Editorial

Things have been going great guns at Evolution: Education and Outreach since our first two issues were published. Connecting the world of evolutionary science with educators at the K-16 levels turns out to be an idea whose time has come—and we are delighted to be filling such an important niche. “Hits” are high at our website, where the journal is free to all. The handsome printed version, with a print run of about 7000, is a must-see. Distribution of the “hard copy” right now is predominantly at scientific and educational conferences—but we are actively exploring ways and means to get the printed version directly into schools and museums. Response from the scientific and educational community at these conferences has been great—and we are happy to report that speakers are submitting manuscripts of their papers to us over our Editorial Manager system. Stay tuned for lots more high quality contributions.

Another welcome sign of the growing impact of E:EO comes in an article by Marnie E. Halpern and Jennifer A. Hobin (2008) reporting on a recent survey of Americans’ attitudes towards evolution—replete with a ten-point exhortation of ways an individual scientist “can participate in promoting science education and the teaching of evolution.” We made the list! Halpern and Hobin (2008, p. 1217) write: “8. On the basis of your own research, write an article describing an interesting lesson plan or laboratory exercise that would be adaptable to the science classroom. A new journal Evolution: Education and Outreach recently made its debut with the goal of connecting science teachers and scientists by publishing ‘cutting-edge, peer reviewed articles for classroom use on a variety of instructional levels.’” To which we can only add that the emphasis on “peer reviewed” is important, as we continue to seek contributions from a wide variety of professionals.

On a completely different note, Ben Stein’s anti-evolution, anti-intellectual diatribe movie Expelled recently opened to (mostly) intensely negative reviews. As our readers already know, E:EO is not about the evolution/creationism (or intelligent design) so-called “debate.” It is about teaching evolution well. Yet of course the anti-evolution forces persist, and on this note, our Associate Editor (and Reviews Editor) Adam Goldstein writes us that “Expelled purports to show that supporters of evolution have wrongly fought to prevent teaching alternatives to evolutionary biology in US schools. The NCSE’s web site, “Expelled Exposed: Flunked, but Not Expelled—What Ben Stein isn’t Telling you About Intelligent Design” may be found at http://www.expelledexposed.com/. “Expelled Exposed” consists of three main sections. First, “The truth behind the lies” presents refutations of the scientific claims advanced in the film. Second, a “making of” section shows the disingenuous manner in which Expelled filmmakers gathered material for the film, presented it, and used it in promoting the film. A third section, “Resources,” offers extensive web links to more information about the film. The film has also received a good deal of attention in the blogosphere. E:EO Associate Editor T. Ryan Gregory has some informative and amusing posts on his blog, Genomicron, at www.scientificblogging.com/genomicron, and users can follow links on Gregory’s blog to other bloggers commenting about the film.”

We hope you continue to find much of interest in this issue—good science and education pieces you can use in the classroom; interesting columns, reports, reviews—and, as they say, much much more! Look for some up-coming special issues—where we will be focusing on hot-button topics in evolution education.

And thanks for your support so far. Keep those manuscripts coming in over our Editorial Manager System! And don’t forget to check us out at Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/springer_evoo) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23672835224)