Sweep of Civilizations: BBC interactive map

June 28, 2007

The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) puts genius into their website — very often, it seems to me.

Go see this interactive map. It shows where civilizations or religions held sway, at a point in history you decide — and then projects forward to show how the group’s influence waxed and waned. Or plot two different groups, side-by-side.

Snapshot of Civilisations is a multi-dimensional picture of human history, where you’re in charge of the timeline.

It uses web technology to reveal the sweep of historical forces and the rise and fall of great empires and ideas over 5000 years in a way that no book could ever do.

And it does it your way. You can customise Civilisations to show you the things that interest you. The best way to understand Civilisations is to have a go.

Great bauble for world geography and world history courses — what sort of a warm-up exercise could you make with this, projecting it from your computer? What sort of homework could be made from this, for the kids to access on their own?

Gee, while you’re there, teachers: Take a look at the interactive quizzes on world religions — this could be a unit all to itself.  Hook up your computer, take the quizzes as a class, on that rainy day when you were supposed to go out to look at the school’s garden and you need a ten-minute, cultural filler that sticks to the state standards.  And look at this multifaith calendar.  You can use it for your daily “this day in history” feature; it’s useful for students doing projects on various religions.  Use some imagination.

Leave a Comment » | Classroom technology, Communism, Education, Freedom - Political, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, History video sources, Immigration, Maps, Religion, Technology, Technology in the classroom, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Voting for cancer, against prevention

May 31, 2007

Yeah, it was a bit tacky of Merck to create a campaign to get government officials to require inoculations against human papilloma viruses that cause cancer — but, people!, we’re talking about preventing cancer here.

The Texas legislature voted for cancer, overturning Gov. Rick Perry’s ill-considered good idea to require vaccinations for school kids in Texas. In a state with top-notch anti-cancer research at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and UT’s Southwest Medical Center in Dallas, it was an odd, odd thing to witness.

The debates are skewed by a general distrust and dislike of big pharmaceutical companies, and by the religious right’s view that it’s better that a young mother die of cancer than she should get even the faintest idea that might in only the most perverse mind promote pre-marital sex. Still, we shouldn’t fall victim to voodoo science claims against vaccines.

Are my views, tempered by years of work promoting public health and fighting disease, clear enough for you?

Owlhaven wins popularity contests among mothers who read blogs, and it often is tender and touching — hey, I read it from time to time. But recently Mary, Owlhaven’s author, fell victim to a propaganda campaign from Judicial Watch, a far-right-wing bunch that campaigns against the U.S. justice system and generally makes a conservative-gratuitous-poke-in-the-butt out of itself. Judicial Watch claims to have some secrets from having filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with FDA to get Merck’s reports to FDA of adverse events known about Gardasil, Merck’s proprietary anti-cancer vaccine.

I responded, of course — but my response didn’t show on Owlhaven’s comments. Blackballed? Spam filtered due to the number or length of links? I can’t tell. Mary said she emptied the spam filter without checking. So, I repost my response, below the fold, for your benefit. Read the rest of this entry »

14 Comments | Family, Politics, Public education, Public health, Religion, Research, Science, Voodoo science, Women's rights | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hubble didn’t “kill God”

November 12, 2006

Stu Hasic argues that a photo from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) “killed God,” or at least the notion that God played a role in creation.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image Reveals Galaxies Galore

Where do bloggers get such fantastic, erroneous ideas? My educated guess is that most preachers looking at this photograph of hundreds of galaxies (no, not individual stars), deep in space and therefore deep back in time, would be awestruck — and were they to preach about it, they’d call this evidence of God’s hand in creation, making a leap in logic and faith about equal to that of Hasic, but in the opposite direction. Hasic’s post nicely encapsulates some of the knowledge we get from the photo, but then he leaps to an unwarranted conclusion.

Hasic argues that since the photo is a brilliant refutation of some of the less scientific claims of creationism, it disproves God.

If Man is the purpose of creation, why did it take so long to create Man? And what’s with all the over-the-top elaborate sky decorations? Surely some painted white dots on a big canvas hung around the Earth would have sufficed?

Thanks should go to Hubble for opening our eyes. If only some men would open theirs. Being a Christian or being a Muslim means being different. Being a Human means being the same.

I can’t speak for all Christians, of course, but I’d wager most Christians would agree with Hasic’s last sentence there: Being a human means being the same as other humans. That’s rather the point of much of scripture (see Ecclesiastes, for many examples). I would also note that most Christians like the Hubble photos as much as anyone else. Photos of “star incubators” (see end of the post for an example) are among the more popular images in religious publications in the last decade. Contrary to Hasic’s assertion, the photo offers no challenge at all to any belief of most Christians. Read the rest of this entry »

13 Comments | Accuracy, Astronomy, Current History, Physics, Religion, Research, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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