Timely. NPR’s program “Soundprint today explored the story of ancient footprints uncovered in Africa, and how evolution is both denied and manipulated by politicians and theologians in South Africa to achieve their personal agendas”:http://soundprint.org/radio/display_show/ID/37/name/Footprints. This is an excellent illustration of just what happens when you couple the base states of […]
Science
449 posts
Bob Park “hits them all again in his column”:http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn111105.html, “What’s New?”. As my father first brought to my attention, then as I saw in the news and now read in Bob’s column, Pat Robertson verbally intervened after the ousting of the Dover, PA schoolboard. After the voters in Dover taught […]
The new Kansas state board of education’s science standards state that “Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observations, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.” More adequate explanations? What does that mean? “Logical argument” is […]
Academic freedom is at the very core of all that I do. I have a great liberty in science, the liberty of thought. But the popular image of a physicist, that of Einstein in his old age, is quite misleading. Most of the physicists that I know do not spend […]
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 […]
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 […]
For many years, there has been a raging argument between engineers, scientists and the general public. This debate doesn’t center over whether humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. The brouhaha has nothing to do with whether God kicked the universe off in a big bang, or even whether God […]
“Kitzmiller vs. The Dover Schoolboard is scheduled to reach closing arguments this Friday, November 4”:http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/. It’s remarkable to me that this first landmark trial in the new century over the zealous attempt to inject non-science into the science classroom has taken just a few months. Part of me wishes that […]
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, […]