Brian Alters

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Brian J. Alters (B.Sc., Ph.D. USC) is an Associate Professor of Education and Sir William Dawson Scholar at McGill University, where he also holds the Tomlinson Chair in Science Education and is both founder and Director of the Evolution Education Research Centre. He has taught science education at both Harvard and McGill Universities, and is regarded as a specialist in evolution education.

Alters has a BSc in biology and a PhD in science education from the University of Southern California.

Alters is the author of several books on biology and the intelligent design controversy. With his wife Sandra M. Alters, he has written Biology: Understanding Life^[1] which he describes as "a university biology non-majors textbook", and Teaching Biology in Higher Education^[2], "a book written to instructors at the college level on how to teach biology". He is also the author of Teaching Biological Evolution in Higher Education: Methodological, Religious, and Non-Religious Issues^[3] which he says is "a book specifically about the conflict that instructors see students bring into their courses concerning evolution". Alters and Alters have also written Defending Evolution^[4], with a foreword by Stephen Jay Gould, which aims to help science teachers to understand the creation-evolution controversy and to teach evolution effectively in light of the controversy.^[5] He also contributed a chapter to the a chapter in Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools^[6], edited by Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch of the NCSE.

Because of this specialization, he was an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.^[7]^[8]^[9]. He was also brought in for the retrial of Selman v. Cobb County^[10] before that was settled out of court in favor of the plaintiffs.

In 2003 Alters was first awarded the College of Education's highest teaching award, the Distinguished Teaching Award, followed by the Principal's Prize for Excellence in Teaching at McGill University^[11].

In 2005 he was appointed to the board of directors of the American-based National Center for Science Education and received its "friend of Darwin" award.

In 2008 Alters became a co-host of CBC Television's nationally-broadcast prime-time science series Project X^[12]. His co-hosts are Dr. Jennifer Gardy (bioinformatics/microbiology at the University of British Columbia), Dr. Brian Fleck (professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta), and Marc Huot (Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Alberta).

[edit] Grant controversy

In 2006 Alters was denied funding for a research project provisionally titled "Detrimental effects of popularizing anti-evolution's 'intelligent design theory' on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrators, and policymakers" by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The SSHRC reason for the rejection included the statement that "Nor did the committee consider that there was adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of Evolution, and not Intelligent Design theory, was correct"^[13]. This was reported in Nature^[14] and other media^[15]^[16]^[17].

Letters were written to the SSHRC in support of Alters by the American Institute of Biological Sciences^[18], the American Sociological Association (ASA), the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution^[19], and others. The SSHRC replied by noting that "theory of evolution is not in doubt" but said that the reason for the rejection was that "the committee had serious concerns about the proposed research design"^[20].

Alters spoke about the incident in Humanist Perspectives^[21].

The controversy still rages see Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.