Free Republic

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign. It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at...

A Rhinebeck (NY)High School sophomore is urging the school district to require alternative views be presented by teachers on controversial topics like climate change. Michelle Dewkett said the global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was being shown in science and English classes without equal weight being given to other positions on the topic. “As of now, the teaching of controversial topics is out of control,” Dewkett told members of the Board of Education on Tuesday. She also said the district is not following its own policy of providing students with a wide range of materials. Dewkett cited a class on...

America is turning out plenty of science and engineering grads, a university study concludes, but many of the best are taking jobs in finance and consulting. U.S. colleges and universities are graduating as many scientists and engineers as ever, according to a study released on Oct. 28 by a group of academics. But that finding comes with a big caveat: Many of the highest-performing students are choosing careers in other fields. The study by professors at Rutgers and Georgetown suggests that since the late 1990s, many of the top students have been lured to careers in finance and consulting. "Despite...

My teenage nephew just got back to school this month with science teacher who is nicknamed "Mr. Evolution" because of his zeal for his beliefs. Mr. E started class saying by saying "In this class, I intend to completely dismiss and disprove many religious myths". I think this is going a little too far. Your opinions?

Pickens writes "The BBC reports that four out of five parents living in the UK have been stumped by a science question posed by their children with the top three most-asked questions: 'Where do babies come from?', 'What makes a rainbow?' and 'Why is the sky blue?'. The survey was carried out to mark the launch of a new website by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills called Science: So what? So everything."

If you’re serious about pursuing an extended education in science, you may want to set your sights on one of the U.S. campuses that have been identified as having the best science graduate programs. In April, US News&World Report released the results of their 3-year study that ranked the best science schools in the nation. Rankings were based on the results of surveys sent to academics in computer science, mathematics, and physics during the fall of 2007, in biological sciences and chemistry during fall 2006, and in other fields during fall 2005. The individuals rated the quality of the program...

Will 'Better Science Education' Convince Americans They Came from Fish? A recent poll revealed that many Americans believe public school students should be taught all sides of Darwin’s theory of evolution, its weaknesses as well as its strengths.[1] Evolutionists, in the face of this data, reason that if only the American public had more “education” on evolution, the poll numbers would reflect in their favor...

Today’s top-selling biology textbooks present evolution as the only scientific view of the history of life. Often these textbooks use faulty or deceptive evidences to support evolutionary ideas. Fortunately, students can easily equip themselves with free materials that dissect textbooks and reveal the truth...

Just don't call him professor pom-pom. A physics professor who says he'll do "anything" to get people interested in science is teaming up with the Philadelphia 76ers cheerleaders to offer online lessons on magnetics, mass and matter — all through the magic of miniskirts. James Trefil's 20-year campaign for science literacy has led him to link up with some unlikely allies at ScienceCheerleader.com, where he and a scantily clad crew of dancing Darwins offer 18 video lessons on core ideas in science. Trefil, who's left behind his classroom for the summer to help on the Brain Makeover videos, said it...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—College students who major in the social sciences and humanities are likely to become less religious, while those majoring in education are likely to become more religious. But students majoring in biology and physical sciences remain just about as religious as they were when they started college. Those are among key findings of a University of Michigan study on the connection between college attendance, college major and religiosity released this week (July 27) by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, is based on long-term data from the Monitoring the Future...

(CNSNews.com) - A Zogby poll commissioned by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute says more than three-quarters of Americans would like teachers to have the freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution, with an even higher number reported among Democrats...

If home is where the heart is, a new survey suggests that most people aren't sure exactly where they live. More than half of people cannot pinpoint the exact location of the human heart on a diagram, and nearly 70 percent can't correctly identify the shape of the lungs, according to the survey. This lack of knowledge isn't just embarrassing -- it could lead to a poorer quality of health care, some experts say. In the study, published in the journal BMC Family Practice, a research team surveyed 722 Britons -- 589 hospital outpatients and 133 people in the general...

Surrounded by elementary students from the Green School in Baltimore and charming critters – including an armadillo, cheetah and an Asian Toddy Cat – Democrats declared that the introduction of the “No Child Left Inside Act of 2009” was “historic” legislation that would connect children with nature. Some critics, however, said it is a way to spread environmental propaganda in the public schools.

Intel chairman says US education lacking By SANDRA CHEREB Associated Press Writer May. 12, 2009 RENO, Nev. -- The outgoing chairman of the world's largest computer chip maker says the United States needs to rethink its approach to public education and raise the bar for academic achievement in mathematics and science if it hopes to be competitive in a 21st century world. "We haven't even chosen to compete in this area yet," Craig Barrett, retiring chairman of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel Corp., said Monday. "We're still operating as though we're the only game in town."

Apparently, the briefs were written by the ICR’s own James J.S. Johnson, whom FindLaw describes as a “family lawyer.” Mr. Johnson is not listed in Martindale-Hubbell (which is where you should go to read peer reviews on anyone you’re thinking of hiring as a lawyer), but he does write some crazy, crazy stuff for ICR’s website. (ICR’s local counsel in Texas seems to be the firm of Adams, Lynch & Loftin, P.C., but they do not appear to be actively involved in the litigation so far.) I should add that “family law” generally means as “divorce law,” and in general,...

As a freshman, I haven't been at UT-Martin for very long. But some problems are so obvious that they don't take very long to notice. In my studies I quickly realized that when it comes to the theory of evolution, Darwin is the only one who gets to answer questions-or ask them. I want to question this theory-to test it; check its credentials. And I want honest, thoughtful answers to my questions, not pre-formulated quips and deflections. But I have learned that if I'm not an evolutionist, my questions don't get credited, or even heard. When I ask why theories...

... # Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. # Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time. # Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.* # Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly

Expelling Design from Biology Professor Walter Bock introduces his short essay by referring to the letter Darwin wrote to Asa Gray in 1860: "I am conscious that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of design". Ernst Mayr took up the challenge and he also found a tension between his understanding of evolutionary theory and the need to use terms like "design" and "purposefulness". Mayr concluded: "Given all this, the conclusion is inevitable:...

Exposing ScientismIn his inaugural address, President Obama said he would “restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality.” By this, many suspect he means to spend taxpayer money on embryonic stem cell research, which destroys humans at the embryonic stage. Evidently, President Obama has been listening to those who want research funded, some because they are driven by greed but many others driven by a dangerous worldview called scientism. As Nancy Pearcey and I write in our book, How Now Shall We Live?, scientism has its roots in Darwinism. Tufts University professor Daniel...

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, an international test of fourth- and eighth-grade student achievement, recently released its latest results. As in prior years, the mean U.S. scores were roughly on par with those in most developed nations in Europe, though well below those in Asia. But students in other developed nations far outpaced U.S. students in top-level science scores. For instance, only 10 percent of American eighth-graders performed at the highest level in science, placing the U.S. 11th among the tested nations and well behind countries such as England (17 percent), Japan (17 percent), and Singapore (an...

Professors routinely give advice to students but usually while their charges are still in school. Arthur Landy, a distinguished professor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry at Brown University, recently decided, however, that he had to remind a former premed student of his that “without evolution, modern biology, including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn’t make sense.” The sentiment was not original with Landy, of course. Thirty-six years ago geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, a major contributor to the foundations of modern evolutionary theory, famously told the readers of The American Biology Teacher that “nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light...

One in three teachers believes schoolchildren should be taught that creationism is just as valid as evolution, according to a survey. The poll also disclosed that pupils in almost a third of schools already learn about the controversial divine explanation of the universe, with even science teachers thinking it has a place in classrooms. Almost all of those questioned by Teachers TV, a satellite television channel, agreed that children with strong religious beliefs would feel excluded from science lessons if their views were ignored. The findings support the views of the Rev Professor Michael Reiss, who lost his job as...

Eugenie Scott, a national expert on the teaching of evolution, will speak at the University of Central Florida on Monday, Nov. 3. Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, will discuss “Florida’s Academic Freedom Bills: Creationism du jour?” at 7:30 pm in room 101 of the College of Sciences building. Her presentation is free and open to the public. Scott and the NCSE are among the biggest opponents of intelligent design being taught in science classrooms. She has written several books, including “Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools.” She also...

You can call her CutoutDissection.com, Cutout for short, but just don't call her Jennifer. The former Jennifer Thornburg - whose driver's license now reads Dissection.com, Cutout - wanted to do something to protest animal dissections in schools. The 19-year-old's new name is also the Web address for an anti-dissection page of the site for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, where she is interning. "I normally do have to repeat my name several times when I am introducing myself to someone new," she told The Asheville Citizen-Times. "Once they find out what my name is, they want to know...

While the highly charged debate on climate change and global warming ensues, Obama wants kindergarten children to be taught climate change science in the classroom. On May 14, 2007, Obama introduced in the Senate, a bill called, the “Climate Change Education Act,” which authorizes “the National Science Foundation to establish a Climate Change Education Program.”

As a candidate for governor, Sarah Palin called for teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools. But after Alaska voters elected her, Palin, now Republican John McCain's presidential running mate, kept her campaign pledge to not push the idea in the schools. As for her personal views on evolution, Palin has said, "I believe we have a creator." But she has not made clear whether her belief also allowed her to accept the theory of evolution as fact. "I'm not going to pretend I know how all this came to be," she has been quoted as saying. McCain said during...

...In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years. But in a nation...

With five seats on the State Board of Education up for grabs this year, education advocates say how children learn about evolution hangs in the balance -- and who voters choose could affect Kansas' national reputation. A frequent flip-flop between moderate and conservative majorities on the 10-member board has resulted in the state changing its science standards four times in the past eight years. Conservatives have pushed for standards casting doubt on evolution, and moderates have said intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom. In 2007, a new 6-4 moderate majority removed standards that called evolution into question....

Judged by the astonishing increase in journal papers written by scientists in China, there can be little doubt that China is finding its place as one of the world's scientific power houses. Michael Banks, Physics World's News Editor, quantifies this surge in scientific output from China and asks whether quality matches quantity in August's Physics World. Nanoscience, quantum computing and high-temperature superconductivity are three of the cutting-edge areas of physics that have seen particularly large increases. Published journal articles in nanoscience, for example, with at least one co-author based in China, have seen a 10-fold increase since the beginning of...

"Most devout Muslims are creationists so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught," Prof Dawkins said in a Sunday newspaper interview. "Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more, but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come." Prof Dawkins, professor for the public understanding of science at Oxford University, is author of books including the...

H.L. Mencken said during the Scopes Trial in 1925 that "those religious groups leading the war against the teaching of evolution are conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters." The proponents of teaching the God-creation theology in public schools have not given up despite the U.S. Supreme Court rulings like the 1987 case where Louisiana tried to use code words for teaching creationism, calling it the Balanced Treatment Act. Other code words for sneaking God into science class are "intelligent design" and "academic freedom." And these anti-evolutionists lobby state legislatures and put political pressure on school boards to subvert...

Posted on Saturday, August 02, 2008 8:44:19 AM by Soliton don't remember when I first learned about the theory of evolution, but nowadays I find myself reading of it a great deal in the popular press and hearing it discussed in the media. As my daughter enters elementary school, I find myself anxious to discuss with her teachers what they will cover in science class and where in their curriculum they plan to teach evolution. OUR COUNTRY HAS LAWS THAT SEPARATE church and state. Public institutions like schools must be neutral on the subject of religion, as required by the...

don't remember when I first learned about the theory of evolution, but nowadays I find myself reading of it a great deal in the popular press and hearing it discussed in the media. As my daughter enters elementary school, I find myself anxious to discuss with her teachers what they will cover in science class and where in their curriculum they plan to teach evolution. OUR COUNTRY HAS LAWS THAT SEPARATE church and state. Public institutions like schools must be neutral on the subject of religion, as required by the Constitution's First Amendment. Our courts have mandated that creationism is...

The case of the San Jose/Evergreen Community College firing of June Sheldon is raising some eyebrows among academics, liberal and conservative. Here is the media version : The controversy centers on an incident in June 2007, when Sheldon was asked by a student in a human heredity class about heredity’s impact on “homosexual behavior in males and females.� Among other references, Sheldon noted a German study demonstrating some link between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males, according to the lawsuit. After a student complained, college officials investigated and dismissed Sheldon, an adjunct professor at the school since January 2004....

What they found was 12 percent of United States high school biology teachers consider creationism a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species," and believe "many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian theory."

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A former San Jose City College biology professor is suing the college after she was fired for answering a student's question on the relationship between homosexuality and heredity.On June 21, 2007, June Sheldon, an adjunct professor teaching a human heredity course, answered a question about how heredity affects homosexual behavior by citing the class textbook and a well-known German scientist.  She noted that the scientist found a correlation between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males but that the scientist's views are only one set of theories in the nature-versus-nurture debate...

A New Frontier for Title IX: Science Until recently, the impact of Title IX, the law forbidding sexual discrimination in education, has been limited mostly to sports. But now, under pressure from Congress, some federal agencies have quietly picked a new target: science. --snip-- “Colleges already practice affirmative action for women in science, but now they’ll be so intimidated by the Title IX legal hammer that they may institute quota systems,” Dr. Sommers said. “In sports, they had to eliminate a lot of male teams to achieve Title IX parity. It’ll be devastating to American science if every male-dominated field...

Until recently, the impact of Title IX, the law forbidding sexual discrimination in education, has been limited mostly to sports. But now, under pressure from Congress, some federal agencies have quietly picked a new target: science. The National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Energy have set up programs to look for sexual discrimination at universities receiving federal grants. Investigators have been taking inventories of lab space and interviewing faculty members and students in physics and engineering departments at schools like Columbia, the University of Wisconsin, M.I.T. and the University of Maryland. So far, these Title IX compliance reviews...

July 08, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Louisiana Confounds the Science Thought PoliceNeo-Darwinism is no longer a protected orthodoxy in the Bayou State's pedagogy. By John G. West To the chagrin of the science thought police, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has signed into law an act to protect teachers who want to encourage critical thinking about hot-button science issues such as global warming, human cloning, and yes, evolution and the origin of life. Opponents allege that the Louisiana Science Education Act is “anti-science.� In reality, the opposition’s efforts to silence anyone who disagrees with them is the true affront to scientific...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal this week signed into law the Louisiana Science Education Act, which allows school districts to permit teachers to present evidence, analysis and critique of evolution and other prevalent scientific theories in public school classrooms. The law came to the governor's desk after overwhelming support in the legislature, including a unanimous vote in the state's Senate and a 93-4 vote in the House. The act has been criticized by some as an attempt to insert religion into science education and hailed by others as a blow for academic freedom in the face of pressure to ignore flaws...

- Louisiana public school teachers can now educate their students about the theory of intelligent design and scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolutionary theory thanks to a new law signed this week by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The Louisiana Science Education Act now allows teachers to supplement the state's curricula with additional scientific materials, but groups opposed to any debate over the "origin of the species" have warned that the new law will become the origin of the lawsuits if they believe it facilitates religion. Lawmakers, however, were enthusiastically in favor of the Act signed by Jindal. The state Senate had...

A public school board in Ohio voted unanimously today to proceed with firing an eighth-grade teacher for allegedly teaching his Christian beliefs in science classes and "branding" students with crosses. Responding to an investigation, the Mount Vernon School District board voted 5-0 to consider termination of John Freshwater's contract at its next meeting, July 7. The report presented to the board today charged Freshwater used a high-frequency generator – a Tesla coil – to make a cross on the arms of students, taught the theory of intelligent design and refused to remove all religious articles from his classroom. Board president...

A Mount Vernon teacher undermined science instruction in the public school district by discrediting evolution in his classroom and focusing on creationism and intelligent design, an investigation has found. Eighth-graders who were taught by John Freshwater frequently had to be re-taught in high school what they were supposed to have learned in Freshwater's class, according to outside investigators hired by the district. For 11 years, other teachers in the school district and people in the community complained about Freshwater preaching his Christian beliefs in class and slamming scientific theories, a school administrator told investigators. "There is a significant amount of...

A bill to overhaul the way evolution is taught in Louisiana public schools easily cleared its final legislative hurdle Monday despite threats of a lawsuit. Opponents, mostly outside the State Capitol, contend the legislation would inject creationism and other religious themes into public schools. However, the Senate voted 36-0 without debate to go along with the same version of the proposal that the House passed last week 94-3. The measure, Senate Bill 733, now goes to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is expected to sign it. Backers said the bill is needed to give science teachers more freedom to hold discussions...

What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas: the state is one of the country’s biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are loath to produce different versions of the same material. The ideas that work their way into education here will surface in classrooms throughout the country. “ ‘Strengths and weaknesses’ are regular words that have now been drafted into the rhetorical arsenal of creationists,” said Kathy Miller, director of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that promotes religious freedom. The chairman of the state education board, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist in Central Texas, denies that the phrase...

DALLAS — Opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts. Over the last decade, creationism has given rise to “creation science,” which became “intelligent design,” which in 2005 was banned from the public school curriculum in Pennsylvania by a federal judge. Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are “creationism” or “intelligent design” or even “creator.” The words are “strengths and weaknesses.” Starting this summer, the state education board will...

Sixteen percent of all U.S. science teachers are creationists, according to a recent national survey. In one of the most authoritative studies ever carried out, the results revealed that creationism – despite being challenged and dismissed by courts as an unconstitutional endorsement of religion – continues to be a staple in many science classrooms. Michael Berkman, a political scientist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park and who conducted the survey with a group of colleagues, said that teachers, ultimately, held the final word when it comes to what is taught in the classroom. "Ultimately, they are the ones who...

...So if our high school math and science scores are dropping, our children are dreading these classes, and we ourselves can barely go through the times tables, then why aren’t we demanding real tutelage in math and science? Why is it socially acceptable not to understand fractions, percentages, and exponents, not to mention basic science principles that don't change with time or opinion? One reason, I submit, is relativism. ~~ Relativism allows everyone to be right, and puts our feelings ahead of everything else. We all know that it is not fun to find out that we are wrong about...

...that’s not the path Mr. Delgado followed while investigating the mechanism that bacteria use to resist antibiotics. He did not attend Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan or any of the Long Island public schools that pop out Intel winners like clockwork. Rather he is a senior at Bayonne High School, a three-block-long fortress in a blue-collar city of 62,000 where oil refinery tanks loom over a landscape of one- and two-family clapboard houses. The median household income is $41,566. Only half the 3,000 high school students go on to four-year colleges. ...But a growing number of schools across the region,...