August 31, 2011
On twitter, journalist Dave Roberts wrote:
Evolution is not a free-floating "theory." It underlies all of modern biology & ecology. Similarly for climate change: it's a foundation.
I wrote back:
I agree (hence @NCSE's work on both). But AGW is less foundation than integrative and crucial…
August 27, 2011
Joel Mathis asks:
Anybody know the actual mathematical odds of experiencing a hurricane and an earthquake in the same week?
Not really, but I can take a pass at it. For simplicity, I'll assume we're talking about an earthquake of magnitude 5 or more (since quakes below that magnitude are often not…
August 25, 2011
The other day, I quibbled with John Derbyshire's contention that liberals are optimists and with Joel Mathis's objection that his liberalism is pessimistic. Today, CMatt Yglesias writes:
One of the bigger systematic differences between the left and right in America is that progressives have a…
August 25, 2011
Last week, Rick Perry made some factually false and deeply disturbing claims about how evolution is and ought to be taught in Texas. In the ensuing flurry of criticism (fueled by the fact that Perry simultaneously doubled down on his climate change denial), retired British biologist Richard…
August 24, 2011
John Derbyshire thinks there's a tension between liberalism and science:
liberal scientists, which is to say most scientistsâ¦are stuck in an uncomfortable philosophical fork.
Liberalism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of progress and improvement. (Why do you think they call themselves…
August 21, 2011
Early last month, I quoted a dispatch from a checkpoint between rebel-controlled Libya and Qaddafi's Tripoli:
The refugees say that Tripoliâs rebels defiantly paint their flags on anything that will spread their message, including pigeons, cats and balloons.
Today, the rebel flags are flying from…
August 19, 2011
Yesterday, Rick Perry commented "in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools, because I figured you're smart enough to figure out which one is right." It got a lot of play, including my own post on the matter.
PolitiFact Texas examined the issue, providing a nice…
August 18, 2011
I've already spoken to a reporter in Texas about this, but via Jamie Vernon we have video of Rick Perry telling a 4th grader in New Hampshire that he doesn't know the age of the earth, that
Transcript:
Student: How old do you think the earth is?
Perry: How old do I think the earth is? You know…
August 17, 2011
In his book Fed Up, Rick Perry came out solidly in the climate denial camp, repeating long-discredited claims of that the underlying science is fraudulent. ThinkProgress quotes him writing:
For example, they have seen the headlines in the past year about doctored data related to global warming.…
August 16, 2011
As you'll recall, I spoke toward the end of the public testimony at the Texas science standards supplements, so I departed from my prepared text a bit. Not, perhaps, my finest performance ever, due to the ad libbing.
A bunch of other video is online from the hearings, including this stunning…
August 15, 2011
Sara Mead writes at Ed Week about teacher legislation, especially new policies allowing "ineffective" teachers to be canned, or at least to be laid off first:
But what about teachers who are rated "Needs Improvement" [the second lowest category] --but never actually improve? Under many of these…
August 15, 2011
Delong, a former Clinton economist and current econ professor at UC Berkeley, writes:
You Know, I Arrived in Washington in 1993 to Work for Lloyd Bentsen's Treasury as Part of the Sane Technocratic Bipartisan Center...
And it took me only two months--two months!--to conclude that America's best…
August 8, 2011
Good times, then and now.
August 3, 2011
I didn't blog about the debt ceiling becauseâ¦Â ugh. The idea that the Republican party would hold the country, and indeed the world economy, hostage is unimaginably awful. The idea that, in the midst of a recession barely worse than the Great Depression, we're talking about cutting government…
August 3, 2011
In the comments on my post the other day about the importance of evidence in skepticism and science outreach, RBH leaves an interesting comment that's worth digging into a bit. I replied in the thread, RBH's invocation of the Overton Window struck me.
He writes:
We hear about the Dunning-Kruger…
July 29, 2011
My fascination with biopunks and DIYbio is well-established, and Eri Gentry is a hero in that world. Her talk about DIYbio at the recent Open Source Conference is a fascinating look not just at the potential for DIYbio and the motivations of biopunks, but a nice look at the ways people get pushed…
July 29, 2011
Marie-Claire Shanahan has a couple of great posts up about the science of science education, and research on what it takes to actually change someone's mind. They're great posts, and hold the promise of many more insightful looks at the skills and approaches best suited to increasing science…
July 27, 2011
What other culture has invented a dish in which a squid is reanimated and dances as you pour soy sauce over it?
July 26, 2011
In discussing the National Science Board's latest stand on whether to report evolution literacy, and how to do so, I didn't get into the details of Jon Miller's concerns. Chris Mooney quotes that passage from the Science report, and raises some concerns.
Science reported that the NSB will, in the…
July 26, 2011
A bit over a year ago, we reported on the removal of evolution from a report by the NSF's governing body, the National Science Board. The NSB is presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed, and sets broad policy for the NSF. Every other year, it publishes a report on Science and Engineering…
July 25, 2011
I'm so old now, I remember when raising the debt ceiling didn't produce an existential crisis.
July 25, 2011
Sorry for not posting an update last Friday, but I was in the Board meeting and then on a plane. I gather most of you found the news update at NCSE's website, where traffic hit record levels.
As you recall, the Texas State Board of Education met on Thursday as the Committee of the Full Board to…
July 21, 2011
As folks who follow me on twitter know, today was a pretty good day in Texas. I'm here watching the board vote on science supplements for public schools. I put together a 20 page report on the flaws in a supplement provided by International Databases, LLC, and presented it to the board. Most of…
July 20, 2011
Tomorrow, I'll be speaking to the Texas Board of Education to urge them not to undermine science textbooks, and to reject any supplement that includes creationist content. The only textbook supplement I know of that was submitted containing such creationist content comes from a one-man publisher…
July 18, 2011
This Thursday, the Texas Board of Education will vote to adopt science textbook supplements.
You'll recall that the board approved new science standards a couple years ago, and that they were a mixed bag. They dropped inaccurate language about "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories (…
July 18, 2011
From last Thursday through Sunday, I was in Las Vegas at The Amazing Meeting!, a gathering of skeptics hosted by James "The Amazing" Randi. Randi, for those of you unschooled in these matters, was a stage magician who got involved in debunking the claims of psychics and other flimflam artists. He…
July 15, 2011
Remember when I invited readers to take a survey on the Miss USA evolution answers? And I was kinda vague about why I was doing it? At last it can be told, I was working on a guest blog post at Scientific American. You should read the whole thing, but here's the bit about how I used the survey…
July 15, 2011
ThinkProgress's culture blogger Alyssa Rosenberg explores The Myths And Challenges Of Making Working Class Television, writing that the main challenge is:
being working poor isnât something that you solve once and itâs done.
There are plenty of movies that do this, because they can have one crisis…
July 14, 2011
I'm here in Las Vegas, and already my work is done. Genie Scott, Occidental College's Don Prothero, and I did a workshop at 9am today about Defending Evolution in Classrooms.
Planning for this was complicated, because we wanted it to be a true workshop, i.e., to have interactive aspects, and time…
July 14, 2011
In the course of my talk at TAM, I mentioned at one point "There's nothing so unfair as equal treatment of unequal ideas." Various people tweeted and retweeted it, so the line was clearly a hit.
That's actually a misquotation (I was working from memory) of a line I've always loved, but have had a…
