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Education

Nature Rallies Troops Against I.D. to the Defense of “Science”
August 10, 2005
“President Bush’s endorsement of ‘intelligent design’ has sparked a national debate in which scientists are well positioned to prevail,” editorialized Nature this week,1 with the a rallying-cry title, “Keeping religion out of science class.”  This editorial, along with a news item by Virginia Gewin, “Scientists attack Bush over intelligent design,”2 was prompted by President Bush’s […]
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Dumb Ideas

Has Anti-Semitism Been Good for Jewish Evolution?
July 19, 2005
National Geographic News gave favorable coverage to a controversial theory by anthropologists at University of Utah that anti-semitism was a form of natural selection.  The racism against Jews in Europe, while selecting for higher intelligence, also selected for certain types of diseases.  Reporter James Owen did point out that not all anthropologists agree with the […]
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Education

Scopes 80th Anniversary Leads to Reanalysis
July 19, 2005
Alex Johnson, reporter for MSNBC News, has written a piece trying to set the record straight about the Scopes Trial of 1925.  Often portrayed as a battle of science vs religion and a group of hillbilly hicks against enlightened intellectuals (the “Inherit the Wind” stereotype), the historical trial was much different, he demonstrates.  William Jennings […]
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Bible and Theology

Tulsa Zoo Tolerates Religion &#150 Except the Bible Kind
July 16, 2005
It’s OK to praise the Hindu god Ganesha and preach pantheism at the Tulsa zoo, but not to mention Genesis.  The zoo board reversed itself after first agreeing to permit an exhibit of the biblical creation account, reported Agape Press.  Christian supporters argued that the zoo “already features religious symbols in other displays, including a […]
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Human Body

Does the Brain Produce the Mind – and Ethics?
July 15, 2005
Two contrasting views on the mind/body problem appeared in science journals recently.  In Nature this week,1 Paul Bloom (Yale) reviewed The Ethical Brain (Dana Press, 2005) by Michael S. Gazzaniga, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.  Bloom felt the need to clarify the difference between theological and evolutionary views on the source of […]
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Politics and Ethics

Scientists Own Up to the Need for Ethics
July 11, 2005
The image of a scientist free to follow his quest wherever it goes is changing.  In an age of international terrorism, governments are becoming more wary of the potential downsides of scientific investigations, and scientific organizations are beginning to fall in line, reluctantly but understandingly.  “Biologists may soon have little option but to sign up […]
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Politics and Ethics

Scientists Confess Their Sins
June 9, 2005
One-third of scientists engaged in unethical behavior over the last three years, according to a report in Nature.1,2  These include falsification, fabrication and plagiarism as well as a host of questionable research practices.  It’s not so much a problem of high-profile cases of fraud as much as everyday, mundane, “corrosive” ethical lapses that are endangering […]
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Cell Biology

Stem Cell Headlines
May 23, 2005
Research on embryonic stem cells is proceeding apace without an ethical anchor, and no clue where it will lead.  News coverage of the debate accelerated with an announcement from South Korea. Match point:  The BBC News and many other news sources published South Korea’s announcement that stem cells matched to the individual have been tailored […]
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Politics and Ethics

Temple Mount Debris Yields Artifacts from Solomon’s Temple
April 17, 2005
Israelis were shocked and outraged when Palestinians undertook an illegal construction project in 1999 on the Temple Mount, and threw the debris into the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, but there was little they could do about it.  Though this “archaeological disaster” caused irreparable damage to the site, the holiest place for the Jews, some Israelis […]
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Education

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Academic Bill of Rights?
April 13, 2005
Why would Nature claim that academic freedom is a threat to academic freedom?  In the April 7 issue,1 Emma Marris titled her news item, “Professors bristle as states act to mould lecture content – Academics are fighting right-wing ‘bills of rights’.”  The academic freedom the professors want is their own freedom to control lecture content, […]
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Politics and Ethics

No Excuses: Nazi-Era German Scientists Had Bloody Hands
April 7, 2005
A six-year, $5 million (US$) project in Germany to investigate the extent of scientific involvement with the Nazi regime completed its final report last month, reports Nature,1 with “uncomfortable truths.”  It can no longer be claimed that (1) there were only a few rotten apples involved, (2) the work was pseudoscientific, low-quality work with meaningless […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Will Darwinian Law Protect the Unfit?
March 15, 2005
Eggheads at Vanderbilt import evolutionary ideas into legal policies that could negatively affect individual rights in devastating ways.
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Politics and Ethics

Mad Science: Stanford to Create Rat with Human Brain
March 10, 2005
Those who thought stem cell research was about helping people afflicted with disease may become alarmed over Stanford’s latest experiment, reported by the UK News Telegraph: the creation of a lab rat with all human brain cells.  The article quotes Wesley Smith of Centre for Bioethics and Culture warning, “biotechnology is becoming dangerously close to […]
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Politics and Ethics

Did Haeckel’s Defunct Recapitulation Theory Influence the Supreme Court?
March 8, 2005
One of our readers uncovered an amicus brief from the American Psychological Association (q.v. on American Bar Association website) encouraging the Supreme Court to overturn capital punishment for minors (see 03/04/2005 entry).  One of the key arguments in the brief is that “Neuropsychological research demonstrates that the adolescent brain has not reached adult maturity.”  Zeroing […]
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Politics and Ethics

Naturalistic Science Influences Criminal Law, Excuses Murder
March 4, 2005
Why was Science1 magazine happy about the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the death penalty for murderers under 17?  Because the decision was not made on the basis of the Constitution or on Judeo-Christian values, but rather on psychiatric, neuroscientific and behavioral studies: Eight medical organizations, led by the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry (ASAP), […]
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