In this work, I review recent works in science studies and the history of science of relevance to biological anthropology. I will look at two rhetorical practices in human evolution--overstating our relationship with the apes and privileging ancestry over emergence--and their effects upon how human evolution and human diversity have been understood scientifically. I examine specifically the int...

As the bankruptcy of creation "science" becomes increasingly recognized, a new catch phrase, intelligent design, has been adopted by those who persist in their attempts to inject creationism into the science curriculum (see, for example, Of Pandas and People, Davis 1993; Matsumura 1995 and Cole 1995 report on attempts to introduce Pandas into schools. Intelligent design is a more subtle term th...

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus, popular opinions regarding evolution are starkly divided. In the USA, for example, nearly one in three adults espouse a literal and recent divine creation account of human origins. Plausibly, resistance to scientific conclusions regarding the origins of species-like much resistance to other scientific conclusions (Bloom & Weisberg, 2007)-gains support ...

This article analyzes the impact of the resurgence of American creationism in the early 1980s on debates within post-synthesis evolutionary biology. During this period, many evolutionists criticized Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould for publicizing his revisions to traditional Darwinian theory and opening evolution to criticism by creationists. Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium was a s...

Although the theory of evolution is more than 150 years old, a substantial proportion of the world population does not mention it when explaining the origin of human beings. The usual alternative conception is offered by creationism, one of the main obstacles to full acceptance of evolution in many countries. National polls have demonstrated that schooling and religiosity are negatively correla...