Australopithecus or Adam's rib?

Evolution has been a controversial subject ever since Charles Darwin introduced his theories to theVictorian world almost 150 years ago. In fact, the battle between scientists and creationists over teaching evolution in schools seems to be heating up. McGill's new Evolution Education Research Centre will take on the tricky job of spreading the evolutionary gospel, ensuring its fundamental scientific concepts are better understood by teachers, students and the public.

Sir William Dawson, principal of McGill from 1855 to 1893 and perhaps the best known Canadian scientist of his time, would have been surprised by the gorilla handing out leaflets on the McGill campus one day last fall.

Chances are the lecture series being advertised would have interested him, but once he realized what the series signified — that McGill is now one of the major North American centres of work in evolution — he most likely would have been outraged. Despite his celebrated work in paleontology, Dawson argued steadfastly against Darwin until the end of his life. The gorilla, on the other hand, was promoting the McGill Millennium Lecture Series, "Ape or Angel: The Evolutionary View of Humanity."

	A recent survey by the National Science Foundation in the U.S. found that 52% of adults believe early humans lived alongside dinosaurs, 65% do not believe the Big Bang theory, and 55% do not believe that humans evolved from animals.

Education professor Brian Alters is director of the newly established Evolution Education Research Centre and a member of the committee which set up the series. Leaving nothing to chance, Alters was also the gorilla. "The day before the first lecture, we were a little concerned about attendance," he explains. "After all, we were bringing in the lecturers from some distance, and we wanted to make sure that the tone was set by the first one."

So rather than wait and see who would show up, Alters went out and rented a full gorilla suit. "For six hours I went around the buildings, handing out flyers about the lecture. Boy, was it hot!"

And boy, was the series a success, filling an auditorium in the Leacock building three Wednesdays running with overflow crowds of students, staff and the general public. The turnout delighted Alters, who obviously has a passion for making the teaching of science interesting and effective. His office in the Faculty of Education is full of attention-grabbing gadgets for illustrating scientific principles. One of them is a plastic top which, if you spin it one way, rotates until it reaches maximum velocity. Then it stops and begins to spin the other way. Why? Because, Alters explains, the top's centre of gravity is to one side, and once the acceleration of the spin wears off, gravitational attraction will make it reverse itself.