September 02, 1999
LAWRENCE -- On the heels of the Kansas Board of Education's vote to adopt new science standards that downplay evolution, a nationally known expert on science education will visit the University of Kansas and give a lecture Sept. 8.
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, will speak during the day to KU faculty in the School of Education and address a graduate class in the ecology and evolutionary biology department.
She will discuss "Creation? Evolution? Both? Neither?" at 7:30 p.m. at the Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont. The presentation is open to the public. Admission is free.
Scott holds a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from the University of Missouri at Columbia. A human biologist, she has conducted research in medical anthropology and skeletal biology. In 1994, Scott was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.
She has worked nationwide to communicate the scientific method to the general public and to improve how science as a way of knowing is taught in school. As a spokesperson for the scientific view when conflicts arise between scientific and pseudoscientific explanations, she has appeared on many national TV and radio programs. She is a co-author of the National Academy of Science's "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science."
As an internationally recognized expert on the creation/evolution controversy, Scott has consulted with the National Academy of Sciences, several state departments of education, and legal staffs in both the United States and Australia.
Scott's visit to the area is sponsored by KU departments of geology, entomology, ecology and evolutionary biology, molecular biosciences and religious studies; KU School of Education; KU Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center; KU Division of Biological Sciences; KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; KU Chapter of the Society of Sigma Xi; The University of Kansas; Kansas Geological Survey; Kansas Biological Survey; Plymouth Congregational Church; and Kansas Citizens for Science.
Scott's appearance precedes a previously scheduled visit by noted Harvard University evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. He will speak at KU on Oct. 6 as part of KU's Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Center for the Humanities' millennium series. His free public lecture, "Questioning the Millennium: Why We Cannot Predict Future," is set for 8 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Lied Center. Gould recently criticized the Kansas school board decision in the Aug. 23 Time Magazine.