My favourite evolution-in-schools story this week: Apparently Michigan has at least some sense. The State Board of Education on Tuesday approved public school curriculum guidelines that support the teaching of evolution in science classes — but not intelligent design. … “The intent of the board needs to be very clear,” said board member John Austin, an Ann Arbor Democrat. “Evolution… Read more →
86 search results for "evolution"
Stop the continent, I want off.
Only 28% of Americans believe in evolution (and two-thirds of these believe evolution was “guided by God”). 53% are actually creationists. 80% of Americans expect to be called before God on Judgment Day to answer for their sins. 90% believe in heaven. 77% rate their chances of going to heaven as “excellent” or “good.” 83% of Americans believe that Jesus… Read more →
Head Explodey, Part 3
The lede on this Reuters story seem relatively harmless, or maybe even positive: Americans who question evolution are testing a new tactic in Ohio, arguing that schools should be required to discuss all controversial issues from creation to stem cell research and global warming. In what critics on Wednesday called a new attempt to bring religion into the classroom, the… Read more →
Friendly Dictators
Back in 1989 Bill Sienkiewicz illustrated a deck of cards designed to bring to light some of the sleazier folks that the U.S. government had done deals with. The text on each card was written by Dennis Bernstein and Laura Sydell. I wish there was an updated version covering the last 17 years, but in the meantime I’ve prepared a… Read more →
Hidden sequitors
Today’s almost random browsing brings about this series of connections, which links the capital of Venezuela to the highest ranking American killed in World War II, to fact that the act of making a mint julep with creme de menthe can be considered an abomination. Read more →
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî
Years ago I read through Philip José Farmer‘s Riverworld books. Those of you who have read them will recall that Richard BurtonWikipedia entry (along with lots of other historical personages) played a pretty big role in the series. One of the indirect results of my doing that reading was that I was driven to find a copy of Burton‘s “Kasîdah“,… Read more →
I can mock the hick parts of my own country too.
Yes, there are crazy religious people-that-time-forgot in Canada too: CBC Montreal – Darwin’s theory not allowed in North Quebec schools Teachers in some northern Quebec communities are being told not to talk about the evolution of humans because Darwin’s theory offends some Inuit people. Alexandre April is a teacher in Salluit, Que., who says his school principal told teachers not… Read more →
Raising My Kid With Science
A while back Paul Myers made a list of books for evolutionists. The list included a number of items “for the kids”. I really liked the idea of starting Sarah’s science education early–why not learn about science along with math and vocabulary, etc–so I decided to order some of these books “sometime”. (I figured the odds of them being in… Read more →
Artificial Life and Competition
I’ve always been kind of interested in Core Wars. (See also the main Core Wars page, and the King Of The Hill page.) Not enough to actually compete, you understand, but enough to run a local server and let some of the more “famous” programs battle it out, and maybe to throw in one or two of my own. I… Read more →
What’s the worst that could happen?
Want to know how far I’ll go for a cheap joke? One of the boards I hang out on has a game each week where you get to write up a little something in response to the topic of the week. Last week the “assignment” was to come up with a “what’s the worst that could happen” for a specified… Read more →
Countering errant nonsense
As a kind of response to the recent heart-breaking polls, I present a classic article from Scientific American, 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense, which in turn presents 15 common anti-evolution arguments and then proceeds to answer and refute each one. Here’s the list of “common arguments” that are answered: Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or… Read more →
You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me!
Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Reject Evolution, Back Bible A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, “God created man exactly how Bible describes it.” Another 31% says that man did evolve, but “God guided.” Only 12% back evolution and say “God had no… Read more →
In Praise Of Idleness
So, one of the things I told myself I would do in 2006 is spend a lot more time writing about Bertrand Russell [wikipedia], or rather about his works, on this blog. Russell, you may recall, is one of my biggest heroes, to the extent that there are multiple images of him around the house. Writing about Russell is going… Read more →
Monday MP3 Miscellany
So, in lieu of actual content, I bring you a bag of links to audio content, both musical and book-related. This’ll be a long post. Read more →
Election Beer #3
This post brought to you by Fuller‘s London Porter. So, here’s my perception of the parties at play in this election. Google will bring you all kinds of other perspectives, but here you get the McLaren view ™. Liberals – The least dangerous party to be in power–they’re generally progressive on social policy (most often when Prime Ministers start to… Read more →
