creationism
gregladen | September 16, 2010This is from a few months back, but is very relevant to Back to School Month!
The podcast for today's radio discussion with Fellman, Scott and Laden is available.
A bit about the history of the NCSE; cultural relativism in the science education movement; Greg disses bench scientists again; The appeasement question; A phone call from a famous Pharyngulistum; Science standards; Local control. The Minnesota Science Standards. An intelligently designed buffet and the question of "alternative curriculum."
Go listen, and come back and comment.
gregladen | September 16, 2010First, there was plain and simple creationism, a Christian idea that, in an ideal Christian world, would be taught as part of any science dealing with the past, including biology (evolution), geology, and presumably history.
But the constitution stood in the way of implementing basic Christian teachings in public schools in the United States, though that battle took decades. Just as creationists were being driven off he landscape, a sort of Battle of the Bulge occurred, in the form of Intelligent Design.
a repost
Intelligent Design is a scientific-looking theory which is really just more…
gregladen | September 14, 2010Governor Rick Perry's position is that he believes in "Intelligent Design" as a matter of faith and intellect. Well, his faith is out of place (did he not swear to protect and defend the US constitution? On a bible?) and his intellect is clearly damaged by exposure to those wide open Texas spaces. Between his ears.
Here's the story, where you can see the news bit and if you like leave a comment! (I did.)
Notice the major blunder the reporter in this video makes: Explicitly distinguishing between creationism and intelligent design. Also, of course, the unquestioning assumption that…
gregladen | September 14, 2010Before:
Irish science minister boosts antievolution blarney
The Irish minister of state for science is to appear at a launch party for a self-published antievolutionist book, according to the Irish Times (September 13, 2010). Conor Lenihan, who represents Dublin South West for Fianna Fáil in Dáil Ãireann (the lower house of the Irish parliament) and serves as Minister of State for Science, Technology, Innovation, and Natural Resources, is billed as launching John J. May's The Origin of Specious Nonsense (Dublin: Original Writing, 2010) at a September 15, 2010, event in Dublin.
(source,…
pharyngula | September 14, 2010Revealing much about Texas education, Governor Rick Perry speaks out proudly about his state.
Texas is a national example of how to best prepare our children for higher education and the workplace.
Oh, really, Governor? Perhaps you could give us a specific example of a well-prepared Texas student?
I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution.
Oh.
I think I know everything I need to know about the Texas educational system from just that. Thank you very much.
gregladen | September 14, 2010The blogosphere is structured like a bus of tourists heading into ever new territory being spoken to by a thousand guides with microphones in the front of the vehicle. Woe be it to any guide who points out something that the bus passed several blocks back. But sometimes it is appropriate to re-mention certain things else they fall into obscurity. Well, it's great if certain things fall into obscurity, but not everything.
While doing a search for something else, I accidentally hit links to this particular issue, which played out quite some time ago. It is a wonderful story. Back in the…
pharyngula | September 14, 2010The Encyclopedia of Life is a cool tool which is a sort of wikification of taxonomy — it allows a large number of contributors to add descriptions of species with the goal of eventually documenting all 1.8 million known species in a single searchable source. Look at the page for my experimental animal, Danio rerio; lots of information in a standard format with links and references. Thumbs up!
However, there's a problem here: the sources. To organize that much data, a large mob of contributors are needed, and that means some fairly open policies to allow contributors have been instituted, and…
gregladen | September 14, 2010A life science teacher should not have to know about creationism to teach evolution, other than to the extent that you may cover the history of evolutionary biology, and begin in the days before science took center stage and natural philosophy was dragged off with one of those big vaudeville hooks. But, unfortunately, you do have to know something about it, about how to recognize it, how to argue with it, and about the legal and professional context of managing creationism among your students, your peers, and your bosses. One of the most important resources a life science teacher or an…
pharyngula | September 13, 2010This is John J. May. He has written a creationist book.
He's a barmy, ignorant crank. I read the sample pages, and his big argument is from pregnancy and development (!) — he's looked at it, superficially, and come away from it all dazzled at how complicated it all is, and that's the entirety of his argument: it's all too complicated.
Some people look at nature, marvel, and say that no one can comprehend it, therefore it must be magic. Other people look at nature, marvel, and say, "I think I can figure out how that works." May is in the first category.
So, just another random kook on the…
pharyngula | September 13, 2010Nominally, the Catholic church has no beef with evolution — they've got their own official twisted logic in which God did some invisible indetectable hocus-pocus somewhere in the documented evidence of evolution. Sometimes, though, that seems as thin and neglected as church doctrine on contraception. Here's an article on catholic.org that is pure unadulterated creationism, flatly denying the facts of human evolution because it contradicts the Magisterium of the Church on original sin and our exclusive descent from Adam and Eve.
It's unclear how this particular site is associated with the…
gregladen | September 10, 2010..that even when you try diligently to separate the politics of religion vs. creationism and to say again and again that religion can go along its merry way as long as it stays out of the science classroom, people like Casey Luskin will still find the words in your rhetoric to accuse you of attacking religion.
A while back, Genie Scott appeared with me and Lynn Fellman on Atheist Talk Radio, where we discussed science education. Genie is the director of the National Center for Science Education.
Subsequently, in a posting on the Discovery Institute web site, Casey Luskin makes the contrast…
gregladen | September 9, 2010You have to tell your child's life science teacher (or, any science teacher for that matter) that your family does not support creationism, does not want to see anyone "teaching the controversy" and that you know that "Intelligent Design" is a form of creationism. I promise you, the creationist parents of your child's peers, and some of the creationist kids in the classroom, are not keeping their mouths shut. Why should you?
So, pursuant to this, I have composed a template for you to use as an email or letter to send to your child or ward's life science teacher:
Dear [Fill In the Blank],…
gregladen | September 9, 2010Have a look at this video, done by Brian Rooney of ABC News Nightline, in which he follows around Billy Jack and Rusty Carter, two young earth creationists who are leading a school group through the Denver Museum of Nature and Science:
A revise repost.
Young earth creationists, or 'YEC's' believe the earth and all forms of life that exist today were created over a six day period 4004 B.C.
In this piece, the YEC's are showing exhibits to the young students, asking them questions, teaching them, and so on. Rooney also interviews the two YEC's in the absence of the children, as well as Kirk…
gregladen | September 8, 2010It happens. A very large percentage of life science teachers are creationists. In Minnesota, and Minnesota is not that unusual, about half the population or more are creationists, but among life science teachers, that number is reduced by almost one half. In other words, one in three life science teachers are creationists, although most, one would hope, only barely so.
This does not mean that creationism is being taught in the classroom. Some, perhaps many, life science teachers who are creationists know to not teach creationism in the classroom. But I find it difficult to believe that…
gregladen | September 8, 2010.... Have you ever had this happen: You are minding your own business, teaching your life science course, it's early in the term. A student, on the way out of the room after class (never at the beginning of class, rarely during class) mentions something about "carbon dating." This usually happens around the time of year you are doing an overview of the main points of the course, but before you've gotten to the "evolution module"...
Jeanne d'Arc was a very influential 10th grader. I understand she gave her Life Science teachers a very hard time. This picture is the only contemporary…
gregladen | September 7, 2010Reminder: The National Center for Science Education has a new web page, as part of their ever-improving and getting really quite wonderful web site, on Creationism and The Law. Here.
gregladen | September 6, 2010... In public schools. According to one Federal Judge in the US, not much.
A Mission Viejo high school history teacher violated the First Amendment by disparaging Christians during a classroom lecture, a federal judge ruled.
a repost
James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, referred to Creationism as "religious, superstitious nonsense" during a 2007 classroom lecture, denigrating his former Advanced Placement European history student, Chad Farnan.
The decision is the culmination of a 16-month legal battle between Corbett and Farnan - a conflict the judge said…
pharyngula | September 5, 2010It's an unfortunate fact of google life that links to my criticisms of Kent Hovind pop up quite high in google listings, so I'm always getting these letters from pissed-off creationists who are shocked, shocked, shocked that there they are, innocently searching for information on their hero, when Pharyngula rises up and dares to criticize the great bible-thumping convicted tax cheat.
In addition to the usual incoherence and refusal to offer any scientific support for their position, these letters are usually marked by a rather sniffy attitude of offended sensibilities and surprise that web…
pharyngula | September 5, 2010Oh, boy, it's been a while. I was out for the first few lectures (which I am grateful to my colleagues for covering), so in my introductory biology class I get to plunge straight in to Darwin, Darwin's finches, and Sean Carroll's The Making of the Fittest. No preludes, baby, I'm diving right in.
And then I stumble across CreationConversations, which is kind of like the Ask A Biologist website, if it were staffed by idiots. People write in, and the gang there, which seems to be mostly junior league suck-ups to Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, tries to answer from the Biblical perspective. It's…