What a good idea! Instead of getting shouted down by Darwinians, anxious to impose the “red in tooth and claw” on school curricula, perhaps we should long ago have adopted the practice of simply providing editions of Darwin’s works, detailing the worldview that lies behind this stuff. Accept or reject it, the worldview goes along with the package.
Education
The issue of epistemic rights and duties
Back in 2007, “todangst ” of the “rational response squad” atheistical site wrote: To say that I am within my ‘epistemic rights’ to hold to a claim, I am saying that I violate no epistemic responsibilities or obligations in believing in my claim. (Rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand.) An epistemic obligation is an intellectual responsibility Read More…
Wealthy Scandinavian benefactor gives US$1.6 million (eqv.) to promote ID
This wonderful news come on the heels of the just as wonderful news about the opening of the ID centre in Austria, Zentrum für Biokomplexität und NaturTeleologie.
The war on math continues
Some of us remember back to when only the arts disciplines were being ruined. But yes, math can be ruined too. That will make it hard to talk to people about a lot of science stuff, including science controversies. But hey, they’ll still have astrology.
Radical Constructivism, Naturalistic Scientism and Math Education — ideas have consequences
In the thread on Jonathan Bartlett and priorities for Math education, I raised two comments that I think it would be profitable to further reflect on. First, from 33 on how the US National Academy of Sciences tried to classify Mathematics as a “science”: https://services.math.duke.edu/undergraduate/Handbook96_97/node5.html The Nature of Mathematics (These paragraphs are reprinted with permission Read More…
Demand for a ban on teaching creationism in Welsh schools
Tradejah! Let’s have a ban on teaching Darwinism too. Oh wait — is that what’s supposed to be introduced early and often, because the “Wales Humanists coordinator” and “Humanists UK” want it? Darwinism is an obvious intrusion of religion into the school system. A different religion from what many people follow, but still a religion. Otherwise, why would humanists care so much?
A “gender non-binary dino” is not a useful teaching moment
But the Woke war on science, now that IS real.
Bret Weinstein: Free speech is only part of the problem on campus
Roger Kimball discusses Weinstein’s idea of “a breakdown in the basic logic of civilization.”
Astonishing duplicity continues around Haeckel’s embryos
So stuff that isn’t true provides an “excellent foundation” and “compelling proof of the theory of common descent?”Wow. What a way to make people who never doubted common descent before start to do so…After all, one can only assume that an accurate presentation would not have supported the theory.
What Bill Nye is doing now
It’s not clear why people who behave this way expect their causes to be taken seriously. UD News’ take on Bill Nye is that he was a schoolroom celeb but didn’t really age into a science guru for adults
Educating oneself away from science denial: Two true stories
Our Danish friend Karsten Pultz, author of Exit Evolution, read the dramatic story of the flight from fundamentalism and responded by publishing his own account of how he escaped science denial. It is a somewhat different story
Talk about a perfect storm! Social science needs evolutionary theory?
One doesn’t mean to be unkind. But we hardly need “evolution” to know that giving a bully a task that builds self-esteem will distract him from bullying.
Atheist historian combats claim that the Church persecuted classical learning
A historian draws our attention this post from late 2016, a reflection on the survival of classical learning during the Christian era, in response to “Skep,” an energetic atheist blogger: But the usual way that those who are forced to admit that there were, in fact, many medieval natural philosophers studying all kinds of proto-scientific Read More…
Science writer: Academia is in meltdown
And, he says, there is no nice way to put it: A new survey by Gallup shows that only 48% of U.S. adults have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in academia, down from 57% in 2015. And it’s not just due to partisanship; confidence has fallen among people of all political persuasions. Read More…
Should atheism be included in religious education?
That’s being suggested in Britain: Humanists UK welcomed the recommendation that humanist beliefs and values be taught. In general, the commission’s conclusions were a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to save the academically serious teaching of religious and non-religious worldviews in our schools”, said Andrew Copson. But the Catholic Education Service said the report was “not so much Read More…