science education

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views: Color us just a bit skeptical about news reports that Turkey will eliminate evolution from its official 9th grade curriculum. If true, though, it is of course a terrible idea. … News like this filtered through the Western media can’t necessarily be taken at face value. That having been said, the fact that evolution is both important and “controversial” is one reason we strongly favor teaching it thoroughly in high school biology classes, with due attention to objective scientific evidence and arguments for and against the theory. Critically evaluating scientific theories is what responsible scientists do, and with care and thoughtfulness, instructors can help students do the same.More. All that the opponents Read More ›

From BEC Crew at ScienceAlert: Here’s proof of how far we’ve come in science – in a world-first, researchers have recorded up-close footage of a single DNA molecule replicating itself, and it’s raising questions about how we assumed the process played out. The real-time footage has revealed that this fundamental part of life incorporates an unexpected amount of ‘randomness’, and it could force a major rethink into how genetic replication occurs without mutations. “It’s a real paradigm shift, and undermines a great deal of what’s in the textbooks,” says one of the team, Stephen Kowalczykowski from the University of California, Davis. More. It may not be as random as they think. A subway crowd’s movements may appear random at times, but Read More ›

From Sarah Chaffee at ENV: Two Days After Warning Against “Anti-Science” Label, Nature Calls Academic Freedom “Anti-Science” From the headline of the piece you might think you were reading some online tabloid. But guess again. Published in Nature on May 12 and republished by Scientific American, Erin Ross’s article declares, “Revamped ‘anti-science’ education bills in United States find success.” The headline is describing legislation in Florida and academic freedom resolutions in Alabama and Indiana. The term “anti-science” is ironic. As we noted at Evolution News the other day, Nature itself published a May 10 editorial, “Beware the anti-science label.” It warned against using the term lightly and urged that “Presenting science as a battle for truth against ignorance is an Read More ›

See vid intro: The Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) uses a consistent process to develop and revise content area standards. The goal of this process is to develop K-12 content area standards that, when mastered, would allow a student to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing postsecondary coursework without the need for remediation. The collaborative writing process utilizes the expertise of Nebraska educators and includes representation from all stages of Nebraska’s educational system (i.e., early childhood education, K-12 education, and postsecondary education). More. Deadline June 23. What role should evidence-based reasoning play? We keep hearing from people who say our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth, Note: Hey, the only reason your humble hack dares say anything is that her Read More ›

Well, in the age of just shout louder against the marchin’, marchin’ hordes, aw, maybe academic freedom is just a frill anyway. From Erin Ross at Nature: Revamped ‘anti-science’ education bills in United States find success: Legislation urges educators to ‘teach the controversy’ and allows citizens to challenge curricula. State and local legislatures in the United States are experimenting with new ways to target the topics taught in science classes, and it seems to be paying dividends. Florida’s legislature approved a bill on 5 May that would enable residents to challenge what educators teach students. And two other states have already approved non-binding legislation this year urging teachers to embrace ‘academic freedom’ and present the full spectrum of views on Read More ›

From psychology prof Tania Lombrozo at NPR: Skepticism is supposed to reflect a willingness to question and doubt — a key characteristic of scientific thinking. Skepticism encourages us to look at the evidence critically; it allows for the possibility that we are wrong. It seems like a win, then, to learn that courses in skepticism can decrease belief in the paranormal or — as reported in an article forthcoming in Science & Education — that teaching students to think critically about history can decrease belief in pseudoscience and other unwarranted claims. But taken too far, skepticism misses its mark. It’s important to avoid the error of believing something we ought not to believe, but it’s also important to avoid the Read More ›

From board member Barbara Cargill via Evolution News & Views: On Friday, April 21, the State Board of Education voted on the final language for the streamlined TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). Some news reports have given erroneous information about the revised standards. The streamlined TEKS in biology continue to call for critical thinking in the study of theories such as evolution. They specifically call for students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for common ancestry and Darwinian natural selection. They further call for students to “compare and contrast scientific explanations for cellular complexity.” And they call on students to “examine scientific explanations of abrupt appearance and stasis in the fossil record” and “examine scientific explanations for the origin Read More ›

Of course, he allows us to know, he did not read Jonathan Wells’ book, Zombie Science: I will be accused of having “reviewed” Wells’s book here without having read it, but this isn’t a review: it’s a notice that a scientifically rejected charlatan has published another book, and has even issued a “teaser trailer” for it. Here it is below. There’s no intellectual content there, but of course the buyers of the book aren’t looking for truth and reason; they’re looking to confirm their own religiously-based biases. Reading a book signals that one intends to address the information therein. When people are sufficiently well established, they do not need to know information in order to dismiss it. Indeed, that may Read More ›

For now. From Texas Education Agency: The board changed biology standard (4)(A) from “compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and evaluate scientific explanation for their complexity;” as approved on first reading to: “compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, including their complexity, and compare and contrast scientific explanations for cellular complexity.” The board also changed biology standard (6)(A), which, as approved on first reading, read: “identify components of DNA, describe how information for specifying the traits of an organism is carried in the DNA, and evaluate scientific explanations for the origin of DNA;” As approved Friday, it now reads “identify components of DNA, identify how information for specifying the traits of an organism is carried in the DNA, and Read More ›

Baylor computer science prof Robert Marks comments on Texas science standards at Dallas Morning News: There’s a battle over evolution education in Texas right now. The latest round is coming up soon in Austin, with the State Board of Education hearing testimony on both sides of the controversy. There is a tug-of-war between those who want to teach only their corner on truth and those who would prefer to include critical analysis and discuss developments that challenge neo-Darwinian dogma. This is unfortunate, because at least in areas of my specialization, using computers and mathematics to model evolution, the problems are fascinating and would be both fun and instructive to teach. Gregory Chaitin, arguably the greatest and most creative mathematician of Read More ›

Aimed, one guesses, at people who already have a religion or don’t think they need one. From a group of instructors at Wake Forest University: BioBook Basic Edition and its linked resources are available free to everyone. Click on the Table of Contents tab to browse topics. Registered users must log in here or in the upper right corner of the screen to access their instructor’s customized edition and course tools. You will find them listed in the main menu. More. A 40-part video lecture that accompanies the book will soon be available. Some are already available at YouTube. and Chapter 2. We better not tell the “Pants in Knot for Darwin” folk. They may end up wearing their pants Read More ›

Jonathan Wells’s Zombie Science n 2000, biologist Jonathan Wells took the science world by storm with Icons of Evolution, a book showing how biology textbooks routinely promote Darwinism using bogus evidence—icons of evolution like Ernst Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings and peppered moths glued to tree trunks. Critics of the book complained that Wells had merely gathered up a handful of innocent textbook errors and blown them out of proportion. Now, in Zombie Science, Wells asks a simple question: If the icons of evolution were just innocent textbook errors, why do so many of them still persist? Science has enriched our lives and led to countless discoveries. But now, Wells argues, it’s being corrupted. Empirical science is devolving into zombie science, Read More ›

From Joy Pullmann at Federalist: College science classes are hostile to women and minorities because they use the scientific method, which assumes people can find reliable truths about the natural world through careful and sustained experimentation, concludes a recent dissertation by a doctoral candidate at the University of North Dakota. Laura Parson, a student in the university’s education department, reviewed eight science class syllabi at a “Midwest public university” and said she discovered in them a hidden hostility to women and minorities: … Instead of promoting the idea that knowledge is constructed by the student and dynamic, subject to change as it would in a more feminist view of knowledge, the syllabi reinforce the larger male-dominant view of knowledge as Read More ›

Dover cleared the decks for critical discussion of Darwinism and design by getting school board micro-politics out of it. Fuller studies ID as a social movement in science. We hear some colleagues don’t like his views much. See also: Dover all over White cliffs. Dover: Creationism invades Europe The Dover case, John West, and intelligent design Steve Fuller: Humans will merge with AI and Steve Fuller’s Dissent over Descent Follow UD News at Twitter!

Of course. What other motive could there be? Re the South Dakota academic freedom bill, David Klinghoffer offers at Evolution News & Views : In a surreal move, a group called the National Coalition Against Censorship has plunged into the South Dakota situation to demand continued restraints on teachers and their academic freedom — in other words, censorship. They complain that SB 55 would “remov[e] accountability in science education.” “Accountability” there would seem to mean instructors being vulnerable to career retaliation for teaching critical thinking skills to science students. These “anti-censorship” proponents advocate retaining the option of punishing biology teachers for going off message on Darwinism. They go on: “Essentially, [the bill] removes the restraints on teachers that prevents them Read More ›