Education
jstemwedel | March 1, 2006Yesterday I flailed vaguely in the direction of a case we could make for funding basic research with public monies. I was trying to find an alternative to the standard argument usually advanced for funding such research (namely, that basic research frequently brings about all manner of practical applications that were completely unforeseen when the basic research was envisioned and conducted). The standard argument makes a reasonable point -- we can't usually tell ahead of time what basic knowledge will be "good for" -- but it strikes me that this strategy boils down to saying "basic…
jstemwedel | February 23, 2006Inside Higher Ed is reporting that UT-Austin's Task Force on Curricular Reform has issued its report on the kind of first-year experience that might dop good things for the undergraduates (in terms of making general education more coherent and so forth).
The faculty are commenting on the report. Apparently, the science and engineering faculty are less than enthusiastic.
From the IHE article:
The report calls for a mandatory interdisciplinary course in each of the first two years, and the establishment of University College, a new division that all freshmen would enter before going on to…
drorzel | February 21, 2006Pretty much every academic on-line has already commented on the New York Times piece on student email today. As usual, Timothy Burke says most of what I'd like to say:Much of the complaint recorded in the article also seems much ado about nothing. As Margaret Soltan observes, what's the big deal about answering the kid who wants to know about school supplies? It's almost kind of sweet that the student asks, actually. I get queries from junior high school kids who want me to do their homework for them, more or less: what does it cost me to be gentle and modestly accomodating in return? A few…
pharyngula | February 16, 2006Here is a serious problem:
Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. You will never need to know—never mind want to know—how many boys it will take to mow a lawn if one of them quits halfway and two more show up later—or something like that. Most of math can now be done by a computer or a calculator. On the other hand, no computer can write a column or even a thank-you note—or reason even a little bit. If, say, the school asked you for another year of English or, God forbid, history, so that you…
stcynic | February 15, 2006As I've discussed many times, the ID movement has changed its strategy regarding the policies they are advocating to be adopted by school boards and legislatures. They know that any hint of the phrase "intelligent design" is going to be struck down by the courts, especially in light of the Dover ruling. In fact, they knew this before the Dover ruling ever came down. The big switch really began in Ohio in 2002 in an attempt to make the target too small for our side to attack successfully. Thus, you now have them advocating policies that would not teach ID explicitly.
In one place they may…
evolgen | February 10, 2006A few weeks ago Cell published a commentary by Paul Nurse, president of Rockefeller University, on US biomedical research under siege from people with political motivations. Nurse's intentions were noble, but his language was sloppy. The issue of Cell published today has a commentary by Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. Scott's article provides an excellent review of American policy, education, and the anti-evolution movement -- if you're lucky enough to have access to Cell, go read the entire thing. If you don't have access, I have a few…
stcynic | February 8, 2006Sal Cordova is an ID advocate who teaches at (I think) George Mason University. He now blogs at Dembski's home for wayward sycophants and comments there often. Lately he's been pushing this notion that Jack Krebs and Nick Matzke refuse to answer this simple set of questions he poses. He apparently thinks that this is a very difficult question to answer and really reveal some flaw in our position. So much so that he can't wait to get us in court to catch us in a Perry Mason moment. He's brought it up in at least two comments (here and here) lately. Here's how he phrased it in one of them:
In…
stcynic | February 8, 2006I really like this idea:
Creationism or intelligent design could not be taught as science in Wisconsin public schools under a first-of-its-kind proposal announced today by Madison state Rep. Terese Berceau.
Under the bill, only science capable of being tested according to scientific method could be taught as science. Faith-based theories, however, could be discussed in other contexts.
Alan Attie, a biochemistry professor at UW-Madison, said the bill puts Wisconsin on the map in the ongoing controversy over evolution and intelligent design.
"We can be the un-Kansas," Attie said in an interview…
pharyngula | February 5, 2006…but she wasn't. She was allowed to continue her educational malpractice until her contract expired, and then was not rehired—something that happens to adjunct and assistant professors all the time, with no necessary implication of poor work.
Caroline Crocker, if you've never heard of her, is the lead topic in an article in the Washington Post today, and you may also have read an account of her situation in Nature. She's a molecular biologist who believes in Intelligent Design, and who was released from her position at George Mason University. Now she wants to claim that her academic freedom…
pharyngula | February 3, 2006Kristine Harley attended James Curtsinger's lecture at UMTC last night, and passed along an abbreviated copy of her notes. I wish I could have gone—it sounds like it was an informative evening—but living out here in the wilderness, I have to plan those long drives into the Big City with some care.
Curtsinger's talk was only very loosely organized around the theme of "ten things," and was mostly a comprehensive overview of the various forms of creationism from Archbishop Ussher (1581-1656) to Michael Behe's embarrassing performance at the Dover trial. I would say that there were around 20-25…
jstemwedel | January 31, 2006
These are the offerings for the semester starting February 1, 2006. Students are encouraged to sit in on a variety of classes during the "shopping" period.
In addition to academic offerings, this listing includes programs in the residence halls and around campus. Remember that a sharp mind needs to step outside the classroom and the laboratory from time to time.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
"CSI: My Cat"Instructor: Alison McCook, Location: The ScientistDescription: Determination of likely cause of a cat's death.Comments: Cats will be provided.
ARCHAEOLOGY
"How much of this landscape would…
pharyngula | January 30, 2006An Angry professor led me to an article on Inside Higher Ed, which discusses a document by the Wingspread Conference by the Society for Values in Higher Education (pdf). I knew when I saw the word "Values" up there that I was in for some platitudinous academe-speak slathered around a set of bland pieties, and I was. Poking around on their website, I see that the Society for Values in Higher Education seems to consist of a lot of well-meaning and rather wordy types who see religion as an important "value" to inculcate in higher education—a nest of those liberal Christians everyone tells me I'm…
pharyngula | January 29, 2006As is their habit, the Chronicle of Higher Ed has published another cockeyed article, this time arguing that the problem with the budgets of universities are all those expensive faculty, and suggesting that a solution would be outsourcing the instruction and turning the professorate into a collection of market-efficient middle managers. Profgrrrrl takes that whole idea apart, so I don't have to.
The whole purpose of a university is to provide a space for the play of ideas among those faculty, in an environment where young men and women students can be participants and learn to contribute. The…
pharyngula | January 17, 2006A while back, a reader mentioned that my name (or some permutation thereof) was being taken in vain in the letters pages of the Durango Herald. Nothing new there, it's just the usual half-truths of the Discovery Institute being disseminated.
Challenges to evolution met with scorn
I find that some of the brightest people in the world today (as with some of the brightest people throughout history) disbelieve the theory of evolution.
As Paul Bynum correctly noted in his letter (Herald, Nov. 20), it is true that folks who dare to challenge some of evolution's claims are, indeed, often ridiculed…
jlynch | January 10, 2006I have been teaching an upper-division course on Origins, Evolution and Creation since 1998; the course has been very popular and has been cross-listed as both Biology (BIO) and History and Philosophy of Science (HPS). Every year I get 40 or so students from varying religious and educational backgrounds and we examine the evidence for creationist claims (after spending some time thinking about the nature of science and religion). Over the years it has morphed from a course largely examining "scientific creationism" to one examining intelligent design. I'm not afraid to let the students read…
stcynic | December 20, 2005The Economist has an article on the UC lawsuit available on their website. They tie tha suit together with Dover and Cupertino:
So far the UC case has had less publicity than the argument about whether high schools can teach "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution (currently being fought out in a courtroom in Pennsylvania) or even a ferocious dispute up in Cupertino, where a history teacher claims he was restrained from teaching about Christianity's role in American history (parents had complained that he was acting more like an evangelical preacher). In fact, all these arguments…
jlynch | December 6, 2005Via Red State Rabble:
"These evolutionists are saying that Jesus was half-chimpanzee, so was Mohammed and Buddha," said Alan Detrich, a 58-year-old Lawrence Republican who takes classes at Kansas University. "I dont think thats right."
In this story, Detrich gives us the minimalist version of Paley’s watchmaker argument:
The question is the story of the rock and the clock. If you find a rock in a field, no big deal. If you find a clock in a field, you look around for who created it. Did we just appear like the rock? Or did it take intelligent design to make us? I think it took intelligent…
stcynic | December 6, 2005William Dembski has a post about Derek Davis, director of the Dawson Institute for Church-State Studies at Baylor, and the comment he made in the NY Times the other day. I highlighted the same comment in a post on Sunday and pointed out the same thing, that Davis had taken a stand in favor of the constitutionality of teaching creationism in science classes back in 1999. Here is his comment in the Times on Sunday:
Derek Davis, director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor, said: "I teach at the largest Baptist university in the world. I'm a religious person. And my…
stcynic | December 2, 2005I still havent' been able to find a copy of the University of California's response brief or their motion to dismiss the ACSI lawsuit, but the ACSI has made the original complaint and their response brief to the motion to dismiss available on their website. I haven't had a chance to go over the reply brief in any detail, but one of their arguments near the beginning jumped out at me. They're arguing "viewpoint discrimination" not merely because the UC has rejected certain courses, but even because of their requirement that the student have taken a certain number of credit courses during high…
stcynic | November 29, 2005The Chicago Tribune has an article up about a new IDEA (Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness) club at Cornell University, where the president recently delivered a scathing critique of intelligent design in his annual address to the school. The article includes many misconceptions and falsehoods, beginning with the first premise uttered by the new chapter's founder:
The national spotlight recently has focused on school boards in Kansas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere that are grappling with calls for including intelligent design, a concept critical of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution,…