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How do you explain flaw in a world engineered by God? Avise extends this age-old question to the most basic aspect of humanity's physical evidence-- our genes-- and provides the evolutionary answers.

This article scrutinizes the conceptualization of science advanced by the Muslim public speaker and author Hamza Andreas Tzortzis in his book The Divine Reality. The Islamic theistic outlook advanced by Tzortzis is based on extensive discussion of science, including a rebuttal of science-based atheism and the prescription for Muslims to practically accept the theory of evolution as a best-working model without in fact including it in their belief system. It is argued that Tzortzis’s discussion suffers from six major and intertwined problems related to the consistency and accuracy of the epistemological framework within which he defends (Islamic) theism.

BackgroundThe religious or cultural objections by many people to the teaching of evolution in high school biology classrooms can impact both students’ willingness to explore a scientific understanding of evolutionary theory and teachers’ willingness to provide sound instruction on the topic. Pedagogical approaches designed to address this tension in the public or private US high school classroom during regular biology classroom instruction on evolution are needed. We developed a Cultural and Religious Sensitivity (CRS) Teaching Strategies Resource to aid teachers in acknowledging students’ religious and cultural concerns about evolution, introducing the variety of possible relationships between science and religion, and focusing on the nature of science. The resource provides both background information for the teacher and activities to engage students in two 50–75 min directed classroom discussions. The CRS resource is part of a designed-based study, the Teaching Evolution through Human Examples (TEtHE) project that created and field tested four curriculum units for advanced placement high school biology classes that use human examples to teach evolution (Pobiner et al. Evol Educ Outreach. 2018;11:3 2018). Here we describe the design of the CRS resource and qualitative results of student focus groups that explore the extent to which the CRS resource activities helped to create a supportive classroom environment as well as more generally what benefits, if any, students derived from participating in these activities.ResultsFocus groups were conducted with students from five classes of four different teachers in both public and private US high schools. Focus group transcripts were analyzed to identify common themes expressed in relation to the students’ experience of one of the two CRS activities. Benefits of participating in these activities noted by students included reduced tension around the topic of evolution, a recognition that evolution is not necessarily in conflict with religious belief, and an increased understanding of the cultural context of modern and historical views about evolution.ConclusionsThe themes identified through qualitative analyses of focus group transcripts support the conclusion that acknowledging students’ concerns about evolution is a promising pedagogical approach to teaching evolution in conjunction with lessons designed to teach the content of evolutionary theory. The approach merits further research with general introductory high school biology classes.

Noted biologist and philosopher Sahotra Sarkar exposes the frauds and fallacies of Intelligent Design Theory, and its claim to be ‘good science’. - A scientific and philosophical exploration of the debate between evolutionary theory and Intelligent Design in the classroom - Puts the debate into its scientific and historical context - Looks at a variety of topics, including the relation between Darwinism and modern evolutionary theory, the use of computer science and information theory by the creationists, and the idea of metaphysical naturalism - Rejects Intelligent Design’s claim to legitimacy, showing clearly how and why it is an unsuitable alternative to evolutionary biology in the classroom - A thought-provoking book for those seeking to understand an intellectual debate that is shaping our education policies - Forms part of the provocative and timely Blackwell Public Philosophy series

The captivating story of the discovery of the dinosaurs and how it upended our understanding of the origins of the world - overturning the literal reading of the Bible, liberating science from the shackles of religion, and giving birth to the secular age.

Two discoveries of early human relatives, one in 1924 and one in 2003, radically changed scientific thinking about our origins. Dean Falk, a pioneer in the field of human brain evolution, offers this fast-paced insider's account of these discoveries, the behind-the-scenes politics embroiling the scientists who found and analyzed them, and the academic and religious controversies they generated. The first is the Taung child, a two-million-year-old skull from South Africa that led anatomist Raymond Dart to argue that this creature had walked upright and that Africa held the key to the fossil ancestry of our species. The second find consisted of the partial skeleton of a three-and-a-half-foot-tall woman, nicknamed Hobbit, from Flores Island, Indonesia. She is thought by scientists to belong to a new, recently extinct species of human, but her story is still unfolding. Falk, who has studied the brain casts of both Taung and Hobbit, reveals new evidence crucial to interpreting both discoveries and proposes surprising connections between this pair of extraordinary specimens.

Can Darwin and religion exist side by side? In this thought-provoking programme, Anglican Christian, philosopher and theologian Conor Cunningham explains why these two beliefs are not in conflict. Richard Dawkins, famous for his book The God Delusion, believes there is an irreconcilable clash between the theory of evolution and a belief in God. But Conor thinks Dawkins is mistaken. He uncovers traditional Christian thinking about the creation of life, reveals how Christians were never expected to read the creation account in Genesis literally and discovers that Creationism is a modern invention. Communicating his passion for the subject with rich visual metaphors, making complex ideas accessible, Conor shows how Darwin's vision of the universe enhances our appreciation of a natural world that is full of wonder and stunning intelligibility - a vision of existence which neither leads to nor precludes either atheism or faith.