Amanda L. (Glaze) Townley, Ph.D.
Our evolutionary underpinnings: the past, present, and future
of evolution education in the United States.
Abstract
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Change is a concept simple enough in nature and one with which we are intimately familiar. Surroundings change, times change, and people change greatly over a lifetime, both physically and intellectually. Change is so much a part of our mantra that we have an adage that puts it in perspective:
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The only constant is that everything changes.
Book Overview
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There is a paradox when it comes to Darwinian ideas within the academy. On one hand, Darwin's theories have famously changed the foundational ideas related to the origins of life, shaping entire disciplines in the biological sciences. On the other hand, people in educated societies across the globe today are famously misinformed and uneducated about Darwinian principles and ideas. Applications of evolutionary theory outside the traditional areas of biology have been slow to progress, and scholars doing such work regularly run into all kinds of political backlash. However, a slow but steady push to advance the teaching of evolution across academic disciplines has been under way for more than a decade.