Perhaps the major reason for the outbreak of challenges to mainstream evolution is the widespread influence and activism of the Discovery Institute, said Paul R. Gross, an emeritus professor of life sciences at the University of Virginia.
Some of the groups take their leads from umbrella organizations like the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif., which tracks the disputes and supports the teaching of mainstream evolution.
It is one thing to claim, invoking some authority from outside the mainstream, that evolution has weaknesses.
Minor phyla are generally considered to be of little consequence usually with uncertain affinity in mainstream animal evolution theories because they are not well represented in present macrofauna.
But Broun's comment is mainstream anti-evolution and has been circulating within fundamentalism for a century.
The Texas Board of Education gave grudging support last week to teaching the mainstream theory of evolution without the most troubling encumbrances sought by religious and social conservatives.
Nasa's Mars rover and private space missions have rekindled interest in the final frontier at the same time the US radical right has challenged mainstream scientists over evolution and climate change.
Although the existence of other bona fide Lamarckian systems, beyond the CASS and the piRNA, is imaginable and even likely, as suggested, for instance, by the discovery of virus-specific sequences, potentially conferring resistance to the cognate viruses, in plant and animal genomes [ 49, 50] these mechanisms hardly constitute the mainstream of genome evolution.
Of course the big story about electronic games recently has been their swift evolution into mainstream entertainment.
And at the latest annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said, "The new enthusiasm for fiscal stimulus, and particularly government spending, represents a huge evolution in mainstream thinking".
At times clearly partisan, at others apparently offering down-the-middle analysis, Mr. Rove in his new role as a media star marks another step in the evolution of mainstream journalism, where opinion, "straight news" reporting and unmistakable spin increasingly mingle, especially on television.
