SANTA ROSA, Calif. – Peter M. J. Hess, Ph.D., will give a presentation on “Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy” on Sunday, July 1, in Santa Rosa.

The discussion will take place from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 1550 Pacific Ave., located three quarters of a mile east of the Santa Rosa Junior College Campus near Pacific Market.

Hess, a part-time Lake County resident, is director of religious community outreach with the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization in Oakland that defends and promotes the teaching of evolution and climate science.

He will talk about his own commitment to this cause and relate some of his experiences.

Hess believes that at the heart of many attacks on science lies a questionable metaphysic of “human exceptionalism” – the common but unacknowledged assumption that Homo sapiens is exempt from biological constraints.