The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
Please use the page image
as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
Science Evolution and Creationism
COMMITTEE MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES
Bruce Alberts (NAS) is professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. His research has focused on the mechanisms of two different reactions that are fundamental to the life of the cell. He is noted particularly for his extensive study of the protein complexes that allow chromosomes to be replicated, as required for a living cell to divide.
Alberts is one of the original authors of The Molecular Biology of the Cell, considered the field’s leading advanced textbook and used widely in U.S. colleges and universities. His most recent text, Essential CellBiology, is intended to present this subject matter to a wider audience.
He was president of the National Academy of Sciences and chair of the National Research Council from 1993 to 2005. He continues to serve as an ex officio member of the National Academies Teacher Advisory Council, which he initiated. Committed to improving science education, he helped initiate and develop City Science, a program that links UCSF to the improvement of science teaching in San Francisco elementary schools.
Francisco J. Ayala (Committee Chair, NAS) is university professor and Donald Bren professor of biological sciences and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on population and evolutionary genetics. The study of biological evolution is his main interest, particularly the genetics of the evolutionary process, molecular evolution, the process of speciation, genetic variation in populations, studies of population growth and dynamics, and ecological competition. He also writes about the interface between religion and science, and on philosophical issues concerning epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of biology. His books include HumanEvolution: Trails from the Past, Darwin’s Gift to Scienceand Religion, Darwin and Intelligent Design, Populationand Evolutionary Genetics: A Primer, Evolving: The Theoryand Processes of Organic Evolution, and Studies in thePhilosophy of Biology. He testified in the Arkansas trial on the teaching of evolution in 1981.
He has been president and chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society of the United States. He has received awards from many organizations worldwide, as well as honorary degrees from universities in Europe, Asia, and the United States. In 2002, President George W. Bush awarded him the National Medal of Science.
May R. Berenbaum (NAS) is the Swanlund professor and head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has made major contributions to understanding the role of chemistry in interactions between plants and herbivorous insects and identifying key plant toxins and determining their modes of action against insects. Her investigations have examined proximate physiological mechanisms and their evolutionary consequences for both plants and insects. Her research interests include chemical ecology, insect-plant interactions, the evolutionary biology of moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera), photobiology, and environmentally sustainable pest management.
She has received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Ecological Society of America, the Weizmann Institute, and the International Society of Chemical Ecology. She is an elected fellow of the Entomological Society of America, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
She is a member of the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a recent member of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences. As a result of her interest in promoting science literacy, she has authored many newspaper and magazine articles and four books on science topics for general readers.
Betty Carvellas is a recently retired teacher and science department cochair at Essex High School in Essex Junction, Vermont. Her professional service included work at the local, state, and national levels. She served as cochair of the education committee and was a member of the executive board of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and is a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers.
She received the Sigma Xi Outstanding Vermont Science Teacher Award (1981) and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching (1984), and in 2000 she was named honorary member of the National Association of Biology Teachers. In 2001 she was selected for a National Science Foundation program, Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic, and she has spent four summers working with scientists in the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. She was a charter member and chair of the Vermont Standards Board for Professional
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole. Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 60
Science Evolution and Creationism
COMMITTEE MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES
Bruce Alberts (NAS) is professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. His research has focused on the mechanisms of two different reactions that are fundamental to the life of the cell. He is noted particularly for his extensive study of the protein complexes that allow chromosomes to be replicated, as required for a living cell to divide.
Alberts is one of the original authors of The Molecular Biology of the Cell, considered the field’s leading advanced textbook and used widely in U.S. colleges and universities. His most recent text, Essential Cell Biology, is intended to present this subject matter to a wider audience.
He was president of the National Academy of Sciences and chair of the National Research Council from 1993 to 2005. He continues to serve as an ex officio member of the National Academies Teacher Advisory Council, which he initiated. Committed to improving science education, he helped initiate and develop City Science, a program that links UCSF to the improvement of science teaching in San Francisco elementary schools.
Francisco J. Ayala (Committee Chair, NAS) is university professor and Donald Bren professor of biological sciences and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on population and evolutionary genetics. The study of biological evolution is his main interest, particularly the genetics of the evolutionary process, molecular evolution, the process of speciation, genetic variation in populations, studies of population growth and dynamics, and ecological competition. He also writes about the interface between religion and science, and on philosophical issues concerning epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of biology. His books include Human Evolution: Trails from the Past, Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, Darwin and Intelligent Design, Population and Evolutionary Genetics: A Primer, Evolving: The Theory and Processes of Organic Evolution, and Studies in the Philosophy of Biology. He testified in the Arkansas trial on the teaching of evolution in 1981.
He has been president and chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society of the United States. He has received awards from many organizations worldwide, as well as honorary degrees from universities in Europe, Asia, and the United States. In 2002, President George W. Bush awarded him the National Medal of Science.
May R. Berenbaum (NAS) is the Swanlund professor and head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has made major contributions to understanding the role of chemistry in interactions between plants and herbivorous insects and identifying key plant toxins and determining their modes of action against insects. Her investigations have examined proximate physiological mechanisms and their evolutionary consequences for both plants and insects. Her research interests include chemical ecology, insect-plant interactions, the evolutionary biology of moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera), photobiology, and environmentally sustainable pest management.
She has received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Ecological Society of America, the Weizmann Institute, and the International Society of Chemical Ecology. She is an elected fellow of the Entomological Society of America, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
She is a member of the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a recent member of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences. As a result of her interest in promoting science literacy, she has authored many newspaper and magazine articles and four books on science topics for general readers.
Betty Carvellas is a recently retired teacher and science department cochair at Essex High School in Essex Junction, Vermont. Her professional service included work at the local, state, and national levels. She served as cochair of the education committee and was a member of the executive board of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and is a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers.
She received the Sigma Xi Outstanding Vermont Science Teacher Award (1981) and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching (1984), and in 2000 she was named honorary member of the National Association of Biology Teachers. In 2001 she was selected for a National Science Foundation program, Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic, and she has spent four summers working with scientists in the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. She was a charter member and chair of the Vermont Standards Board for Professional
OCR for page 61
Science Evolution and Creationism
Educators and served on the board of directors of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study.
Her interests include interdisciplinary teaching, connecting school science to the real world, traveling with students on international field studies, and bringing inquiry into the science classroom. Carvellas was a charter member of the Teacher Advisory Council of the National Academies, and she served as chair of the ad hoc committee that organized its 2004 workshop on linking mandatory professional development to high-quality teaching and learning.
Michael T. Clegg (NAS) is Donald Bren professor of biological sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is an authority on the evolution of complex genetic systems and is recognized internationally for his contributions to understanding the genetic and ecological basis for adaptive evolutionary changes in populations and at higher taxonomic levels. He is interested in the population genetics of plants, plant molecular evolution, statistical estimation of genetic parameters, plant phylogeny, plant genetic transmission and molecular genetics, and genetic conservation in agriculture.
Clegg is an ex officio member of 29 National Academy of Sciences committees, as well as chair of the International Advisory Board and a member of the International Programs Committee. He is currently serving as foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences. He chaired the delegation to the 28th General Assembly of the International Council for Science in Shanghai and Suzhou, China, in 2005.
G. Brent Dalrymple (NAS) is professor and dean emeritus of oceanic and atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University. He is a geochronologist who helped lay the basis for ocean-floor spreading theory, the hotspot theory of mid-ocean volcanism, the use of mantle plumes as the absolute frame for plate motion through geologic history, fine-structure stratigraphy of the lunar regolith, and lunar cratering history. His primary research interests involve the development and improvement of isotopic dating techniques, in particular the K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar methods, and their application to a broad range of geological and geophysical problems.
Dalrymple is the author of The Age of the Earth as well as a shorter version titled Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies. His recent research involves a series of experiments to determine the history of bombardment of the Moon by large impactors and of the resulting lunar basin formation. He testified in the landmark federal cases on evolution education, McLean v. Arkansas and Aguillard v. Treen.
He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, serving as president and a member of the board of directors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the 2001 Public Service Award from the Geological Society of America and the 2003 National Medal of Science.
Robert M. Hazen is a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Geophysical Laboratory and the Clarence Robinson professor of earth science at George Mason University. His recent research focuses on the role of minerals in the origin of life, including such processes as mineral-catalyzed organic synthesis and the selective adsorption of organic molecules on mineral surfaces. He is the author of Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origins, The New Alchemists, Why Aren’t Black Holes Black?, The Diamond Makers, and more than 260 scientific papers.
Hazen is active in presenting science to a general audience. At George Mason University he has developed courses and companion texts on scientific literacy. His books with coauthor James Trefil include Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy and The Sciences: An Integrated Approach. He also served on the team of writers for the NRC’s National Science Education Standards and the National Academy’s Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science.
He serves on the Committee on Public Understanding of Science and Technology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and on advisory boards for NOVA (WGBH, Boston), Earth & Sky (PBS), the Encyclopedia Americana, and the Carnegie Council. He appears frequently on radio and television programs on science, and he recorded The Joy of Science, a 60-lecture video course produced by The Teaching Company.
He was recently elected president of the Mineralogical Society of America. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he has received awards from the Mineralogical Society of America, the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, the Educational Press Association, and the American Crystallographic Association.
Toby M. Horn is codirector of the Carnegie Academy for Science Education at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. In this capacity she works directly with teachers in the District of Columbia public schools, both in workshops and in their classrooms, to help them improve instruction in science, math-
OCR for page 62
Science Evolution and Creationism
ematics, and technology. She also works with the D.C. public school system to assist teachers in obtaining the necessary supplies for teaching science and biotechnology. Horn is an instructor in the academy’s First Light Saturday science program for middle school students in D.C. public and charter schools.
Prior to joining Carnegie, Horn taught at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Va., and established one of the first precollege biotechnology programs there. She also served for two years as outreach coordinator for the Fralin Biotechnology Center at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Horn was the 2006 president of the National Association of Biology Teachers. As a staff fellow at the National Cancer Institute, she studied DNA sequences thought to be associated with breast cancer.
Nancy A. Moran (NAS) is Regents’ professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. She is active in interdisciplinary graduate training in evolutionary genomics and has taught evolutionary biology and genomics at the undergraduate, graduate, and high school levels. Her research focuses on the role of symbiotic interactions in ecology and evolution and involves fundamental evolutionary forces, such as mutation, gene transfer, natural selection, and ecological diversification. Using approaches from molecular evolution, systematics, genomics, and population genetics, she works extensively with both bacteria and insects and their ecological interactions. Her work has shown that many groups of insects have coevolved with bacterial symbionts for millions of years, that these symbionts supply nutrients to their hosts, allowing diversification into new ecological niches, and that the symbionts have undergone extensive genome reduction through loss of most ancestral genes. Most of her work is on groups of insects, such as aphids, that are major agricultural pests.
Moran has served as president of the Society for the Study of Evolution and as vice president of the American Society of Naturalists. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.
Gilbert S. Omenn (IOM) is professor of internal medicine, human genetics, and public health and director of the Center for Computational Medicine and Biology at the University of Michigan. He is principal investigator of the Michigan Proteomics Alliance for Cancer Research and leader of the international Human Proteome Organization’s Human Plasma Proteome Project.
His research interests include cancer proteomics, chemoprevention of cancers, public health genetics, science-based risk analysis, and health policy. He was principal investigator of the beta-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial (CARET) of preventive agents against lung cancer and heart disease, director of the Center for Health Promotion in Older Adults, and creator of a university-wide initiative on Public Health Genetics in Ethical, Legal, and Policy Context while at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He is a longtime director of Amgen Inc. and of Rohm & Haas Company. He was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2005–2006.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the American College of Physicians. He chaired the presidential/congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management, served on the National Commission on the Environment, and chaired the National Academies’ Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy.
Robert T. Pennock is professor of history and philosophy of science at Michigan State University, where he is on the faculty of the Lyman Briggs College of Science, the Philosophy Department, and the Department of Computer Science, as well as the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior graduate program. His research interests include the philosophy of biology and the relationship of epistemic and ethical values in science.
Pennock is the author of Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism and Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives. He testified in the case on the teaching of intelligent design creationism, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
Pennock has received fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and serves on its Committee on the Public Understanding of Science, as well as the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy. He is chair of the education committee of the Society for the Study of Evolution and is currently working on a book examining how Darwinian evolution, as an abstract theoretical model, can be applied practically beyond biology.
OCR for page 63
Science Evolution and Creationism
Peter H. Raven (NAS) is the Engelmann professor of botany at Washington University and director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. He is a conservationist who has transformed the Missouri Botanical Garden into one of the world’s leading plant conservation centers. His primary research interests are the systematics, evolution, and biogeography of the plant family Onagraceae, which includes 16 genera and some 650 species. This family of plants has provided powerful models for understanding patterns and processes in plant evolution in general. Another particular interest is plant biogeography — the evolutionary history of entire biota and the individual taxa found in certain regions — and the ways in which these organisms have been influenced by continental movements. He has focused much of his attention on what he considers the menace of a “sixth extinction” — a potential mass extinction of living organisms that would be brought about by the mushrooming human population and by human carelessness and commerce.
Raven’s service to national and international organizations has included president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, home secretary of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, and chairman of the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration. He has received Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundation fellowships. Time magazine, in its 1999 Earth Day issue, declared that Raven is one of its “Heroes of the Planet” for what he is doing “to preserve and protect the environment.”
Barbara A. Schaal (NAS) is the Spencer T. Olin professor of biology at Washington University, St. Louis. Her investigations have focused on the genetic heterogeneity of plant species, including those native to the United States, tropical crops and their wild relatives, and the family of plants called Arabidopsis. She uses a variety of molecular markers in several plant species to study fundamental evolutionary processes, such as gene migration, molecular evolution, and natural selection. Her application of DNA analysis to plant evolution at the population level has revealed unexpectedly high levels of diversity, has led to the development of DNA fingerprinting in plants, and has helped explain the reasons for this level of diversity. She has been involved with work that has identified the wild progenitor of cassava and the probable geographical location of its domestication in the Amazon region of Brazil. She has also examined the evolutionary origins of invasive plants that encroach on wetlands in the western United States. Her recent work has examined gene flow between genetically modified rice and wild relatives of rice.
Schaal currently serves as the vice president of the National Academy of Sciences. She has also been president of the Society for the Study of Evolution and the Botanical Society of America.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the Frederick P. Rose director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. His research interests include star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of the Milky Way.
Tyson has served on presidential commissions that studied the future of the U.S. aerospace industry (2001) and the implementation of the U.S. space exploration policy (2004). A winner of the Public Service Medal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the highest award given to a non–civil servant, Tyson currently serves on NASA’s advisory council.
In addition to his professional publications, Tyson also writes for the public. He is an essayist for Natural History magazine and the author of The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist and Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, cowritten with Donald Goldsmith. He serves as the host and executive editor for the PBS-NOVA program “NOVA Science Now,” in which each episode profiles the frontier of scientific discovery drawn from such fields as chemistry, biology, geology, physics, robotics, and astrophysics.
Tyson is the recipient of eight honorary doctoral degrees and currently serves as president of the Planetary Society. His contributions to public appreciation of the cosmos have recently been recognized by the International Astronomical Union in their official naming of the asteroid “13123 Tyson.”
Holly A. Wichman is professor of biological sciences at the University of Idaho and cofounder of the interdisciplinary Initiative for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies. She teaches courses in genetics, experimental biology, and professional development for graduate students. Her research focuses on genome organization in mammals and on experimental evolution using viruses as a model system. Her work on mammalian retrotransposons is carried out in a strong phylogenetic framework; she has examined retrotransposon evolution in monotremes, marsupials, and all 18 orders of placental mammals. This work focuses primarily on events that occurred tens of millions of years ago. However, short-term evolution of organisms with generation times that are short relative to that of humans can be observed in real time, both in the laboratory
