Tag Archives: education

Miss USA contestants on evolution and education

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The Miss USA competition is evidence that our culture celebrates beauty over brains. Now, that isn’t to say these women aren’t smart per se. All I mean to suggest is that they needn’t sound intelligent to win the pageant. Consider, for example, the contestants’ answers when asked whether evolution should be taught in public schools:

Their answers were, for the most part, woefully (and unashamedly) ignorant. (You can watch every contestant’s answer here.) Several contestants, perhaps wanting to avoid a Carrie Prejean-like controversy, answered that both religion and evolution should be taught in schools. Both should be taught in schools, but not in a science class where students may confuse creationism for an alternative scientific theory to evolution. Religious ideas about the origin and evolution of life should be discussed in philosophy or religious studies courses.

Worse still, of the 51 contestants, only two “unequivocally support[ed]” evolution. Thankfully one of those two was crowned Miss USA: California’s Alyssa Campanella. Here was her response:

I was taught evolution in high school. I do believe in it. I’m a huge science geek. [...] I like to believe in the big bang theory and, you know, the evolution of humans throughout time.

Atheists, agnostics score highest on test of religious knowledge

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From The New York Times:

Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion.

How much do you know about religion? Try answering a sampling of questions asked in a phone survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life.

On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.

Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences.

“Even after all these other factors, including education, are taken into account, atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons still outperform all the other religious groups in our survey,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew.

I wonder, given the findings, if atheists from Mormon or Jewish backgrounds are especially knowledgeable about religion.

Take the test, and tell us how you did. I answered 93% of the questions correctly.

Anti-pro-Islam textbooks, brought to you by Texas

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Via Education Week comes today’s installment of satire confused as public policy:

The Texas state board of education, which earlier this year stirred national controversy with its overhaul of social studies standards, today narrowly adopted a resolution warning textbook publishers against infusing their materials with “pro-Islamic/anti-Christian distortions.” The resolution was approved by a 7-6 vote by social conservatives on the board, who warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation’s publishing industry.

The resolution declares that a “pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias has tainted some past Texas social studies textbooks,” and that the board should reject any future textbooks that favor one religion over another.

The Washington Post points out that the “facts” used by the board in making the decision were not accurate; however, facts probably stand no chance against the political machine that is the Texas school board. It also raises the question of whether we should worry about the pro- or anti-religious biases of duly elected or appointed public officials. Texas wields considerable clout in the textbook publishing world as the largest “adoption state” in the U.S., where a central body approves public school textbooks rather than individual districts. It’s not clear whether the resolution will prompt textbook publishers to make immediate changes to sections devoted to Christianity and Islam.

Meanwhile, the Association of American Publishers claims that textbooks are already necessarily fair and balanced because “there is no good reason for them to submit things that would be biased”. Luckily for America, “bias” and “reason” go hand-in-hand.

Science education does not affect religious belief

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A recent study from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor may frustrate those New Atheists who think that science is the best antidote to religion. The key finding of the study:

College students who major in the social sciences and humanities are likely to become less religious, while those majoring in education are likely to become more religious.

But students majoring in biology and physical sciences remain just about as religious as they were when they started college.

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Department of Science Hosts Robert Lang

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I just got this email from the computer science mailing list:

This Friday, the College of Science is hosting Dr. Robert Lang, who
will be visiting USU to talk about the connections between
mathematics, science and art through origami folding.  Robert is a graduate of Caltech in engineering and applied physics, and  the recipient of their Distinguished Alumni Award.

While he is here on campus, we’ve arranged for some informal time for students and faculty to visit with Robert and talk about his career and current activities.  It  should be of interest to students and faculty alike.  Please join us:

—> Dr. Robert J. Lang
—> FRIDAY, 2 April 2010
—> 3:00 – 4:30pm
—> College of Science Conference Room, ESLC 245D

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From my BIO 1610 Discussion Board

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So while browsing my discussion board in class I came across this and I thought I’d share it…

Ok I’m not a Darwinist first of I have to say that. I take bio because I think I might be interested in it. Ill admit macro evolution is an interesting theory, but I do not find much sound fact in it. #1 your evidence mostly is DNA similarity, fossils, the life experiment with the RNA assembling together out of used to be believed atmospherics conditions, the micro evolution factor, and I think that sums it up, and if it does it’s not very much. So ye why do you believe in it. With the law of enthalpy, and the very complexity of are body’s. Lets not go the cell level they are at least as complex as us. Just the odds of it happening I mean 10 to the 300,000 power just for plant life. That’s not including the earth being created or something coming form nothing. So ye for those of you out there that don’t know I think the odds of scientific improbability are 10 to the 40,000. Mostly I just think the fact evolution is around is because of peoples reluctance to admit god. As for the saying what did the bible do for us. Well it taught us about see currents no serous the person that found see currents I heard found them because he said the bible said there are path ways in the sea I shall find them. Told the Israelite common practices that we would not discover till the 1800′s like washing you hands. Isolation circumcision, and even on the day when the baby’s blood clots best allowing so the best time to do it to. Ever read 100 scientific facts of the bible it’s a short book very interesting. Just remember also everything in old testament can be dated back to the dead sea scrolls some possibly even further to be what it is today. Also the bible has never been disproved archeologically. All the evolutionary gems you have to the best of my knowledge are micro evolution something you really don’t hear specified in class. Micro evolution is stuff like the peppered moth’s change in color and the gardener snakes gradual immunity to the newts poison. So ye we don’t even know half of how the brain works I mean seriously that thing in it’s self is immensely complex the way are blood clots and even are eyes are immensely complex. Every thing is extermaly complex. If evlotion is true then why do things like fish go together and form a more complex orginisem? Just a question. I mean sure you can create a nuclues, but can you go and give it life. There arn’t even enough transitional fossils in the ground to support your theory. Then what about fossil lake how that layers could have been piled up like that from just one volcano explosion in a few hours? I don’t know to me evolutions evidence seems to dicey and I find it a lot easier to believe that an all powerfully benevolent being created us then the fact that we evolved. Besides the bible hasn’t been disproved yet. Did you know some of the lord of the rings music is actually Celtic. Sorry just listing to Celtic Myst top 100 on the mp3 player and hearing the main theme of lord of the rings. I like this saying sunset god’s way of reminding us he’s there. I guess when I lay my chips down it ultimately comes to this which theory is the most sound and looks the best. Although we can not prove god and probably will never be able to on or own it’s the one that the stuff it tells hasn’t been disproved, and sounds sound to me.

If you can read it, feel free to comment on it.