So, a “palter” is a lie, for the record… Secondly, I refer to a book that is being pushed in Kansas and other states/communities that masquerades as a science “textbook” known as Of Pandas and People.
I only bring this up because I’ve been watching “The Daily Show” this week while they’ve been doing their “Evolution shmevolution” series, looking at the “evidence” for or against evolution, intelligent design, etc. Overall, there’s been something of a liberal bias (…not unexpected…), visiting sites like Dover, TN (the side of the Scope’s Monkey Trial) and talking to the conservatives there (they’re like those crazy townies that live in the trailer park on the other side of town…freaky, yo…).
Anyway, last night, Lewis Black brought up this book…and actually showed it to the audience. He showed the cover…and then slid it around to its side… The stupid thing is only 170 pages long!!! How much “science” can you learn anything from a book like that? There are some classes in college where you read that much in a night! I also found this website (web hosted by the Kansas Citizens for Science) by a professor at Brown University and he points out some serious flaws, places in this book that the author (Percival Davis) refuses to acknowledge (like extinction…something we know to be fact, but it isn’t mentioned in the book). An excerpt:
“When I first opened the pages of Pandas and read the fine words presented by its authors in the name of free and open inquiry, I expected a text that might genuinely challenge students to examine the assumptions of what they had learned and evaluate scientific theory in an objective manner. To say that I was disappointed is to put it mildly. What I found instead was a document that contrived not to teach, but to mislead. The many errors and misrepresentations that inhabit the pages in Of Pandas and People will, quite honestly, serve to hinder teachers as they attempt to cover the stunning range and diversity of contemporary biology.”
So yeah, let me line this out… Scientists and most teachers don’t agree with the book. The politicians are pushing it on teachers. Can’t we trust the teachers and scientists to know what to teach in their classes? Do we want politicians coming into our classrooms and teaching? Do they even have a right to dictate what teachers are supposed to teach their students? It’s bad enough that teachers are having to teach their classes based on standardized tests and can’t teach what’s really important…
…important like…oh…I don’t know…real scientific studies and evidence rather than dogma? 😛
The Daily Show has had some really stellar bits this week… and some really terrible ones. That panel sucked. So did the Bronx Zoo bit.
But Kurt Vonnegut was awesome, and the way they lambasted Senator Tom Coburn from OK… that was glorious. I’d love to see that scumbag gutted
For those of you that missed it, he got all choked up at the confirmation hearing… and said “I’d like see… less mindless partisanship, which at times sounds almost hateful to the ears of Americans.”
Other choice quotes from this upstanding senator:
– “The gay community… is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today.”
– “I favor the death penalty for abortionists”
I’d say that sounds just slightly hateful. I dunno. I guess wanting to see someone gutted is kinda hateful too, but hey, I don’t care. 🙂
Also: Liberal bias? On the Daily Show? Never! 🙂
So yeah, that book…boo. Our schools are going down the shitter and you know what that means? Eventually, our country will too.
Stu, I was going to quote that senator but I couldn’t remember the exact lines…thankfully, I know you and you remember such things…good man… 😉
I didn’t so much remember it as transcribe it from the xvid download I have. We have ghetto cable, so we don’t get the daily show.
The jump from our current plan to one that carries Comedy Central is $50/month. Insanity.