National Center for Science Education Updates for Early November

According to the National Center for Science Education, there has been the death, unfortunately, of a distinguished anthropologist named C. Loring Brace IV on September 7, 2019, at the age of 89. Brace was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on September 19, 1930.

Brace was seen as an integral figure in the history of ideas related to biological anthropology with work on Neanderthals as an ancestral group to humans with collected works on craniofacial and dental measurements.

In fact, and surprisingly to some, he rejected typological labels for human groups. He wanted to “attempt to introduce a Darwinian outlook into biological anthropology.”

High school remains an important and influential part of life. With some of the salient experiences for the development of scientific interests at this time, for example, Brace began to read On the Origin of Species in this period of life.

Brace had confrontations with creationists, as can happen on a subject matter touching on the important issues of the origins of the human species as simply one in a long line of organisms and part of a common family tree of life.

As NCSE reported, “It is perhaps not surprising that he periodically grappled with creationists, contributing ‘Humans in Time and Space’ to Scientists Confront Creationism in 1983, “Creationists and the Pithecanthropines” to Creation/Evolution in 1986, and ‘Human Emergence: Natural Process or Divine Creation’ to Scientists Confront Creationism: Intelligent Design and Beyond in 2007.”

Brace considered the basic evidence for evolutionary theory as substantial and uncontroversial with a comfortable fit of the evidence to the theoretical underpinnings of evolution via natural selection.

Brace and his efforts are appreciated; he will be missed by loved ones and friends, and the community of scientists.