Pro-Science News
COPE appeals to the Supreme Court
COPE et al. v. Kansas State Board of Education et al, the creationist lawsuit seeking to reverse Kansas's 2013 decision to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards on the grounds that the state thereby "establish[ed] and endorse[d] a non-theistic religious worldview," is now under appeal to the Supreme Court.
Categories: Pro-Science News
Mirsky on rafting with NCSE
In a column published in the October 2016 issue of Scientific American, Steve Mirsky relates his excursion through the Grand Canyon with NCSE.
Categories: Pro-Science News
Teaching about climate change can be injurious to your academic freedom
By Gaythia Weis. An uproar fanned by the right-wing media has left a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs professor and two instructors with quite a tightrope walk. The uproar involves an online humanities and environmental health class at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, entitled “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age.” The three faculty members (and others) may have to walk softly when teaching courses that may be a subject of public controversy....
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
NCSE's Rosenau in TES
NCSE's Josh Rosenau contributed a column about the NCSE/Penn State survey (PDF) of climate change education in the United States to TES (September 19, 2016).
Categories: Pro-Science News
U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions
Science Debate questions and answers here. I have not read the responses yet. From a press release we received this morning from Science Debate: U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions WASHINGTON, D.C., September 13, 2016 –Three of the four major candidates for United States president have responded to America’s Top 20 Presidential Science, Engineering, Technology, Health and Environmental Questions. The nonprofit advocacy group ScienceDebate.org has posted their responses online at http://sciencedebate.org/20answers. Hillary Clinton, Donald...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Selasphorus platycerus
Photograph by Vivian Dullien. Photography contest, finalist. Selasphorus platycerus – broad-tailed hummingbird, male....
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Shenanigans in Texas
Members of the Texas state board of education launched a preemptive attack on a panel appointed to streamline the state science standards for biology during its September 14, 2016, meeting, according to the Texas Freedom Network's Kathy Miller, who criticized the attack in a September 16, 2016, letter to the board posted on the Texas Freedom Network's blog.
Categories: Pro-Science News
Congratulations to Bruce Alberts
NCSE is pleased to congratulate Bruce Alberts on receiving the 2016 Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science.
Categories: Pro-Science News
The End of Journalism As We Knew It
I grew up listening to Walter Cronkite giving the evening news. The feeling of trust that some version of what had happened in the country and the world had been delivered was definitely there. I’m stuck in O’Hare and listening to CNN now. Wolf Blitzer interviewed a pair of Trump supporters trying to bolster Trump’s… Read More »
Categories: Pro-Science News
Charadrius vociferus
Photograph by Paul Burnett. Photography contest, finalist. Charadrius vociferus – killdeer standing her ground, protecting her eggs from a vicious photographer three feet away....
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
How the Church "documents" "miracles"
Advocates for canonizing Marguerite d’Youville hired a hematologist to decide why a woman had recovered from incurable leukemia after praying to the aforementioned d’Youville. The hematologist, Jacalyn Duffin, warned the investigators that she was an atheist. The investigators reasoned that if an atheist could not figure out why the woman had recovered, then obviously the recovery must have been a miracle. The hematologist went further and investigated hundreds of “miracles” in the archives of the...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Scudderia sp.
Photograph by Richard Meiss. Photography contest, finalist. Scudderia sp. – Scudder’s bush katydid nymph, bedded down for the night in the flower of a lily (Lilium maculatum [?]). Not shown in this view are the several species of ants that have also found this refuge to be congenial. For (temporarily) flightless insects, such cover must have some survival value....
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Macaca fuscata
Photograph by Dan Moore. Photography contest, finalist. Macaca fuscata – snow monkey, or Japanese macaque, mountains of Nagano, Japan, due west of Tokyo, March, 2016. These monkeys have adapted to the cold more than any other subspecies, and they have adapted to almost totally ignoring humans (which is good for photography)....
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
The cure for pseudoscience: alternative medicine
I just saw my colleague Paul Strode, with whom I wrote a book a few years ago. Knowing my interest in pseudoscience, Mr. Dr. Science Teacher (the name of his blog) directed me to his article Acupuncture Study as a Cure for Pseudoscientific Thinking. The article is, I think, really two articles. The first describes an experiment that his students perform, but he sets it up so that they generally overlook one important variable. The...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Chapman's Peak
Photograph by Neil Taylor. Photography contest, finalist. A group of (shortly to be long distance running*) Homo sapiens enjoying the sunset at Chapman’s Peak, Capetown. Chapman’s Peak is an offshoot to Table Mountain and hence has the same geology. There is a famous and very beautiful road between Noordhoek and Hout Bay which has been cut right into the vertical cliff which makes up the southern side of the peak. The photo is at one...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Lyssomanes viridis
Photograph by Al Denelsbeck. Photography contest, runner-up. Lyssomanes viridis – magnolia green jumping spider, juvenile female. All jumping spiders have excellent binocular vision for use in obtaining food, but since the cornea is a fixed part of the exoskeleton, the eyes must move internally. With the magnolia green jumpers, the exoskeleton is translucent enough to allow the internal movement of the eyes to be seen, and they can move independently. I had captured this one...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Creationists evolve "new" arguments to explain genetic diversity
Guest post by David MacMillan. David MacMillan is an author, engineer, and researcher who formerly wrote for Answers in Genesis before obtaining his degree in physics. He now writes about science and culture for Panda’s Thumb, the Huffington Post, and several other blogs. In the buzz of excitement surrounding Opening Day at the Ark Encounter, the team of writers at Answers in Genesis continues their struggle to explain how all terrestrial life could have been...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Slot canyon in soft bentonite clay
2016 Contest Winner. Bentonite clay, by Alan Rice. Slot canyon in soft bentonite clay – Panaca formation, Cathedral Gorge State Park, Nevada...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
