Sometime late Saturday or Sunday, the blog will probably kick over 200,000 hits, total, in just over 13 months.
Thank you. Keep those cards and letters coming.
Teachers’ planning: On-line sources for everything
August 24, 2007Maybe not absolutely everything. But you can mine this source, the veins are rich and deep.
This is a list of sources from Digital History, a site maintained by the University of Houston. I’ve mentioned it in the past, I think — I’ve used it a lot. For example, it has a list of history museums throughout the U.S., with websites and links. It lists the sites of history journals. It lists the sites of electronic history journals.
You’ve got your lesson plans mapped out, most of them done. You’ve got the data sheets for the students to fill out, you’ve got the first week’s bell ringers all prepared. The syllabi are all resting snug in their boxes, just waiting for students, those sly little foxes.
You’re ready.
Take a minute, take a deep breath; now, go browse the Digital History resources. See what other possibilities there are.
2 Comments | 
Harry Wong, History, History museums, Lesson plans, On-line education, On-line learning, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas education board opposes intelligent design
August 24, 2007Front page headline in the Dallas Morning News this morning: “Intelligent design? Ed board opposed.“
And the subhead: “Even creationists say theory doesn’t belong in class with evolution.”
Remember, this is the state school board that is dominated by creationists, and whose chair, appointed just about a month ago, is the famous creationist dentist Dr. Don McLeroy. Just what is going on? According to the article by Terrence Stutz:
Interviews with 11 of the 15 members of the board – including seven Republicans and four Democrats – found little support for requiring that intelligent design be taught in biology and other science classes. Only one board member said she was open to the idea of placing the theory into the curriculum standards.
“Creationism and intelligent design don’t belong in our science classes,” said Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, who described himself as a creationist. “Anything taught in science has to have consensus in the science community – and intelligent design does not.”
Mr. McLeroy, R-College Station, noted that the current curriculum requires that evolution be taught in high school biology classes, and he has no desire to change that standard.
“When it comes to evolution, I am totally content with the current standard,” he said, adding that his dissatisfaction with current biology textbooks is that they don’t cover the weaknesses of the theory of evolution.
Really noteworthy:
First, McLeroy chooses to act as a more of a statesman than he has in the past — this is good. Chairing a board like this is an important job. Such leadership positions require people to rise above their own partisan views on some issues. McLeroy has demonstrated such a willingness.
But, second, and important: McLeroy uses the campaign line of the Discovery Institute and all political activists against evolution and science: “Cover the weaknesses of the theory of evolution.” That’s a line invented by Jonathan Wells, the great prevaricator ID advocate, and what it means to him is fuzz up the facts, fog the books and the debate to the point that learning actual science and what the actual theories of evolution are will be impossible.
“Teach the weaknesses of evolution” should be heard as “keep the kids ignorant of the real science.”
Today’s article holds a spark for the fire of hope, and a gallon of cold water on the idea that the board will strongly support science.
4 Comments | Biology, Creationism, Education, Religion, Science, Science and faith, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Effects of new design
August 23, 2007No design is perfect; the current template, “Ocean Mist,” displays links to other posts when readers read a full post, when they link from another site. Consequently, I expected, a few people might click on another post at this blog while they were here. Traffic to other displayed links has picked up by about 50%.
One surprise has been the increased traffic to the “Why Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub” page, which is the “about” post for this blog. Traffic is up by several multiples to that post. There are no particular revelations there. It’s just providing more information.
In those respects, the experiment with a new template is a success. Everything should be so easy.
5 Comments | Administrivia | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Didn’t fool anybody: Liberty Bell
August 23, 2007Yes, it’s the Liberty Bell, photographed from underneath, with the lights shining through the crack.
I guess it was a lot more obvious than I thought. No one guessed wrong.
This is the bell that resided in the bell tower of the Pennsylvania Statehouse, what we now call Independence Hall. It is the bell that was rung to proclaim the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The bell was cast with several flaws in 1752. It had to be recast shortly after it was delivered, and then cast a third time. It cracked in the early 19th century (legend has it cracking while pealing during the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall — I won’t vouch for that story). It was last rung in 1846, on the anniversary of George Washington’s birth.
Enshrined in art and legend, the bell appeared on the reverse of the Franklin half-dollars (when was the last time you saw any 50-cent piece in circulation?). 
It was put on tour after the Civil War in an effort to get the nation reunited around old symbols (but, considering it was first called “the Liberty Bell” by early abolitionist groups, one might wonder how effective was the tour). When I visited it in the 1990s, the bell rested in its own pavilion about a half-block away from Independence Hall. Renovations of the historic site included construction of a new museum, which required the bell to be moved again.
Preservation and restoration experts wondered whether the bell would well survive the move. So the National Science Foundation (NSF) was called in to study the bell and determine whether it could take the stress of the move. NSF’s press release said the bell passed its “stress test.” The story of the measurement is well told, and may be interesting to students. The writer at NSF put in a lot of the history.
The photo is from the NSF team that did the study; it shows the inside of the bell and part of the “spider” support system that helps hold the bell together and support display.
My probably faulty recollection is that we studied the story of the Liberty Bell each year in grades 1 through 5, which in my case includes schools in the states of Idaho and Utah. My baseline U.S. history tests over the past four years show that about half the students I had, in grades 7, 10, 11 and 12, could not identify the bell or tell why it is revered in U.S. history.
Every reader here gets an “A.”
Other Liberty Bell information:
- The sister to the Liberty Bell now resides at Villanova University.
- The first “Forever Stamp” features the Liberty Bell.
- The bell rings E-flat.Just when the third cast bell cracked is disputed.
- The bell’s yoke is made of American elm, a tree that is threatened with extinction by Dutch elm disease.
- Replicas of the bell were cast in France and presented to each state in 1950 as part of a government bonds drive. Utah’s replica resides just outside the chamber of the Utah House of Representatives; according to Answers.com, New York’s replica bell “hangs in the lobby of the Kew Gardens Hills branch of the Queens County Savings Bank in New York City, a building that is a replica of Independence Hall.”
- Other famous replicas: In neon, at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies; now gone, in plastic, twice life-size, at Ameriquest Field in Arlington, Texas, home of the Texas Rangers (Ameriquest became insolvent in 2006, and the park was renamed and the bell removed); in Liberty Square, Magic Kingdom, DisneyWorld Park in Buena Vista, Florida; in the Rotunda of the Academic Building at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, honoring A&M alumni who served in World War II (this is probably the state replica from 1950).
- Gus Grissom’s Mercury Project spacecraft was named the “Liberty Bell 7;” it sank upon Grissom’s return from orbit, but the capsule was recovered in 1999.
- The bell was originally cast by Whitechapel Bell Foundry in England, which also cast the bell in London famously known as Big Ben, which also is cracked. Whitechapel Hand Bells are used by handbell ringers around the world.
- In April 2001, Mitchell Guiliat broke through barriers and struck the bell several times with a hammer. He was trying to ring it, not damage it, he said later. He got a nine-month sentence in prison, 5-years probation, and a fine of $7,093.
- More “triviata.”
2 Comments | 1776, Declaration of Independence, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, History, Icons of history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Instapundit supports pollution, but with a smile
August 23, 2007
DDT follows the same path as PCBs in the environment, both persistent organic pollutants. This illustration from World Ocean Review: Bioaccumulation of toxins in the marine food chain has long been recognized as a problem. The process illustrated here relates to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a typical environmental toxin.
Instapundit is happy to promote the use of poison:
SOME KIND WORDS FOR DDT — in the New York Times, no less. “Today, indoor DDT spraying to control malaria in Africa is supported by the World Health Organization; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and the United States Agency for International Development. . . . Even those mosquitoes already resistant to poisoning by DDT are repelled by it.”
The debate over DDT is over. There’s scientific consensus. Anyone who disagrees is a DDT denialist and a mouthpiece for Big Mosquito.
No, Glenn, the debate is not over so long as people continue to deny the harmful effects of DDT and act as mouthpieces for Big Poison, Big Garbage, Big Cancer, Big Pollution, voodoo science and Big Stupid.
There is a scientific consensus, but Reynolds misstates it. Scientists agree that DDT kills birds, bats, reptiles and beneficial insects that prey on malaria-bearing mosquitoes, making control of malaria more difficult (among many other harms). Consequently, DDT use under the rules laid down by the U.S. EPA in 1972 make a lot of sense. Those rules are the same as agreed to in the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty (POPs) — no DDT use in broadcast spraying, especially on crops; DDT use is allowed when necessary to fight disease; alternatives to DDT must be researched and created. The POPs Treaty lists DDT as one of the “Dirty Dozen” persistent pollutants.
POPs are a set of chemicals that are toxic, persist in the environment for long periods of time, and biomagnify as they move up through the food chain. POPs have been linked to adverse effects on human health and animals, such as cancer, damage to the nervous system, reproductive disorders, and disruption of the immune system. Because they circulate globally via the atmosphere, oceans, and other pathways, POPs released in one part of the world can travel to regions far from their source of origin.
Reynolds appears not to have read the treaty, nor even the article he cites, by Donald Roberts, from the odd, industry-funded Africa Fighting Malaria; even the most optimistic DDT fanatics generally nod in the direction of the dangers. Roberts wrote:
It would be a mistake to think we could rely on DDT alone to fight mosquitoes in Africa. Fortunately, research aimed at developing new and better insecticides continues — thanks especially to the work of the international Innovative Vector Control Consortium. Until a suitable alternative is found, however, DDT remains the cheapest and most effective long-term malaria fighter we have.
Africa Fighting Malaria is apoplectically happy to have one study that shows some repellent effects of DDT. As Bug Girl and Deltoid note, AFM urged unreasonable responses from many of us (I got their request, too). The study is encouraging, but it fails to make DDT the panacea Roberts paints it, and the study completely ignores the dangers of DDT, which have not changed a whit.
The best solutions to fighting malaria do not require DDT. Other new studies show that simple mosquito netting is amazingly effective — in Kenya, a switch in policy to give the nets out for free reduced malaria incidence by 44%. Under policies urged by U.S. conservatives, Kenyans had been required to pay for the nets previously. Reducing the cost of the nets left them beyond the means of many poor Kenyans.
Where is Glenn Reynolds’ promotion of non-poisonous and non-polluting, effective means to fight malaria. Why does he only go for the damaging solutions?
Perhaps Glenn Reynolds and Donald Roberts could make a showing of good faith in this case. Since this one study did tend to break their way, perhaps they could show their gratitude by calling on Sen. Tom Coburn to stop acting like a brat throwing a tantrum and remove his holds on the bill that would name a post office in Pennsylvania for Rachel Carson, honoring her work against pollution. (Coburn cites junk science and voodoo science as his justification — and he’s an M.D.!)
Or, would making a statement against pollution be contrary to their politics?
To the chronically science challenged, DDT is an answer to more ills than you can imagine. We face new infestations of bed bugs — how long before AFM’s editorial ghosts have people urging DDT spraying wholesale to fight bed bugs? West Nile virus continues to plague the U.S., and already articles have appeared calling for broadcast spraying of towns and marshes to fight it, though that would probably be exactly the wrong thing to do.
The fight against ignorance goes on, but some wear ignorance like a badge of honor.
3 Comments | Accuracy, DDT, Environmental protection, Malaria, Politics, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Accuracy, DDT, Instapundit, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Recognize this? It’s famous
August 22, 2007
What in the world is that? Put your guesses in comments.
10 Comments | History, History images, History museums, Travel, Warm-up exercises | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
New theme
August 22, 2007My Freudian Slip is showing (ask Dr. Buff what that means, if you’re curious).
I was checking out theme previews, working to find a theme that gives easy links to other posts while reading one post’s full text. I accidentally hit “activate.”
Opinions? Does this new theme (Ocean Mist, by the way) improve readability and navigation of the blog? Does this theme eliminate the bleeding to the left problem old versions of Internet Explorer had?
Let me know.
7 Comments | Administrivia | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
How malaria is really treated
August 22, 2007If we step away from the faux hysteria generated by JunkScience.com and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we can get a glimpse of how people seriously concerned about preventing and treating malaria go about doing exactly that.
Here’s a post from a guy named Angus, describing practical steps people traveling to malaria zones should take, and also discussing the one-two punch needed to really squelch malaria: Good medicines for treating people who have malaria, and mosquito control projects (in this case, without DDT).
Note well this paragraph of Angus’s story:
Back in 1982 a WHO-sponsored initiative attempted to eradicate the malaria vector, Anopheles mosquitoes, using the notorious insecticide DDT. Although the incidence of malaria decreased, it also resulted in the death of much poultry and livestock. The campaign was “imposed”, was not integrated, was resented, was not sustained and malaria made a comeback with a vengeance.
Note that DDT obviously was NOT out of use, and therefore we might understand as not banned in Africa, in 1982, contrary to claims from junk science and bogus history purveyors. Note also that the side-effects of the DDT-based program were disastrous enough to make Africans (in Sao Tome e Principe?) wary of future DDT-based programs.
More:
From the U.S. National Institutes of Health: Monthly trends of malaria morbidity and slide positivity rate (SPR) and malaria cases on the island of São Tomé 2003-2009. “Bottom Line: Regular implementation of an island-wide IRS programme was carried out yearly in 2004-2007, and enhanced throughout the island in 2009.Only 50% of asymptomatic carriers were cured with ACT treatment, while 90% of the symptomatic patients were cured by ACT treatment as confirmed with a follow up study.In addition, both daily reports and a regular active surveillance to prevent malaria outbreaks should be established permanently, so that a fast response to epidemics can be effectively made when necessary.”
Leave a Comment » | DDT, Junk science, Malaria, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
P. Z. Myers sued for libel; what is crackpot science?
August 22, 2007Stuart Pivar initiated a suit for libel against P. Z. Myers (of Pharyngula), over Myers’ caustic reviews of Pivar’s recent book. Myers is not talking (on advice of counsel); others are providing solid background, including Andrea Bottaro at Panda’s Thumb, Scientific American, the Lippard Blog, Overlawyered, Science after Sunclipse and Positive Liberty (all blogs that you read on occasion, right?).
In the comments to Bottaro’s post at Panda’s Thumb, someone asked:
What exactly is a “crackpot,” and how does one attain the status of “classic?”
Isn’t that rather the key question of life? How can we tell the cranks from the prophets, the dross from the gold?
My comments appear at Panda’s Thumb, but why not put it down here, too? This is a topic often addressed here: Voodoo science, voodoo history, bogus science, bogus history, and who can tell the difference, and who cares?
6 Comments | Accuracy, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Tom Lehrer + periodic table = learning (redux)
August 21, 2007A commenter, Aoife, pointed to another animation of Tom Lehrer’s “Elements Song.” This one has the best production values of the three I’ve posted, and it’s available on DVD (teachers, note that it comes bundled with other science stuff probably good for classroom use).
It’s Macromedia Flash animation, by a guy from Texas, Mike Stanfill; go see.
(Where are the economics, history and government flash animations of equal quality?)
1 Comment | Brain learning, Music, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Hurrican Dean, climate change, political action
August 21, 2007Chris Mooney, the Storm Pundit, dishes out the news on the record-making severity of Hurricane Dean. Mooney’s latest book is Storm World: Hurricanes, politics, and the battles over global warming.
False color satellite image of Hurricane Dean as it struck the Yucatan Peninsula; image from Weather Underground, via the Intersection.
Mooney’s information on Dean is at his blog, The Intersection, at the Huffington Post stable, and at the Daily Green.
Dean was officially the most powerful hurricane that we’ve seen globally so far in 2007, and was by far the strongest at landfall. It was also the first Category 5 Atlantic hurricane seen since the record-setting Hurricane Wilma of October 2005. In fact, Dean set some records of its own. Its pressure was the ninth lowest ever measured in the Atlantic, and the third lowest at landfall. Indeed, there hasn’t been a full Category 5 landfall in our part of the world since 1992’s Hurricane Andrew. Dean was in all respects a terrifying storm, and we can only hope that the damage will somehow be less than expected as it tears across the peninsula and then, after crossing the Bay of Campeche, moves on to a presumed second Mexican landfall.
Dean is already in the record books in ways that should make policy makers think hard about what to do in terms of disaster preparation, and in terms of what political entities can do to prevent actions that intensify such storms:
1. Dean is the ninth most intense Atlantic storm by pressure, and six of the top ten (Wilma, Rita, Katrina, Mitch, Dean, and Ivan) have occurred in the past ten years.
2. Dean is the strongest hurricane anywhere this year, and by far the strongest at landfall. It is the tenth category 4 or 5 hurricane globally and the 3rd Category 5.
Texas has mobilized disaster relief efforts as never before. School buses have been mustered near San Antonio for evacuations. 90,000 gallons of gasoline have been delivered to potential hurricane zones, to aid in self-evacuations. Helicopters are being mustered just outside potential storm zones. Someone is paying attention to the damage mitigation and clean up.
Leave a Comment » | Climate change, Disasters, Geography - Physical, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
North American wildlife photos: Send yours in!
August 21, 2007Elron Steele submitted one of his — I’ll wager several readers here have photos that should be included in the encyclopedic site of photos of North American Wildlife. The project is collecting mammal photos right now (birds, reptiles and invertebrates yet to come?)
I note the project has only one not-very-clear photo of a tassel-eared squirrel, and I know there are at least two species of these things ranging through Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, and I know there are no fewer than four Boy Scout Camps in those areas — so does some Scout or Scouter have a good shot of one of the tassel-eared guys to include?
So, if you have a good photo, send it along to North American Wildlife, or drop it in an e-mail to the curator of the site.
In my recent excursion into New Mexico, we were south of Raton when I spotted a fine specimen of a pronghorn antelope alongside the road. Within a few minutes we had spotted way over a dozen, and returning along the route a week later we must have seen at least 50 of them, in groups as large as a dozen. While I got no decent photos zipping along at 60 mph, surely someone from one of the mountain states has a very good picture that could be contributed.
And teachers: This is a great source of images for student projects and presentations for biology, environmental science, history and geography.
3 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Environmental protection, Images, Natural history, Student projects, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Shooting past skepticism: Solutions to global warming
August 21, 2007It’s been about a week since some global warming skeptic pointed me toward a recent piece from Freemon Dyson, claiming that if Dyson didn’t believe in global warming, no one should. Tip of the old scrub brush to whoever that skeptic was.
Dyson’s piece is online at The Edge, dated August 8, 2007: “Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society.” (If you are unfamiliar with Dyson, you should at least check out his biography there. A more comprehensive biography at Wikipedia reveals why you should be familiar with him as a great father, good physicist and astronomer who tends to work well in groups, and winner of the Templeton Prize. Then, next time you see the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that deals with Dyson Spheres, you can nod your head as if you understand what’s going on.)
I read Dyson’s piece, and while he’s cranky, he’s not denying global warming. A good chunk of his piece discusses how to capture carbon dioxide to prevent further warming, or perhaps even reverse current atmospheric trends. Skeptics of warming who seize on Dyson’s piece as a rebuttal make a common error among the scentifically unquestioning ranters: They assume any criticism of part of an argument is a refutation of the whole. Dyson suggests we should spend time and money on figuring out how to get the microbiota in the soil to capture more CO2.
Much of the rest of the piece is hopeful. Dyson disagrees with hysteric concerns about melting glaciers; he doesn’t think they’ll all melt or cause dramatic rises in sea level. At the same time, he urges caution and study, noting the holes in our knowledge that most arm-chair global warming skeptics want to ignore, including the possibilities that global warming itself would trigger a dramatic shift to a new ice age, which would be at least as catastrophic.
We can separate the climate cranks from the true skeptics if we look for similar flights of reality from people: The true skeptics will note how difficult it is to predict climate and weather, but do not deny the need to act against pollutants which are thought to cause climate change. This is a crucial difference. Bush administration officials originally denied the existence of global warming as an excuse to do nothing about air pollution; now they claim to recognized global warming, but still do little that might control human dumping into the air. In sharp contrast, Dyson proposes a partly-neglected sink of CO2 and urges that we work hard to increase its effectiveness.
In the past year I have posed that question in several climate discussions: Do you oppose controlling air pollution? The question quickly separates cranks from others; while the scientifically literate may argue about whether we can predict human effects on weather, few argue that we should continue our present trends of dumping.
In short, regardless the science, Melissa Etheridge is right. It’s time to wake up.
4 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, Geography - Physical, Global warming, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Dutch creationists pay to keep evolution off television
August 20, 2007Here’s an interesting tactic Dutch Christians seem to have picked up from Adnan Oktar: If you don’t have a rebuttal to evolution, buy the rights to the information and cover it up.
It’s a commercial/religious twist on what Richard Nixon tried to do, but this may be legal. Will it work? Can Christians, or Moslems, purchase the rights to the truth, to keep it from being broadcast?
David Attenborough is famous for his nature programs, usually produced for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and often broadcast in the U.S. on Public Broadcast System (PBS) stations. An evangelical Christian television network in the Netherlands purchased the rights to one of Attenborough’s latest productions, The Life of Mammals, but has edited out all references to evolution.
Are the edits significant? See for yourself:
Comparative clips of the English and Dutch versions can bee seen at Cloggie.
Still, with Adnan Oktar spending millions to publish and distribute widely a grotesquely inaccurate book on evolution (unholy to do such things, Adnan – really!), with Texas’s State Board of Education chaired by a hard-headed creationist, one does tire of the creationists’ tendencies to try to purchase the right to be stupid, and then force that stupidity on others.
Why not just stick to the facts? What’s so wrong about letting the truth out? What’s so wrong with the truth that religious fanatics will spend millions to cover it up?
Richard Nixon’s ghost is slapping Santayana’s ghost on the back, asking him to join in on the joke. Santayana’s ghost is not laughing.
More information:
- DutchNews.nl story on the affair
- Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, a blog by Richard Bartholomew
- In Dutch, discussion on the affair in EO’s online discussion forum
2 Comments | Accuracy, Adnan Oktar, Capitalism, Creationism, Ethics, Evolution, Santayana's ghost, Television | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 