TO: Ms. Hunter
FROM: Michael Wigginton
DATE: March 8, 2013
SUBJECT: Progress Report 5
NAME: Freedom to Think
LOCATION: LSA Biology classrooms,
SPONSER: Ms. Miekina
DATES: March 22nd and 25th
PREVIOUS BACKGROUND: My project is hosting an evolution debate in order for high school students to
be presented with evidence against evolution. After the debate the students will fill out worksheets
deciding if they agree that they think if teachers should have the freedom to present this information in
class.
TIME FRAME: March 1st, 2013 – March 8th, 2013
HOURS SPENT: I’ve spent each night researching evolution that would include from Saturday night to
today. Not just these nights have been used but also times during the day when I have felt I am behind
in my research on evolution.
WORK COMPLETED:
Defining evolution:
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Pulled definition of evolution from Biologos (a cite promoting theistic evolution)
Used definition of evolution from - Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer
Associates 1986
In addition I am using these websites to help form the definition of evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html and
http://www.strangescience.net/evolution.htm
I am also using the text book to determine the definition of evolution
Evidence for Evolution:
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Primitive Earth
o Land Environment
o Atmosphere
o Strata
o Fossils
 Dating Fossils
 Geological time scale
Celluar Evolution
o First cells
o Endosymbianic theory w/ evidence for endosymbianic theory
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
o Natural selection
o Fossil record
o Comparative anatomy
o Comparative embryology
o Comparative biochemistry
o Geographic distribution
o Adaptation
Mechanisms of Evolution
o Population genetics
 Hardy-Weinberg principle
o Genetic drift
 Founder effect
 Bottleneck
o Gene flow
o Nonrandom mating
o Mutation
o Natural selection
 Stabilizing selection
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 Directional selection
 Distributive selection
 Sexual selection
Reproductive Isolation
o Prezygotic isolation
o Postzygotic isolation
Speciation
o Allopatic speciation
o Sympatric speciation
Patterns of evolution
o Adaptive radiation
o Coevolution
o Convergent evolution
o Rate of speciation
Evidence against evolution:
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Origin of Earth
Age of Earth
Dating Methods
Fossil and Strata
Ancient Men
Primitive Environment
DNA and Protein
Natural Selection
Mutations
WORK SCHEDULED: My work that is scheduled is to finish my research and then convert the information
into categories that the student will debate about. Each of these categories will be consist of a power
point and each power point will have the information and evidence for that category.
PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED: I have not encountered any problems this week because the information I
received was fairly easy to obtain.
REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
This week hasn’t been too difficult because the theory of evolution si of particular interest. I got
extremely confused because I missed Monday and apparently a lot of stuff went down Monday that I
wasn’t aware of so I freaked out slightly and walking into class Wednesday, I freaking out to miss Hunter
of what was everything I had to do. I didn’t miss much and I am on schedule as I need to be. I am
actually glad, I thought I was far behind of where I needed to be and that I was going to miss my
deadline and I would be kicked out of the academy. Luckily, after talking to Mrs. Shoemake, I am actually
ahead of where I need to be and that gives me time to actually sit and breathe. Now, I can do the
research and take time to digest the information. One thing that I was surprised by Mrs. Hunter is that I
have to give some kind of speech before the classes because I can’t just monitor the debate which threw
me off slightly because my proposal was approved for doing exactly that. But, I don’t mind giving some
kind of speech of how to do a debate as Mrs. Hunter suggested. I might not take her suggestion of
speaking on how to do a debate since they will be debating already as part of their curriculum and they
wil also be debating in two different senior projects in Mrs. Shoemakes class so I am probably just going
to give them a speech of how evidence against evolution theory is banned in high school classes and at
the end of the debate they will decide for themselves if they think they should have the freedom to be
taught evidence against evolution with evidence for evolution. I will probably also include the problems
of not being able to teach evolution in higher education and problems with people being denied tenure
for promoting intelligent design or saying that it might simply have another explanation for the origin of
the universe. I am gonna make the connection that I planned on making for my paper defense of all the
benefits that science has had on the progress on human society, that academic freedom is the best way
to promote science, and then therefore we must conclude that we need to promote counter evidence
against evolution to be taught in science classrooms for the benefit of human society. I am actually glad
that Mrs. Phillips gave me this project because evidence against evolution being taught in class is the
primary reason that I thought that I choose academic freedom as my topic for my research paper.