page xiii - "And the battle is part of a wider war, a war between rationality and superstition. What is at stake is nothing less than science itself and all the benefits it offers to society."

- Do you think that this is true? Parents? Students?

page xvii – “To many, evolution gnaws at their sense of self. If evolution offers a lesson, it seems to be that we’re not only related to other creatures but, like them, are also the product of blind and impersonal evolutionary forces. If humans are just one of many outcomes of natural selection, maybe we aren’t so special after all.”

- Reactions to this?

xviii – “While many religious people have found a way to accommodate evolution with their spiritual beliefs, no such reconciliation is possible if one adheres to the literal truth of a special creation.”

Discussion of Preface, Intro, and Chapter 1

MISCONCEPTION: Evolution and religion are incompatible.

What's your response to a student who says this?

Repeating statistics on American Opinions on Teaching Evolution

Xviii – "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals."

-40% judge the statement true-39% judge it false-21% unsure

Nearly two-thirds of Americans feel that if evolution is taught n the science classroom, creationism should be as well.

12% think evolution should be taught alone.

"Teach all sides."

One in 8 American high school biology teachers admits to presenting creationism or ID as a valid alternative.

Page 1. – "If anything is true about nature, it is that plants and animals seem intricately and almost perfectly design for living their lives."

Exquisite adaptations can give the appearance of “divine creation”.

How so?

William Paley

What was the argument put forth by William Paley?

Coyne's Definition of evolution

“Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.”

Six Components to Evolution

1. evolution – species undergo genetic change. - not all at the same rate

2. Gradualism – things usually evolve pretty slowly – particularly once organisms are well adapted to stable habitats. 3. Speciation – lineages split.

What happens at point X?

What would you see if you were there at that split?

Same thing for Y?

"Common ancestry"

"Natural Classification"

How/why does the nested arrangement of taxonomic groups support evolution?

Carl Linneaus

"Strikingly, different biologists came up with nearly identical groupings. This means that these groupings are not subjective artifacts of a human need to classify, but tell us something real and fundamental about nature."

Natural Selection

• Why doesn't natural selection produce perfection?

• Why is extinction a problem for Intelligent Design?

MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection produces organisms perfectly suited to their environments.

What is a good response to someone who says this?

"Only a Theory"

Common Misconception: Evolution is ‘just' a theory.

What is the best response to a student who says this?

MISCONCEPTION: Evolution is not science because it is not observable or testable.

What is the best response to this claim?

Six Predictions of Evolution.

1. Deepest (and oldest) layers of rock contains the fossils of more primitive species, and fossils become more complex as the layers of rock become younger, with organisms resembling present- day species in the most recent layers. 2. Should be able to find cases of speciation in the fossil record; and see new species forming in the wild. 3. Should be able to find missing links that bring together major groups of animals – and they should occur in the rocks when those forms were supposed to have diverged. 4. Genetic variation in lots of traits. 5. Imperfect adaptation. – Have to deal with past traits/developments in creating new traits. 6. Evidence of natural selection acting in the wild.

Retrodiction – Facts that aren't predicted but make sense only in the light of evolution. Distributions of organisms, vestigial traits, peculiarities of development.