03.28.09
Posted in Evolution at 1:08 pm by nemo
via Evo-News:Texas Improves on Strengths and Weaknesses Language in Science Standards on Teaching Evolution
Anika Smith
Austin, TX — Today, the Texas Board of Education chose science over dogma and adopted science standards improving on the old “strengths and weaknesses” language by requiring students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence.” In addition, the Board—for the first time— specifically required high school students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations.
The new science standards mark a significant victory for scientists and educators in favor of teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution.
“Texas now has the most progressive science standards on evolution in the entire nation,” said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute. “Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes ‘creationism’ or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Like the boy who cried ‘Wolf,’ the Darwin only lobby always screams ‘creationism!’ anytime educators or policymakers try to ensure a fair presentation of the scientific evidence both for and against evolution. Let’s be absolutely clear: Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period.”
The science standards approved today by the Texas State Board of Education include language requiring students to “analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations…including examining all sides of scientific evidence… so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.” Equally important, the high school biology standards now require students to “analyze and evaluate” the scientific evidence for key parts of evolutionary theory, including common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations.
The most significant changes are:
The adoption of a new critical inquiry standard improving on the old “strengths and weaknesses” language: “in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.”
The addition of “analyze and evaluate” to all of the high school biology evolution standards (no such language was included in the existing evolution standards). Students are now specifically required to evaluate the evidence regarding major evolutionary topics such as common ancestry, natural selection and mutations.
The addition of two new standards in the high school biology evolution section of the TEKS requiring students to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning the
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Posted in Evolution at 1:00 pm by nemo
It should be Wallaceism not Darwinianism
On 1st July 1858 the Linnaean Society of London announced the Darwin/Wallace Theory of Evolution thus giving precedence [on reasons of class? Or plagiarism?] to Darwin on the hearsay of Darwin’s influential Botanist friend Dr Joseph Hooker and the equally influential Geologist Sir Charles Lyell, Darwin’s patron, despite the fact that Alfred Russel Wallace’s Theory of Evolution – The Ternate Law was published in August 1858 and Darwin’s “derivative?” Origin of Species was not published until November 1859.
Much academic research over the last 50 years – summarised in Roy Davies The Darwin Conspiracy – Origins of a Scientific Crime Golden Square Books, London pp204 2008 – tends to the conclusion that not only did Wallace, who had already established The Wallace Line, discover evolution first, but that Darwin actively plagiarized the three letters Wallace sent him from the jungles of Indonesia.
Had Alfred Russel Wallace sent his third letter of March 1858– with its succinct 4000 words essay on evolution The Ternate Law – not to Charles Darwin but to the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, it is likely that today we would talk about Wallaceism rather than Darwinism.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:56 pm by nemo
New Scientist article on Texas
What is alarming here is not that Creationists should raise a protest, but that they are the only ones.
We are, as a culture, in trouble.
The science establishment wants to block even the most obvious problems with the Darwin paradigm, the stasis of fern evolution, the Cambrian, etc…
The liberal/left had better take note, or they will soon be dodos.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:52 pm by nemo
Texas Opens Classroom Door for Evolution Doubts
By STEPHANIE SIMON
The Texas Board of Education approved a science curriculum that opens the door for teachers and textbooks to raise doubts about evolution.
The Darwinists are worried creationists will bring up the question of the Cambrian!
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 12:46 pm by nemo
Texas board comes down on 2 sides of creationism debate
(CNN) — Dueling theories of how the universe was created got a split decision Friday night from the Texas Board of Education, which required examination of “all sides of scientific evidence” in new science standards, but rejected language requiring teachers to teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories.
The debate pitted proponents of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution against supporters of religion-based theories of intelligent design, or creationism.
“Science loses. Texas loses, and the kids lose because of this,” board chairman Don McLeroy, a creationist, told the Dallas Morning News.
A final 13-2 vote approved language that will be printed in textbooks beginning in 2011 and remain there for 10 years, CNN affiliate KPRC-TV in Houston reported:
“In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental observation and testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the students.”
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Posted in global warming at 12:37 pm by nemo
Airborne Dust Reduction Plays Larger Than Expected Role In Determining Atlantic Temperature
ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2009) — The recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is largely due to reductions in airborne dust and volcanic emissions during the past 30 years, according to a new study.
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Posted in General at 12:34 pm by nemo
sciftp
http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/03/28/texas_evolution_case/index.html
Texas on evolution: Needs further study
Although the state ruled that schools must support Darwin’s theory, creationists are singing the praises of Friday’s decision.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Booknotes at 12:33 pm by nemo
(Mar 23, 2009): After five decades, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has failed to find any alien signals. SETI researchers are still optimistic that we will one day find evidence for intelligent life somewhere in our galaxy. A new book by SETI scientist Seth Shostak reviews the history, the controversies and the reasons for continuing the search.
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Posted in environment at 12:26 pm by nemo
Published on Saturday, March 28, 2009 by St Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Monsanto Planting Cyber Seeds
by Jeffrey Tomich
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 11:59 am by nemo
Published on Saturday, March 28, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Paying for the Deficit
by Ralph Nader
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Posted in you've got mail at 11:49 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.bricup.org.uk/documents/history/1948_New_York_Times.pdf
New York, December 2, 1948
To the Editors of the New York Times:
Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.
The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.
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Posted in you've got mail at 11:45 am by nemo
RG mail
“This country is on the brink of a revolution”
Per Bjorklund
Egypt and Beyond
March 26, 2009
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Posted in you've got mail at 11:42 am by nemo
sciftp
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090413/parenti
Three Mile Island, the NRC and Obama
By Christian Parenti
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03.27.09
Posted in Evolution, Science at 8:31 pm by nemo
Nothing is harder to challenge than the delusion that DArwin/Dawkins have explained how evolution climbs Mt. Improbable (and that the computer program Methinks it is a weasal can represent that). Climbing Mt. Improbable: Evolutionary Directionality
One of the strangest aspects of the Darwin paradigm, and its members, is the way the same wishfulfilment takes place that we see charged against religion.
The whole game is based on an essentially metaphysical belief system disguised behind scientific reductionism.
Persistence beyond exposure for so long is doing irreparable damage to the science culture.
(The irony is that the Dawkins computer program is essentially a teleologically rigged system)
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Posted in Evolution at 8:21 pm by nemo
Richard Dawkins’ awesome computer skills baffle Information Theorists of intelligent design
The obtuseness of Darwinists confronted with Dawkins’ computer fraud suggests they are very worried about their ‘cult founder’.
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Posted in environment at 7:50 pm by nemo
Crawling the Web to Foretell Ecosystem Collapse
By Alexis Madrigal March 19, 2009 | 5:28:18 PMCategories: Environment
The Interwebs could become an early warning system for when the web of life is about to fray.
By trawling scientific list-serves, Chinese fish market websites, and local news sources, ecologists think they can use human beings as sensors by mining their communications.
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Posted in Booknotes, Evolution, The Eonic Effect at 4:06 pm by nemo
I have started reading a new book, The Hindus, by Wendy Doniger.
It is worth citing the effort to decipher Indian (religious) history because in the oversimplified environment of Darwinian fundamentalism and Dawkins fanatics it is a reminder of the dangers ahead: the complete destruction of our knowledge of the religious past of man, and its replacement with degenerated belief systems based on scientism.
I hold no brief for the many confusions of Indian history, and have protested many times the distortions and myths that pass for historical knowledge, and yet by any accounting the current perspectives here in the ‘west’ are abysmally short of the tools needed for the study of religion.
This isn’t an exaggeration. Generally, the mention of an Eastern religious subject (in academic channels) in this context results in abrupt termination of any discussion, relationship, or further communication.
Doniger’s history raises all over again the issues of the Aryan Invasion question, the exact timing of the Rig Veda, the relationsip of Axial India to the Vedic religion, and the relationship of all of these to the earlier history of India.
I am suspicious all over again of the rightness of my original approach here, as recorded in World History And The Eonic Effect, despite the brevity of the treatment.
That overall context comes through reasonably well in the short world history at: Symphony of Emergence, where the synchrony of Archaic Greece, Israelite emergent monotheism, Indian Upanishadic/Buddhist formations, and Confucian/Taoist China show us an almost unnerving complexity and veiled macroevolution that stands beyond all its Axial manifestations.
Beside this Darwinian evolutionism is a kind of crowing rooster routine, of no account.
This history is important because it raises the question, how can we have a theory of evolution, if we don’t even have a grasp of human psychology, especially in its complexities of self-consciousness.
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Posted in Evolution at 2:13 pm by nemo
Comment from James on An ‘Out Of Africa’ Article
James said,
March 26, 2009 at 8:34 pm ·
Interactive map:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/
—————
This is an excellent interactive map, by Stephen Oppenheimer, the author of
The Real Eve
However, I find his analysis confusing in one way: he starts the great migration ca. 85,000 years ago. In part this is the result of assuming (what has now been challenged) that humans were present in Australia by 60,000 years ago.
There is still not (as far as I know) complete agreement on this point.
A later book on this subject by Nicolas Wade, Before The Dawin, puts the migration date at 50,000 BCE.
There are a number of other problems with the other dates, of Oppenheimer. The sudden extinction of Australian mammals is in the 40k BCE range, suggesting the later arrival, etc,…
We shall see.
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Posted in physics at 1:59 pm by nemo
Interesting extended comment from today. The author, of course, speaks for himself, and doesn’t represent the basic perspective of this blog.
Science/religion compatible…
James Redford said,
March 26, 2009 at 8:38 pm ·
God has been proven to exist based upon the most reserved view of the known laws of physics. For much more on that, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler’s below paper, which among other things demonstrates that the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in the Omega Point (the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God):
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 1:53 pm by nemo
From Dawkins site:Creationism in the classroom – Evolution is a scientific fact, by Jerry Coyne
Here is another distorted piece from Coyne, who has made a point recently of injecting another round of vituperative half-truths or outright deceptions into the debate over evolution. It is not helpful at this point.
Scientists need to cool out and do what the people in Texas say they want to do: consider the issue of the strenths and weaknesses in evolutionary theory.
Those weaknesses are there. If the collective body of scintists can’t find them annd wish to continue the endless cover story with fanatics like Coyne (who is making a nice business selling his book to the lucrative talk.origins market that Dawkins prospered with for so long), then the endless round of dissent, that makes the Coynes so furious, will go on, long after Texas.
Coyne starts with a completely false analogy to medicine. The issues of medicine are actually scientific, and deserve a close hearing from specialists.
The question of evolution is not so simple, and the question especially of evolutionary theory, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, has yet to reach the level of such sciences. The blindness of scientists to this issue is getting to be extraordinary, witness thus the cultural shift to religious dissenters on evolution, a dangerous development, and yet one fed by the gestures of scientists themselves, so wrongly educated in the Dawkins style of ‘science/Darwinsim’, and for so long noone can seem to grasp what is awry.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:42 pm by nemo
Texas rejects effort to require teaching of evolution ‘weaknesses’
Let it be noted for the record that the entire Big Science establishment thinks there are no weaknesses in evolutionary theory, while a group of Texas religionists think otherwise.
So who got it right?
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Posted in Evolution at 1:38 pm by nemo
Darwin winning Texas evolution battle
Last update: 12:45 p.m. EDT March 27, 2009
AUSTIN, Texas, Mar 27, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) — A new science curriculum headed to final approval in Texas drops a requirement that schools discuss “weaknesses” in the theory of evolution.
The Texas Board of Education has narrowly rejected an effort by social conservatives to continue a 20-year-old policy that teachers present both the strengths and weaknesses of Charles Darwin’s theory, the San Antonio Express-News reported Friday.
Scientists and more than 50 national and state science organizations urged the 15-member school board not to include references “to creationist-fabricated ‘weaknesses’ or other attempts to undermine instruction on evolution,” the newspaper said.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:35 pm by nemo
Texas may end school anti-evolution requirements
The Texas school board has tentatively voted to scrap a 20-year requirement that public school students discuss the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution and Darwin’s theory of the origin of life, the Houston Chronicle reports.
This is not a victory for science. In fact, it is a victory for the Darwin propaganda establishment that has been deceptive all the way through this, and whose motives can only be the total domination of the Darwinism deception.
In fact, the ‘strenghths and weaknesses’ of Darwinism should be common knowledge. Instead, because of rulings like these the job of real science is spastically done by the social conservatives instead.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:24 pm by nemo
Why Certain Fishes Went Extinct 65 Million Years Ago
ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2009) — Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study.*
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Posted in Evolution, neuroscience at 1:22 pm by nemo
What Separates Humans From Mice? Bigger, Faster Astrocytes In Brain
ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2009) — A type of brain cell that was long overlooked by researchers embodies one of very few ways in which the human brain differs fundamentally from that of a mouse or rat, according to researchers who published their findings as the cover story in the March 11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
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Posted in neuroscience at 1:20 pm by nemo
When It Comes To Intelligence, Size Matters
ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2009) — A collaborative study led by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University has demonstrated a positive link between cognitive ability and cortical thickness in the brains of healthy 6 to 18 year olds. The correlation is evident in regions that integrate information from different parts of the brain.
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 1:16 pm by nemo
Published on Friday, March 27, 2009 by The New York Times
The Market Mystique
by Paul Krugman
On Monday, Lawrence Summers, the head of the National Economic Council, responded to criticisms of the Obama administration’s plan to subsidize private purchases of toxic assets. “I don’t know of any economist,” he declared, “who doesn’t believe that better functioning capital markets in which assets can be traded are a good idea.”
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy, globalization at 1:13 pm by nemo
Published on Friday, March 27, 2009 by Financial Times
Number of Chronically Hungry Tops 1 Billion
by Javier Blas
LONDON – The number of chronically hungry people has surpassed the 1bn mark for the first time as the economic crisis compounds the impact of high food prices, the United Nations’ top agriculture official has warned.
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