Encore post: Recognizing bogus history, 1

July 3, 2007

While traveling this week, I’ll feature a few blasts from the past — posts that may merit new attention. This post comes from a two-part series in August 2006:

Recognizing bogus history, 1

Robert Park provides a short e-mail newsletter every Friday, covering news in the world of physics. It’s called “What’s New.” Park makes an art of smoking out bogus science and frauds people try to perpetrate in the name of science, or for money. He wrote an opinion column for the Chronicle of Higher Education published January 31, 2003, in which he listed the “7 warning signs of bogus science.”

Please go read Park’s entire essay, it’s good.

And it got me thinking about whether there are similar warning signs for bogus history? Are there clues that a biography of Howard Hughes is false that should pop out at any disinterested observer? Are there clues that the claimed quote from James Madison saying the U.S. government is founded on the Ten Commandments is pure buncombe? Should Oliver Stone have been able to to more readily separate fact from fantasy about the Kennedy assassination (assuming he wasn’t just going for the dramatic elements)? Can we generalize for such hoaxes, to inoculate ourselves and our history texts against error?

Perhaps some of the detection methods Park suggests would work for history. He wrote his opinion piece after the Supreme Court’s decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., in which the Court laid out some rules lower courts should use to smoke out and eliminate false science. As Park described it, “The case involved Bendectin, the only morning-sickness medication ever approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It had been used by millions of women, and more than 30 published studies had found no evidence that it caused birth defects. Yet eight so-called experts were willing to testify, in exchange for a fee from the Daubert family, that Bendectin might indeed cause birth defects.” The Court said lower courts must act as gatekeepers against science buncombe — a difficult task for some judges who, in their training as attorneys, often spent little time studying science.

Some of the Daubert reasoning surfaced in another case recently, the opinion in Pennsylvania district federal court in which Federal District Judge John Jones struck down a school board’s order that intelligent design be introduced to high school biology students, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

Can we generalize to history, too? I’m going to try, below the fold.

Here are Park’s seven warning signs, boiled down:

Park wrote:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer encouraged trial judges to appoint independent experts to help them. He noted that courts can turn to scientific organizations, like the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to identify neutral experts who could preview questionable scientific testimony and advise a judge on whether a jury should be exposed to it. Judges are still concerned about meeting their responsibilities under the Daubert decision, and a group of them asked me how to recognize questionable scientific claims. What are the warning signs?

I have identified seven indicators that a scientific claim lies well outside the bounds of rational scientific discourse. Of course, they are only warning signs — even a claim with several of the signs could be legitimate. [I have cut out the explanations. — E.D.]

  1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
  2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
  3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
  4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
  5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
  6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
  7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

Voodoo history

Here, with thanks to Robert Park, is what I propose for the warning signs for bogus history, for voodoo history:

  1. The author pitches the claim directly to the media or to organizations of non-historians, for pay.
  2. The author says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
  3. The sources that verify the new interpretation of history are obscure; if they involve a famous person, the sources are not those usually relied on by historians.
  4. Evidence for the history is anecdotal.
  5. The author says a belief is credible because it has endured for some time, or because many people believe it to be true.
  6. The author has worked in isolation.
  7. The author must propose a new interpretation of history to explain an observation.

Any history account that shows one or more of those warning signs should be viewed skeptically.

In another post, I’ll flesh out the reasoning behind why they are warning signs.

6 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Junk science, Research, Teaching, Textbooks, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, Writing history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Happy birthday, Ben Davidian

July 3, 2007

Wherever you are, Ben, happy birthday.  Even though you’re a Republican.

Born on the day before we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Ben is not really older than the Declaration itself.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Administrivia, Humor, Point of personal privilege, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dembski’s blog caught hoaxing again

June 30, 2007

An acquaintance sends word he’s happy to be back in the mountains with his hammer again, breaking rocks as a geologist in support of a mining venture. The price of gold is high, a few advances in technology have helped the process, and our friend was tapped by suits with money to help keep the actual gold mining operation in the proper vein, so to speak.

Mining is best done with a good scientist on hand to make sure the hole dug out is done right, and to be sure that the digging keeps going for the genuine nuggets.

William Dembski’s blog, Uncommon Descent, has no scientists with any geology training, it appears. But again they’ve been mining, for quotes instead of useful ore, and they’ve come up with fool’s information. Unable to tell the difference between fool’s information and the real stuff, they’ve published the fool’s information for the world to see.

A wise person does not allow fool’s information into one’s information banks. Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Creationism, Ethics, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Research, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fisking “Junk Science’s” campaign FOR the poison DDT, against Rachel Carson: Point #8, mosquito resistance to DDT

June 29, 2007

This is the second in a series of Fisks of “100 things you should know about DDT,” a grotesquely misleading list of factoids about DDT put up a site called JunkScience.com. While one would assume that such a site would be opposed, this particular site promotes junk science. I’m not taking the points in order.The “100 things” list is attributed to Steven Milloy, a guy who used to argue that tobacco use isn’t harmful, and who has engaged in other hoaxes such as the bizarre and false claim that Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) can pose serious toxic hazards in your home (and therefore, you should continue to waste energy with less efficient bulbs); and to J. Gordon Edwards, a San Jose State University entomologist who, despite being a great entomologist, was a bit of a nut on some political things; Edwards assisted Lyndon Larouche’s group in their campaign against Rachel Carson before his death in 2004. (Did Edwards actually have a role in the development of this list?)

100 things you should know about DDT

Claim #8. Some mosquitoes became “resistant” to DDT. “There is persuasive evidence that antimalarial operations did not produce mosquito resistance to DDT. That crime, and in a very real sense it was a crime, can be laid to the intemperate and inappropriate use of DDT by farmers, especially cotton growers. They used the insecticide at levels that would accelerate, if not actually induce, the selection of a resistant population of mosquitoes.”

[Desowitz, RS. 1992. Malaria Capers, W.W. Norton & Company]

Cover of The Malaria Capers, by Robert S. Desowitz

Cover of The Malaria Capers, by Robert S. Desowitz

This was what Rachel Carson warned about. Indiscriminate use of DDT, such as broadcast application on crops to kill all insect, arthropod or other pests, would lead to mosquitoes and other dangerous insects developing resistance to the chemical. Of course, resistance developed as a result of overspraying of crops has exactly the same result, in the fight against malaria, as overuse in the fight against malaria.  Cover of The Malaria Capers, by Robert S. Desowitz

Worse, such overuse also killed predators of mosquitoes, especially birds. In an integrated pest management program, or in a well-balanced ecosystem, birds and other insect predators would eliminate a large number of mosquitoes, holding the population in check and preventing the spread of malaria. Unfortunately, when the predators are killed off, the mosquitoes have a population explosion, spreading their range, and spreading the diseases they carry.

Assuming Milloy quoted the book accurately, and assuming the book actually exists, this point says nothing in particular in favor of DDT; but it reaffirms the case Rachel Carson made in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. Contrary to suggestions from the campaign against Rachel Carson, she urged that we limit use of DDT to tasks like preventing malaria, around humans, to preserve the effectiveness of DDT and prevent overspraying.

And then, there is this: Milloy doesn’t bother to quote the first part of the paragraph he quotes, on page 214 of Malaria Capers. Here is what the paragraph actually says:

There were a number of reasons for the failure, not least that the anophaline vector mosquitoes were becoming resistant to the action of DDT both physiologically — they developed the enzymes to detoxify the insecticide — and behaviorally — instead of feeding and wall-resting, they changed in character to feed and then quickly bugger off to the great outdoors. [from this point, Milloy quotes correctly]

In other words, the DDT-based campaign against malaria failed because DDT failed; mosquitoes became resistant to it.  DDT’s declining ability to kill mosquitoes is one of the major reasons DDT use plunged after 1963, and continues to decline to no use at all.

To combat the dastardly campaign of calumny against Rachel Carson and science, you should also read: Deltoid, here, here and here, and the rest of his posts on the topic; Bug Girl, here, at least, and here, and the rest of her posts; denialism, here; and Rabett Run, here.

Save

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4 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Citizenship, DDT, Economics, Environmental protection, Ethics, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Malaria, Natural history, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fisking “Junk Science” and “100 things you should know about DDT”: A new project

June 27, 2007

Looking at the odd campaign against the reputation of Rachel Carson, conducted largely by a group of corporate-paid, political scalawags, one will eventually come across a site named JunkScience.com, which has as a motto, “All the junk that’s fit to debunk.”

One might be forgiven if one assumes that the site debunks junk science claims. But that does not appear to be it’s aim at all. On this page, for example, “100 things you should know about DDT,” the site perpetrates or perpetuates dozens of junk science claims against Rachel Carson, against public health, against government and against reason. The site promotes junk science, rather than debunking it!

For example, I had just read a chunk of history reminding me that our first Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, William Ruckelshaus, had been ordered by a federal court to review the pesticide certification for DDT, and had acted against DDT only after two different review panels recommended it be phased out, and states had already started bans of their own. At the time, in 1972, Ruckelshaus faced a heap of criticism for moving so slowly on the issue.

EPA history caption: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring led to banning DDT and other pesticides. [EPA iimage]

EPA history caption: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring led to banning DDT and other pesticides. [EPA iimage]

How is this action described at JunkScience.com?

You wouldn’t quite recognize the events — and I doubt you could verify other oddities the JunkScience.com site claims:

17. Extensive hearings on DDT before an EPA administrative law judge occurred during 1971-1972. The EPA hearing examiner, Judge Edmund Sweeney, concluded that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man… DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man… The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.”

[Sweeney, EM. 1972. EPA Hearing Examiner’s recommendations and findings concerning DDT hearings, April 25, 1972 (40 CFR 164.32, 113 pages). Summarized in Barrons (May 1, 1972) and Oregonian (April 26, 1972)]

18. Overruling the EPA hearing examiner, EPA administrator Ruckelshaus banned DDT in 1972. Ruckelshaus never attended a single hour of the seven months of EPA hearings on DDT. Ruckelshaus’ aides reported he did not even read the transcript of the EPA hearings on DDT.

[Santa Ana Register, April 25, 1972]

19. After reversing the EPA hearing examiner’s decision, Ruckelshaus refused to release materials upon which his ban was based. Ruckelshaus rebuffed USDA efforts to obtain those materials through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming that they were just “internal memos.” Scientists were therefore prevented from refuting the false allegations in the Ruckelshaus’ “Opinion and Order on DDT.”

I propose to Fisk much of the list of 100 claims against Carson (which is really a list over 100 items now), in a serial, spasmodic fashion. I’ll post my findings here, making them generally available to internet searches for information on Rachel Carson and DDT. Below the fold, I’ll start, with these three specious claims listed above.

Read the rest of this entry »

17 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Cost of Green, DDT, History, Hoaxes, Natural history, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NY Times special on evolution – run, get it!

June 26, 2007

Evolution is the subject of a special edition of the Science section of the New York Times today. The section features articles by most of the best of the stable of science writing contributors the paper has, covering up to the latest developments in the field of evolution.

It’s available on-line, too, for a week or so — free subscription required. Or, Times Select customers will be able to access the stuff so long as they subscribe.

Since the section covers the best of science, there is nothing on intelligent design or other forms of creationism. The aim of the editors is the best of science, not “balance” in presenting opposing views even if vapid.

So, for $1.00, biology teachers can get a dozen weeks’ of enrichment material for this fall’s classes.

Run, don’t walk — your local Starbuck’s should have the paper, if your local newsstand doesn’t. It’s worth it just for the lead article featuring evo-devo, if that’s all you read.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Evolution, Geography - Physical, Intelligent Design, Natural history, Public health, Research, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Charles Lindberg, first Iwo Jima flag raising

June 26, 2007

1st flag raising on Iwo Jima, photo by Sgt Lou Lowery, Leatherneck Magazine

First raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. Photo by Sgt. Lou Lowery, Leatherneck Magazine

This photo doesn’t look like the Joe Rosenthal photo that won the Pulitzer Prize, and then inspired the book and movie, Flags of Our Fathers?

It’s not the same photo. Different photographer. Different group of Marines.

This is the first flag raising on Mt. Suribachi, the highest point of the island that was known then as Iwo Jima. This shows the mean of Easy Company, including Charles Lindberg of Grand Forks, North Dakota, raising a flag they carried on a pipe they found. The photo was taken by Sgt. Lou Lowery of Leatherneck Magazine.

Charles Lindberg, one of the Marines in the photo, died this week. He was 86 years old.

In addition carrying a name made famous by that other guy, the pilot, few people believed him when he said his company raised the flag first on Iwo. He wasn’t in the Rosenthal photo. But Lindberg told the truth.

From his obituary on the Associated Press wire (in The Washington Post):

Three of the men in the first raising never saw their photos. They were among the more than 6,800 U.S. servicemen killed in the five-week battle for the island.

By Mr. Lindberg’s account, his commander ordered the first flag replaced and safeguarded because he worried someone would take it as a souvenir. Mr. Lindberg was back in combat when six men raised the second, larger flag about four hours later.

Rosenthal’s photo of the second flag-raising became one of the most enduring images of the war and the model for the U.S. Marine Corps memorial in Washington.

Rosenthal, who died last year, always denied accusations that he staged the photo, and he never claimed it depicted the first raising of a flag over the island.

Mr. Lindberg was shot through the arm March 1 and evacuated. After his discharge in 1946, Mr. Lindberg went home to Grand Forks, N.D. He moved to Richfield, Minn., in 1951 and became an electrician.

If you’re over 45, if you read James Brady’s Flags of Our Fathers, if you saw the Clint Eastwood movie version, or if you’re a fan of Johnny Cash’s Ballad of Ira Hayes, you know the stories of heroism and sorrow and tragedy that accompany Joe Rosenthal’s photo. As so often happens in history, there is a back story, a bit of a correction — and it has some of the same bittersweet flavors.

Lindberg was 24 years old when his company landed on Iwo Jima. That was 62 years ago. Those who were eyewitnesses are mostly gone. We need to seek out those few remaining, brave survivors, and let them tell what they remember, what they saw, how they felt and how they feel.  Of the twelve men who raised the two flags, Lindberg was the last survivor.  Three of the men from each group died in battle action after raising the flags.

Here’s to the memory of Charles Lindberg, a good American, a good soldier. Thank you, Mr. Lindberg.

Charles Lindberg in 1999, holding a copy of Sgt. Lou Lowery's photo of the first Iwo Jima flag raising Charles Lindberg holding the photo taken by Sgt. Lou Lowery of Leatherneck Magazine, of the first U.S. flag raising on Iwo Jima, by Easy Company. Lindberg is the soldier standing in back, on the right of the photo. Lowery’s photo was taken about four hours before the second flag raising, captured by Joe Rosenthal, which photo won the Pulitzer Prize. This photo of Lindberg, left, is from 1999, by Associated Press photographer Jackie Lorentz.

Lindberg’s citation for the Silver Star is below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

16 Comments | Accuracy, Famous Battles, Flag ceremony, Freedom - Political, Geography - Physical, Heroes, History, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the Day: John Kennedy, June 26, 1963

June 26, 2007

President Kennedy addresses Berlin citizens, 6-26-1962 (photographer unidentified)

From the Smithsonian Magazine site:

June 26, 1963: “Ich bin ein Berliner”

In West Berlin, President John F. Kennedy delivers the famous speech in which he declares, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Meaning literally “I am a citizen of Berlin,” the statement shows U.S. solidarity with democratic West Berlin, surrounded by communist territory.

View a video of President Kennedy’s speech at American Rhetoric, Top 100 Speeches.

Photo of President Kennedy addressing Berlin’s citizens, photographer unidentified; from American Rhetoric site.

5 Comments | Accuracy, Cold War, Communism, Famous quotes, History, History audio sources | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Rachel Carson’s honor defended

June 25, 2007

Bug Girl sleuthed around a bit, and found information from official sources that really demonstrates the critics of Rachel Carson are using Gillette Foamy to make us think “mad dog!”

DDT concentration in the food chain - USFWS

Chart from US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) illustrates biomagnification, by which a minuscule dose of DDT to small plankton gets magnified a few million times by the time the top predators in the food chain get it.

So the evidence continues to pile up that Rachel Carson was simply a fine writer, a good scientist, and correct about DDT’s dangers.

Check out the Fish and Wildlife Service’s site, here; notice especially their structure of the site, to dispel the falsehoods.

FWS quotes Carson on DDT use:

In Audubon magazine she wrote, “We do not ask that all chemicals be abandoned. We ask moderation. We ask the use of other methods less harmful to our environment” (4). Countering claims that she was advocating a back-to-nature philosophy, she said, “We must have insect control. I do not favor turning nature over to insects. I favor the sparing, selective and intelligent use of chemicals. It is the indiscriminate, blanket spraying that I oppose” (5).

Evidence mounts that claims against Rachel Carson are sheer calumny. While the political motivations of this smear campaign are not clear, we don’t need to know for certain who is telling lies about a great American hero, or why. As Americans, as concerned citizens, as teachers and parents — as patriots — we only need to know that the claims against Rachel Carson are false.

And now it is our duty to call on Oklahoma’s Sen. Tom Coburn to stop the campaign against Carson. Coburn is the point man in the smear campaign right now: He has put a committee hold on the well-intentioned, justified bill to name a post office in her hometown after Rachel Carson. It is time for Tom Coburn to stand up and do the right thing for a great American. Sen. Coburn needs to lift his committee hold and allow committee action on this minor honor.

Other sources of note:

Bruce Watson, “Sounding the Alarm,” Smithsonian Magazine, September 2002. (Watson, Bruce. Sounding the alarm. Smithsonian, v. 33, Sept. 2002: 115-117.   AS30.S6)

“The Berry and the Poison,” about methyl bromide and its ban, Smithsonian Magazine, December 1997.

3 Comments | Accuracy, Conservation, DDT, Environmental protection, Ethics, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Natural history, Politics, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

New word invented

June 22, 2007

I’m staking my claim here: I’ve invented a new word. You can see the usage here, at Reclaiming Space.

“BelloBellicoscenti.”

OED? I’m ready for my closeup.

3 Comments | Accuracy, Creativity, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Setting the record straight on Rachel Carson, malaria and DDT

June 19, 2007

The contemptible campaign of hoax and calumny against the work and memory of Rachel Carson continues. You should read more at the sites I cite near the end of this post.

The key false claim of the Carson critics is that, but for the ban on DDT, millions of lives would have been saved over the past 30 years. Chief problem with the claim is that national bans on DDT all preserve DDT use for essential mosquito eradication, especially if there are no other tools to fight the disease. But other problems with the claim include the fact that DDT had stopped being highly effective by the late 1960s; eradication was a pipe dream, and mosquitoes developed resistance to DDT.

That doesn’t stop the critics. So, Dear Reader, when you read criticisms of Rachel Carson and hear the pseudo-science whine that Carson alone has condemned millions to death by malaria, I want you to keep in mind this question: If DDT were such an effective tool against malaria, why didn’t the World Health Organization fight to keep it? Why didn’t the manufacturers fight to keep it? Why would more than 150 nations, tens of thousands of scientists, tens of thousands of health workers, and conservative “I-told-you-so” skeptics who hate environmentalists, all simultaneously fall asleep?

The answer is, Dear Reader, they didn’t all fall asleep. DDT stopped being effective, and malaria fighters realized there were other problems — the parasites that the mosquitoes spread also became resistant to anti-malaria drugs, a bigger problem than DDT resistance. People and organizations who fight malaria did ask that use of DDT be preserved for spraying to fight malaria; but they didn’t defend it against bans on other use because those bans help the malaria fighters.

Cover of Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance (2004), from the National Academies Press

Cover of Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance (2004), from the National Academies Press

Below the fold, I offer two quotes from Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance (2004) Board on Global Health (BGH) (available from the National Academy of Sciences). You can see that DDT is not the golden-egg-laying goose, and that consequently Rachel Carson is not the mindless ogre she is made out to be in recent invectives.

Check out these sites:

Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Accuracy, Africa, Bogus history, DDT, Green Politics, Hoaxes, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the Moment: Barry Commoner and presidential campaigns

June 19, 2007

Barry Commoner turned 90 on May 28. He is profiled in The New York Times Science section on June 19, 2007 (if your local newspaper has a science section half as good, I’d love to hear about it). Commoner is a plant physiologist and great eminence at Washington University in St. Louis for 34 years, now at Queens College. He was a key informant of public opinion during the rise of ecological awareness in the 1960s and 1970s, probably the nation’s best known “ecologist.”

Barry Commoner on cover of Time, 2-2-1970

In 1980 he helped found the Citizens’ Party, and ran for the presidency their ticket.

He explained to the Times:

The peak of the campaign happened in Albuquerque, where a local reporter said to me, “Dr. Commoner, are you a serious candidate or are you just running on the issues?”

Time Magazine cover from February 2, 1970; Time sells replicas of historic covers.

1 Comment | Accuracy, Business Ethics, Citizenship, Economics, Environmental protection, Ethics, Good Quotes, Natural history, Quotes, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

PowerPoint templates for students

June 18, 2007

I really don’t like assignments to “do a PowerPoint presentation” for kids who are not expert at all on their subjects — there is too much room for too much unintentional mischief when people who know little about a topic are to use a tool designed for people who know too much about a topic.

Among other things, kids who have never had to do a five-page report, nor an outline of a report, do not have the experience to stick to five bullets of less than five words per slide. And don’t get me going on “fireworks” animation of letters to explain things like the death of Medgar Evers, or the evils of child labor.

But if you want some ideas, the Paducah, Kentucky, school system offers some templates for student reports, and a few presentations teachers could use as foundations, here at “Connecting Teachers and Students.” There is advice, too. *

Use these as starting points, please. If you can’t improve on them, you’re not trying (no offense, Paducah — I hope).

A good exercise for you would be to spend an hour reading suggestions from Presentation Zen, and then edit a couple of those presentations from Paducah to make them more, um, zen reflective.

Remember, “template” is just a part of “contemplate.”

(I hope I don’t regret having pointed out that Paducah site to you.)

Update, November 24, 2007: Take a look at the video included in this post to see an effective use of a presentation tool like PowerPoint — though this one was done with Apple’s Keynote. Check the links in the post, too.
Update March 8, 2008:  Paducah’s school district archived the PowerPoint stuff.  I have changed the links above to link to the archive sites.  I replaced “www” with “old” in the URL.

7 Comments | Accuracy, Classroom technology, Editing, Pedagogy, Presentations, Student projects, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Accuracy, more valuable than gold

June 13, 2007

When was the last time you saw something like this, “This is the way science should always work,” in a history journal?

If it were your error, would you be big enough to publicize it loud and far, as Dr. Hall has done?

Is there some medal for honesty that we could award Dr. Hall?

1 Comment | Accuracy, Ethics, History, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the Moment: Goethe

June 11, 2007

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, U of Georgia

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  • Note from The Yale Book of Quotations, Fred R. Shapiro, ed. (Yale 2006): “Attributed in William Hutchinson Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951). Widely attributed to Goethe, following Murray, but in fact appears to be at best a paraphrase of a line from Goethe’s Faust: “Now at last let me see some deeds!”

    Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Famous quotes, Good Quotes, Leadership | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

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