Steven Newton

Earlier this week, the Volunteer State took a big step backward when Tennessee joined Louisiana to become the second state in America to enact an "academic freedom" bill. Tennessee's new law invites creationist teachers to interject religion into science classrooms -- and forbids administrators from stopping them.

These "academic...

Here are some recent headlines:

"Darwin Challenged, Research Censored"
"Global Warming Study Censored by EPA"
"Darwin Censors Strike Again"

You might get the impression from such headlines that scientists are engaged in systematic suppression of dissent, ruthlessly silencing all those...

Should a teacher be sued for describing creationism as "superstitious nonsense"?

This question involves a lawsuit against California history teacher James Corbett. In 2007, a former student sued Corbett for a pattern of hostility "toward religion and favoring irreligion over religion." The student produced secret recordings of Corbett...

The recent headlines were disturbing:

13% of H.S. Biology Teachers Advocate Creationism in Class

Troubling: 13% of Biology Teachers Supporting Creationism

13% of US biology teachers advocate creationism: Welcome to 2011

These articles were responding to a commentary in Science by Penn State political scientists Michael B. Berkman and Eric...

Science fares poorly in the media. Most news outlets devote little attention to scientific topics, and if they do have a website with a science section, it is likely to be filled with technology and medical reporting, rather than scientific discoveries. When scientific topics are reported, they are consistently misunderstood...

No other scientific idea has endured as much unfounded hostility as evolution, and no scientist as much undeserved scorn as Charles Darwin. One hundred and twenty-eight years after his death, Darwin's good name is assaulted daily by all manner of creationists, who hold Darwin responsible for everything from the Columbine...

In America, a state science director can be forced out of her job for forwarding an e-mail about an upcoming lecture about the creationism/evolution controversy. A veteran public school teacher can be ordered by his principal not to teach evolution, even though it is mandated by state standards. And a...

In a recent piece titled "The Scientific Method: An Educational Train Wreck?" Dr. Larry Dossey made a number of statements so factually inaccurate, so misrepresentative of the nature of science, that it reads like some ill-conceived parody gone awry, something meant for The Onion rather than The...

Last week, the South Dakota House of Representatives passed HCR 1009, a resolution calling for the "balanced teaching of global warming in the public schools of South Dakota."

HCR 1009 is so egregiously inaccurate, so appalling wrong in its contemptuous dismissal of established science, so mind-numbing in...

Today is the 201st birthday of Charles Darwin. It is worth celebrating this anniversary not only because of Darwin's great contributions to science, but also because of the practical ways his theory of evolution improves our lives today.

Here are five reasons--drawn from medicine--why evolution is important:

In the movie Deep Impact, scientists learn that a distant comet is on a collision course with Earth. Political leaders launch a secret program to intercept the comet, even as they construct underground bunkers to ensure at least some humans will survive. People may think such a scenario is how...

Americans who have been shocked by the devastation in Haiti may be surprised to know that a similar catastrophe is coming soon to America--and virtually nothing is being done about it.

Nearly two million people lived near Port-au-Prince. Nearly seven and a half million people live within a few miles...

From evolution to global warming to vaccines, science is under assault from denialists--those who dismiss well-tested scientific knowledge as merely one of many competing ideologies. Science denial goes beyond skeptical questioning to attack the legitimacy of science itself.

Recent foment over stolen e-mails from a British research group inspired an...