AAAS has a page of resources and news items on the conflicts over teaching evolution. The page now includes this five-minute video:
Monthly Archives: June 2008
Exorcist Governor defends anti-science law on TV (video)
June 30, 2008 – 4:42 pm
Here’s Louisiana’s exorcist Governor on CBS Face the Nation, defending the anti-science legislation that he has signed into law.
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Here’s the transcript:
Anti-science law signed by Louisiana’s exorcist Governor
June 29, 2008 – 1:21 pm
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As suggested in a previous post here, there was some speculation that Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal might veto the new anti-science education law since, having studied Biology at Brown University, he could be expected to know the difference between what is, and what is not, the natural science that is practiced, taught, and studied as [...]
Louisiana Science Education Act - final text
June 28, 2008 – 2:18 pm
The LA site with the pdf file of the law wasn’t working when I created this post with the text pasted in below. Now it is working so now here’s a link to the official PDF version. See also the NCSE, and sources linked from my earlier post here.
Here’s the text, as posted by John [...]
La’s Bio-major Gov. signs anti-Biology law
June 27, 2008 – 5:08 pm
Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal, who was himself a Biology student at Brown University, apparently doesn’t care if Louisiana students “don’t know much about Biology” when they graduate from high school.
As reported in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Jindal has signed into law the “Louisiana Science Education Act,” that “will allow local school boards to approve supplemental [...]
like teaching Klingon in French class
June 22, 2008 – 7:57 pm
It would be more like the situation where a teacher hired to teach French in French class decides instead to mix in grammar and vocabulary from Italian (or Klingon, maybe, to make the analogy more precise — since Italian is another real language, after all), without letting students know that what they’re learning is not really French, and with state law protecting the teacher against any kind of repercussions.
Texas GOP: NCLB “a massive failure, should be abolished”
June 22, 2008 – 12:06 pm
Although my previous post highlights what the Texas 2008 Republican Platform says about “Theories of Origin,” the biggest headline in the Education pages of that platform is surely their statement that
The No Child Left Behind Act has been a massive failure and should be abolished.
Recall that this law was George W. Bush’s signature piece of [...]
TX GOP 2008 platform on Education
June 22, 2008 – 11:51 am
The Republican Party of Texas has now posted its State Party Platform for 2008.
I have also excerpted and posted here the four pages of that platform with the Preamble, Principles, and positions on Education.
As usual the Texas GOP takes interesting positions on many things, but in this post I’ll just quote their statement on “theories [...]
The Simpsons evolution clip (restored)
June 12, 2008 – 11:08 am
In an earlier post, I had a link to this clip on YouTube; but then it became unavailable on YouTube.
Here it is again now, but with a little advertising.
¿ against teaching the controversies (or “strengths and weaknesses”) ?
June 10, 2008 – 2:16 pm
While the ridicule is well deserved, I want to take exception to something possibly implied in Curmudgeon’s response, where he says that “High school students don’t know how to reach ‘their own conclusions’ about science. That’s why they’re in school! That’s why we call them students! “
ICR appeals TX decision against creationist grad degree for science teachers
June 3, 2008 – 2:43 pm
The Institute for Creation Research has announced its appeal seeking reversal of the decision by the Texas higher education board against accreditation for its distance education masters degree in “science education,” which would presumable have qualified its graduates for certification as science teachers in Texas (and, they would hope, licensing as science teachers in other [...]
Creation Science goes to China
June 3, 2008 – 1:33 pm
As the Institute for Creation Research has announced its appeal of the Texas decision not to approve its distance learning graduate degree program in science education, which would have led to accreditation of its graduates as high school science teachers in Texas, an interesting view of the Institute’s global ambitions can be seen in a [...]
Bradley: Teachers “got spanked” by Texas Bd. of Ed.
June 3, 2008 – 1:05 pm
Added June 6, 2008:
NY Times: Opponents of Evolution Adopting a New Strategy
Steven Schafersman, President, Texas Citizens for Science: Critical Review that covers developments reported in the NY Times article and the article (linked below) by Gary Scharer, as well as reaction by Intelligent Design proponents.
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A story by Gary Scharrer for the San Antonio Express-News reports [...]
