Evolution

The controversial Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., marked its second anniversary this past week with slightly lower numbers than its first year but with much excitement.

“We enter our third year excited about the growing opportunities the museum provides for reaching people with the creation gospel message,” commented Ken Ham, the founder and president of the 70,000-square foot museum.

“We believe God is using us to make a difference in our post-Christian culture, and we will continue to do everything we can to help believers defend the Word of God, from the very first verse,” he added. more >>

The Texas Senate rejected on Thursday the re-appointment of Republican Don McLeroy, a creationist, as chairman of the State Board of Education.

The Senate voted 19-11 for McLeroy, short of the two-thirds majority required.

Opponents say the board has become increasingly divided under the leadership of McLeroy, who has pushed for the teaching of "weaknesses" of evolution in Texas public schools. more >>

Physician-geneticist Francis S. Collins, who successfully led efforts to map the human genetic code, is the top choice for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s next director, according to a source familiar with the selection process.

Screening for Collins is nearly complete and President Obama may announce his nomination as early as this week, the source reportedly told Bloomberg News, which broke the story.

Should he be tapped for the spot, Collins would be faced with calls to boost spending on cancer research and free science from politics as well as financial conflicts of interest. more >>

A 47-million-year-old fossil is being touted as “groundbreaking discovery” that “fills in a critical gap in human and primate evolution.”

“The fossil’s remarkable state of preservation allows an unprecedented glimpse into early human evolution,” say producers of “The Link,” a documentary set to premiere next Monday that details the discovery and significance of the fossil.

“[I]t represents the moment before anthropoid primates – the group that would later evolve into humans, apes and monkeys – began to split from lemurs and other prosimian primates,” they add. more >>

What college students learned from their biology teachers in high school influences whether they accept evolution or creationist views, according to a recent study by professors at the University of Minnesota.

University students whose high school biology class covered creationism – in some cases alongside evolution – were more likely to accept creationist views upon entering college, the study found. Those whose high school biology teachers taught evolution but not creationism were more likely to accept evolution in college.

The study, "Rejecting Darwin: The Occurrence & Impact of Creationism in High School Biology Classrooms," is published in the May issue of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). more >>