Orac has just put up a post deconstructing various claims by a US homeopath. One of those claims really tickled my fancy: The problem is that homeopathy is aimed at treating the individual with a single remedy, chosen specifically for him or her. It is not for treating masses of people with the same pill. […]
Continue readingYear: 2011
the status & quality of year 11 & 12 science in australian schools
My reading assignment today was a report just out from the Australian Academy of Science (the AAS) on science in Australian secondary schools (Goodrum, Druhan & Abbs, 2011). Not what you might expect on a reading list in the week before Christmas, but I was up to speak (briefly) about it on Radio NZ & […]
Continue readingletters to the editor: science & god
From today’s "Letters to the Editor" in today’s NZ Herald: Your correspondent correctly states that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is under threat. The main threat, however, is not coming from "conservative religious school." It is coming from science. Well, as a scientist, this is news to me. What scientific evidence does our correspondent present […]
Continue readingusing pseudoscience to teach science
The following post is an article that I originally wrote for the New Zealand Science Teacher journal (the official journal of the New Zealand Association of Science Educators), and is reproduced here by kind permission of the editor. We live in a time when science features large in our lives, probably more so than ever […]
Continue readingPM’s Science Teacher Prize: Dr Angela Sharples
The Prime Minister’s Science Prizes were announced today, & among the winners was my good friend & colleague Angela Sharples, who was awarded the Science Teacher Prize. Angela & I have worked together to prepare NZ’s teams for the International Biology Olympiad since 2004, during which time I’ve seen first-hand just what a superb teacher […]
Continue readingconvergent evolution: the pandas’ thumb
And yes, punctuation & grammar skillz, I has them 🙂 That apostrophe really is in the right place – read on to find out why. The tale of the panda’s thumb is well-known, & an excellent example of how the action of natural selection can result in jury-rigged solutions to problems: a result that works, […]
Continue readingnew woo for you – ‘sound’ therapy
Over at Orac’s place, one of his commenters mentioned the therapeutic use of didgeridoos for various health issues. Surely this is a joke, I thought – but no: it seems that didgeridoo sound therapy is indeed alive and well…
Continue readingmelanin + the pecten … a new metabolic future??
While lurking over at Riddled (by doubt, insecurity and what appears to be a type of marine worm)** I was introduced to a journal article on in-flight metabolism in birds.More specifically, to the idea that melanin in the pecten – a structure in birds’ eyes that appears to function in visual acuity – is able […]
Continue readingassessment for learning
A few days back, Grant asked if I would follow up on my promise to write something on assessment. It would be great to get a discussion going around how & why we assess students, so after a bit of thought I decided to kick things off with the following post, derived from my own […]
Continue readingwhat about genetic evidence linking us to chimpanzees
As Grant said earlier, there is a rich mine of potential posts in this particular website… This time, let’s review its author’s take on the phylogenetic relationship between Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes. We are indeed linked to chimpanzees – by a common Designer.
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