Raymond A. Eve

Geographic Illiteracy among College Students

Over 300 college students were given a survey assessing four aspects of geographic knowledge, which included cultural, spatial, and map reading considerations. A variety of demographic and academic factors were compared to levels of geographic literacy as measured by the survey. Weak relationships were found between some of the academic factors and geographic competence. However, very powerful relationships were evident between geographic literacy and race, age, and especially gender.

Lessons from the Social Psychology of Evolution Warfare: Good Science Alone is not Enough

American student acceptance of evolution is far from uniform, even when students experience instruction in the relevant scientific methods and data. But, excellent science teaching alone cannot be expected always to lead to rejecting creationism. Powerful psychological, social, and political forces are at work as well as pure pedagogy, and such forces are often implicated in the failure of students to accept evolution, especially human evolution. These forces are often sufficiently powerful to defeat even attempts to teach evolution that use the most effective science education methods. We end by urging increased activism on behalf of evolution education.

Texas Biology and Biological Anthropology Faculty Express Their Views on Teaching Evolution

Unsurprisingly, survey results indicate that Texas biology and biological anthropology faculty with expertise in an evolutionary area strongly support teaching “just evolution” (100%; N = 54) and not creationism/intelligent design. Importantly, they do not think that religious faith is incompatible with acceptance of evolutionary biology (91%; N = 55), even though 50% (N = 52) describe themselves as “not at all religious.” As school boards nationwide debate science standards, it is important that faculty with relevant expertise have a voice. Biological anthropologists should not be overlooked as a public resource in these debates.

The Etiology of Juvenile Delinquency: The United States and Switzerland Compared

Both Switzerland and the United States are highly affluent societies and rank consistently among the top five countries in the world in per capita income, both are Western democracies, both are highly urbanized, and both are highly industrialized. Thus, it is quite surprising to discover that Switzerland has much lower rates of crime and delinquency than is the case for the United States, a fact which is especially true for violent crimes. This paper attempts to explain the sources of the differences in crime rates between the two countries and gives special attention to a comparison of juvenile misconduct in the two countries. In the first section, difficulties are discussed concerning the measurement of crime and delinquency in Switzerland, a country which collects few data on social problems in general. Some general trends are shown to be clear, however, including marked increases in drug abuse and suicide cases among the young in Switzerland. In the subsequent section, previous explanations of crime i...