"Half of Americans do not believe in evolution," stated Warren Allmon, director of Ithaca's Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), at a public lecture Feb. 11 at Ithaca's Museum of the Earth. Allmon's lecture was one of many events put on by PRI as a part of Ithaca's first Darwin Day celebration. But, he added, most Americans don't know much about evolution anyway.

Fewer U.S. schools teach evolution today than 10 years ago, said Allmon in his lecture, "Evolution and Creationism: An Educator's Guide." Although New York state requires that evolution be taught in its public schools, the lesson is often reduced to a chapter reading assignment, he noted. The PRI, Allmon said, has found through public surveys that this reduction is because educators either do not know much about evolution or they are afraid to discuss it in their classrooms.

Elizabeth Humbert, a staff member involved in education at the museum and one of the many educators among the 50-strong audience, described how PRI is taking a stance to educate the public about evolution. She introduced Allmon as a "trailblazer" in this effort.

"We are not teaching evolution very well right now," professed Allmon, also an adjunct associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell. As one effort to assist educators in teaching evolution, PRI just released a publication, "Evolution & Creationism: A Very Short Guide," authored by Allmon. "There is no controversy among scientists whether or not evolution occurred," stated Allmon. "It is considered the best hypothesis available." Scientists are certain about evolution, he said, because of the tremendous amount of evidence that supports the hypothesis.

One such piece of evidence, as was pointed out in Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," is that every island in the Galapagos has a tortoise with a different type of shell. Another classic example is the well-known peppered moth study; during England's Industrial Revolution, peppered moths with darker wing color selectively out-survived their lighter fellow species members. The reason, Allmon said: because darker moths had the advantage of not being revealed to predators on the heavily sooted trees.

But, as was suggested by an educator in the audience, people are not upset about Galapagos tortoises and peppered moths. Educators are faced with the situation that evolution contradicts the personal beliefs held by many creationists, who represents 50 percent of the U.S. population.

Allmon's lecture also addressed the problem of trying to teach both evolution and creationism in classrooms. Most science educators, he said, already feel swamped with curriculum pressures. And in any event, he said in reply to a question, "Creationism isn't science. You cannot put the two together in your head; that is, science and some religions."

Sandra Holley is a writer student intern at the Cornell News Service.