In honor of Genie Scott’s imminent retirement as Executive Director of the NCSE, you are hereby offered a free downloadable PDF excerpt form Genie’s classic book.
Click here to download the PDF.
Click here to read my review of the book.
Click here to find out about other books and resources related to creationism.
Click here to find some resources for life science teachers.
This is interesting and important.
Hello Bethany, I’ve always been a huge fan.
Your morning caffeine fix is but a drop in the global bucket that makes coffee the number two most traded commodity in the world after petroleum. But with 100 million Americans like you drinking coffee every day, the bucket easily overflows to make the US the world’s top coffee consumer…
Click on the graphic to visit the source.
Stop lying to your fans. They are beginning to figure it out. Watch:
In the united states, bee keepers lose a certain number of colonies over the winter. This is normal, but bee keepers maintain that losses of about 15 percent or less are “acceptable.” I don’t know what the logical or empirical basis for that number is, however.
Yesterday, the results of a report that surveys bee keepers in the US came out, and the total loss rate over the 2012/2013 winter was 31.1%. That’s a lot more than last year’s loss rate, but within the range of variation of loss over the last few years, as shown on this graph provided by “bee informed”:
This is not exactly the same thing as Colony Collapse Disorder, but overwintering loss is a different measure than overall colony loss. (It’s all related of course.)
The reason why this is important is that many crops rely on these honey bees for pollination.
The report cited here is preliminary, and there will be a more detailed version available in the near future.
Here is a presentation by Genie Scott of the National Center for Science Education.
Far more people are climate change deniers than evolution deniers, but both camps use similar strategies to promote their views. Genie Scott explores the connections, the similarities, and the divergent ideologies. Where: New York. When: 10/23/2011. Hosted by the New York City Skeptics.
We recently discussed news from the EU on banning neonicotinoid pesticides in order to stem the so called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) among honey bees. Bug Girl has an important guest post on the phenomenon of CCD by bee expert Doug Yanega. This is a must read not only for those interested in bees and CCD, but skepticism and science reporting in general, as Yanega places the current discussion in a strong historical context and provides a valuable critique of much of the reporting on CCD. Go read Honey bees, CCD, and the Elephant in the Room.
Photo Credit: wildxplorer via Compfight cc
This is fairly amazing. Watch: Continue reading How to pass a secret life saving message to abused children
My friend and colleague, executive director of the National Center for Science Education’s Genie Scott, will retire by the end of the year. She’s been director of the NCSE for 26 years. Genie is a key player, perhaps the key player, in the battle to keep science in the classroom and other things that are not science out of the classroom, in public schools. She’s gotten piles of awards and has done a huge amount of great work. While a lot of people have been involved in this fight, I think it is fair to give Genie top billing in such major and momentous efforts as the fight in Dover (which sealed the fate for creationism in public schools forever). She is author of Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction
Genie was Julia’s grandfather’s undergraduate advisee, and back in the day, was a key influence on my personal interest in creationism (and the fighting thereof). Thank you Genie for everything.
She’ll be missed. Although maybe she’s not really going away, just doing other great things.
There are more details here, as well as info on the job announcement, in case you were looking for something new!
From Wikipedia: “The National Rifle Association gives him a A- and the American Civil Liberties Union gives him a 0%. Some other rankings include 0% from Clean Air Flow Energy, 100% from National Right to Life, 0% from the Human Rights Coalition, 17% from the National Educational Association, 5% from the League of Conservation Voters, 92% from the United States Border Control and 10% by the Alliance for Retired Americans.”
And now, the Congressman from Virginia is messing around with, and the key word here is “mess,” national security:
After a dramatic airport arrest by the FBI, which had been tipped off by a Republican congressman, the data concealed by a former NASA scientist with a one-way ticket to China has been revealed as pirated porn, not the secrets to the next interstellar drive.
In March Dr. Bo Jiang, 31, a former employee of the National Institute of Aeronautics (NIA) at NASA’s Langley Research Centre, was arrested just before he could board his flight to Beijing. He lied to investigators about what he was carrying – trying to hide the fact he had a spare laptop and old hard drive in his bags.
Jiang had been named by congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, as a suspect in the theft of the space agency’s sensitive secret research.
At a press conference after Jiang’s arrest, Wolf said he had called the head of the FBI personally to warn him of the danger the Chinese man posed, kickstart an investigation, and said Jiang could be involved in a serious security breach.
What is it with these Republicans? Do they not know that they have a serious job to do?
Two young boys are having an argument while their fathers, resting in hammocks, look on. The argument is over something silly but escalates until the dads decide to intervene. They equip each boy with a small pole and position them face to face, explaining the rules of the game. Each child has the opportunity to whack the other with the stick, in turn. The boys can continue to carry out this ritualized but stingingly painful combat until one of them gives up, handing victory to his opponent. Eventually, these boys will grow into men, and this sort of combat, using either long poles borrowed from the nearby dwellings or bare fists pounded on chests, will become a normal (though infrequently used) way to settle significant disputes between men. Dueling is part of the culture in which these children are being raised. Those who demonstrate the most bravery will likely rise in status, perhaps take on a leadership role, have a better choice in marriage partner, and perhaps have more than one wife.
Thousands of miles away, …
Click here to read my post that just went up in Slate!
(Feel free to tweet, facebook, and otherwise promote it! Thank you very much.)
Two young boys are having an argument while their fathers, resting in hammocks, look on. The argument is over something silly but escalates until the dads decide to intervene. They equip each boy with a small pole and position them face to face, explaining the rules of the game. Each child has the opportunity to whack the other with the stick, in turn. The boys can continue to carry out this ritualized but stingingly painful combat until one of them gives up, handing victory to his opponent. Eventually, these boys will grow into men, and this sort of combat, using either long poles borrowed from the nearby dwellings or bare fists pounded on chests, will become a normal (though infrequently used) way to settle significant disputes between men. Dueling is part of the culture in which these children are being raised. Those who demonstrate the most bravery will likely rise in status, perhaps take on a leadership role, have a better choice in marriage partner, and perhaps have more than one wife.
Thousands of miles away, …
Click here to read my post that just went up in Slate!
(Feel free to tweet, facebook, and otherwise promote it! Thank you very much.)
Hey, guess what? It turns out that if 90% of the people want something, and it is the only right thing to do, and not doing it not only “not the right thing” but it is also an abysmally horrid, insensitive, immoral, and boneheaded thing to do, that YOU LOSE.
Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire is going down in flames. She will be voted out of office entirely on the basis of her no vote on the background check law. Good bye Kelly.
If you want to see the mechanism of pushback against hate and gun nuttery, have a look:
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