If you reply to this long (11 kB) post ([a version was previously
sent to PhysLrnR and PHYSOC as Hake (2004b)], please don't hit the
reply button (bane of discussion lists) so as to inflict the entire
post yet again on suffering subscribers.
In a previous post [Hake (2004a)] of 17 August 2004, titled "Re: Data
Quality Act," I noted the SECOND of three articles in a Washington
Post (WP) series on what I and the Union of Concerned Scientists UCS
(2004) regard as the Bush administration's subversion of science. I
wrote:
"Note that the Weiss article is advertised as the "second of three
articles," but I have not been able to locate the first or third at
the WP website <http://www.washingtonpost.com/>."
Thanks to Marty Henry, I finally found the link [in front of my nose
in the non-printer-friendly versions of Weiss (2004)] to the "first
article," and herewith give corrected references to both the first
[Goldstein & Cohen (2004)] and second [Weiss (2004)] of the articles
in the WP series. If anyone spots the third article please let me
know.
IMHO, the WP series should be of interest to:
(a) EvalTalk/ASSESS as an example of "scientific"
evaluation/assessmemt as practiced by the Bush Administration [shades
of the "What Works Clearinghouse" Hake (2004c)],
(b) PHYSOC because of the dire societal threats posed by "a,"
(c) DrEd because of public-health threats posed by "a."
But what's the WP series got to do with science/math education lists
such as AP-Physics, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, Math-Learn, Phys-L, and
Physhare, to whom I am cc'ing this post?
I think the connection has been admirably made by PhysLnrR Dewey
Dykstra (2004):
"Seems to me we are reaping what we and our predecessors have sown.
When 90+% of science instruction should be education, it is instead
training and culling future scientists. The result is that almost
none of the population has the natural inclination to make sense of
their world and examine it critically. Hence, we have individuals
manipulating politics and the public with great ease. We'd better
start educating and reserve the training and culling for the majors."
I have taken the liberty of "beckering" Weiss (2004) and Goldstein &
Cohen (2004) into the archives of PhysLRnR and PHYSOC. At PhysLrnR
the "Beckers" can be accessed at Hake (2004a,b). [Here "beckering"
and "Becker" refer to the act, and the result of, copying an
evanescent internet item into a relatively permanent archive, a
practice pioneered by mathematician Jerry Becker, e.g.,
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/math-learn/message/6344>].
"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."
H.G. Wells
REFERENCES
NOTE: The encyclopedic URL's for PhysLrnR posts by Dykstra and Hake
indicate that one must be a PhysLrnR subscriber to access the
archives. However, it takes only a few minutes to subscribe by
following the simple directions at
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>/ "Join or
leave the list (or change settings)" where "/" means "click on." If
you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under
"Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives
and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the
list!
UCS. 2004. "Scientific Integrity in Policy Making: An Investigation
into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science," Union of Concerned
Scientists, online at
<http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/page.cfm?pageID=1322>.
The full report is available as a pdf at this site.
Weiss, R. 2004." 'Data Quality' law is nemesis of regulation,"
Washington Post, Aug. 16, online at
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5716978/> with a link [box on left at
start of the 5th paragraph] to the first of the three articles. This
version contains advertising but also sidebars with valuable links.
The printer-friendly version at
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3733-2004Aug15?language=printer>
contains only one advertisement at the top but no sidebars with
links. I was unable to copy the first two paragraphs next to the
advertisement. The MS/NBC version is at
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5716978/> also contains a link [box on
left at start of the 5th paragraph] to the first of the three
articles. A printable version is at
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5716978/> / "print" (at top right):,
where "/" means "click on." Here the entire printer-friendly version
is copyable.