Acceptance of Evolution by America’s Educators of Prospective Teachers

Paz-y-Miño-C G & Espinosa A. 2014. Acceptance of Evolution by America’s Educators of Prospective Teachers. New England Science Public: Series Evolution 2(1): 1-92 (ISSN: 2326-0971). In NESP Series Evolution Vol 2 No 1, Paz-y-Miño-C and Espinosa use the conceptual framework of the Incompatibility Hypothesis (i.e. science/evolution and belief in supernatural causation are incompatible) to document the patterns of acceptance of evolution of 495 Educators of Prospective Teachers affiliated with 281 colleges and universities widely distributed in 4 regions, 9 divisions, and 50 states in the United States. These higher-education professionals (65% PhD-, 22% doctorate-holders) were polled in five areas: (i) their views about evolution, creationism and Intelligent Design, (ii) their understanding of how science and the evolutionary process work, (iii) their position about the hypothetical ‘harmony or compatibility’ between science/evolution and supernatural causation, (iv) their awareness of the age of the Earth, its moon, our solar system and the universe, and the application of the concept of evolution to the cosmos, and (v) their personal convictions concerning the evolution and/or creation of humans in the context of the educators’ religiosity. The authors report that acceptance of evolution among these educators was influenced by their level of understanding the foundations of science/evolution and their beliefs in supernatural causation. In comparison to two other populations, whose acceptance of evolution had already been documented in Paz-y-Miño-C’s and Espinosa’s previous research (i.e. New England research faculty, non-educators, and college students; NESP Ser Evol Vol 1 No 1), the educators had an intermediate level of understanding science/evolution, low acceptance of evolution, and high religiosity, as follows: 59% of the educators accepted evolution openly, 51% thought that evolution is definitely true, and 59% admitted to be religious. Among the New England researchers, 94% accepted evolution openly, 82% thought that evolution is definitely true, and 29% admitted to be religious. Among the students, 63% accepted evolution openly, 58% thought that evolution is definitely true, and 37% admitted to be religious. Educators in each of the four regions of the United States (North East, Midwest, South, and West) had science- and evolution-literacy scores below the researchers’ but above the students.’ The educators’ rejection of evolution increased, conspicuously, with increasing level of religiosity. Paz-y-Miño-C and Espinosa indicate that their study is the first to document, comprehensively, the disturbing reality of evolution illiteracy among educators of prospective teachers in the United States. The authors highlight that these professionals are responsible for mentoring the teachers-to-be in the American school system and that their hesitation to embrace evolution resides in a deficient understanding of science/evolution and high religiosity. Paz-y-Miño-C and Espinosa conclude –as in NESP Ser Evol Vol 1 No 1– that harmonious coexistence between science/evolution and religion is illusory. If co-persisting in the future, the relationship between science and religion will fluctuate between moderate and intense antagonism. Note: The complete 92-page study includes 23 figures, statistics, 34 maps, 12 tables, and a companion slide show ‘Image Resources’ for science journalists, researchers and educators (available at Additional Files below). The supplementary materials include 15s figures and 25s tables

Attitudes toward Evolution at New England Colleges and Universities, United States

Paz-y-Miño-C G & Espinosa A. 2013. Attitudes toward Evolution at New England Colleges and Universities, United States. New England Science Public: Series Evolution 1(1): 1-32 (ISSN: 2326-0971). We compile the most significant results of our conceptual and quantitative studies on the patterns of acceptance of evolution at New England colleges and universities, conducted between 2009 and 2012. We examine the views of New England Faculty and Educators of Prospective Teachers (higher-education faculty themselves, specialized in training future teachers) from 35 colleges and universities, as well as a representative sample of College Students from a Public, Private and two Religious institutions who were polled in three areas: the controversy over evolution versus creationism versus Intelligent Design; their understanding of how science and the evolutionary process work; and their personal convictions concerning the evolution and/or creation of humans in the context of their religiosity. We conclude that the controversy over science/evolution and creationism is inherent to the incompatibility between scientific rationalism/empiricism and the belief in supernatural causation, and that long-term harmonious coexistence between science/evolution and creationism –and all its forms— is illusory. Societies will struggle indefinitely with this incompatibility, therefore the interaction between science/evolution and religiosity is destined to fluctuate historically between intense and moderate antagonism

Robust design of a reentry unmanned space vehicle by multifidelity evolution control

This paper addresses the preliminary robust design of a small-medium scale re-entry unmanned space vehicle. A hybrid optimization technique is proposed that couples an evolutionary multi-objective algorithm with a direct transcription method for optimal control problems. Uncertainties on the aerodynamic forces and vehicle mass are integrated in the design process and the hybrid algorithm searches for geometries that a) minimize the mean value of the maximum heat flux, b) maximize the mean value of the maximum achievable distance, and c) minimize the variance of the maximum heat flux. The evolutionary part handles the system design parameters of the vehicle and the uncertain functions, while the direct transcription method generates optimal control profiles for the re-entry trajectory of each individual of the population. During the optimization process, artificial neural networks are used to approximate the aerodynamic forces required by the direct transcription method. The artificial neural networks are trained and updated by means of a multi-fidelity, evolution control approach

A Graphical Approach to Radio Frequency Quadrupole Design

The design of a radio frequency quadrupole, an important section of all ion accelerators, and the calculation of its beam dynamics properties can be achieved using the existing computational tools. These programs, originally designed in 1980s, show effects of aging in their user interfaces and in their output. The authors believe there is room for improvement in both design techniques using a graphical approach and in the amount of analytical calculations before going into CPU burning finite element analysis techniques. Additionally an emphasis on the graphical method of controlling the evolution of the relevant parameters using the drag-to-change paradigm is bound to be beneficial to the designer. A computer code, named DEMIRCI, has been written in C++ to demonstrate these ideas. This tool has been used in the design of Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK)'s 1.5 MeV proton beamline at Saraykoy Nuclear Research and Training Center (SANAEM). DEMIRCI starts with a simple analytical model, calculates the RFQ behavior and produces 3D design files that can be fed to a milling machine. The paper discusses the experience gained during design process of SANAEM Project Prometheus (SPP) RFQ and underlines some of DEMIRCI's capabilities.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figure

A time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles

We consider the cosmological implications of light travelling faster in the early Universe. We propose a prescription for deriving corrections to the cosmological evolution equations while the speed of light $c$ is changing. We then show how the horizon, flatness, and cosmological constant problems may be solved. We also study cosmological perturbations in this scenario and show how one may solve the homogeneity and isotropy problems. As it stands, our scenario appears to most easily produce extreme homogeneity, requiring structure to be produced in the Standard Big Bang epoch. Producing significant perturbations during the earlier epoch would require a rather careful design of the function $c(t)$. The large entropy inside the horizon nowadays can also be accounted for in this scenario.Comment: To be published in Physical Review D. Note added referring to John Moffat's early work on VSL theorie

Hamevol1.0: a C++ code for differential equations based on Runge-Kutta algorithm. An application to matter enhanced neutrino oscillation

We present a C++ implementation of a fifth order semi-implicit Runge-Kutta algorithm for solving Ordinary Differential Equations. This algorithm can be used for studying many different problems and in particular it can be applied for computing the evolution of any system whose Hamiltonian is known. We consider in particular the problem of calculating the neutrino oscillation probabilities in presence of matter interactions. The time performance and the accuracy of this implementation is competitive with respect to the other analytical and numerical techniques used in literature. The algorithm design and the salient features of the code are presented and discussed and some explicit examples of code application are given.Comment: 18 pages, Late