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Education

Darwin on Offense I: Museums
October 17, 2005
What’s the solution to decreasing belief in evolution?  More evolution.  That’s the message of an article by Lisa Anderson from the Chicago Tribune published online by Yahoo News, “Museums take up evolution challenge.”  Natural history museums around the country are mounting new exhibits they hope will succeed where high school biology classes have faltered: convincing […]
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Education

Darwin on Offense II: Strategy Sessions
October 17, 2005
The Geological Society of America, normally concerned with technical details of rocks and how many millions or billions of years old they are, devoted two “expansive sessions” at its annual meeting Oct 16-17, with 24 separate presentations dealing with strategies to oppose intelligent design (ID).  Their press release portrays ID advocates as “trained attackers,” using […]
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Media

Make Your Own Privileged Planet
October 6, 2005
NASA-Ames Research Center has produced an online simulation game called AstroVenture that allows kids to try to design a habitable planet.  After they pick half a dozen parameters, the game tells them whether humans could live there or not. This is a cute feature that, with caveats, could be useful for parents and teachers.  The […]
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Education

Science Writer Advocates Debate with Creationists
October 6, 2005
The Darwinist monopoly on science has backfired, suggested Michael Balter in the Los Angeles Times in a Sunday commentary.  A human evolution writer for Science magazine (e.g., 09/09/2005, 03/04/2005, 11/12/2004, 02/27/2004, 02/15/2002), Balter advocated engagement with the opposition.  “A national debate over how best to explain the complexity of living organisms would better serve our […]
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Bible and Theology

Creation-Evolution Contest in Grand Canyon: New York Times Prints Eyewitness Report
October 6, 2005
New York Times reporter Jodi Wilgoren explored “parallel universes” along the Colorado River this summer (here for multimedia version).  She rode a raft with a creationist group led by Tom Vail for several days, then rode with another party led by evolutionist Eugenie Scott.  Her experiences with these two groups illustrated the stark contrast between […]
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Education

University of Idaho President Announces Evolution-Only Policy
October 5, 2005
Timothy P. White, President of the University of Idaho, just issued a letter to faculty, staff and students “to articulate the University of Idaho’s position with respect to evolution: This is the only curriculum that is appropriate to be taught in our bio-physical sciences.”  The Discovery Institute calls this naked viewpoint discrimination. The president’s next […]
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Education

Scientific Institutions Root for Darwin
September 28, 2005
With the Dover trial in the midst of its first week (09/26/2005), the Goliath fans are sounding off, led by their cheerleaders, Nature, Science and other institutions: Nature had two pieces this week, claiming the Dover trial represents Do or Die for Design.  This editorial ended, “Scientific organizations are well aware of this case’s significance, […]
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Cosmology

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Is Back
September 27, 2005
MSNBC News reported that Carl Sagan’s popular 13-part series Cosmos is returning to TV this week, digitally remastered and enhanced with new up-to-date animations.  The 1980 series, which began with its own Agnus Dei invocation “The cosmos is all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever will be,” went far beyond the […]
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Education

Rhetoric Heats Up Over Dover IDea
September 26, 2005
Now that the ACLU’s lawsuit in Dover, Pennsylvania has gone to trial, more and more news media are writing about the controversy over intelligent design.  Many seem to think that the school board is trying to replace Darwinism in high school science classrooms with I.D.; actually, the Dover case does not mandate the teaching of […]
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Education

Elie Wiesel Gathers Nobel Laureates to Urge Kansas to Nix ID
September 19, 2005
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has gathered 38 Nobel prize winners to join him in urging the Kansas school board to reject their new science standards that question evolution (see 08/11/2005).  According to MSNBC News, their document calls evolution an “indispensable” foundation of biology.  The story was reprinted by LiveScience.com. Odd.  Biology got along just fine […]
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Education

Both Sides Fear Court Ruling on Intelligent Design
September 16, 2005
“The stakes are high,” said Constance Holden in Science,1 and both sides in the Dover, Pennsylvania case would probably agree – with equal trepidation.  The ACLU is representing 11 parents who sued the Dover school board for ruling that intelligent design should be taught as an alternative to Darwinian evolution in their public high schools […]
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Dumb Ideas

Zoo Wants You in the Cage
September 15, 2005
Visitors to the Zagreb Zoo get to walk through displays detailing the ways in which humans “contribute to the destruction of wildlife and the environment,” and then spend a little time in a cage that was deemed unsuitable for the foxes and martens who were its previous inhabitants.  The zoo calls humans “the most dangerous […]
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Politics and Ethics

Are Democrats the Guardians of Science?
September 12, 2005
Dan Danbom reviewed Chris Mooney’s The Republican War On Science in the Rocky Mountain News.  According to Danbom, Mooney argues “that the Bush administration ignores, subverts, twists and misrepresents science to conform to its political goals.” The review includes these quotes from the book: ….in politicized fights involving science, it is rare to find liberals […]
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Politics and Ethics

Will Hurricane Katrina End Social Darwinism in America?
September 12, 2005
Harold Evans, writing an op-ed piece for the BBC News, thinks the TV images of destruction from Hurricane Katrina will arouse a new wave “compassion in government” (which he interprets as “the responsibility of government to relieve individual suffering”), and spell the end of Social Darwinism (which he interprets as laissez-faire individualism): My judgment is […]
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Education

Controversy is the Fuel of Science, So Teach the Controversy, Educator Says
September 7, 2005
The Albuquerque Journal published a response from Rebecca Keller after admitting misrepresenting her position.  She did not claim that intelligent design science is looking toward transcendent beings, but rather is asking scientists to become willing to consider design inferences when the data point in that direction.  She clarified the intent of the new science standards […]
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