Word: darwin
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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LeVake started teaching biology at Faribault High School in 1997 after 13 years as a seventh-grade general-science instructor. It wasn't long before colleagues suspected he might have trouble teaching Darwin's theory to his 10th-graders. "We'd just sort of talk informally," says LeVake of his chats with fellow teachers. "I'd bring up things like 'Look at how complex this system is. It's hard for me to believe this all came about by chance mutations over billions of years.'" When department chair Ken Hubert asked LeVake point-blank how he planned to teach evolution...
...opportunity to teach evolution in a new way. LeVake is a Fundamentalist Christian, but his biology lesson plan doesn't include the word God or creationism. All he asks is that as a scientist, he be allowed to let students know about some of the holes in Darwin's theory...
...page "Position Paper on the Teaching of Evolution," LeVake pledges to teach evolution while also taking "an honest look at the difficulties and inconsistencies of the theory." He lists examples of irreducible complexity in nature for which, he says, Darwin has no explanation, such as the eggshell and the woodpecker's tongue. LeVake cites "the amazing lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. There has never been a creature discovered that could be considered a logical intermediate of any two major classes of animals or plants...
...besides, saying I was from Kansas, especially after the Kansas State Board of Education's decision on evolution, was just asking for trouble. Responses varied from, "Oh, so you're from that place that doesn't believe in Darwin" to the standard, "What's it like to milk...
...first year friendships were cemented by a more indigenous delicacy. An entryway-mate brought over Darwin's buttercreams one afternoon. We broke off tiny pieces together, licked around the edges of the edges to scoop up the filling with the points of our tongues. The doughy chocolate cookies (almost very thin brownies) sandwich four major types of buttercream: raspberry, mocha, peanut butter and mint. Thick as icing, this cookie filling makes Oreo cream taste like Olestra. Since then, I've learned that the cookies come chilled but are better a little warm. They last longer that way; you can break...