creationism
sa smith | February 24, 2012Posted without comment:
Anti-abortion "personhood" bill clears Oklahoma senate
The bill offers no exceptions in the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest and could mean some forms of contraception such as the "morning after pill" would be unavailable, she said.
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Oklahoma State Representative Gus Blackwell, whos educational and employment qualifications appear to be composed entirely of "JESUS! YAAAY! I CAN MANAGE NOT TO CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING USEFUL TO SOCIETY FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE JUST BY SCREAMING JESUS ALL DAY!!! YAAAAAAY!" just reintroduced our Blog Buddy Sally Kerns anti-…
pharyngula | February 23, 2012AAAAAAAAAARGH! Someone is wrong on the internet, and I don't know whether to scream or to facepalm! (I tried doing both at once, but then it just comes out as a muffled gargle.)
Please go look at this creationist comic called "How Darwin Got It Wrong". It's typical creationist garbage, and practically every panel is wrong, wrong, wrong…yet it purports to be an objective discussion of the scientific problems with evolution. The author, however, knows no biology at all.
Take this page (please).
Look at that one word balloon: "BUT IN MY OPINION THE WHEELS USED TO BE DOORS AND THE DOORS WERE…
tfk | February 21, 2012Shorter David Klinghoffer: National Center for Science Education, Darwin/Climate Enforcers, Humiliated by Forged Document Scandal:
Ethical questions about someone with no formal ties to NCSE clearly demonstrates the scientific, pedagogical, and moral failings of NCSE.
So Peter Gleick outed himself as the source of the Heartland board documents released last week, and now lots of people are chasing the shiny toy of how and why Gleick did it, rather than the important story of what the documents say.
But how and why Gleick did it, and even that Gleick did it, is irrelevant to most people, while…
gregladen | February 21, 2012A bill in Oklahoma that would, if enacted, encourage teachers to present the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of "controversial" topics such as "biological evolution" and "global warming" is back from the dead. Entitled the "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act," House Bill 1551 was introduced in the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2011 by Sally Kern (R-District 84), a persistent sponsor of antievolution legislation in the Sooner State, and referred to the House Common Education Committee. It was rejected there on February 22, 2011, on a 7-9 vote. But, as The…
tfk | February 19, 2012A secret fundraising document from a shadowy anti-science institute was accidentally made public. The document candidly lays out the anti-science agenda of group, including efforts to undermine science education in public schools, but also plans to broadly redefine society.
The year was 1998, and the document was from the Discovery Institute. Nicknamed "The Wedge Document" by opponents of the Disco. 'tute's brand of creationism, it details plans to use attacks on evolution like the thin edge of a wedge, opening a crack which in time would break society free of "scientific materialism."…
pharyngula | February 4, 2012I'd been wondering about the credibility of David L. Abel, an Intelligent Design creationist who claims to work in the Department of ProtoBioCybernetics and ProtoBioSemiotics, Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc. I tried to track down this foundation with the lofty title, the million dollar prize, and the elaborately specific departments, but the best I'd been able to do was find a google satellite image.
Huh. That looks suspiciously like a suburban house.
So then someone from the Evil Atheist Conspiracy's vast network of spies and agents decided to drive by and get a picture.
Why, it is…
pharyngula | February 2, 2012That sad article on gyres as an explanation for everything has had more fallout: not only has it been removed from Science Daily's site, not only has Case Western retracted the press release, but one of the editors at the journal Life has resigned his position over it. The editorial board of the journal was completely surprised by the wretched content of the paper, which is not encouraging; apparently they exercise so little oversight at the journal that they were unaware of the crap their reviewers were passing through. One board member thinks it is a hoax, and laughed at off. Think about…
pharyngula | February 2, 2012The Indiana Senate has approved this bill:
The governing body of a school corporation may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Scientology.
I've heard a few complaints from Hoosiers about this, including teachers. One high school science teacher has asked me to post this open letter on the subject; they've asked that I not include their name, which is sad in itself. Not only is the legislature…
pharyngula | February 1, 2012The Fordham Institute has released their annual evaluation of state science standards. They are very tough graders — Minnesota got a "C". Ack! Mom & Dad are going to be pissed, how will we ever get into a good college at this rate?
The Institute does a fairly thorough breakdown, so there are some bright spots: Minnesota is doing a good job in the life sciences, but where we got dinged hard was on the physical sciences, which are "illogically organized" and contain factual errors. Here's the introduction to their evaluation of our life sciences standards:
Important life science content is…
tfk | February 1, 2012Shorter David Klinghoffer, Minister of Propaganda for the Disco. 'tute: "Then They Came for Me -- and There Was No One Left to Speak for Me.":
I'm Jewish so it's OK for me to claim NCSE's decision to oppose pseudoscience in earth science classrooms as well as biology classes is just like Nazis dragging people off to be murdered in the middle of the night.
âShorterâ concept created by Daniel Davies, perfected by Elton Beard, and popularized by Sadly, No!. We are aware of all Internet traditions.â¢
gregladen | January 31, 2012But with a twist. A Republican sponsored bill required the teaching of Christian Religion ni the science class, but a Democratic Senator has added wording that will require science teachers to teach the origin stories of ALL of the religions.
Legislators on Monday broadened a proposal aimed at allowing Indiana's public schools to teach creationism in science classes to require that such courses include origin of life theories from multiple religions.
The Senate approved the change to legislation critics had argued was unconstitutional because federal courts repeatedly have found teaching…
pharyngula | January 28, 2012The miseducation committee of the Indiana legislature recently approved a bill to allow the teaching of creationism in the schools, and now the Indianapolis newspaper approves, with the usual tepid and illegitimate arguments.
Much would depend on how teachers handle the origins of life in a biology or science class.
No, it doesn't. A bill that inserts garbage into the curriculum is a bill that inserts garbage; it doesn't matter if you think it could be used to make a lovely collage, or as an exercise in recycling, it's still garbage. And if you trust teachers to do their job, let them do it…
pharyngula | January 27, 2012Indiana is preparing to promote creationism in their science classrooms. A legislative committee has advanced a bill that endorses creationism and "alternative theories" to the vote of the full senate. So it's not a law yet, but it's advancing down the path.
Here's the horrifying part: it was approved 8:2 by the Republican-controlled Senate Education Committee. This is a group that is supposed to be the gatekeeper for good educational practices; you'd think their job was to screen out the random wacky garbage that individual, ideologically motivated members of the senate might poop out. But…
pharyngula | January 22, 2012The requirements to be a TV weather presenter are fairly slack: an undergraduate degree with some training in meteorology is preferred, but not required, and the main skills seem to be looking presentable with nice hair, being able to dance with a green screen, and being glib and cheerful. So I guess it's not surprising that the "scientists" leading the charge against global warming are climate-denier TV weathermen. That link takes you to a long list of quotes from various television weather personalities — including a couple from Minneapolis — who all deny reality and use their position as…
pharyngula | January 20, 2012I'm going to be a contrarian here. I think the Kentucky legislature has made a perfectly sensible budget decision.
Here's the deal: in the current budget, a couple of interesting decisions have been made.
Funding for K-12 education: -$50 million
Tax breaks for the Ark Park: +$43 million
Highway improvements for the Ark Park: +$11 million
See? Almost perfectly balanced: all the money handed over to creationists is taken away from education.
And it makes perfect sense, too. It's not as if the next generation might need a high school diploma to take advantage of the employment opportunities…
tfk | January 16, 2012The National Center for Science Education, where I work, has focused on fighting political attacks on evolution education for all of its 30 year history. When the group was founded in the early '80s, they didn't choose a name narrowly focused on evolution, hoping that they'd make quick work of creationism and then move on to other problems in science education. Today's announcement that NCSE's taking on climate change is a partial fulfillment of that dream.
Creationism is far from dead, of course. This year, legislators in Indiana have filed two bills attacking evolution. One bill revives…
pharyngula | January 16, 2012This just isn't right. The United Kingdom is this small little country way off in Europe, and the United States is this giant powerful country, and they managed to put creationists in their place while we debate about electing them to the presidency. It makes no sense.
Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationism in science classes.
The Department for Education has revised its model…
pharyngula | January 13, 2012The Missouri is considering HB1227, a bill that would require public schools to teach intelligent design creationism. It's a descendant of a similar bill that was previously allowed to die, and it shares some of the same properties as the previous version: an amazing opacity and astonishingly pompous attempt by a few blithering lawyers to redefine science.
Read this crap. It begins with a long, long list of eleven bogus definitions, as if making the law into a dictionary will make it irrefutable.
2. As used in this section, the following terms mean:
(1) "Analogous naturalistic process", a…
pharyngula | January 12, 2012Now and again, some well-meaning but clueless person gets it into their head that teaching creationism in the schools is a good idea — that the clash of ideas is a good pedagogical technique. There are cases where that would be true, but doing it in the public school classroom and hashing over a bad, discredited idea vs. good science is totally inappropriate. Reserve that technique for issues where there is substance on both sides.
But now Jay Mathews is trying to revivify this nonsense in the Washington Post, suggesting that Rick Santorum has a good idea with his plan to "teach the…
pharyngula | January 10, 2012A while back, the Way of the Master (Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron) came out with a board game, Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. I imagine the Discovery Institute cringes in pain every time those two clowns associate themselves with their brand, which is good; but you know it has to be an awful, horrible, brain-damaging game, which is bad. I thought about picking up a copy just for the kitsch value, but just couldn't bring myself to pay them money for it (and now it seems to have vanished from their online store).
But Chad bought it and played it against his dog (his wife was too smart to…