Glossary+of+relevant+terms

(Definitions taken from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/glossary/index.html )
 * The Debate over Teaching Intelligent Design – Relevant Terms**


 * Creationism:** The religious doctrine that all living things on Earth were created separately, in more or less their present form, by a supernatural creator, as stated in the Bible; the precise beliefs of different creationist groups vary widely.


 * Darwin, Charles:** The 19th-century naturalist considered the father of evolution. His landmark work, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, presented a wealth of facts supporting the idea of evolution and proposed a viable theory for how evolution occurs -- via the mechanism Darwin called "natural selection." In addition to his prolific work in biology, Darwin also published important works on coral reefs and on the geology of the Andes, and a popular travelogue of his five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle.


 * Evolution:** Darwin defined this term as "descent with modification." It is the change in a lineage of populations between generations. In general terms, biological evolution is the process of change by which new species develop from preexisting species over time; in genetic terms, evolution can be defined as any change in the frequency of alleles in populations of organisms from generation to generation.


 * Monkey trial:** In 1925, John Scopes was convicted and fined $100 for teaching evolution in his Dayton, Tenn. classroom in the first highly publicized trial concerning the teaching of evolution. The press reported that although they lost the case, Scopes' team had won the argument. The verdict had a chilling effect on teaching evolution in the classroom, however, and not until the 1960s did it reappear in schoolbooks.


 * Natural selection:** The differential survival and reproduction of classes of organisms that differ from one another in on or more usually heritable characteristics. Through this process, the forms of organisms in a population best adapted to their local environment increase in frequency relative to less well-adapted forms over a number of generations. This difference in survival and reproduction is not due to chance.