SEARCH NOW (LYCOS)
SEARCH NOW (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN)
What's New
The Internet is a rich source of information on the creation
vs. evolution debate. Search for the most current news on
creation and evolution. Note: There may be no results on the day
of your search.
SEARCH
NOW (LYCOS)
SEARCH
NOW (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN)
Following are some recent news articles we found on the subject. Abstracts are included here.
Kansas Votes to Delete Evolution From State's Science Curriculum, Pam Belluck, NYT, August 11, 1999.
"Is Out of Africa Going Out the Door?", Kate Wong, Scientific American, August 1999
"Stellar Hint at Radiation's Role in Life", NYT, July 31, 1998.
"Evolutionary Biology Begins Tackling Public Doubts", Carol Kaesuk Yook, NYT, July 8, 1998.
August
11, 1999 New York Times
Kansas Votes to Delete Evolution From
State's Science Curriculum
By PAM BELLUCK
The Kansas Board of Education voted today to delete
virtually any mention of evolution from the state's science
curriculum, in one of the most far-reaching efforts by
creationists in recent years to challenge the teaching of
evolution in schools.
August,
1999 Scientific American
Is Out of Africa Going Out the Door?
By KATE WONG
The "Out of Africa" theory states that some 100,000
years ago modern man arose in Africa and began to beat out his
competition, namely the Neanderthals and other early peoples.
This theory gained much support when, in 1987, molecular
biologists declared that all modern humans could trace a piece of
their genetic legacy back to a single African woman they dubbed
Eve who lived 200,000 years ago. This theory was later found to
have many flaws, but still enjoyed support from many people.
Since then, a newer fossil of 60,000 years has been found that
many people think is of a modern human. Some say that this is new
evidence for the Out of Africa theory, but as the fossils were
not found there and the DNA is not conclusive, the history of
human origins is again forced to rely on fossils.
February,
1999 Scientific
American
Cichlids of
the Rift Lakes
By MELANIE STIASSNY and AXEL MEYER
Cichlids are enormously diverse fish that live in many parts of the world. However, these fish have the greatest abundance of species in the rift lakes of Africa. There are 3 rift lakes that house the largest populations of cichlids. These are Lake Victoria, (400 species), Lake Malawi (300-500 species) and Tanganyika (200 species). These lakes contain cichlids from species with variations ranging from different color stripes to how they raise their young. These species are found only in these lakes and are an example of evolution in action. People come from all over the world to study these highly evolved fish and how they live.
July
31, 1998 NYT
Experiment Supports Theory That Life Began in Volcanic
Environment
By NICHOLAS WADE
Carl R. Woese of the University of Illinois is a microbiologist who thinks that life may have started in the heat of volcanoes or undersea volcanic vents some 4.5 billion years ago. Stanley Miller of the University of California disagrees, saying that life would more likely have formed in water under normal conditions. Miller provided evidence for his theory, showing that water mixed with gasses and zapped with electric bolts (that represent lighting) can form most of the components needed for life. However, molecules in normal water do not collide enough to create the more complex molecules of life.
Woese instead believes
that life on Earth began in the furnace-like temperatures of a
volcanic environment. This theory has received support from an
experiment designed to reconstruct the chemical events that may
have led to the first living cells. The experiment, reported in
Friday's issue of the journal Science, shows that
peptides, short protein chains, can form naturally under
conditions that might plausibly have existed on the early Earth
some four billion years ago.
A third idea has been advanced by Dr. Gunther Wachtershauser. He
believes that prebiotic reactions occurred on a surface, probably
of some common catalyst like the ores of iron and nickel.
Chemicals bound to a surface would be much more likely to meet
and combine into the more complicated molecules typical of life,
he believes.
July
31, 1998 NYT
Stellar Hint at Radiation's Role in Life
The left-handed molecules
that led to the beginning of life on earth may have been singled
out for their eventual role in biology by a type of radiation
that astronomers have discovered in a 0star-forming cloud some
1,500 light years away.
A team of astronomers in Australia reported in the issue of
Science magazine published Friday that they detected strongly
polarized radiation from a celestial cloud of hot dust and infant
stars in the constellation Orion. Its discoverers believe that
similar radiation could account for the uniform twist of key
molecules in living creatures and help explain how life arose.
July
8, 1998 Scientific American
Evolutionary Biology Begins Tackling Public Doubts
By CAROL KAESUK YOOK
Scientists at a meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution, an international body of some 3,500 scientists, discussed ways that the belief in evolution could be promoted through education at the high school and college level. Statistics show that many people, including graduate students in biology, do not believe in evolution. The Society discussed the basis of misconceptions related to evolution and ways to counteract them. These misconceptions are, according to Dr. Brian Alters, are the beliefs that the methods used to date fossils and other rocks are not accurate, that mutations are never beneficial to animals, that it is statistically impossible for life to arise by chance and that there is scientific evidence that humans were supernaturally created.
March,
1998 Scientific American
The Evolution of the Universe
By P. JAMES E. PEEBLES, DAVID N. SCHRAMM, EDWIN L. TURNER AND
RICHARD G. KRON
"At a particular instant roughly 12 billion years ago, all the matter and energy we can observe, concentrated in a region smaller than a dime, began to expand and cool at an incredibly rapid rate. By the time the temperature had dropped to 100 million times that of the sun's core, the forces of nature assumed their present properties, and the elementary particles known as quarks roamed freely in a sea of energy. When the universe had expanded an additional 1,000 times, all the matter we can measure filled a region the size of the solar system."
This web site is a 1999 ThinkQuest Entry. Questions or problems regarding this website should be directed to 29178@advanced.org . |
