remembrance of Darwin. See this link for the main page: http://origins.fsu.edu/. Then look at the schedule link from that page. Also from the main page you can see a retrospective video of all the events.

GEOSET has the full talks of three of the speakers: E. O. Wilson, Sean Carroll, and Don Johanson, in two screen set-up so you can see the Powerpoints and the speaker on different screens, and the audio is excellent. Go to this link: http://www.geoset.info/. Then go to the presenters’ list, and find the name, then click on Find Lectures, and then select the talk you want to hear. You need Silverlight to see the presentations (but the program is free). All three talks are excellent.

As well, Gilmer recommends visiting the Wilson Biophilia Center, near Niceville, FL, online, at http://www.eowilsoncenter.org/welcome.html, which she reports just opened in September, and presents interesting research on gophers, among other things. The Center describes itself as follows.

The E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center is an environmental education facility, serving students, teachers and professional audiences. Its mission is to educate visitors on the importance of biodiversity, to promote sustainable balanced ecosystems, and to encourage conservation, preservation and restoration.

Developed by Walton County Conservationist and Resident, M.C. Davis, on his 48,000-acre conservation land named Nokuse Plantation, The E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center is named after world renowned scientist Dr. Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator in Entomology at Harvard University, for his life-long contributions to public education about the importance of conserving the world’s biodiversity. This two-time Pulitzer prize winner spent his formative years and performed his earliest scientific investigations in NW Florida and SW Alabama, and developed “biophilia—the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.”

Visitors at the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center will have an opportunity to learn about
the natural environment through interpretive exhibits as well as an extensive trail
system through natural areas undergoing ecological restoration on the nature preserve. In addition, this facility will be promoted as a gathering place for local and regional scientists to conduct ecological research and participate in symposia that disseminate this research to the public. By offering weeklong curriculum that coincides with the Florida Sunshine State Standards, our young citizens will have a better understanding and knowledge for science portions of the FCAT, while promoting
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic (STEM) subjects, and providing opportunities for inquiry, investigation and innovation so that in long-term we all may become better stewards during our journey on this planet.

Hello All—Glenn Geher, whose blog is among the EVoS (Evolutionary Consortium) blogs, has just put up a new post about a new organization, The Feminist Evolutionary Psychology Society. To introduce Glen, consider what he says about himself on his “about” page:

Glenn Geher is professor and chair (starting mid-August, 2009) of psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. In addition to teaching courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and conducting research in various areas related to evolutionary psychology, Glenn directs the campus’ EvoS program, one of the most successful, noteworthy, and vibrant features of a campus that prides itself (rightfully) on academic vibrance. In Building Darwin’s Bridges, Glenn addresses the details of New Paltz’s EvoS program as well as issues tied to the future of evolutionary studies in the rocky and often unpredictable landscape of higher education.

To lead off the post, Glen proposes the following.

Kramare and Treichler (1996): “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.”

Geher (2009): “Evolutionary psychology is the radical notion that human behavior is part of the natural world.”

There is no reason on earth to believe that these two “radical” notions are irreconcilable.

He adds that “I am glad to say that an important and growing intellectual movement is in the works.”

Take a look at the Feminist Evolutionary Psychology Society’s facebook group, too.

@Darwin2009 directed me to what looks like an interesting article addressing the question, Are humans evolving? It’s clearly written and nicely balanced between technical sophistication and entry-level exposition. There are a good number of references, too.

The abstract is as follows.

The question of whether or not humans are still evolving often captures the popular imagination and regularly leads to conflicting claims. Here, some of the evolutionary forces predicted to act upon current and future human populations are reviewed. It is postulated that the increasing movement and panmixia of humans, coupled with an unprecedented increase in the global size of the human population, are predictive of an unparalleled intensification of natural selection in the near future. However, regardless of which forces eventually prevail in the coming millennia, the idea that human evolution will somehow cease is one that is increasingly difficult to sustain.

You can read the article by going to http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/emrw/9780470015902/els/article/a0020794/current/abstract.

It looks like the full content of the article is free; but I can’t be sure, since I am on campus, and it’s possible that our school subscribes.

Sir Harry Kroto, actively involved with the creation and development of the Vega Science Trust and the Global Educational Outreach for Science Engineering and Technology project—and not least of all a member of EE&O’s editorial board—presented (1 July) a lecture entitled “Science, Society & Sustainability”at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Kroto emphasizes the following.

I see a key role for “Nanoscience and Nanotechnology” which is arguably—and I would argue it—just a new name for Chemistry where this discipline overlaps Condensed Matter Physics, Molecular Biology and Materials Engineering. I also see improved SET education as vital. We have manifestly failed in this endeavour but there may be one last hope: The Internet is a major new communications technology which we must exploit to educate people on a global scale in the rational attitudes to decision-making that are now vital to our very survival. With the Vega Science Trust, (www.vega.org.uk), we have made over 200 TV and Internet programmes (almost half shown on the BBC). It is a highly successful platform for scientists to communicate directly and improve the public awareness and understanding of SET. With an exciting new Global Educational Outreach for Science Engineering and Technology (GeoSet, www.geoset.info) initiative we are working with other universities to make outstanding educational material available in any part of the world. The major aim is to empower teachers, worldwide, by giving them access to the best teaching material, packaged for direct use in the classroom, together with expert examples of how the material might best be presented.

Kroto, with colleagues Curl and Smalley, was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of “fullerenes.” Fullerenes are described in a 1985 Letter to Nature by the three Nobelists; The 9 October 1996 Nobel press release announcing the award describes them as follows.

New forms of the element carbon—called fullerenes—in which the atoms are arranged in closed shells was discovered in 1985 by Robert F. Curl, Harold W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley. The number of carbon atoms in the shell can vary, and for this reason numerous new carbon structures have become known. Formerly, six crystalline forms of the element carbon were known, namely two kinds of graphite, two kinds of diamond, chaoit and carbon(VI). The latter two were discovered in 1968 and 1972.

Fullerenes are formed when vaporised carbon condenses in an atmosphere of inert gas. The gaseous carbon is obtained e.g. by directing an intense pulse of laser light at a carbon surface. The released carbon atoms are mixed with a stream of helium gas and combine to form clusters of some few up to hundreds of atoms. The gas is then led into a vacuum chamber where it expands and is cooled to some degrees above absolute zero. The carbon clusters can then be analysed with mass spectrometry.

Kroto has recently contributed an editorial to the Gaurdian, and was Interviewed on NPR’s 20 March 2009 Science Friday. In a 28 June 2008 interview with Alison Stoddart on the Sceptical Chymist blog, he answers the question, If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

I think I would take an introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics (maybe Feynman’s) as I would want to go the next step on from Quantum Mechanics which I vaguely know a bit about already—at least enough to analyse molecular spectra and fool some people into thinking I understand QM.

If I could also take a guitar I think I would take a James Taylor LP so I could try to improve my ability—which is very limited to play the guitar. I guess it would have to take his (Live) album or Greatest hits album as I would want Carolina in my Mind as well as Sweet Baby James which are on his first two albums.

More information about Sir Harry and his work can be found at the Lindau Laureate Details page.

Thanks, Sir Kroto, for your great work in science education and outreach.

Be sure to visit Vega Science Trust and the Global Educational Outreach for Science Engineering and Technology project!

The National Institutes of Health, Office of Science Education has online videos of the 2009 series of lectures on the importance of evolution for understanding human health. On the same page as the 2009 lectures’ videos, you can find videos from past years. The NIH says:

NIH is partnering with the National Academy of Sciences to present the annual lecture series, Evolution and Medicine. An outstanding group of scientists will present lectures on evolution as it applies to their area of scientific expertise. A reception will be held immediately following each lecture. The program is free and open to everyone.

Topics for this year include “Brain evolution: Lessons from Birds and Humans Who Sing and Talk” (Erick Jarvis, Duke); “Your Inner Fish” (Neil Shubin, U Chicago); “Communicating About Evolution” (Matthew Nisbet, American University) and “Evolution Matters” (David Hillis, U of Texas).

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA) has recently (15 June 2009) posted the papers presented at the Sackler Colloquium meeting “In the Light of Evolution III: 200 Years of Darwin.” The papers are available free of charge.

The Sackler Colloquium home page describes the colloquium:

The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four to six such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Each colloquium is organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. These colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.

Information about completed colloquia—I don’t know if there are papers or presentations there—can also be found on the PNAS web site. I feel confident in asserting that an afternoon’s investment in browsing will pay handsomely.

OK, I will have to look over this later—now that it’s on the blog, at least, I can’t lose track of the web address.

I am grateful to the NCSE’s news feed on facebook for calling my attention to this excellent resource.

Hello all

As reported by Bug Girl, it’s National Pollinator Week, which is coordinated by the Pollinator Partnership, which says the following about itself in the “About Us” section of its web site:

The Pollinator Partnership (P2) is the D.B.A. for the 501(c)(3) non-profit Coevolution Institute. P2 works to protect the health of managed and native pollinating animals vital to our North American ecosystems and agriculture. Our website is a premiere source of information for consumers, gardeners, land managers, educators, resource managers, producers, and farmers to help pollinators, essential components for all of life.

As one of it’s many projects, P2 manages the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) a collaborative group of over 120 organizations and individuals that promote and implement a continent-wide Action Plan to encourage activities to protect the numbers and health of all pollinating animals.

Readers of Darwin will recall that some of his most compelling work was about the pollination of orchids. You can read the complete text of the first edition of On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects (London, 1862), where you can also find its second edition (London, 1877).

You can read a recent National Academies [of Science] report on the current state of pollinators and pollination for free, online.

I take this opportunity to point out that I am sure they mean “its” (first line, second paragraph in the block quote abve) which means “belongs to it,” rather than “it’s”, which means “it is.” I don’t mean to be pedantic but I have seen this error so many times that I am starting to make it myself. I am worried that the apostrophe is fading from our language.

A new online publication about evolution and evolution education is now up. You can find the first issue for the first volume at http://evostudies.org/vol1.html. If you write about evolution education, consider submitting a paper.

From the Consortium’s home page:

The Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) Consortium is designed to facilitate the development and implementation of Evolutionary Studies Programs at colleges and universities across the United States. An Evolutionary Studies Program introduces students from all majors to evolutionary theory early in their academic careers, emphasizes human-related subjects in addition to biological, promotes the continuation of evolutionary training throughout the undergraduate education, and promotes faculty training and collaborative research related to evolution.

The EvoS Consortium is a website that provides the tools and a community space for evolutionary training in institutions of higher education. The Consortium website (affiliated with EvoS Journal: The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium) is a space for both faculty and undergraduate members of Evolutionary Studies Programs, as well as those interested in starting a program. The inaugural consortium members are:

A major goal of the Consortium is growth – we hope to expand the consortium such that EvoS programs replicate widely. As such, we openly welcome other institutions to join. Steps associated with starting an EvoS program and joining the Consortium are described in the pages included in the Membership navigation button to the left.

The EvoS Consortium Website is sponsored by the Expanding Evolutionary Studies in American Higher Education grant from the National Science Foundation (#0817337), awarded jointly to Binghamton University and State University of New York, New Paltz.

So—take a look!

The aim and audience of EE&O was a topic on PZ Meyers’ Pharyngula blog. I put in my $.02:
http://bit.ly/q8IRz

The National Center for Science Education has just added some new resources to its web page. The first is a whole new section on creationism and the law. The link in the sidebar of the NCSE main page is just “legal cases,” but there is more than that here. Also there is a new section on “Academic Freedom” legislation—laws that purport to protect scholars and teachers from having their views suppressed, but are in fact targeted at protecting the views of those such as creationists. It looks like a pretty comprehensive set of resources over there. There’s a list of all the different laws passed, organized by state and also chronologically. Unfortunately, this excellent page is buried in the hierarchy of the site: Main >> Creationism >> Past and Present >> Incidents, and you have to scroll down under “contents” to find the link to the “Academic Freedom” part of the site.