Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-l] science trivia w/ a political flavour: Einstein, human evolution, and Jeb Bush's view of the construction of history



" "If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine."
?????????
James Mackey

Bernard Cleyet wrote:

I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard
existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a
land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my
lifetime. Albert Einstein, who would accumulate nearly 100,000 pages
of FBI files before he died.
-----------------------------------------------

U.S. AND TURKEY DUMBEST WESTERN COUNTRIES ON EVOLUTION

NY TIMES - In surveys conducted in 2005, people in the United States
and 32 European countries were asked whether to respond "true,"
"false" or "not sure" to this statement: "Human beings, as we know
them, developed from earlier species of animals." The United States
had the second-highest percentage of adults who said the statement was
false and the second-lowest percentage who said the statement was
true, researchers reported in the current issue of Science. Only
adults in Turkey expressed more doubts on evolution. In Iceland, 85
percent agreed with the statement

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/science/sciencespecial2/15evo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


SCIENCE COMMUNICATION:
Public Acceptance of Evolution

Jon D. Miller,1* Eugenie C. Scott,2 Shinji Okamoto3

The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States.


http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/5788/765

---------------------------------------------------


ZNet Commentary
Constraining history/controlling knowledge August 14, 2006
By Robert Jensen

..........

Although U.S. students are typically taught a sanitized version of history in which the inherent superiority and benevolence of the United States is rarely challenged, the social and political changes unleashed in the 1960s have opened up some space for a more honest accounting of our past. But even these few small steps taken by some teachers toward collective critical self-reflection are too much for many Americans to bear.

So, as part of an education bill signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida has declared that "American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed." That factual history, the law states, shall be viewed as "knowable, teachable and testable."

........................


One of the bedrock claims of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment -- two movements that, to date, have not been repealed by the Florida Legislature -- is that no interpretation or theory is beyond challenge. The evidence and logic on which all knowledge claims are based must be transparent, open to examination. We must be able to understand and critique the basis for any particular construction of knowledge, which requires that we understand how knowledge is constructed.

Except in Florida.

..............

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-08/13jensen.cfm


bc


_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l