Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Rewriting History and Science, Texas Style

Texas has always had a strong, centralized system for buying textbooks. Unfortunately, the Texans are continuing to dumb down and rewrite history and science. Next, we'll probably learn that Pi=3, because the Bible says it does.

Roger Ebert wrote an excellent piece on how bad this siutation has gotten:
Texas School Book Repository.

So I guess the question many of us have is - how can we convince publishers to publish fact-based science and history books? If Texans want to rewrite science and history based on the ravings of the lunatic fringe, shouldn't these books be self-published rather most lunatic fringe books are?

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

A Call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology

(taken, verbatim, from sciencedebate2008.com)

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Health and Medicine, and Science and Technology Policy.


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Given that at least one Democratic presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton, has already made a strong statement that her administration would promote scientific inquiry and innovation, I hope the Democrats would agree to such a debate. Most of the Republican candidates are violently anti-science, particularly Huckabee and Romney. It would be something of a joke for the Republicans to engage in such a discussion.