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Students should not graduate from high school without understanding that scientific debates are essential components of scientific methodology. This article presents a brief history of ongoing debates regarding the hypothesis that group selection is an evolutionary mechanism, and it serves as an example of the role that debates play in correcting faulty ideas and stimulating new research in the pursuit of extending scientific knowledge.

Before beginning a series of presentations on evolution, it would be prudent to survey the general level of students' understanding of prerequisite basic concepts of reproduction, heredity, ontology, and phenotypic diversity so that teachers can avoid devoting time to well-known subjects of general knowledge and can spend more time on subjects that are unknown, forgotten, or misunderstood by most students. This article outlines a Socratic method for surveying and teaching to address these concerns.

Science requires the acquisition and analysis of empirical (sense-derived) data. Given the same physical objects or phenomena, the sense organs of all people do not respond equally to these stimuli, nor do their minds interpret sensory signals identically. Therefore, teachers should develop lectures on human sensory systems that include some common examples of sensory limitations, variations, deficiencies, malfunctions, and diseases (as discussed herein) because they have important implications for conducting scientific investigations, science education, and introspection that are seldom included in biology textbooks. Students need to be made aware of the human tendency to self deception in order to avoid the cognitive error of confirmation bias.

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) is rightly credited as being the "father of modern genetics." He presented the results of his pea experiments at a meeting of his local natural history society in two lectures during 1865. His paper was published in the proceedings of the society the next year. From his breeding experiments with the edible pea, he recognized the phenomena of what everyone today calls dominance and recessiveness, segregation of alleles, independent assortment of different traits, equal parental contributions to offspring, and several others. In this article, the author presents some information that might be helpful in two primary respects for those who teach genetics: (1) Teacher Preparation, and (2) Teaching Techniques.

ON THE EQUATOR, NEAR THE TOWN OF Nanyuki, Kenya, a local man named Peter McLeary makes a living by showing tourists the so-called 'Coriolis force': He takes them to a [...]

THE EXISTENCE OF BALL LIGHTNING HAS been questioned for hundreds of years. Today, the phenomenon is a reality accepted by most scientists, but how it is formed and maintained has [...]

Luther Burbank, once widely acclaimed to be America's most famous horticulturist and plant breeder was unanimously elected to honorary membership at the opening meeting of the American Breeder's Association (ABA) at St. Louis in 1903. It is estimated that he was responsible for introducing between 800 and 1,000 plants to American horticulture and agriculture.

AS A YOUTH, I LEARNED THAT BENJAMIN Franklin (1706-1790) flew a kite in a thunderstorm and drew lightning from the sky. I doubt that I ever knew why he did [...]

The goal of this Quick Fix is to inform biology teachers about the availability of online crossword puzzles that can be used to engage students and help them learn technical biological terms.

To the Editors: In 'The Other Evolution Wars' (November-December) David Kaiser points out that the scientific study of the origin and evolution of life has been attacked for decades by [...]

In Tim Callahan's review of Monkey Girl by Edward Humes (SKEPTIC Vol. 13 No. 2), he notes that pseudogenes are 'an effective proof of shared ancestry.' Since pseudogenes are not [...]