Month: August 2005

The good news: It seems that colleges and universities are actually rejecting high school science courses that aren’t science, but religion, as I suggested here.

The bad news? They’re getting sued over it:

Amid the growing national debate over the mixing of religion and science in America’s classrooms, University of California admissions officials have been accused in a federal civil rights lawsuit of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints.

The suit was filed in Los Angeles federal court Thursday by the Assn. of Christian Schools International, which represents more than 800 religious schools in the state, and by the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, which has an enrollment of more than 1,000.

Under a policy implemented with little fanfare a year ago, UC admissions authorities have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin’s theory of evolution, the suit says.

Other courses rejected by UC officials include “Christianity’s Influence in American History,” “Christianity and Morality in American Literature” and “Special Providence: American Government.”

The 10-campus UC system requires applicants to complete a variety of courses, including science, mathematics, history, literature and the arts. But in letters to Calvary Chapel, university officials said some of the school’s Christian-oriented courses were too narrow to be acceptable.

According to the lawsuit, UC’s board of admissions also advised the school that it would not approve biology and science courses that relied primarily on textbooks published by Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books, two Christian publishers.

Instead, the board instructed the schools to “submit for UC approval a secular science curriculum with a text and course outline that addresses course content/knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community.”

“It appears that the UC system is attempting to secularize Christian schools and prevent them from teaching from a world Christian view,” said Patrick H. Tyler, a lawyer with Advocates for Faith and Freedom, which is assisting the plaintiffs.

Wendell E. Bird, an Atlanta attorney who represents the Assn. of Christian Schools, said California was the only state in the nation that had taken such actions against Christian schools.

Bird said the schools have no objection to teaching evolution alongside creationism but consider the UC regulations a violation of their rights. “And a threat to one religion is a threat to all,” he added.

UC had not yet been served with the suit, so spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said she could not comment on its details. But she said the university had a sound legal right to set course requirements for incoming students.

“What we’re doing is really for the benefit of the students,” she said. “These requirements were established after careful study by faculty and staff to ensure that students who come here are fully prepared with broad knowledge and the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed.”

(Via JosephW in comments.)

(In the same vein as the previous post, I found this in my draft post folder from a few weeks back. Via The News Blog.)

Chickenhawks cry about being asked to enlist

Las Vegas, Nevada–YRNC 2005 Chairman Nathan Taylor has been responding to attacks by leftists who threaten protests at the 2005 Young Republican Convention.

“In recent weeks I have received numerous e-mails from leftist groups bent on infiltrating the Convention and protesting the appearance of veterans of the War on Terror. We will not allow these cowards to dishonor our servicemen,” stated Taylor.

“The childish insults and threatened protests of these leftists reveal ignorance of, and disrespect for, the sacrifice borne by many hosted by the Convention,” Taylor continued. “Most of our members either serve, have served, or plan to serve in the United States Armed Forces, or have participated in events or projects supporting the United States Armed Forces. We will not be intimidated.’

Nathan, Nathan, Nathan. We aren’t calling the soldiers cowards, nor are we dishonoring them. In fact, we think it’d be an excellent boost to your honor to become one. Having participated in events supporting the Armed Forces just isn’t enough anymore– how about participating in the Armed Forces itself?

Neat Things: Operation Yellow Elephant:

I finally decided to participate in Operation Yellow Elephant, and I think I successfully ticked off the republicans a bit. I went to their callout and spent a few minutes trying to recruit soldiers for Iraq after the meeting; unfortunately, they had a BOUNCER at their callout, who decided to shut me down. I was called insensitive, Michael Moore, and other nasty names.

There’s a video that’s worth the click.

Lefty and Righty excesses of pseudo-science:

According to Michael Shermer there are:
– science
– borderlands science
– psuedoscience, and
– nonsense

Science is a methodology of figuring out, with as great confidence as possible, how the world works. Evolutionary theory is one of the biggest, strongest and best-supported bodies of all of science.

Borderland Science refers to first small steps in acquiring realistic knowledge about a not-well-understood aspect of the world. It aspires to become Science, but is often held back by various factors, e.g., difficulty in studying the phenomenon of interest, biases of the investigators, social biases against investigations of such phenomena, etc.

For instance, very little is known about hypnosis. It is a real phenomenon but very difficult to study. There is not much funding for it as there is a social bias against such research. Thus, it is still doing its first small pioneering steps and has not resulted in data that are good enough to place it in the realm of real Science.

Another example is Evolutionary Psychology – it is done by psychologists (thus real scientists) who understand biology very poorly, yet strive to make their research scientific. Their own biases make them go up wrong alleys and bark up wrong trees (I love adding up mixed matephors, sorry). Yet, they are asking real questions about real phenomena and it is expected that at some point evolutionary psychology (lowercase) will get its methodology straight and make enough advances to become real Science.

Pseudoscience is an attempt to sell out-of-ass beliefs as scientific by using hifallutin’ terminology, perform meaningless calculations, draw elaborate charts etc. Examples are many (peruse past editions of the Skeptic’s Circle for examples) and include astrology, biorhythms, pyramid force, Feng Shui, crystal balls, alternative medicine, Holocaust denial, Intelligent Design Creationism, and many, many others. The main goal, usually, is making a quick buck, although more sinister motivations are sometimes behind such ideas, i.e., these may serve as methods for making an unrespectable ideology (e.g., Nazism) respectable again, or there is political gain to be had.

Nonsense does not even pretend to be scientific, e.g., Old Earth Creationism.

The psuedoscientific ideas have cropped up, historically, both within the political Right and Left – and often completely detached from any ideology. The crucial difference between the two (today) is that the Lefty pseudoscience has no negative consequences for the broader society. Nobody is hurt if some Birkenstock Lefty performs chants and lights up incense during a spiritual night of camping out in the desert in Arizona.

Lefty pseudoscience was always marginal and marginalized by everyone on both the Left and the Right. No political party has ever pushed for astrology or biorhythms to be used in classrooms or in military planning.

However, attack on science, reason and rationality is the centerpiece of the Right-Wing strategy. The only way they can save their medieval notions about society, economics, religion, science, race, gender equality, etc. from being deposited forever in the trashbin of history is if they systematically brainwash every new generation into dogmatism, uncritical thinking and fearful obedience to their authority. They are in power now – White House, Congress, Supreme Court – and they are ramming anti-science and anti-reality ideas into school (and into media) as hard as they can.

Their strategy is to confuse everyone as to what is science, what is borderlands science, what is pseudoscience, what is nonsense, i.e., what are facts and what is opinion. They are pushing IDC in order to spread the seeds of that confusion. They sneer at the reality-based community. What they are trying to do is institute not just moral relativism, but also factual relativism – nobody knows what the truth is any more and nobody knows how to figure out what the truth is so the only recourse is to blindly believe one’s leaders (while they steal your money and your labor).

Saying that pseudoscientific excesses of the Loony Left are equivalent to the pseudoscientific excesses of the Righteous Right is just an example of such factual (and moral) relativity. The former is silly, discredited, powerless and innocuous. The latter is serious, more and more mainstream and dangerous to the Enlightment and what it gave to the human civilization. The former is laughable. The latter is the key weapon of the Republican Party (at least the faction in power right now).

[snip]

Embracing this change also helps liberalism form a unified, internally consistent ideology, in place of its usual issue-by-issue catalogue of stands.

However, conservatism CANNOT change and get modern and current because hierarchy is the ESSENCE of conservatism. Attempts to modernize weaken conservatism as it is forced to accept liberal views on individual issues (see Europe).

BushCo chose the opposite tactic – keep conservatism logically consistent and intact, thus, in the process, stopping the evolution of all political thought, of science and of society – keeping the status quo indefinitely. Systematic attack on science is a neccessary strategy, actually central strategy for that endeavor to succeed.

Conservatism is violently lashing out like a wounded beast feeling its own impending demise. It is still dangerous. If we are not careful it can kill us. If that happens, history stops, returns to 18th century norms, and persists in that state for a long time. We just have to win this fight, defeat this beast once for all, in order to save the Enlightement and allow the world to move on into the future.

Read, as they say, the whole thing. (Via Science And Politics.)

A Futurama Math Conversation with David X Cohen:

The Fermat’s Last Theorem joke first appeared in the [Simpsons] 3-D Halloween episode Homer3, and I got the idea that I could come up with a near-counterexample to Fermat’s Last Theorem that is accurate enough that if you test it on a bad calculator, it would appear to be true, and it would drive people crazy.

From a comment on SlashDot on Siberian Permafrost Melting:

GOOFUS has a PhD.
GALLANT has a PhD in a field unrelated to his research.

GOOFUS gets little respect as a scientist outside the scientific community.
GALLANT gets little respect as a scientist inside the scientific community.

GOOFUS drives a beat-up old car.
GALLANT drives a BMW unless his chauffeur is driving.

GOOFUS wears street clothes to work, maybe a lab suit on occasion.
GALLANT wears three piece suits at all times.

GOOFUS is employed by a “university”, a “hospital”, or a “laboratory”.
GALLANT is employed by a “Coalition”, an “Institute”, an “Association”, a “Foundation”, a “Council”, or a “White House”.

GOOFUS earns $30000 per year unless they cut his funding.
GALLANT earns $200000 per year but makes his real money from speaking fees.

GOOFUS lives anywhere in the country.
GALLANT lives in a wealthy area near Washington DC, but may have additional homes elsewhere.

GOOFUS may sometimes be filmed standing in front of big melting icebergs.
GALLANT may be filmed sitting in front of a bookcase or standing behind a podium at a $2000 per plate fundraiser, although there may be ice melting in his drink.

GOOFUS is a dues-paying member of several scientific grassroots organizations.
GALLANT is on the payroll of several scientific astroturf organizations.

GOOFUS gets summoned for jury duty but is never picked as a juror.
GALLANT claims “the jury is still out” on evolution or global warming, since he considers himself to be on the jury.

GOOFUS maintains the world is five billion years old.
GALLANT isn’t really saying, but creationists distribute his pamphlets all the time.

GOOFUS claims the world is warming as a direct result of human activity.
GALLANT either claims that climate change doesn’t exist, or if it does, that humans have nothing to do with it.

GOOFUS and his graduate students do the dirty work of collecting raw data and looking for conclusions to be drawn from it.
GALLANT does the dirty work of discrediting GOOFUS by manipulating his data in Excel with statistically invalid techniques.

GOOFUS writes scientific papers and grant proposals.
GALLANT writes the nation’s environmental legislation and a column for the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.

GOOFUS draws scientific conclusions from the data he collects that usually come out in agreement with the scientific consensus.
GALLANT paints the scientific consensus as being entirely political in nature and enjoys comparing himself to Galileo.

GOOFUS is heavily trained to be a skeptic and to treat information from all sources with a skeptical mind.
GALLANT is heavily marketed as a skeptic but reserves his skepticism for GOOFUS.

GOOFUS isn’t paid much attention by the press since his opinions are commonplace among scientists.
GALLANT holds maverick opinions for a scientist which keeps him busy running from one balanced talk show to the next.

GOOFUS has no PR skills.
GALLANT leverages his PR experience all the time, although he has access to paid PR staff.

GOOFUS claims the sky is falling and we have to take painful steps to reduce CO2 emissions now.
GALLANT claims the free market will take care of it and recommends solving the problem by conning Zimbabwe out of their pollution credits.

GOOFUS advises his kids not to go into science.
GALLANT advises the president.

(Via .)

We’re Getting Healthier. Period. :

Is there a positive social change agent behind teen pregnancy?

Maybe.

Better health is causal factor behind the biological capability to become pregnant. Quick refresher course for those who slept through biology:
Androgens released during adrenarche causea the secretion of hormones (estrogen) at the onset of puberty. Estrogen causes thelarche, the visible indicator of estrogen secretion (yes a fancy word for %u2018boobs%u2019). There are other possible indicators of estrogen secretion including body fat distribution and bone maturation and other correlates with the start of puberty, such as body water content and critical lean body weight.

Therefore, healthier girls have their first period at a younger age and worldwide we have seen a decline in the age of menarche accompanying improved nutrition and sanitation.

According to David Weil, in South Korea, the average age dropped from 16.8 to 12.7 between 1958 and 1998.

While few would argue that a pregnant twelve year-old a positive change, that girls are healthy enough to be biologically capable of carrying a child is an improvement.

In the recent study %u2018Accounting for the Effect of Health on Economic Growth%u2018 microeconomic estimates of the effect of health on individual outcomes were used to construct macroeconomic estimates of the proximate effect of health on GDP per capita.

Based on this study, the average age of menarche dropped from about 17 to 12.8 during the period 1830-1962. The rate of decline was 4 months per decade.

While, %u201CThe most widely held belief is that the trend has occurred due to improved nutrition. Children today are bigger and heavier than in the past. Improved nutrition allows for normal growth. Lower classes and rural children have also seen a drop in the age of onset of puberty.%u201D

So, it%u2019s important to keep in mind possible other causes such as natural selection (genetic isolates), less disease,
fat kids obesity (since the onset of menarche has a correlation with the body fat percentage), chemicals which mimic sex hormones (DDE, PCBs and phthalates), and hormones in meat and dairy products.

And this:

65 girls pregnant at one high school: video games to blame? – Joystiq – www.joystiq.com:

65 out of 490 young ladies who attend Timkin High School in Canton, Ohio are preggers, and video games may be to blame, according to a local Ohio newspaper, which had this to say on the subject:

Whose fault is it that more than 13 percent of Timken%u2019s girls are with child? Some would say fault-finding isn%u2019t a fruitful exercise, but in this case, it%u2019s critical. Suspects range from movies, TV and video games to lazy parents and lax discipline. Only one thing is sure: Schools don%u2019t impregnate children.

Hey, I%u2019m just a blogger and not a doctor, but I thought for sure that games can%u2019t impregnate children either.

Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com – WENN – 24 August 2005:

Maverick film-maker Michael Moore has enrolled on a crash course at a $3,800-a-week celebrity fat farm in a bid to loose weight.

…this one’s for you: On Monday, Sept. 12th at 7:00 PM the Free Library of Philadelphia is hosting a debate between Dave Silverman, national spokesman for the American Atheists and Bill Devlin, founder of the conservative Urban Family Council.

The debate is titled CULTURE WARS, and will cover such topics as Creationism, Family Values, Faith-based intitatives, etc.

…but that doesn’t mean colleges have to accept you.

Blatantly stealing an idea from the comments section at Slate, I hereby call on all universities to reject high school biology credits for students educated in states where creationism or intelligent design is taught. “If you need three years of sciences courses to get into college and you have them, but one of them was in biology in Kansas, you’re out of luck. It’s community college time for you, at least until you get that deficiency remediated.”

Seriously. In fact, I’m actually amazed the Ivy League hasn’t adopted this already. Of course, they do each have their own divinity schools and religious studies programs, so maybe not. Nevertheless, students are denied admission on the basis of inadequate learning all the time. Why not this? It’s not like they aren’t picky enough, acceptance rates are already as low as 10% at some Ivies.

If every student from, say, Kansas was going to be rejected from MIT or USC because they were taught poorly, the curriculum would change within a month. So let’s see the colleges make a stand against the anti-education forces. If you know anyone in power at any college, feel free to make a push.

UPDATE: Seems like Lindsay and I are on the same wavelength.