A PREVIEW OF EVOLUTION: MAKING SENSE OF LIFE
NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview of the second edition of Carl Zimmer and Douglas J. Emlen’s Evolution: Making Sense of Life (Roberts and Company, 2015). The preview consists of a part of chapter 14, “Macroevolution.” “The history of biodiversity—the processes and patterns of originations, adaptations, and extinctions—is known as macroevolution,” Zimmer and Emlen explain. “In this chapter, we’ll look at some of the most important lessons that have emerged from the study of macroevolution — not just for understanding the deep history of biodiversity, but also for understanding its future.”
“Exciting is a word not often used to describe a new textbook,” wrote Neil Shubin of the Unviersity of Chicago in praise of the first edition of Evolution: Making Sense of Life. “But by using powerful examples, beautiful images, and finely wrought prose, Zimmer and Emlen have produced a book that not only conveys the explanatory power of evolution, but is also permeated with the joy of doing science. Their text can only be described as an exciting moment for our field: it is an important accomplishment for our students and for evolutionary biology at large.”
For the preview of Evolution: Making Sense of Life (PDF), visit:
http://ncse.com/book-excerpt
For information about the book from its publisher, visit:
http://www.roberts-publishers.com/new-publications/evolution-making-sense-of-life-49.html
A NEW POLL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
A new poll on public attitudes toward Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change included questions on the occurrence and causes of climate change itself. Asked “Do you think that global warming is happening, or do you think global warming is not happening?” 69% of respondents said yes, 16% said no, 15% said that they were not sure, and 1% skipped or refused to answer the question.
Those who answered yes were asked about the cause of global warming:
11% said it is caused entirely by human activities, 41% said that it is caused mostly by human activities, 38% said that it is caused about equally by human activities and natural changes in the environment, 6% said that it is caused mostly by natural changes in the environment, 2% said that it is caused entirely by natural changes in the environment, and 2% said that they were not sure.
The survey was conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research; 1030 people completed the survey. According to the report (PDF), “Interviews for this survey were conducted between July 17 and July 19, 2015, with adults age 18 and over from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. … The overall margin of sampling is +/- 4.4 percentage points at the 95 percentage confidence level.”
For the report of the poll (PDF), visit:
http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/PopeGlobalWarming/July_Omnibus_Topline_Environment_FINAL.pdf
And for NCSE’s collection of polls and surveys on climate, visit:
http://ncse.com/polls/polls-climate-change
Thanks for reading. And don’t forget to visit NCSE’s website— http://ncse.com — where you can always find the latest news on evolution and climate education and threats to them.
Glenn Branch
Deputy Director
National Center for Science Education, Inc.
http://ncse.com