May 6, 2008
Living through the Watergate scandals and the Constitutional crises they produced — and spending part of that time in Washington, D.C., working for the Senate — I got a wonderful view of how constitutional government works, why it is important that good people step up to make it work, and a glimpse of what happens when good people lay back and let the hooligans run amock.
Over the last three months it occurs to me that we may be living in a similar time, when great but latent threats to our Constitution and the rule of law may be halted or rolled back by one John Dean-like character who will stand up before a group of elected officials, swear to tell the truth, and then, in fact, tell the whole truth.
Teachers, are you taking advantages of these lessons in civics that come into our newspapers every day?
We live in interesting times, exciting times — we live in educational times.
You should be clipping news stories on these events, and you should be using them in your classrooms today, and saving them for the fall elections, for the January inauguration, for the new Congress . . . and for your future classes.
What other opportunities for great civics lessons come to our doorsteps every day?
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Accuracy, Checks and Balances, Government, Heroes, Journalism, Justice, Law, Leadership, Lessons of history, Scandals, U.S. Constitution, U.S. House of Representatives, Watergate scandal | Tagged: Checks and Balances, civics, Constitution, Current Events, Government, Newspapers, Politics, Teaching, U.S. Congress | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
May 6, 2008
Tom Gilson is a muck-a-muck with Campus Crusade for Christ, and though claiming he is Christian he has no compunction calling Charles Darwin an accessory to murder and otherwise promoting the canard that evolution caused Hitler to go nuts and murder millions.
Making the link to Hitler in an era when Godwin’s Law has a well-visited entry on Wikipedia imposes on one a duty to check the facts. Doesn’t faze Gilson: Damn the facts, full calumny ahead.
Which is worthy of comment at the moment only because he’s banned my comments. I was trying to figure out where he was coming from, and I followed his links to a column he wrote on Chuck Colson’s “Breakpoint” site, in which he discusses his struggles in debating scientists and others who understand evolution.
As one who does a lot of web-based debating against naturalistic (atheistic) evolution, I know I wouldn’t stand a chance if I weren’t studying what the best atheists and evolutionists have written, or without reading the most thoughtful Christian or ID-based responses.
The second protection against such an error is to know what we don’t know, and be willing to admit it. Evolution and ID involve specialized studies in paleontology, radiometric dating, geology, biochemistry, genetics, and more. Does ID challenge some of the prevailing wisdom in these fields? Yes. Can we read about these challenges on the web, or find a good, trustworthy book about them? Certainly! Will that make us qualified to “pronounce” on them? Well, no.
But that’s okay. We don’t all have to be experts. It will take many years (at least) for those who are to work out their differences. We can still know what we do know. We know that God created the heavens and the earth and all that lives in them. The details and the debates go far deeper than that. We should dive into these discussions only as deep as we’re prepared to swim—while at the same time always equipping ourselves to go to greater depths.
Excuse me, but I’d just come from another site that had the works of Hitler, discussing his own struggle — “mein kampf” in German. I noticed a few parallels, and I called attention to them, sorta hoping Gilson would blush and back away from the claims. Gilson’s stuff is mild, really. He’s got a tin ear for science and a very narrow view of history, it appears to me. Were he not so earnest in impugning others, I’d have just laughed it off completely. That’s what I expected him to do.
But no. He got huffy and banned me. Censorship, refusing to discuss with critics, are just tools Gilson has to use in his struggle against evolution. Only Tom Gilson can make wholly unsubstantiated claims in error against great men — no one else is allowed to question the Man Behind the Curtain.
If irony killed, there’d be no creationist left on Earth. If irony were science, creationism would win several Nobels a year. If irony were worth a pitcher of warm [spit], creationism would have a permanent hold on the vice presidency.
But irony is not a response. Ain’t it odd to hear these guys go on about their struggles, all the while they impugn the reputation of a good man like Charles Darwin, and all the time they have not got an iota of science to back up their position?
Gilson argues evolution played a role in the Holocaust. He’s not sure how, and he doesn’t know anything about what evolution theory is nor the history of the Holocaust, but he’s sure that if he just reads the Bible earnestly enough . . .
If this completely unsupportable claim is the best we can expect from creationists, isn’t it frightening that anyone gives them credence?
Gilson will see the links. Tom, if you come here, you’ll find someone who is willing to discuss with you your errors and why you should repent. Bet you won’t. Bet you can’t.
Update: P. Z. Myers found this guy, Jeff Dorchen. Gilson, he’s got Stein pegged, I think. What say you?
All Ben Stein would have had to say to support the Nazis back then is what he’s saying right now.
Shut up, Godwin.
Just because George W. Bush won’t be in office next year doesn’t mean we’ve dodged the bullet of a white Christian supremacist dictatorship. We are not out of the woods yet, my darlings. That a man, let alone a Jew, could, without shame, walk on the graves of Holocaust victims and claim the theory of evolution was at fault, let alone a man whose nationalism, social darwinism (which is not Darwinism, by the way), anti-intellectualism, and disregard for the truth are beyond doubt – it’s like some ghastly executioner’s joke. If the message of Expelled weren’t being taken seriously by a religio-political movement that has already caused two presidential elections to end in disaster, it would be merely obnoxious. Instead, it’s chilling.
Can he sink any lower? Never underestimate the depths of degradation a Ben Stein might sound. My money’s on Ben Stein to be the first human being to reach the Earth’s core.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
16 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, History, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, Expelled!, Religion, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 5, 2008
This is teacher appreciation week, Tuesday is National Teacher Day. I sometimes wonder if education administrators mis-hear the announcement, and think it is teacher depreciation week.
In Land-o-Lakes, Florida, in Pasco County, a substitute teacher was fired for doing a magic trick. The district, apparently lacking in critical reasoning skills and reality-based life, accused the guy of “wizardry.”
Once the firing became public and the district started to look really, really stupid, the district came up with other reasons for the firing which they announced to reporters, but not to the teacher. Janie Porter at Tampa Bay’s Channel 10 News has the story.
Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.
But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.
“I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue, you can’t take any more assignments you need to come in right away,'” he said.
When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell and went much farther than he’d hoped.
“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’ ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.
Wizardry? Shouldn’t the guy be made teacher of the year for a demonstration of wizardry?
Wizardry may be unappreciated in the teacher ranks, but the rank of the administrators sure do a good job with lizardry.
Tip of the old scrub brush to P. Z. Myers, on the lookout for Florida zaniness as always.
Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!
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6 Comments | Education, Rampant stupidity, Teaching, War on Education | Tagged: Education, Rampant stupidity, Teacher Appreciation Week, Teachers, Teaching, Working Conditions | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 5, 2008
We learned today that Mildred Loving died Friday in Milford, Virginia. She was 68.
2007 was the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court Decision in which she played a key role, Loving vs. Virginia. In that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws against interracial marriage are unconstitutional.
The romance and marriage of Mildred and Richard Loving demonstrate the real human reasons behind advances in civil rights laws. They left Virginia to avoid facing prosecution for having gotten married; but when they wanted to be closer to family, they wrote to then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He referred them to the American Civil Liberties Union, who financed the case to get the law changed.
Richard and Mildred Loving, screen capture photo from HBO documentary, “The Loving Story.”
See the post from last year on the anniversary of the decision. The Associated Press wrote today:
Peggy Fortune [daughter] said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.
“I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble — and believed in love,” Fortune told The Associated Press.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
“There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause,” the court ruled in a unanimous decision.
Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero — just a bride.
“It wasn’t my doing,” Loving said. “It was God’s work.”
Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and 17-year-old Richard began courting, according to Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the 2004 book, “Virginia Hasn’t Always Been for Lovers.”
Richard died in 1975.
History loses another hero.
Update: Just as one more showing of how things have changed, this is the headline of the story of Mrs. Loving’s death in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, Free Lance-Star, the local newspaper in Mrs. Loving’s home county, Caroline County: “CAROLINE HEROINE DIES”
I’ll wager the Virginia headlines were quite not so glowing in 1967.
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4 Comments | Bill of Rights, Biography, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Current History, Desegregation, Family, Famous trials, Freedom - Political, Good Deeds, History, Human Rights, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Politics, Racism | Tagged: Biography, Civil Rights, Famous trials, History, Human Rights, interracial marriage, Mildred Loving, Miscegination, Racism, Supreme Court | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 4, 2008
Historians, help me out here. I’ve recently become aware that many creationists have swallowed as accurate Richard Weikart’s book making Darwin complicit in the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.
I have always dismissed Weikart. His claims fly in the face of history recorded by too many reputable and trustworthy hands. Others aren’t concerned with what history really shows, or are simply ignorant of history (candidates for Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” segment). I am working to assemble what I hope will be a short piece showing the error of Weikart’s claims.
It seems to me there are many holes in the history case Weikart tries to make. And the history case needs to be nailed down, accurately.
Scientists already have responded. The American Academy for the Advancement of Science complains that the scientific inaccuracies in the film muddy the waters between science and religion unfairly and unnecessarily (see video here). The Jewish Anti-Defamation League has complained about the unholy Holocaust claims. Movie reviewers have not been kind to the film, with reviews like the New York Times:
One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.
Still there are creationists, and other people of faith out there, who grant credence to Weikart’s claims. So we need a clear rebuttal to Weikart’s claims, from the history viewpoint.
The National Center for Science Education has a brief that touches on these arguments; what other sources do you recommend on these specific claims listed below?
Weikart makes six claims (I’ve borrowed here from an article he wrote for American Spectator):
1. Darwin argued that humans were not qualitatively different from animals. The leading Darwinist in Germany, Ernst Haeckel, attacked the “anthropocentric” view that humans are unique and special.
That seems directly contrary to the view of Darwin presented in the better biographies. I don’t recall Darwin ever arguing this point at all. Is Weikart imagining this?
2. Darwin denied that humans had an immaterial soul. He and other Darwinists believed that all aspects of the human psyche, including reason, morality, aesthetics, and even religion, originated through completely natural processes.
Darwin never denied the existence of human souls. While Darwin made rather brilliant arguments for how morality could arise through evolution, going so far as to say that morality is necessary for the survival of a social species such as humans, at no point in his arguing for the natural processes does he deny or disavow the supernatural. Descent of Man will offer Darwin’s work on the rise of morals and art — what other sources would you recommend?
3. Darwin and other Darwinists recognized that if morality was the product of mindless evolution, then there is no objective, fixed morality and thus no objective human rights. Darwin stated in his Autobiography that one “can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.”
Notes from Evil Bender, Creationist quotemining of Darwin: moral relativism edition, has already called out the gross error in Weikart’s claim here — this is quite contrary to what Darwin actually argued and said. But again, there should be a few other sources to rebut Weikart’s claim. Which do you recommend?
4. Since evolution requires variation, Darwin and other early Darwinists believed in human inequality. Haeckel emphasized inequality to such as extent that he even classified human races as twelve distinct species and claimed that the lowest humans were closer to primates than to the highest humans.
Actually, Darwin was a potent advocate of legal equality, for example in his advocacy and support for ending slavery. Weikart’s claim here completely steps away from reality. I admit to not being overly familiar with Haeckel’s work, partly because Haeckel doesn’t represent Darwin, partly because I have just never found the guy’s work particularly interesting or useful. What sources and arguments do you recommend here?
5. Darwin and most Darwinists believe that humans are locked in an ineluctable struggle for existence. Darwin claimed in The Descent of Man that because of this struggle, “[a]t 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.”
That’s a complete distortion of what Darwin wrote, of course — the NCSE site has a short rebuttal. Darwin was writing of the clash between colonists and natives, largely between Europeans and aboriginals, or between Europeans with guns and aboriginals without them. Key case in point: The Tasmanian “Wars,” which led to the almost complete extinction of native Tasmanians, a sad circumstance Darwin saw on his voyage. Got other sources you recommend?
6. Darwinism overturned the Judeo-Christian view of death as an enemy, construing it instead as a beneficial engine of progress. Darwin remarked in The Origin of Species, “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.”
This claim is so full of hooey I’m not sure where to start. What do you think? Can you imagine how quickly Darwin would have gotten his shotgun out for some fool who suggests, like Weikart does here, that Darwin was not grieved by the death of Annie? Are you outraged at the butchering of the last paragraph from Origin of Species?
There are a lot of Christians who should know better who have been misled by this claptrap. Will you help me make a brief against Weikart’s claims?
Comments are open. Please chime in.
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13 Comments | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Evolution, Genocide, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Rampant stupidity, Santayana's ghost, Science, World War II | Tagged: Creationism, Expelled!, History, History Revisionism, Holocaust | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 3, 2008
Utah rejected education vouchers last November, so the release from the Census bureau at the first of April probably got overlooked as not exactly important — I saw no major story on it in any medium.
Maybe it was the April 1 release date.
Whatever the reason for the lack of recognition, the figures are out from the Census Bureau, and Utah’s at the bottom end of spending per student lists, in the U.S. I wrote earlier that Utah gets a whale of a bargain, since teachers work miracles with the money they have. But miracles can only go so far. Utah’s educational performance has been sliding for 20 years. Investment will be required to stop the slide.
Utah’s per pupil spending is closer to a third that of New York’s.
Of course, spending levels do not guarantee results. New York and New Jersey lead the pack, but the District of Columbia comes in third place. Very few people I know would swap an education in Idaho, Utah or Arizona, the bottom three in per pupil spending, for an education in D.C.
Public Schools Spent $9,138 Per Student in 2006
School districts in the United States spent an average of $9,138 per student in fiscal year 2006, an increase of $437 from 2005, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today.
Public Education Finances: 2006 offers a comprehensive look at the revenues and expenditures of public school districts at the national and state levels. The report includes detailed tables that allow for the calculation of per pupil expenditures. Highlights from these tables include spending on instruction, support services, construction, salaries and benefits of the more than 15,000 school districts. Public school districts include elementary and secondary school systems.
All the census statistics are on-line, for free. Policy makers can mine these data for insights — will they? You may download the data in spreadsheet or comma-delimited data form.
The rest of the press release is pure policy talking points:
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21 Comments | Classroom size, Economics, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, Government, Politics, Public education, Teacher Pay, Teaching, War on Education | Tagged: Education, Education spending, Government, Politics, School Finance | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 3, 2008
One of the ultimate defenses of creationism, once you’ve demonstrated that there is no science and no good theology in it, is the creationist claim “it doesn’t hurt anyone.”
Well, yes, it does. Over the years I’ve noticed that creationism appears to suck the intelligence right out of otherwise smart or educated people. I also note that it tends to make otherwise good and honest people defend academic debauchery and dishonesty.
It’s as if claiming to be creationist hogs all the available RAM in their brains and forces a near-total synapse shutdown.
Cases in point: Creationists are scrambling to the defense of the mockumentary movie “Expelled!” in which Ben Stein trots out almost every creationist canard known to Hollywood in defending some of the greater misdeeds of the intelligent design hoaxers. Otherwise sane, good people, claiming to be Christian, make atrocious defenses of the movie.
I cannot make this up: Go see Mere Orthodoxy and Thinking Christian. Bad enough they defend the movie — but to defend it because, they claim, Darwin and Hitler were brothers in thought? Because evolution urges immoral behavior? I stepped in something over at Thinking Christian, and when I called it to the attention of Tom Gilson in the comments, he deleted the comment. (I’ve reposted, but I wager he’ll delete that one, too, while letting other comments of mine stand; he’s got no answer to any of my complaints.)
The stupid goes past 11, proudly, defiantly. The Constitution specifically protects the right of people to believe any fool claptrap they choose. These defenses of a silly movie come awfully close to abuse of the privilege.
Other useful things:
Update: Holy mother of ostriches! Tom Gilson at “Thinking Christian” has a nifty device that bans people from viewing his blog. Paranoia sticks its head into a whole new depth of sand! Here’s a truism: Creationists who like to claim Darwin was the cause of Stalin and Hitler, which is by itself an extremely insulting and repugnant claim, almost never fail to resort to Stalinist and Hitlerian tactics when their claims are questioned. Call it Darrell’s Law of Evolution History Revisionism.
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11 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Free press, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Movies, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Ben Stein, Creationism, Entertainment, History Revisionism, Moral corruption, Movies, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 2, 2008
Economics, history and geography, and “vocational” teachers take note: David Brooks’ column, “The Cognitive Age,” in the New York Times today should be a warmup in your classes next week. See why in this excerpt:
The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers. Technological change affects China just as it does the America. William Overholt of the RAND Corporation has noted that between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese shed 25 million manufacturing jobs, 10 times more than the U.S.
The central process driving this is not globalization. It’s the skills revolution. We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. This is happening in localized and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up every free trade deal ever inked.
The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of information’s journey is the last few inches — the space between a person’s eyes or ears and the various regions of the brain. Does the individual have the capacity to understand the information? Does he or she have the training to exploit it? Are there cultural assumptions that distort the way it is perceived?
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Leave a Comment » | Business, Education, Education success, Financial literacy, Globalization, Higher education, History, Personal finance, Public education, Technology | Tagged: Business, Education, Globalization, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 2, 2008
Copy a couple of these articles and give them to your school nurse to pass out to people who say they don’t want to inoculate their kids.
In 1991, we could have inoculated every unvaccinated child under the age of 10, in Dallas County, for much less than $20,000. Then the epidemic hit. One of the early hospitalizations for the company I worked with was $100,000. One kid went in, and after $1 million of care, spent the rest of his life in a local hospital (another decade).
The economic arguments for measles vaccination should be clear.
Update: Bug Girl is right (see her comment below): Go check out Orac’s post on the issue, “Antivaccinationsim versus measles in the U.S.: Are the chickens coming home to roost.” I was posting in a hurry; Orac is posting after visiting the issue several times. Contrast Orac’s views as a physician with those of people who tend to get herded into panics without the facts, only through the fault of not having the facts about the dangers of the diseases they let off the hook (make no mistake: most of these people are well-meaning).
My more complete measles story, below the fold.
Read the rest of this entry »
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2 Comments | History, Public education, Public health, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Education, health, Measles, Public health, Schools, Science, Vaccines | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 2, 2008
From today’s New York Times:
Published: May 2, 2008
President Bush’s $1 billion a year initiative to teach reading to low-income children has not helped improve their reading comprehension, according to a Department of Education report released on Thursday.
Read the study here:
Created under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, the Reading First program provides assistance to states and districts in using research-based reading programs and instructional materials for students in kindergarten through third grade and in introducing related professional development and assessments. The program’s purpose is to ensure that increased proportions of students read at or above grade level, have mastery of the essential components of early reading, and that all students can read at or above grade level by the end of grade 3. The law requires that an independent, rigorous evaluation of the program be conducted to determine if the program influences teaching practices, mastery of early reading components, and student reading comprehension. This interim report presents the impacts of Reading First on classroom reading instruction and student reading comprehension during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years.
The evaluation found that Reading First did have positive, statistically significant impacts on the total class time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program. The study also found that, on average across the 18 study sites, Reading First did not have statistically significant impacts on student reading comprehension test scores in grades 1-3. A final report on the impacts from 2004-2007 (three school years with Reading First funding) and on the relationships between changes in instructional practice and student reading comprehension is expected in late 2008.
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1 Comment | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Learning, No Child Left Behind Act, Politics, Public education, reading, Research, Teaching | Tagged: Bush failures, Education, Education reform, literacy, NCLB, Research | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 2, 2008
Rachel Carson’s careful citations in her book Silent Spring have been reinforced by a recent study that shows a more direct link between DDT and human cancers, contrary to claims by lobbyists, junk science purveyors and practitioners of voodoo science.
Another study suggests DDT causes damage to the reproductive organs of children of people exposed to the pesticide. The connection is again to the daughter product, DDE.
Danger appears to result from exposure in utero or from breast feeding. The Reuters India story said:
Researchers led by Katherine McGlynn of the U.S. government’s National Cancer Institute examined blood samples provided by 739 men in the U.S. military with testicular cancer and 915 others who did not have it.
The link between DDE and cancer was particularly strong with a type of testicular cancer known as seminoma, which involves the sperm-producing germ cells of the testicles.
If diagnosed, testicular cancers are among the most treatable. It generally strikes men in their 20s and 30s. About 8,000 new cases per year show up in the U.S. In an average year testicular cancer kills 380 Americans. The NCI study suggests about 15 percent of cases in the U.S. can be attributed to DDT exposure.
It is possible some of the men who later developed cancer of the testicles were exposed to DDE at very young ages — in the womb or through breastfeeding, the researchers said.
“In testicular cancer, there’s a fair amount of evidence that something is happening very early in life to increase risk,” McGlynn said in a telephone interview.
DDE remains ubiquitous in the environment even decades after DDT was being banned in the United States — and is present in about 90 percent of Americans, McGlynn said.
“The trouble with these chemicals is they hang around a long time. It’s in the food chain now,” McGlynn added. People who eat fish from contaminated areas can absorb it, for instance.
The study was published on-line in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute on April 29, 2008, ahead of print publication.
Image from Testicular Cancer Diagnosis page at M. D. Anderson Center in Houston, Texas
Resources:
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3 Comments | Accuracy, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, History, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: cancer, DDT, health, Junk science, Pesticide, Rachel Carson, Science, Testicular cancer | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 1, 2008
Our usual free press in history discourse suggests that the press, especially the newspapers, were more partisan in the early days of our republic than they are now. American Aurora tells the story of newspaper editors being thrown in jail during the administration of John Adams, for example, for their excesses (which may merit being known as “rabid” excesses).
Regnery Publishing is today at least as inaccurate, if not as completely vitriolic, as any of the nasty newspapers published in the John Adams administration. Regnery is the publisher of Jonathan Wells’ mostly fictional, all incorrect account of biology, Icons of Evolution, for example.
Regnery once again pushes the bounds of propriety with a new book by Iain Murray with a title that tells all the author thinks he knows: The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About–Because They Helped Cause Them.
You can bet the conservative and anti-science, and anti-environmental protection blogs will light up with this book.
I see from the index on Amazon that I get a mention. I hope Murray claims I caused one of those disasters. You can bet that if he says it, the opposite is true.
In the past couple of months I have had a couple of opportunities to spend some time in libraries and with databases. Checking out the citations from Steven Milloy’s “100 things” about DDT list, I discovered not a single citation relating to DDT’s effects on birds was correct; those articles that did exist concluded opposite what Milloy claims. Some of the articles simply didn’t exist. Bet Murray doesn’t question a single claim from Milloy.
And, did you know that DDT problems were common items for newspapers through the 1950s? You won’t learn that from Murray’s book.
Update, May 2: I have a copy of the book (Regnery did not provide it); it’s worse than I had imagined. Examples: The quote from this blog is criticized as being inaccurate; the quote describes Bush administration policies in 2004 and corporate actions in Uganda to discourage DDT spraying which continue. Murray’s rebuttal discusses Bush administration actions taken two years later, but fails to note that they have not yet worked.
Worse example: Murray has an entire chapter accusing “environmentalists” of being asleep at the switch for damages to fish and other wildlife due to birth control pill residues in the water; he fails to mention that DDT causes exactly the same problems. He fails to note that DDT and especially DDE are endocrine disruptors usually cited as culprits in these cases. He fails to note that the issues are at the top of the list of environmental organizations involved in fish, river conservation, and pesticide safety issues. Regnery’s name is rapidly becoming synonymous with”wildly inaccurate and politically skewed.”
Alas, that’s what I got from a skim of the book before this evening’s meetings.
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3 Comments | Accuracy, Business Ethics, DDT, Debunking, Ethics, Journalism, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: DDT, denialism, Environmental protection, Junk science, Politics, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 30, 2008
Well, it woulda been more appropriate in April 25, perhaps — though the species is not a malaria-carrying mosquito.
Still, you gotta love it, Wikimedia’s Picture of the Day for April 30, 2008:
Culex spp., larva, near the surface of a body of water.
This would make a great background for a PowerPoint presentation with just a bit of work, I think. The browns are about the same intensity as the blues and greens. Nice background for a presentation on mosquitoes — outstanding background for slide of a chart on mosquito populations or somesuch.
Warm up for biology class: Invert the photo, ask kids to explain what it is.
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1 Comment | Bell Ringers, Biology, Images, Malaria, Presentations, Public health, Science, Water | Tagged: Culex species, Entomology, Media, mosquito larvae, photography, Picture of the Day, Science, Wikimedia | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 30, 2008
He’s on the cover of Texas Monthly looking like the oldest piece of shoe leather south of the Red River (see photo at right — by Platon). He was featured in the Dallas Morning News last week for “Red Headed Stranger,” the album that broke the country music mold and made him the monument to iconoclasm that he is. And there’s a new book on his life from Joe Nick Patoski: Willie: An epic life. 
I’ll wager he’s on the road today, ready to make music.
Willie Nelson turns 75 today.
You oughtta check out:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Biography, Heroes, History, Music, Texas | Tagged: Entertainment, History, Music, Texas, Willie Nelson | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 29, 2008
From a paid advertisement in The Daily Oklahoman:
Full text below the fold, should you find it difficult to read this ad on your browser.
Other resources:
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Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
4 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Civil Rights, Eagle Scout, Ethics, History, Human Rights, Parents, Patriotism, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Hate Agenda, Hate Speech, Oklahoma, Politics, Sally Kern | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
