Fearless Leader of NCSE, Eugenie Scott, gave the University of Missouri Commencement Speech on Saturday. I’m sure they gave her an honorary degree for the speech, and I believe this makes Genie a PhD eight times over, earning her the name “Octodoc.” (And to think, I knew her when she had only one or two. Unidoc. Or Bidoc maybe.)
“Show me” you say? OK, no problem:
C.E. Cupp is Ann Coulter before the bottle-blond crap is poured on her head, but maybe slightly less vile.1 She just came out with a new book: Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity
Continue reading New Anti-Evolution Pro-Fundy Christian Book, Reviewed
“Mr. Tangarone, a 17-year veteran of the Weston school system, claims that a program he wanted to teach about Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln was rejected by the school administration because it involved teaching evolution — the scientific theory that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor.”
Credo (as in Working Assets) gives a percentage of its charges to various organizations. Now, there is a way for you to vote for which organization will get an infusion of cash. One of the choices is the NCSE.
Continue reading Vote for Evolution!!!
First, 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.
Continue reading Intelligent Design’s Legal Status after Dover
Fundamentalist Christian dentist promotes drastic curriculum change.
Click here then click “Texas Textbook Controversy part way down the middle column.
Which creationist was the most nauseating?
From the NCSE:
Continue reading First Annual Upchucky Awards Announced!!!
… when it comes to Creationist Home Schooling.
Continue reading Every child is a casualty…
A federal appellate court has ruled against a Christian school in Murrieta which had sued the University of California over its refusal to accept high school courses that rely on the Bible as the unerring source of truth.
Next step: Homeschoolers!
(Hat tip: August Berkshire)
Is scheduled!
Continue reading 2010 Home School Science Fair
The following story is current, but the issue is not new. But interesting. …
Science standards for Minnesota schools are about to be set for the next six years. Is the battle to keep pseudoscience out of our classrooms over? Sadly the door has been cracked open for intelligent design, an idea with no real scientific basis cooked up by creationists, to remain in Minnesota’s classrooms.
The same vague science benchmark that was a compromise in the intelligent design controversy early in the Pawlenty administration still exists, unchanged, in this round of science standards. These standards will begin next school year and be in effect until 2017.
Continue reading Will Minnesota Standards Allow Creationism in the Classroom?
Dear Slymepit. Go fuck yourself.
There is an interesting conversation developing on The Intersection (What Should Science Organizations Say About Religion? Answer: A Lot) to which this is my response:
The conversation you have modeled here (people talking past each other … see the original post) is very close to what actually happens in an NCSE like conversation, except that someone following the NCSE approach (as I usually do in this context) also mentions that for most religions this is not an issue, etc. etc. (I usually throw in a few quotes from this or that pope).
And, noting that many religious people have no problem with evolution, and that people are complex thinking beings who can often hold viewpoints that at some level are incompatible and other levels not, are both things I’ve seen new atheists say (including PZ Myers himself!)
All of which leads me to conclude that most of us are not that far from each other on what we are saying and thinking most of the time.
Last weekend I attended Science Online 2010, which is a conference of science communicators with a heavy mix of bloggers, many journalists and others from the print industry, an increasingly large number of book authors, and OpenX (X=access, notebook, science, or whatever) advocates and practitioners.
Continue reading #scio10 Science Online 2010 recollections and reflections on the sessions I attended
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future
Continue reading Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum: A review.