Past Darwin Days
2003
Time to Abandon Darwin? The Challenge from “Intelligent Design”
Dr. Kenneth Miller examined Intelligent Design “Theory.” Dr. Miller is a leading evolution educator and often testifies before state legislatures throughout the country regarding evolution and the scientific method. Dr. Miller presented evidence as to why Intellingent Design cannot be considered a scientifically valid theory and why it fails even at the level of a hypothesis. If you would like to read his arguments at length, we suggest his well written book “Finding Darwin's God.”
2004
Only Outlaws would Evolve: The Value of Evolution Education to Modern Society
Dr. Michael Antolin of Colorado State University told us about the value of evolutionary theory to modern society. Evolutionary theory is not just of academic value. A knowledge of how evolution works helps us breed better crops, understand how bacteria and viruses change and adapt, and lets us make better molecules in the test tube using applied evolutionary methods. Failing to teach evolution, or worse making it illegal to teach it, ensures that “only outlaws would evolve” since evolution happens whether we like it or not.
2005
Darwin Distorted: The Misuse of a Scientific Idea
Evolutionary theory can explain and organize much of what we know about the living world. It can also be grossly misused. Evolutionary theory has been used in the past to justify everything from social darwinism, to immigration restriction, to the Nazi genocide. We will explore what makes an idea scientific, how those ideas should be used, and how they shouldn't be. This remains an important topic, particularly in the current age of genome sequencing and DNA fingerprinting.
Dr. Garland Allen discussed the ways in which evolutionary theory and genetics have been misused throughout their history. Critics of evolutionary theory often point to the misuse of science as a reason not to teach it or to the inherent danger it represents. Dr. Allen discussed these misuses and the self-correcting nature of science which led to the discrediting of such practices. More »
2006
“Some Few Beings Which Lived Long Before”
The fossil record is one of the most important data sets that establishes evolution as a scientific fact. Although incomplete, our knowledge of past life is far better than it was in 1859 when Darwin remarked in the Origin of Species, “[t]hat our paleontological collections are very imperfect…”. Fossils collected since Darwin’s time have confirmed many of his predictions and have helped to clarify the historical path that life has taken over the past 3.5 billion years.
Dr. Derek Briggs discussed the fossils of the Burgess Shale which document the earliest appearance of animal life ca. 550 million years ago. The fossil record is an extremely important data set that documents the change of life over time and provides some of the clearest evidence that evolution is a scientific fact. More »
2007
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution
Darwin's On the Origin of Species documented the evidence available in 1859 that demonstrated that evolution was a scientific fact and offered a plausible mechanism by which it operated: natural selection.
Dr. Sean Carroll discussed examples as diverse as Antarctic ice fish and rock pocket mice that help us understand the link between mutations and adaptations, and help us see the fingerprints of natural selection in the genes of every living thing. More »
