Inserting a record into a table with a column declared with the SERIAL function

Using the DEFAULT keyword or by omitting the column from the INSERT list:

INSERT INTO dataset (id, age, name, description)
VALUES (DEFAULT, 42, 'fred', 'desc');

INSERT INTO dataset (age, name, description)
VALUES (42, 'fred', 'desc');

If you create a table with a serial column then if you omit the serial column when you insert data into the table PostgreSQL will use the sequence automatically and will keep the order.

Example:

skytf=> create table test_2 (id serial,name varchar(32));
NOTICE:  CREATE TABLE will create implicit sequence "test_2_id_seq" for serial column "test_2.id"
CREATE TABLE

skytf=> insert into test_2 (name) values ('a');
INSERT 0 1
skytf=> insert into test_2 (name) values ('b');
INSERT 0 1
skytf=> insert into test_2 (name) values ('c');
INSERT 0 1

skytf=> select * From test_2;
 id | name 
----+------
  1 | a
  2 | b
  3 | c
(3 rows)