Pandas face a difficult future, despite great efforts to preserve them. With their dwindling population, shrinking habitat, and weakening genetic strength, one evolutionist has suggested that these longstanding symbols of the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) should be allowed to die out.

Ardipithecus ramidus is an extinct primate whose fossilized remains were first found along the Awash River in Ethiopia about 15 years ago. Many fragments were collected, including shattered bones from a four-foot-tall female nicknamed "Ardi." She was chosen to represent her kind, apparently because of the comparative completeness of her remains.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin published his proposal that all creatures on earth emerged naturally from a common ancestor through a process of gradual change. Although this hypothesis rapidly pervaded Western thinking about origins, substantial corroborating evidence for such morphing between various organisms has not materialized.

Are humans born to cheat? What do Americans think about marital infidelity? Those who oppose the practice of adultery often base their arguments on religious prohibitions. Others, confident that religion is worthless, or worse, turn to science to support their contentions that monogamy is not biologically “natural.”