I miss Headrush. Here’s why — and if there’s not a graph or other good idea here you can steal, you’re not thinking. Get another couple of cups of coffee.
World’s best graphs
May 14, 2008
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Brain learning, Business, Business Ethics, Leadership, Learning, Presentations, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: Brains, Business, Ethics, Management, Presentations | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Deserved praise for Rachel Carson
May 13, 2008New article in Prospect praises Rachel Carson — the authors post the longer version at Crooked Timber.
It’s spring. It’s not a silent spring here in Dallas, thanks to the efforts of Ms. Carson and others more than 40 years ago.
It’s spring, and the efforts to smear Carson and all people who work for clean air and water and good wildlife habitat ramp up again. Articles accusing Carson of genocide are on the upswing. Iain Murray has a book out on the disreputable Regnery label, so desperate to smear that he names this author, and so morally vacuous he includes a chapter complaining about “endocrine disruptors” without acknowledging that one of the chief endocrine disruptors is DDT and its byproducts.
Take a deep breath. If your air is clean, you’re lucky. Now let’s go to work to make sure others can safely take a deep breath, too.
Tip of the old scrub brush to reader Bernarda.
More about Rachel Carson at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
- World malaria politics, every day
- Dangerous, anti-science, bigoted ignorance
- ‘Twas DDT nearly killed the beast
- Rising at Buffalo News: Carson was right
- DDT linked to testicular cancers in next generation
- World Malaria Day 2008
- DDT no silver bullet; environmentalists, medical care not monsters
- How to tell if someone is wrong about DDT and Rachel Carson
- Quote of the moment: Ted Williams (the conservationist)
- 100 things about DDT: Dissecting #10
Update: Why do we need to post links to the truth about Rachel Carson? Blogs like Tarpon’s Swamp carry on the slanderous campaign of calumny against the truth. Astoundingly crass, don’t you think?
2 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, DDT, Environmental protection, History, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: DDT, Environmental protection, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
“A house divided.” Lincoln, right?
May 12, 2008You’re a good student of history. You know that when someone says, “a house divided,” they’re talking about Lincoln’s famous, troubling speech from June 1858. Right?
Look below the fold.
1 Comment | 1787, Cartoons, DBQ sources, Famous quotes, History, Lesson plans, Quotes, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: 1787, A House Divided, Cartoon, Constitution, History, Lesson plan ideas, Library of Congress | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Turkey opens up to WordPress blogs?
May 12, 2008Last time we seriously checked in with Jim Gibbon it was for the haiku contest on research papers.
Comes this missive from Gibbon now, which suggests that the Adnan Oktar ban on WordPress blogs in Turkey was lifted as of May 3. True? Mr. Gibbon is in Turkey, I gather, which would put him in a position to know.
Was this a predictor of Oktar’s sentencing on May 9?
Hey, Turkey! Welcome back!
1 Comment | Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Free press, Free speech, Weblogs | Tagged: Adnan Oktar, Censorship, Free Blogging, Free press, Turkey | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Armed Forces Day, May 17 – Fly your flag
May 12, 2008Flag etiquette reminder: Armed Forces Day is the third Saturday in May, this year on May 17. This is one of the days Congress suggests we should fly our flags. There may be events near your home.
Resources:
10 Comments | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Heroes, veterans | Tagged: Armed Forces Day, flag, veterans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Censorship in the oddest of places
May 12, 2008I think it was Euripides who said, “Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.” Evidence of the madness sometimes is small compensation for bearing the burden of having to deal with the madness of others.
Iaian Murray’s book is getting accolades from some of the odd sources you’d expect to rave over the book without ever having seen it or giving it a moment’s analysis as to accuracy, relevancy, or morality. I stumbled into a bunch of such sites looking to see why Murray took after me, and what I had said that he quoted, to earn me a place in his index.
One would not expect to run into a censorship buzzsaw at a site that proclaims itself to be free enterprise. But Bloodhoundblog has frustrated all my attempts to correct their errors on DDT, in a post “Cleaned by Capitalism: Our professed love of nature is an artifact of our enormous prosperity.” Perhaps I shouldn’t complain — the offending language on DDT was removed eventually. The extolling of Murray’s book remains, however, in an odd screed against public roads and compact fluorescent lightbulbs (go read the site — can you tell what the guy thinks about CFLs?)
Can the irony get much deeper?
Humorously, there is an ill-informed discussion of fascism vs. socialism as communism in the thread — the discussants blithely unaware that totalitarian censorship is a sin under any fair government scheme.
Was it just that they don’t want to discuss the science of DDT? I’ve corrected a minor error in history, too, in a later comment; will that comment hold up? You might want to check out the comments. Do you think the existence of public lands encourages their abuse? It seemed to me the discussants didn’t understand at all that much of our environmental trouble has occurred on private land, often problems of toxic pollution created by the owners of the land.
Ardent and loud “capitalists” often are the first to sell out. They fall for censorship, they fall for hucksterism — just so long as they still get to wave their flag, insult the academy, and a promise they can make some money doing it. Businesses didn’t stand up to fascism in the early 20th century — nor much of any other time business was promised a license to continue operations.
The issues are not simple. If we insist FedEx not do business in China, do we miss a great opportunity to insinuate a capitalist enterprise as a wedge into a crumbling structure of oppressive politics? If we allow China to host Olympic games, do we strengthen their oppressive structure, or weaken it?
Should we stand idly by while the Chinese government censors the internet (and this blog) to its own people? Should I not kick a little when Bloodhoundblog censors my comments?
1 Comment | Accuracy, Books, Capitalism, Censorship, Environmental protection, Freedom of the Press, History, Point of personal privilege, Socialism | Tagged: Books, Business, Capitalism, Censorship, Socialism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Olympic history FAIL!, or great PhotoShop
May 11, 2008
Do you think the sign maker was jesting? Or do you think the sign maker genuinely didn’t know? (See: 1936 Olympics in Berlin)
While we wait to see whether someone will confess to PhotoShopping this picture, we teachers might consider using this photo as a hook for a lesson on the differences between the rising totalitarian state of Nazi Germany in 1936, and the rising, increasingly economically free state of the People’s Democratic Republic of China today.
One more lesson plan for this year — it’s reusable next fall, with the added bonus then that by then you’ll have the headlines of the actual Olympics to add to the discussion.
Update: The photo is said to have been was taken by Rowan Benum at a California site (see Mr. Benum’s comment). Since it’s all the rage on conservative sites, where the history ignorance is condemned but the conservative bloggers can’t quite bring themselves to endorse the Communist Chinese, I strongly suspect wondered about a PhotoShop origin. The torch was run through San Francisco; there are few palms in San Francisco (Californians: Can you identify the location?).
Update 5-13-2008: The photographer kindly dropped by comments to note the authenticity of the photo. I agree, the Tibetan prayer flags suggest authenticity; would a hoaxer think of such details?
Discussion questions for the classroom:
Students should look at the photo, and read coverage of the torch relay, such as CNN’s story about the San Francisco relay where Mr. Benum took the photo. Students should have access to information about the International Olympic Committee and its organization, especially the tradition of Olympic Truce. The Charter of the Olympics is probably too long for practical classroom use, but Paragraph 2 can be copied for the students, or perhaps the full page of the “Fundamental Principles of Olympism”:
“Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”
Olympic Charter, Fundamental principles, paragraph 2
There is a wealth of information for classroom use at the website of the IOC. If you’re particularly adventurous, or deep into this topic, check out the podcasts of Olympic history from amateur historian Eli Hunt.
Students should also have some information about Tibet, and the Dalai Lama and Tibet’s government in exile, about the history of Tibet and China’s actions since World War II. Students should have some history of the 1936 Olympics, and they should be familiar with the stories of Jesse Owens’ accomplishments there and his return to a segregated U.S. You may want to provide an article about the U.S. protest of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and the Soviet protest of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and other Cold War moments of Olympic tension.
- Since the International Olympics Committee (IOC) is an avowedly non-political international agency, is it fair or rational to protest the siting of an Olympics on political grounds?
- What do the protesters ask the IOC to do? What do the protesters ask others to do?
- Under international law, what are the rights and duties of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC)?
- Did the IOC ask anything of the government of the Peoples Republic of China of a political nature? Would such requests be fair, or rational?
- Other international organizations function in other nations where governments do not have good records on human rights, such as the Red Cross/Red Crescent, Scouting, UNICEF, and others (can you add to this list?). What considerations must such organizations give to local politics where human rights are at issue?
- Compare and contrast the issues surrounding the Beijing Olympics with issues surrounding the Myanmar relief efforts after Cyclone Nargis (2008).
- Look at other protests involving the Olympics, especially in 1980 and 1984. Did those protests achieve what the protesters had hoped? Does the success or failure of past protests augur well for current protests?
- The creator of the protest sign in the photograph appears to have not known about the 1936 Olympics, which were hosted in Berlin, then under the control of the Nazi government of Germany. The Olympics were sited in Berlin prior to the rise of the Nazi government. Does the protester’s ignorance of history affect the message of the sign? Does it reflect well on the cause the protester advocates?
- What other famous or notorious examples of ignorance of history can you find?
- Do you ever get embarrassed for the people captured in Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” segments?
- Georges Santayana (1863-1952) famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Do you find that statement to be true? Does this affect the course of history? (Students may want to explore the history of invasions of Russia by Napoleon and Hitler, or the history of invasions of Afghanistan by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S.)
5 Comments | China, Dissent, Education, Free press, Free speech, Freedom - Political, History, Lesson plans, Politics, Santayana's ghost, World history | Tagged: History, Lesson plans, Olympics, Politics, protest, Santayana's ghost | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Quote of the moment: Ashley Montagu, on creationists
May 11, 2008
“Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.”
Ashley Montagu (full citation needed!)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Aunt Betsy.
4 Comments | Creationism, Evolution, Quotes, Religion, Science | Tagged: Ashley Montagu, Creationism, Quotes, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Schadenfreude alert: Turkish creationist gets three-year sentence
May 10, 2008Tape up your face to keep from smiling too broadly, schadenfreude being a sin or close to it.
You remember Oktar: He’s the guy who publishes all those nasty anti-evolution and anti-science books, steals photos for his high-cost, low-information “atlas” of creationism, and successfully sued to shut down this blog’s availability in Turkey (Well, this blog and two million others on WordPress).
Reuters has a story on the affair:
A spokeswoman for his Science Research Foundation (BAV) confirmed to Reuters that Oktar had been sentenced but said the judge was influenced by political and religious pressure groups.
Oktar had been tried with 17 other defendants in an Istanbul court. The verdict and sentence came after a previous trial that began in 2000 after Oktar, along with 50 members of his foundation, was arrested in 1999.
In that court case, Oktar had been charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime. The charges were dropped but another court picked them up resulting in the latest case.
Oktar planned to appeal the sentence, a BAV spokeswoman said. No further details were immediately available.
Oh, yeah — those political and religious pressure groups. And Oktar’s high dollar bullying of government authorities — what is that?
European, and Turkey, laws against political views may trouble one, justly. In a perfect world, there would be no need for such things, with good and true ideas having a good shot at winning in a fair fight. Oktar specializes in the sort of thuggery that makes a fight for ideas unfair. We might hope this latest action will simply help keep the playing field even, level and fair.
Resources:
- The World (from BBC, PRI and WGBH) audio story on collaboration between Discovery Institute figures and Oktar in Turkey, promoting Islamic creationism
- Oktar gets a ban on Google groups
- National Center for Science Education story
- Adnan Oktar’s entry in Wikipedia
- Die Zeit blog story on Oktar’s WordPress ban
The news is oddly silent about this otherwise.
3 Comments | Academic freedom, Adnan Oktar, Biology, Bogus history, Books, Censorship, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Justice, Law, Science | Tagged: Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Freedom of Speech, Islam, Politics, Religion, Science, Turkey | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Top story for Teacher Appreciation Week: Student donates kidney to teacher
May 10, 2008I got some very nice cards, especially those that were hand made, from the heart. I got a candy bar when I really needed it.
This woman got a kidney from a former student. How could you top that?
In Elwood, Indiana, former student Angie Collins saved Darren Paquin’s life. What did he teach her, besides English?
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education quality, Good Deeds, Health care, Heroes, Teaching | Tagged: Education, Good Deeds, health, Teachers Appreciation Week, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Wrong Stuff, on purpose: Weikart misquotes Darwin
May 10, 2008Richard Weikart is an arm of the Discovery Institute’s disinformation brigade. A couple of years ago he published a book attempting to link Darwin to the Holocaust in a blame-sharing arrangement. This book and some of its arguments appear to be the foundation of the text used to write the script for the mockumentary movie “Expelled!” featuring Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein.
Which is to say, the basis for the movie is dubious. Weikart’s scholarship creating links between Darwin, science and Hitler is quite creative. It is also based on arguments created from Darwin’s writings that mislead the innocent about evolution, science and history, or which get Darwin and evolution exactly wrong.
Michael Ruse published an op-ed in a Florida paper in February — a piece which is no longer available there (anybody got a copy? Nebraska Citizens for Science preserved a copy) — and Weikart responded, restating his creative claims. Alas for the truth, Weikart’s canards are still available at the Discovery Institute website, putting an interesting twist on Twain’s old line: The truth will go to bed at night while a falsehood will travel twice around the world as the truth kicks off its slippers.
Looking for Ruse’s piece, I found Weikart’s response here and here. I composed a quick response pointing out the problems, which I would like to posit here for the record — partly because I doubt Darwiniana gets much traffic, partly because the censor-happy folks at Discovery Institute don’t allow free discussion at their site, and partly so I can control it to make sure it’s not butchered as Weikart butchers Darwin’s text.
At Darwiniana I said:
Weikart’s strip quoting of Darwin is most disappointing. [Weikart wrote:]
Darwin claimed in chapter two of The Descent of Man that there were great differences in moral disposition and intellect between the “highest races” and the “lowest savages.” Later in Descent he declared, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Racial inegalitarianism was built into Darwin’s analysis from the start.
Darwin argued the differences in intellect and manners between the “highest” of men and the “lowest” of men did NOT change the fact that we are are all related — legally, Darwin’s argument would evidence a claim absolutely the opposite of what Weikart claims. Here are Darwin’s words from Chapter II of Descent of Man, as Darwin wrote them, without Weikart’s creative editing:
Nor is the difference slight in moral disposition between a barbarian, such as the man described by the old navigator Byron, who dashed his child on the rocks for dropping a basket of sea-urchins, and a Howard or Clarkson; and in intellect, between a savage who uses hardly any abstract terms, and a Newton or Shakespeare. Differences of this kind between the highest men of the highest races and the lowest savages, are connected by the finest gradations. Therefore it is possible that they might pass and be developed into each other. [emphasis added]
That’s not inegalitarianism at all — Darwin’s saying they are the same species, related closer than the poets allow. If we stick to the evidence, and [do] not wander off into poetic philosophy, we must acknowledge that Darwin’s own egalitarian spirit shows here in the science, too. It would be an odd kettle of fish indeed that a crabby guy like Hitler, who shared the antiscience bias of Weikart’s organization, would suddenly accept the science of a hated Englishman that ran contrary to his other philosophies. Who makes the error here, Hitler or Weikart? If they both think Darwin endorsed racism, they both do — but there is not an iota of evidence that Hitler based his patent racism on science, let alone the science of an Englishman.
As to the second quote, Weikart leaves the context out, and the context is everything. Darwin is not arguing that “savages” (the 19th century word for “aboriginals”) were less human, nor that they are a different species. He was arguing that in some future time there would appear creationists like Dr. Weikart’s colleagues at the Discovery Institute who will deny evolution because, once Europeans and others with guns conduct an unholy genocide (which Darwin writes against in the next chapter), and once humans wipe out chimpanzees, orangs and gorillas, the other great apes, the creationists can [then] dishonestly look around, blink their eyes and say, “Where are the links? There cannot be evolution between (Animal X) and humans!”
Darwin wrote:
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. ‘Anthropological Review,’ April 1867, p. 236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, [emphasis added] and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
In the end, Darwin wrote against genocide, against racism, and in favor of the higher thinking abilities of all dark-skinned people. He wrote in favor of Christian morality. Darwin himself remained a faithful, tithing Christian to the end of his life.
Such a man, and such amazing science, deserve accurate history, not the fantastic, cowardly and scurrilous inventions Dr. Weikart has given them. We should rise to be “man in a more civilized state” as Darwin had hoped.
Update, July 24, 2008, nota bene: To anyone venturing here from the Blogcatalog discussion on intelligent design: Get over to the site of Donald Johanson’s Institute for Human Origins, and especially look at the presentation “On Becoming Human.” Also check out the Evolution Gateway site at Berkeley, especially this page which explains what evolution is, and this page which offers some introduction for what the evidence for evolution really is. One quick answer to a question someone asked there: Between H. erectus and modern humans, H. sapiens, in the time sequence we have fossils of H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis. It’s pretty clear that Neandertal is not ancestral to modern humans, but instead lived alongside modern humans for 50,000 years or so from the Middle East through Southern Europe. To the question of actual transitional fossils, you’d need to hit the paleontology journals — there are a lot. You may also benefit from taking a look at the articles at this special Nature site.
10 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Famous quotes, Genocide, History, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Junk science, Lessons of history, Natural history, Quotes, Racism, Rampant stupidity, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, World War II | Tagged: Ben Stein, Darwin, Education, Expelled!, Politics, Religion, Richard Weikart, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The 1,200 teacher challenge
May 9, 2008We have great kids, we have a very good department, and Dallas pays better than most of the suburban districts in the area. Vacancies existed through most of the school year. Good candidates went other places. It’s frustrating.
I’ll wager the hiring process would go faster, and work better, if teacher pay in Dallas were $5,000 higher. I’d wager, as an administrator, that the $5,000/year raise for teachers would provide greater savings in hiring, tutoring, testing, and all other areas of academic performance.
But, then, I think supply/demand economics often works. What do I know?
2 Comments | Economics, Education, Politics, Public education, Teaching | Tagged: Economics, Education, Teacher Hiring, Teacher shortages | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Two million minute challenge
May 9, 2008Just over two weeks to graduation, son James is concerned about global competitiveness. He’s off to study physics at Lawrence University in the fall; he is insistent I note the news in the paper this week. I still have an active stake in public schools, after all — good call, James. Here’s his concern, below.
Each child has two million minutes of life over the four years of high school. Whether the U.S. can remain competitive in the global economy depends more than ever on how each child allocates those two million minutes.
A new film raises concerns that U.S. children are losing out against students from India and China.
Dallas Morning News business reporter Jim Landers wrote about the movie, “Two Million Minutes,” in an article May 6. It’s an indication of something that this is front page in the business section — an indication of genuine concern, one may hope.
Science and mathematics education gets the major attention in the film. One wishes this film could compete with the anti-science film “Expelled!” which still lingers malodrously in a few theatres across the nation.
Landers wrote:
2 Million Minutes argues that “the battle for America’s economic future isn’t being fought by our government. It’s being fought by our kids.”
And in a series of international comparisons, the U.S. kids are not doing so well. The one area where they score better than the rest is self-confidence.
Once they leave the eighth grade, students have a little more than 2 million minutes to get ready for work or college and the transition to being an adult. This documentary, made by high-tech entrepreneur Robert Compton, follows two high school seniors in Carmel, Ind., two in Bangalore, India, and two in Shanghai, China, to see how they use their time.
All six are bright, accomplished, college-bound individuals.
Our students spend a lot of time watching TV, working part-time jobs, playing sports and video games, but not so much on homework. The Chinese kids spend an extra month in school each year, more hours at school each day and more hours doing homework. By the time they graduate, Chinese students have spent more than twice as much time studying as their U.S. counterparts.
While one may hope kids will pay attention, one may be unhappy to recall the topic, and many of the same or similar numbers, were published nationally in the 1980s by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) at the U.S. Department of Education. I remember it well, since I was publisher for some of the work.
The website for the movie offers more details, including a calendar of screenings. DVDs are available, but at very high prices — $25 for home use, $100 for school or non-profit use. I’d love to show it to students; I can get a couple of much-needed PBS videos for that same price. I hope producers will work to arrange distribution competitive with opposition movies like Stein’s. I’ll wager “Expelled!” will hit the DVD market at about $10.00, with thousands of DVDs available for free to churches and anti-science organizations.
Landers chalks up some of the stakes, and we should all pay attention:
Nearly 60 percent of the patents filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the field of information technology now originate in Asia.
The United States ranks 17th among nations in high-school graduation rate and 14th in college graduation rate.
In China, virtually all high school students study calculus; in the United States, 13 percent study calculus.
For every American elementary and secondary school student studying Chinese, there are 10,000 students in China studying English.
The average American youth now spends 66 percent more time watching television than in school.
SOURCE: “Is America Falling off the Flat Earth?” by Norman R. Augustine, chairman, National Academy of Sciences “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” committee
3 Comments | Business, Capitalism, Economics, Education, Education quality, Education success, foreign affairs, Geography - Economic, Globalization, Higher education, History, Politics, Public education, Science, Teaching, Travel, Video and film, Voodoo science | Tagged: Business, Capitalism, China, Economics, Education, Entertainment, Globalization, India | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Archaeology marches on! Carnivals to catch up
May 7, 2008Testing, grading, trying to correct errors, and meanwhile progress continues.
Four Stone Hearth’s 40th edition is out today at the redoubtable Remote Central — but I missed #39 at Hominin Dental Anthro.
Real science is almost so much more interesting than faux science. #39 features the discussions about the claims that the Hobbits had dental fillings. While such a claim is damaging either to the claims of the age of Homo floresiensis or to the claims about the age of the specimens and, perhaps, human evolution, no creationist has yet showed his head in the discussion. When real science needs doing, creationists prefer to go to the movies. There is even a serious discussion of culture, and what it means to leadership of certain human tribes, with nary a creationist in sight.
While you’re there, take a careful look at the header and general design of Hominin Dental Anthro. Very pretty layout, don’t you think?
#40 at Remote Central is every bit as good. World history and European history teachers will want to pay attention to the posts on extinctions on the islands of the Mediterranean. Any one of the posts probably has more science in it in ten minutes’ reading than all of Ben Stein’s mockumentary movie, “Expelled!” That’s true especially when science is used to skewer the claims of the movie, or when discussion turns to the real problems the mockumentary ignores.
Enjoy the cotton candy.
1 Comment | Academic freedom, Accuracy, Ancient history, Anthropology, Archaeology, Education, Evolution, History, Native Americans, Natural history, Paleontology, Prehistory, Religion, Research, Science, Travel, World history | Tagged: Anthropology, History, human evolution, Science, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
FBI raids office of Sternberg defender; files and computers “Expelled!”
May 6, 2008One of the affairs Ben Stein’s mockumentary covers is the Sternberg affair, in which a creationist bent the rules of the biology society whose journal he was editing to sneak into publication an article purporting to promote intelligent design. Stein claims the guy suffered persecution, though under cross examination in the Dover trial, no ID advocate could remember just what that persecution might be (creationists go quiet under oath . . . hmmm).
The mackarel by moonlight in that story (both shining and stinking at the same time) was a letter from the Office of Special Counsel which, while claiming to have found unspecified evidence of wrongdoing, said that OSC was the wrong agency to prosecute wrong-doers (OSC had an obligation to turn over any evidence of wrongdoing to the right agency, but Stein doesn’t mention that; there never was any evidence turned over to anyone).
Um, don’t look now, but the FBI raided the office of the OSC today, looking for evidence of wrongdoing. FBI and inspector general investigators appear to be looking into charges that the head of the office, Scott Bloch, retaliated against certain employees who, he suspected, had leaked information about political moves he had made in the legally non-political agency.
- Jim Mitchell, communications director for the Office of the Special Counsel, in Washington on Tuesday. (New York Times caption). AP Photo by J. Scott Applewhite
Will Ben Stein do an update?
Resources:
1 Comment | Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Research, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Ben Stein, Corruption, Creationism, Politics, Science, Sternberg, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 