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Commentary

Nature 453, 31-32 (1 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/453031a; Published online 30 April 2008

Open Innovation Challenges

Science teaching must evolve

Andrew Moore1

  1. Andrew Moore is manager of the Science & Society Programme at the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), Meyerhofstras zlige 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.

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Evolutionary theory, study and knowledge moved on dramatically in the latter half of the twentieth century, but school teaching, curricula and teacher training are still in the primeval soup era, says Andrew Moore.

We are approaching two important anniversaries for evolution: 2009 marks 150 years of Charles Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's theses on evolution and 200 years since Darwin was born. While revelling in the memory of these world-changing events, we might also regret that many of the most fascinating and definitive examples supporting evolution — those made in the past four decades using gene-sequencing technology and bioinformatics — are largely absent from European secondary school curricula.