Brian Alters

Who is Brian Alters?

Brian J. Alters is a professor in Chapman University's College of Educational Studies and is also the president of the National Center for Science Education. He directs Chapman’s Evolution Education Research Center, has taught science education at both Harvard and McGill Universities, and is regarded as a specialist in evolution education.

Alters has a B.Sc. in biology and a Ph.D. 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 which he describes as "a university biology non-majors textbook", and Teaching Biology in Higher Education, "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 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, 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. He also contributed a chapter to the a chapter in Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools, edited by Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch of the NCSE.