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Creationism legislation–Oklahoma update 4

There’s good news, modified with a bit of bad news, out of Oklahoma regarding the ongoing Republican legislative push for evolution and climate change denialist opinion to taught instead of real science.  Oklahoma House Bill 1551, which passed the House, died in the Oklahoma Senate, since they were unable to report out of committee in time.  Similarly, Senate Bill 1742 also died in the Oklahoma Senate. Both bills essentially required Oklahoma public schools to teach their students about the “debate” between creation and evolution, and about global warming.  Read More »Creationism legislation–Oklahoma update 4

Creationism legislation–Tennessee Monkey Bill (Update 4)

[pullquote]If you’re looking for a cure for your cancer, don’t look to evolution-deniers for hope. As for me, I give thanks to Darwin and the researchers who have stood on his shoulders.–Leslie Brunetta[/pullquote]

A quick update on Tennessee’s “Monkey Bill”, which is a Republican-led anti-evolution and global warming denying bill.  The bill, HB 368, was  sent to Governor Bill Haslam this week for consideration.  Gov. Haslam has until April 9 2012 to either sign it, allow it to become law without his signature or veto it.  The bill encourages teachers to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” in topics such as “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life (known as abiogenesis), global warming and human cloning.”  The scientific weaknesses are nearly nonexistent, except in the mind of the science denialists that inhabit the Republican Party, particularly in the South.

Read More »Creationism legislation–Tennessee Monkey Bill (Update 4)

Creationism legislation—Tennessee Monkey Bill (update 3)

There’s been a lot of press and internet complaints about the new Tennessee anti-evolution bill that recently passed the Tennessee Senate, and passed last year in the House.  Essentially the bill encourages teachers to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of “controversial” topics such as “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”  And I can’t say this enough, what scientific weaknesses?  The only debate that makes sense would one on the ethics of human cloning, but then again, it could be a code word for anything from stem-cell research to in vitro fertilization.

Read More »Creationism legislation—Tennessee Monkey Bill (update 3)

Religion and global warning denialism

The other day, I was watching some news story about climate change; it was mostly from the denialist point of view, but I was struck by what seemed to be almost the same arguments that the creationist folks say about evolution.  I began to wonder if there was a religious component to the global warming denialists, maybe at the same fundamentalist belief level as the creationists.

While I was digging through the Huffington Post’s Science Section (which publishes story about how homeopathy works or how a bug jumping on a camera lens is obviously a UFO chasing the powerful Chilean Air Force, I noticed a couple of articles by Victor Stenger, a world-renowned particle physicist who writes about scientific skepticism of religion and faith.  It’s possible that I’m too harsh about HuffPo’s general anti-science content, though Stenger only partially makes up for the rest of the anti-science articles on HuffPo.Read More »Religion and global warning denialism

Antiscience legislation updates–Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Tennessee

There’s been lots of news this week regarding anti-evolution legislation.  Republicans in various state legislatures are starting to push their religious agenda in violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution.  Remember, according to the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, teaching religion in public schools is prohibited, and numerous court rulings have clearly stated that creationism is a religious doctrine, not a scientific controversy.  These Republican legislatures are trying to push a full anti-science agenda, forcing school children to think that abiogenesis (the origin of life on Earth), global warming and evolution are somehow scientifically unsound principles.  In the real world, these is no controversy, except with regards to fine-tuning mechanisms, rather than on the broad theory.

Read More »Antiscience legislation updates–Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Tennessee

Creationism legislation–Oklahoma update 3

One of the two anti-evolution and anti-climate change bills, introduced into the Oklahoma legislature earlier this year, died in committee.  The remaining bill, HB1551, was passed by the Oklahoma House Common Education Committee in February, so may be scheduled for a floor vote soon.  The surviving bill is modeled upon the Louisiana Louisiana Academic Freedom Act, which states:

…the teaching of some scientific subjects, such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects.

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Pseudoscience loves the Strawman Fallacy

In my recent post about Bill Moyers and the anti-vaccine lunacy, I referred to the Straw Man Fallacy, which I’ve just added to my Logical Fallacy FAQ.  I try to keep my FAQ to a few sentences (and I will add links to more complex descriptions of the fallacies), trying to make it easy to grasp the essence of the particular fallacy.

Read More »Pseudoscience loves the Strawman Fallacy

Kiribati needs to find some new land as oceans rise

Caroline Atoll (Kiribati), channel between west side of Long Island and Nake Island (in background)

Sometimes, when we talk about the consequences of global warming, it feels as though it’s an intellectual exercise.  Maybe the winters seem a little warmer.  Maybe we know that the sea-level will rise.  But that’s all down the road, and maybe, we can change the direction upward direction of the global temperature.Read More »Kiribati needs to find some new land as oceans rise

Heartland Institute plans to discredit teaching of climate change

The New York Times article, Heartland Institute Leak, a Plan to Discredit Climate Teaching, obtained some leaked documents from the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that denies the link between second hand smoke and cancer; and denies anthropomorphic global warming (human-caused climate change).  These documents outlined “plans to promote a curriculum that would cast doubt on the scientific finding that fossil fuel emissions endanger the long-term welfare of the planet.”  According to the Heartland Institute, “Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective (pdf file).”

Read More »Heartland Institute plans to discredit teaching of climate change