|
|
JISHOU, HUNAN — It takes a certain amount of nerve, and intellectual dishonesty, to appropriate the text of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, write a creationist “special introduction” to it, then reissue the mangled tome as a legitimate copy of Darwin’s work.
The creationist outfit, Bridge Logos Foundation, of Alachua, Florida, has published an abridged 150th anniversary edition of Origin of Species, complete with a 50-page introduction calling into question practically every conclusion Darwin makes in the rest of the book. Living Waters Publications, is peddling the book as a way to undermine the teaching of evolution in schools and universities.
Both organizations are masterminded by Ray Comfort, a noted anti-evolution, fundamentalist writer.
 Here is the squib describing the book:
This special 280-page edition not only contains an abridged Origin of Species but also has a 50-page Introduction that reveals the dangerous fruit of evolution, Hitler’s undeniable connections to the theory, Darwin’s racism, and his disdain for women. It counters the claim that creationists are “anti-science” by citing numerous scientists who believed that God created the universe—scientists such as Einstein, Newton, Copernicus, Bacon, Faraday, Pasteur, and Kepler. It has many original graphics and (as it says on the back cover) is designed for use in schools, colleges, and prestigious learning institutions. The back cover lists the above information as well as saying the book contains “Information on Intelligent Design vs Evolution.” We want to get one million copies into the hands of students and professors in colleges and universities throughout the U.S. Let’s see if they try to ban Darwin’s Origin of Species. That would be interesting.
This is a preview of And speaking of thought control … how about creationist subterfuge? . Read the full post (1608 words, 2 images, estimated 6:26 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — Public school teachers — in fact most teachers — should just shut up about their religious preferences. Proselytizing is an abuse of their “bully pulpit.”
The Panda’s Thumb has two articles this week demonstrating the misuse of teacherly authority. One is an update on the ever-continuing John Freshwater saga; the other a report on one teacher’s attempt to haul students to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.
Freshwater is a seventh-grade science teacher in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, who has paraded his particular brand of Christianity — and anti-evolution propaganda — in front of his students for several years. His superiors looked the other way until Freshwater used a Tesla coil to burn a cross shape on the arm of a student. The student and his parents cried foul, and the parties involved are now in a legal thicket.
Freshwater has been the subject of hours of administrative hearings regarding his continued employment. The boy and his family have filed a civil liberties suit against Freshwater and the school system. Freshwater himself has filed his own civil liberties suit against his employers, and another civil suit against the family, alleging they have slandered him.
During the administrative hearings, witnesses reported that Freshwater always had a Bible on his desk (despite his superiors telling him to remove it), maintained a stock of Bibles in a bookcase for students to borrow, had Christian-oriented posters decorating his science classroom, and made a point of teaching students that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang were bogus.
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — Dr. Isis at Scienceblogs.com has published a few more letters from women scientists, as part of her “Letters to Our Daughters Project.”
The daughters are not necessarily the scientists’ biological daughters, by the way. Isis wants young female scientists-in-training to stay the course, get their degrees and begin science careers. As a former high school science teacher, I’m blogging about these letters because they contain sound advice for teenaged science students, too. Girls can be scientists, without giving up romance, motherhood, or … shopping.
The third letter in the series is by Wendee Holtcamp, a free-lance science journalist who blogs at Animal Planet and has written for Scientific American and other big time publications. She reminisces about the doubts of others around her whether she could or should pursue a doctoral degree.
It seems that the higher I climb up the totem pole of success, the more resistance I encounter. Whatever happened to those feel-good messages from kindergarten: You can be anything you want to be! Girls can do anything boys can! Go make your dreams come true!
What I’m discovering as I journey toward my doctorate is that while women may cheer our abundant opportunities in the 21st century, equal opportunity does not always mean equal treatment. The little voices of doubt rattle around at the back of my mind.
Dr. Janet Stemwedel (aka Dr. Free-Ride), who also blogs at Scienceblogs.com, holds two doctoral degrees in chemistry and philosophy. She is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Not surprisingly, her letter is more, well, philosophical.
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — One of my favorite Internet hangouts is ScienceBlogs.com, which has a veritable pantheon of engaging and intelligent bloggers commenting on everything from creationist malarkey and real science to … shoes.  One of the goddesses there is Dr. Isis (her mortal form is depicted below), who recently started a project to encourage more young women to enter the sciences.
Dr. Isis and I share the same concern. I spent more than two decades teaching physics to sometimes reluctant teenagers, and because our school basically required everyone to take physics to graduate, I managed to teach nearly everyone who passed through those hallowed halls.
Roughly half my students were girls. I don’t have any hard statistics, but I think about as many women as men among my students entered medical, scientific or technical fields. The numbers for both genders are comparatively small, given the arts-and-humanities bent of the school, but it’s the parity of the numbers that I am proud of.
For a student to love math and science is hard enough in the United States — such students are labeled nerds, geeks, and weirdos, because math and science are supposed to be (a) really hard and (b) really boring. To love something simultaneously hard and boring makes you a bit of a social outcast. [Cross-cultural aside: This kind of ostracism does not happen in China, or in Asia as a whole. Here, math and science students are virtually worshiped, which might help explain why Asian students kick American students' asses on international math and science exams.]
This is a preview of Women in science: Dr. Isis and The Letters to Our Daughters Project . Read the full post (1226 words, 2 images, estimated 4:54 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
The family that blew the whistle on a California cheerleading coach’s nude modeling denied on TV yesterday they were trying to seek revenge.
The coach, Carlie Beck aka Carlie Christine, was a Playboy.com “cyber-girl of the week” in early February. As cheerleading coach of Casa Roble Fundamental High School outside Sacramento, Beck cut several girls from the squad for excessive unexcused absences, per school policy.
One of the cuts, Adelle Geniella, 14, and her parents found Beck’s cyber-girl photos on the Web and submitted them to school officials. Beck then lost her coaching job.
Adella and her parents deny that they were trying to get back at Beck. Instead, they insist Beck was a poor role model — cheerleaders cannot post nude photos on the Web, for example — and should have been fired. They failed to note that high school cheerleaders are underage, and Beck is not, of course.
Whatever.
Here’s the link to the report.
Permanent link to this post (158 words, 1 image, estimated 38 secs reading time) Possibly related posts:
A few posts back, I wrote about the efforts by anti-evolution members of the Texas State Board of Education to emasculate the state’s science standards. It was big news, because Texas periodically buys its textbooks en masse, giving it a disproportionate influence on the content of the nation’s school textbooks.
To put it another way, if the Texas SBOE had mandated that Texas children learn about Intelligent Design in Biology or the steady-state-universe theory in Earth Science, the SBOE would then prefer to buy textbooks that cover such topics. So, textbook publishers would scramble to add this content to their existing texts to remain competitive.
If the changes were limited to Texas, it would be bad for Texas schoolchildren. But textbook publishers cannot offer 50 or more different textbooks versions, one for each state and territory of the USA. It would be neither feasible nor economic. So they target their textbooks’ content to the three biggest buyers, Texas, California and Florida.
Tamim Ansary, who used to work in the textbook field, wrote an expose of sorts about the textbook mill for Edutopia in 2004. It’s been reprinted on the Edutopia website, and well worth the read, especially if you have school-age children.
Here’s a taste:
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — A high school cheerleading coach has lost her job after students and parents found her nude photos on the Playboy.com website.
 Carlie Christine Beck (or Becker — news sources can’t seem to get her name straight), 20, (left) appeared on Playboy.com back in February, about the same time she was hired to coach the cheerleading squad at Casa Roble Fundamental High School (a public school) in Orangevale, California.
Bad timing, I’d say. Apparently, Beck did the Playboy.com shoot before taking the coaching job, and she says she was upfront about her modeling career.
Nothing much came of her nude modeling until she cut some girls from the squad for having unexcused absences. The offended girls and their parents then presented the bare facts (sorry, I couldn’t resist) to the high school principal.
She then lost her coaching job. The whistle-blowers (or tattle tales) deny they were taking revenge for the cuts, of course. “This is something that I would have brought to the attention of the principal whether she was on the team or not, as a parent,” Heather Geniella, a cheerleader’s mother, told News10 in Sacramento.
Uh-huh.
Every cloud has a silver lining, though. The publicity surrounding her dismissal has given her a lot more exposure (no pun intended this time), ensuring a successful modeling career — and 15 minutes of fame — for Beck.
This is a preview of California HS cheering coach poses nude, loses job — surprised? . Read the full post (698 words, 2 images, estimated 2:48 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
|
Recent Comments