The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Ev... [TOP]
In 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a Pew Forum poll in the same year, 42 percent believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.In 1859 Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke. But he surely would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. Now the author of the iconic work The God Delusion takes them to task.The Greatest Show on Earth is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection."The Greatest Show on Earth comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is menacing as never before. In American schools, and in schools around the world, insidious attempts are made to undermine the status of science in the classroom. Dawkins wields a devastating argument against this ignorance, but his unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Ev...
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Richard Dawkins writes about such topics as DNA and genetic engineering, virtual reality, astronomy, and evolution. Dawkins was educated at Oxford University and taught zoology at the University of California and Oxford University, holding the position of the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. He is a member of the International Academy of Humanism. Dawkins' books include The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, and Climbing Mount Improbable. His newest book, entitled The God Delusion, shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children. Dawkins supports his points with historical and contemporary evidence.
The realization that the continents are mobile and not fixed in position, and the discovery of the processes driving that mobility, is one of the great scientific achievements of the 20th Century. From the outset, fossil evidence has been important in reconstructing past continental positions, usually by providing data on ancient similarities and differences that appear at odds with present-day geographies. However, the fossil record does much more than provide evidence on ancient continental positions: it also shows the diverse evolutionary effects that the dynamics of the Earth's crust have had on the passengers inhabiting those mobile continents.
Presenting scientific evidence clearly is an important skill for scientists. Before the first presentations (on biological function of the traits), the instructor provides details about how to give a scientific presentation to the entire class, along with specific expectations. By showing examples of high-quality and low-quality presentation slides, the instructor can help model these expectations to the students. After each set of presentations, the instructor provides detailed written feedback to those students who presented, to help them understand the strengths and weaknesses of their research presentations, with an eye toward what they need to fix or add to the written component of the project (see sample presentation rubric in the Supplemental Material online). This is another point in the process where the instructor can correct any errors in logic or recommend any important literature these students missed. These issues can then be addressed by the students in the final written paper. Students are more likely to incorporate feedback when it includes points they will need to address in a later assignment and the feedback can focus on ideas and concepts, rather than lower-order issues such as presentation style or grammar (Szymanski, 2014). Students are encouraged to share the feedback with their group members so they all benefit and are less inclined to repeat any mistakes.
Low-attitude remote Earth sensing (RES) performed by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) helps run geological surveys more efficiently; aeromagnetic surveys have been on rise recently. UAV surveying can be made significantly more informative and cost-effective by switching from monomethod surveying to integrated efforts that combine multiple complementary methods. However, how to run such surveys efficiently is a question barely covered in special literature. This paper uses evidence from a site in Bodaybinsky District (Eastern Siberia, Russia), a promising black-shale gold mineralization site, to analyze a typical geological exploration case, namely additional exploration of underexplored areas near a known deposit. It considers a method for integrated UAV geophysical surveying and its interpretation; this multi-method approach comprises aeromagnetic surveys, gamma radiometry, and multispectral photography. Emphasis is made on how important correct interpretation of geophysical data is for the latter. The paper shows that such photography is necessary for identifying man-affected segments in the area and for assessing the distribution of vegetation in it; this helps adjust the gamma background charts. Use of integrated low-altitude surveys taken from UAVs helps quickly and cheaply identify potential gold-bearing sites by a set of indirect features. Exploratory drilling has proven the approach effective. 041b061a72