One of the things that strikes me about the commenters actively opposing vaccinations – e.g. on the many news stories about NZ’s measles outbreak – is their continued readiness to state and repeat mistruths and inaccuracies. You see it all the time, & I have to wonder – is there just this underlying assumption that […]
Continue readingTag: creationism
slick propaganda has no place in science classroom
Except, perhaps, if it’s used to develop critical thinking skills. But I don’t think that’s what happened on the occasion reported under the headline Creationism taught in science class at Villa Education Trust school: [A student who’d studied at] Mt Hobson Middle School said Darwinism was taught as an unproven theory and students were shown […]
Continue readingnot science as i know it
By accident, I came across the curriculum document for Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) which provides teaching & learning materials to parents who are homeschooling their children. New Zealand students who complete the program right to year 13 gain university entrance. Home Schooling NZ gives parents advice about the ACE program, but makes it clear that […]
Continue readingan interesting take on mousetrap evolution
One of the catchphrases of Intelligent Design creationism is ‘irreducible complexity’ – the idea that in some complex biological systems, it’s impossible to remove any one part without causing the whole system to fail. Supposedly this means that such systems could not have evolved but must be the product of a ‘designer’. The term – […]
Continue readingscience: 1; society for textbook revise: 0
From Nature (& via a commenter at Silly Beliefs): science wins over creationism. In South Korea, the Society for Textbook Revise, STR [sic] – associated with the Korea Association for Creation Research – has apparently been pushing textbook publishers to remove two examples of evolution from school textbooks. You may be surprised to hear that […]
Continue readingquality counts – except when it doesn’t
A few weeks ago, writing about the ‘great class size debate’, I also touched on the question of quality teaching. There’s no question – at least, there shouldn’t be – that children deserve the best possible learning experiences, and one of the requirements for that is quality teaching by excellent, expert teachers. It’s quite tricky […]
Continue readingif evolution is true, why are there still apes
We’ve just come back from a few glorious days in New Plymouth (arriving home before the change in weather). Had a great time tramping, walking the coastal walkway, eating yummy food – all those nice things you do, holidaying with friends. And as some of the party were driving from Paritutu to meet the rest […]
Continue reading‘scientists anonymous (nz)’ write again…
I’ve written about the group who call themselves ‘Scientists Anonymous (NZ)’ before, in the context of determining the reliability of sources. At the time, I commented that I would have a little more confidence about the information this group was putting out there if the people involved were actually identified – as it is, they […]
Continue readingvideos on creationism & evolution
A while back, I wrote about the way that the geology of the Grand Canyon has been misrepresented by ‘Young Earth’ creationists. Now here’s a good discussion of this from geologist Steve Newton: You may also remember the comments about evolution that were made by some of last year’s Miss USA contestants. A 2012 Darwin […]
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 […]
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