Today, the SLAC colloquium was presented by Dr. Lawrence Krauss of the Case-Western Reserve University. Krauss is a popularizer of science, remembered for such books as “The Physics of Star Trek” and “Quintessence”. His topic today drew a large and varied crowd from the laboratory, and raises a vital question: […]
Education
71 posts
By the title, you might think I’m talking in the same scare tactics that conservatives use to induce fear about medical procedures like abortion. I’m not. I’m talking about cyclotrons. That’s right… cyclotrons. “Not in my backyard!”, says Alaska. Don’t believe me? “Check it out”:http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69726,00.html The best part is the […]
The “New York Times has a nice piece summarizing the ousting of 8/9 of the Dover Schoolboard yesterday”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/09dover.html?ex=1289192400&en=0afa2b7119328aa5&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss. Sounds like some of the new members really intend to do away with this very dangerous decision by their predecessors to inject non-science into the science classroom.
“Looks like the school board that injected non-science into the science classrom (and got sued for it) got voted out”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051109/ap_on_re_us/evolution_showdown;_ylt=AkRm9TAX5JLbX0M0NYjbefus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-. I just learned that these elections were happening earlier today. Whether voters ousted them for their ideological zealotry, or their waste of money in encouraging this lawsuit, it seems that […]
What exactly are students in Kansas’ public schools to be taught about science? That was the question on my mind as I drove home tonight. I finished my dinner and sat down at my laptop, eager to pull up the science standards from Kansas to see if science was everywhere […]
I just went to the Kansas State Board of Ed website and found a link to the “August 9 draft of the standards”:http://www.ksde.org/outcomes/scstdworkingdoc892005.pdf, which are presumeably close to the final version. I’m going to check them out tonight.
Dover is a wrap. The “New York Times reports on the closing arguments”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/science/sciencespecial2/05design.html?ex=1288846800&en=c428931f2daa6714&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss, and tries to paint the trial as one where two entities – the school board and the intelligent design movement – are on trial, one where there are scientists who believe ID is a new paradigm shift […]
This is the “last week of the Dover trial”:http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-31/113074333546830.xml&storylist=penn, brought by parents in the school district against the administrators who forced non-science to be injected into the science classroom. The final witnesses are current and former school board members. The central question – whether the required language, which makes the […]
I’m having one of those moments of extreme clarity. Ever have those? I can’t say what sparked it. Perhaps it was a wonderful Braidwood collaboration meeting. Perhaps it was my excellent conversation with my colleague and, perhaps even friend by now, Dr. Herman White. Perhaps it was the wine, dinner, […]
Every year, scientists from all over the United States make personal visits to their elected representatives in Washington D.C. This ability to have an individual interaction to achieve collective action is a wonderous feature of our democratic society. When I first experienced this in 2003, I shared the optimisim of […]
Sometimes, in science, it’s just laid out like that. Yeah. And here is a wonderful example. The “National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has posted on its website four nearly simultanoeous op-ed pieces from scientists confronting intelligent design”:http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/US/170_a_quartet_of_opeds_9_1_2005.asp. The papers in which these were published include the New York Times, […]
Sometimes, University of Maryland physicist Bob Park has an uncanny knack for hitting every week’s science and society issues right on their collective head. This week is an excellent example. “Just go and read all his comments”:http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn090205.html. From women’s health and the growingly arbitrary definition of “life”, to the irrefutable […]