Oh, this is a juicy one! Enough so that I'm actually unlurking after many
weeks of self imposed exile in my cave of web design insanity (more on that
another time)

Anyway - I'm pulling this from the New York Times article. The typing
errors I enthusiastically take full credit for:

"An overwhelming majority of Americans think creationism should be taught
along with Darwin's theory of evolution in public schools, according to a
new nationwide survey by an independent polling organization."

"Some scientists called the seemingly contradictory findings a quixotic
attempt by the public to accomodate incompatible world views. But in some
ways, even as Americans continue to argue over what children should learn
about human origens, the poll offers encouragement to both sides of the
debate"

"The poll results were released yesterday (Friday) by the People for the
American Way Foundation, the liberal civil-rights organization that
commissioned the study. It was based on extensive interviews with 1,500
Americans drawn representatively from all segments of society accross the
country"

"In results emphasised by the foundation, the poll found that 83 percent of
Americans generally support teaching evolution in public schools."

"But the poll, which had a statistical margin of error of 2.6 percentage
points, also found that 79 percent think creationism has a place in the
curriculum, though respondents often said the topic should be discussed as
a belief rather than as a competing scientific theory."

"As for evolution, almost half of the respondants said that the theory is
far from being proven scientifically. And 68 percent said it was possible
simultaneously to believe in evolution and that God created humans and
guided their development."

Well ... this article goes on and on .. What I find most alarming
personally, is the comment about evolution being a far from proven theory.
It's a complicated subject to understand fully, to say the least. None the
less ... there is, as many on this list are aware, overwhelming evidence
for evolution. Evidently our schools are not properly communicating the
mechanisms of gene pool variation over time (the definition of evolution).

Which leads me to my question. What museums (if any) have taken the
initiative to develope exhibits and/or educational programs that clearly
and elegantly explain the "how we know it's so's" of evolution? Any stellar
examples?


Roy Hemmat
[log in to unmask]
http://museumstuff.com - 1000's of museum related links

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