The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding the teaching of evolution and climate change, and to provide information and resources to schools, parents, and other citizens working to keep those topics in public school science education. Based in Oakland, California, it claims 4,500 members that include scientists, teachers, clergy, and citizens of varied religious and political affiliations. The Center opposes the teaching of religious views in science classes in America's public schools; it does this through initiatives such as Project Steve. The Center has been called the United States' "leading anti-creationist organization". The Center is affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
NCSE is currently a member of the National Coalition Against Censorship.
In 1980 Stanley L. Weinberg, a veteran high-school teacher in Iowa, began to organize statewide Committees of Correspondence "committed to the defense of education in evolutionary theory," modelled upon the committees of correspondence in pre-Revolutionary America. Their purpose was to keep interested parties informed about creationist endeavours and to share ideas for responses, allowing a political response at a local level. This grew into volunteer networks in most states, with the Creation/Evolution Newsletter interconnecting them, which was incorporated as the NCSE in 1983. In 1987, author and lecturer Eugenie Scott, who holds a PhD in Physical Anthropology, became its executive director. The Board of Directors and official supporters, as explained by NCSE, "reflects our scientific roots."
In the 1990s, based upon its monitoring of creationist efforts, it issued warnings of high levels of official anti-evolutionism and a "sharp surge upwards" in creationist attacks on evolution, including attempts to downgrade evolution from "fact" to "theory" (see evolution as theory and fact) or present the "evidence against evolution" (see objections to evolution).
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The Wedge Strategy is a creationist political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document. Its goal is to change American culture by shaping public policy to reflect politically conservative fundamentalist evangelical Protestant values. The wedge metaphor is attributed to Phillip E. Johnson and depicts a metal wedge splitting a log.
The "teach the controversy" campaign of the Discovery Institute seeks to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (a variant of traditional creationism) as part of its attempts to discredit the teaching of evolution in United States public high school science courses. Scientific organizations (including the American Association for the Advancement of Science) point out that the institute claims that there is a scientific controversy where in fact none exists.
Objections to evolution have been raised since evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the 19th century. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution (the idea that species arose through descent with modification from a single common ancestor in a process driven by natural selection) initially met opposition from scientists with different theories, but eventually came to receive overwhelming acceptance in the scientific community.
Delves into the mindset of individuals who adopt irrational beliefs, such as creationists in the USA, based on a rejection of science and common sense.
Concept map activities often lack a subsequent revision step that facilitates knowledge integration. This study compares two collaborative critique activities using a Knowledge Integration Map (KIM), a form of concept map. Four classes of high school biolo ...
Understanding how evolutionary changes happen requires connecting genotype and phenotype level concepts. This study uses a form of concept map, called Knowledge Integration Map (KIM), as a learning and assessment tool to support and assess connecting conce ...
Many students leave school with a fragmented understanding of biology that does not allow them to connect their ideas to their everyday lives (Wandersee, 1989; Mintzes, Wandersee, & Novak, 1998; Mintzes, Wandersee, & Novak, 2000a). Understanding evolution ...