An “article in the AP summarizes the underlying references in this little thought piece”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051208/ap_on_re_us/creationism_professor;_ylt=AkmHDJC49ZEp.ORSchKdfP1vzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA–. Here’s the short of it: * religious studies professor Paul Mirecki, at the University of Kansas, organizes a course entitled “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies”, scientists and educators silently cheer […]
Politics
277 posts
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: […]
Science is a method, one well suited to finding the connections between seeming disparate phenomena. Electricity flow along a wire, a magnetic field flows outward from it, and yet these two phenomena are two sides of a single interaction. Insects foraging food on a jungle carpet, fish foraging food on […]
I’ve been thinking a lot of late about what to say the next time I go to Washington. I seem to get there, one way or another, about twice a year these days. I don’t do it to sight-see, though Washington D.C. is “home to a rich and varied set […]
“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 […]
Ah, political science. Ahem. Well, perhaps I’m just adding more science to politics than I usually see. I’ve wanted to sit down with state education rankings and compare the minimum teacher tenure requirement with the state ranking. Tonight I sat down the Google, OpenOffice, and the ballot initiative documents. I […]
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 […]
OK, here I totally cross-over into politics. In part, what I’m about to say is based on my deep devotion to data and evidence, and its interpetation based on a rational framework. The rest, however, is just plain human frustration. As you’re well aware, today the President tried to distract […]
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, […]
It’s been a while since I last put pen to paper and placed some thoughts in this blog. As is typical with most things at the bottom of the list, this gets shelved when I have more important things to do. These past few weeks have been full of such […]
The “National Center for Science Education”:http://www.ncseweb.org has excellent “ongoing coverage, including transcripts and podcasts, of the trial in PA brought by parents against the Dover School District”:http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/, which is trying to force non-science into the science classroom. I’m spending my evening working while listening to their podcasts.