Emerging out the door of the pub on winter night, you bow your head and tighten your shoulders to keep the chill at bay. A few lilting steps might catch a dusting of snow. It takes a minute or so before the stars on the horizon catch your eye. It’s a crisp clear night. Swinging your head quickly upwards the stars take your breath away. The Milky Way is massive and scrawled across the sky. Continue reading “Stargazing to Randy Described Eternity”
Trivial Pursuits
In the 20 January 2012 edition of Science Magazine, editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts makes a strong argument that science education should not be about the “facts” of science or the false god of “rigor”:
Trivial Pursuit is of course merely a game; but it reminded me of the much more serious battle. . .for my grandchildren, “science” includes being able to regurgitate the names of parts of the cell in 7th grade. . .Although rigor might appear to be a worthy goal. . .they are taught with an overly strict attention to rules, procedure, and rote memorization. . .for far too many, science seems a game of recalling boring, incomprehensible facts. Continue reading “Trivial Pursuits”
Malpuerta
There is a door, in a wall. This wall is located in my place of work. It helps define a room I usually need to pass through in order to get to my bicycle. This door and I do not get along. It tries to break my nose. Not actively. It’s more of a passive aggressive refusal to meet my perfectly reasonable expectations of doors, especially those attached to post and lintel constructs. This diagram should make my perfectly reasonable expectations perfectly clear:
The latest evolutionary developments have passed me by
As the rising generation replaces us, with their seemingly inborn familiarity with all things IT, does this make them in effect a new species? A species possessing the solution to the riddle of existence, the answers to all the questions which have plagued us — the old Hominids — for the last two million years? Continue reading “The latest evolutionary developments have passed me by”
More evidence that opposition to evolutionary biology is about religion, not science
Intelligent design and the oxymoronically titled creation science, despite their pretensions to being a scientifically principled opposition to one of the our most well-established scientific theories, have never been anything more than attempts to dress religion as science.
From the National Center for Science Education:
INDIANA CREATIONISM BILL PASSES THE SENATE
On January 31, 2012, the Indiana Senate voted 28-22 in favor of Senate Bill 89. As originally submitted, SB 89 provided, “The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.” On January 30, 2012, however, it was amended in the Senate to provide instead, “The governing body of a school corporation may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from
multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Scientology.”
Unfortunately for the Indiana senate, this kind of non-stealth creationism legislation has a long, perfect record of complete and expensive failure in court.
The Finch and Pea 