Mississippi has a sticker campaign. Current status is "dead in committee"
Missouri Academic Freedom Bill
Oklahoma Academic Freedom Bill, (+2 based on Richard Dawkins coming to town, see Oklahoma house resolution 1014 and 1015)
Alabama Academic Freedom Bill
Iowa Academic Freedom Bill
New Mexico Academic Freedom Bill
Florida No longer Imminent Academic Freedom Bill
Texas Science Standards and Creationism
NCSE has much up-to-date information on current legislation as well as a plethora of additional resources.
Field of Science
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From Valley Forge to the Lab: Parallels between Washington's Maneuvers and Drug Development4 weeks ago in The Curious Wavefunction
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Political pollsters are pretending they know what's happening. They don't.4 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
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Course Corrections5 months ago in Angry by Choice
8 comments:
Has anyone done a study that looks at the standardized science test scores of high school students and sees if it correlates to the rise in rejection of evolution as an explanation for life...? Perhaps by cleaning up our educational system we might solve a few problems...
@"Who turned off the shaker?": One way would be to hire competent elementary/middle/high school teachers and fire incompetent ones that are there because somehow they managed to hang on long enough to get tenure.
Seriously- I went to one of the "best public schools" in Minnesota, and I still had teachers who left me gobsmacked because of their incompetence and seriously made me wonder how the fuck they managed to keep their job or how they managed to get one in the first place.
I hear you Rose. When I think about the good/great teachers I had (an I did have a few) they fit on one hand. But if I think of the horrible/incompetent ones...that takes more hands than I have. My parents were very involved in my education though...so I turned out alright. What would be great is if we could just "fire" some of the idiot parents too...
A link between standardized tests and the teaching of evolution in biology class is unlikely. First there is no national standardized test in biology. The tests that are given are written by the individual states and are built on said state's education standards document. So, if evolution is left out of the standards, it will not be on the test.
Of course that may lead to teachers who use "academic freedom" to preach "goddidit" to students would have disadvantaged students on the state tests. Maybe this could be a way to identify teachers that should be working in a church not a public school.
FYI From 1st-6th I have nothing but fond memories of my teachers, beyond that its a mixed bag. Not sure I would go so far as using the descriptor incompetent, but I did get in a few heated arguments with teachers over certain subjects.
I actually did mean general science test scores. Because my hypothesis would be that, because science (any of them--and we can throw in math too) teaches logical reasoning (or it's supposed to) that states that have students with high science test scores (and it would be neat to look historically too to check for trends) should have a population that would accept evolutionary theory. This hypothesis is based on the premise that these folks have a grasp of logical reasoning and would approach the subject from that perspective. Those states that suck at science would perhaps have a less logical population and not use rational thought to approach evolutionary theory. That's what I was suggesting. However since there isn't a nation standardized test that does pose a problem with this experiment... but if there was one it would be interesting...
Did you get the opportunity to go listen to Richard Dawkins @ Northrup on the 4th?
"That spring he set an examination paper for his [name of university withheld] finalists, in which to pass every candidate needed to demolish the Origin of Species."
When did this happen? At what university? Who was the professor?
Vron?
Did you comment to the wrong blog?
the wrong post?
I dont get it.
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