"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Saturday Science, Part II: Education

A couple of stories this morning. Two deal with creationists doing their best to screw up science education. First, in Arizona, the Superintendent of Schools appointed a young-earth creationist to a panel charged with revising the science curriculum:

Arizona Superintendent Diane Douglas tapped a young-earth creationist to serve last month on a committee tasked with revising the state’s science curriculum standards on evolution.

Joseph Kezele, the president of the Arizona Origin Science Association, is a staunch believer in the idea that enough scientific evidence exists to back up the biblical story of creation.

Click through to the original article: Kezele keeps going on and on about "real science" and how it proves Biblical creation. All that proves is that he's delusional. And despite the disclaimers from the superintendent's spokesperson that she was unaware of his creationist views, given her own attitudes, I'm calling bullshit -- she knew exactly what she was doing.

And just to show that we're not alone in our insanity, this one's from British Columbia:
Darrell Furgason is one of the candidates running for the Chilliwack School District Board (in British Columbia) and his platform seems pretty sensible: He supports “Academic Excellence,” “Inclusivity for all,” and a “Quality, fact-based curriculum” that promotes critical thinking.

The problem is that he believes none of that in practice. Furgason is actually an anti-LGBTQ Young Earth Creationist whose primary allegiance is to the Bible and not the students.

Another nine-commandment "Christian". And unless people do some research, which they won't, he'll probably get away with it.

And offered as an antidote to those is this one, about a twelve-year-old who is working on her third book about the joy of science:

Bailey Harris was only eight when she was inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson (who was hosting COSMOS at the time) to learn more about astronomy. It resulted in her writing a book (with her dad’s help) called My Name Is Stardust, about how all living things are made up of the same basic ingredients. Earlier this year, she released her second book,
Stardust Explores the Solar System
.

Now she’s working on the third: Stardust Explores Earth’s Wonders: Geology & Evolution.

There's a wonderful video at the link that, unfortunately, I can't embed, so check it out. It really is very good.


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