Evolution That Anyone Can Understand [Paperback]

The function of scientific research is promoting the understanding of the world around us. In theory, anyway, the more we learn, the more potential we have of making our lives better. Thus, we have seen research in electronics provide us with computers, research in chemistry provide us with all manner of synthetics, and research in agriculture provide us with more food. Periodically, scientific research uncovers something that makes some of us uncomfortable. The discovery of the link between smoking and lung cancer and heart disease was not received well by the tobacco industry, and the link between global climate change and fossil fuel use has not been well received by the petroleum industry, to cite just two examples. Usually the response of those whose world has been disrupted by science is denial, often followed by attack on or ridicule of the science that has challenged them. In the long term, however, science usually turns out to be correct.This book explores the phenomenon of scientific discovery that disrupts accepted order, the consequences of denial, attack and ridicule of the science that challenges it, and the longer term understanding that the science is usually correct.

Evolution that Anyone can Understand (working title)

The topics I would like to cover include fossil genes, isolating mechanisms, genetic drift, and the like.  I would also like to tackle a couple of the myths that seem to persist about evolution: specifically that it is flawed because it is only a theory, and that it is somehow antithetical to religious belief.  Regarding the former, I would use the cell theory and atomic theory as comparisons to show that scientific theories are fact based, useful in making predictions, and flexible.  The latter is a bit more problematic, but I would try to show that science deals with tlƒ3