Slashdot Mirror
Classroom Clashes Over Science Education
cheezitmike writes "In a two-part series, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science examines two hot-button topics that create clashes in the classroom between science teachers and conservative-leaning students, parents, school boards, and state legislatures. Part 1 looks at the struggle of teachers to cover evolution in the face of religious push-back from students and legislatures. Part 2 deals with teaching climate change, and how teachers increasingly have to deal with political pressure from those who insist that there must be two sides to the discussion."
aha. "Ivar Giaever, an 82-year-old Norwegian who shared the 1973 Nobel Award for work related to quantum tunneling, left the 48,000 member organization earlier this month because of the APA’s position arguing that there is a scientific consensus on the global warming issue."
An expert on quantum tunnelling! Can i get his opinion on car maintenance, Dress making and 1980 pop music? I am sure he is just as qualified.
Doesn't it remind you of the "this doctor does not believe that smoking causes cancer"? Except that in this case he is not even in the field.
The "other" interpretation. You make it sound as if there are two and exactly two "sides". The problem is that when you open the discussions up to include the Judeo-Christian creation mythos, you have to welcome every other equally untestable explanation out there: Eurynome, the AEsir, the raven, Pangu, Enki, the Ogdoad, flying spaghetti monsters, pyramid building aliens, the machines from The Matrix, or any of a thousand other explanations that have arisen throughout the centuries. Since none can be proven or disproven, what is there to teach from a scientific perspective?
Religious ideas regarding creation could certainly be discussed in the schools - but in history, literature, or philosophy classes, not science.
John
The 77 cents on the dollar argument is based on adding up the incomes of all the working women in the country, dividing it by the number of women in the country, and doing the same for the men. The actual calculation ignores experience, ability, time on the job, nature of the work, etc.
True, however, there is still around a 5-7% gap that is unexplained, and is probably due to gender discrimination. Also, there is hard evidence of this discrimination taking place. from Wikipedia:
Other studies have found direct evidence of discrimination. For example, fewer replies to identical resumes with female names and more jobs for women when orchestras moved to blind auditions.