Science Magazine's Breakthrough of the Year: 'Evolution in Action'

While folks in Kansas are debating whether to teach evolution to schoolkids, biologists around the world have been steaming ahead, making scientific breakthroughs by leaps and bounds using genome data in a world where evolution is an everyday fact of life. Now Science magazine has named 'Evolution in Action' the Breakthrough of the Year for 2005 in the December 23 issue. From the magazine: "2005 stands out as a banner year for uncovering the intricacies of how evolution actually proceeds. Concrete genome data allowed researchers to start pinning down the molecular modifications that drive evolutionary change in organisms from viruses to primates. Painstaking field observations shed new light on how populations diverge to form new species--the mystery of mysteries that baffled Darwin himself. Ironically, also this year some segments of American society fought to dilute the teaching of even the basic facts of evolution. With all this in mind, Science has decided to put Darwin in the spotlight by saluting several dramatic discoveries, each of which reveals the laws of evolution in action." The Science special section on evolution is available online without a subscription and contains links to influential papers published this year in evolutionary biology, while ScienceCareers contains several articles on careers in evolutionary science. If you want to know how far intelligent design will get you, try comparing the number of jobs in evolutionary biology and genetics to the number of jobs in intelligent design.