Plead the First

Poking around the Internet tonight, I came across this article by Red Phillips from Georgia. He’s thought about the conflict between Evolution and Intelligent Design, and in the wake of Judge Jones’ decision in Dover he’s come up with a novel solution to smooth over the differences: Here is what I propose. States all across […]

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has a great idea on how to keep legislators from monkeying around with our school science standards: We don’t allow people to practice in many fields without demonstrating that they have some expertise in it. We won’t even let someone cut hair without a cosmetology license in […]

Last week, RhinoTimes writer Orson Scott Card gave his take on the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate. Though he sounds reasonable in a few places, he seems to have some misconceptions. In writing about the ID concept of Irreducible Complexity, Card says: Basically, Behe’s approach was this: Complex systems in advanced organisms depend on many […]

Wednesday, the newly-elected Dover Area school board nixed their predecessors’ Intelligent Design policy: On a voice vote, and with no discussion beforehand, the newly elected Dover Area School Board unanimously rescinded the policy. Two weeks earlier, a judge ruled the policy unconstitutional. “This is it,” new school board president Bernadette Reinking said Tuesday, indicating the […]

This is coming a little late, since I was away when the ruling was announced in the Kitzmiller case, but I wanted to make a brief comment on it anyway. Of the possible decisions that could have been made, Judge Jones made a pretty strong ruling. Rather than confining himself to merely saying that the […]

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has released a review of state science standards. The good news – or, not-so-bad-news, as the case may be: We get a ‘B’. On the whole, North Carolina has mounted a good science standards effort that would be better were the process materials less intrusive and more ofthe indispensable chemistry […]

Over the past few days I’ve been involved in a couple of discussions over at the News and Record’s Letters to the Editor blog that relate to some topics recently discussed here at Plead the First. The first takes place on the letter entitled “A Higher Standard?” The letter writer, questioning a previous letter writer […]

David Boyd, thought-provoking as always, posts a quote from Tom Bethel on Intelligent Design. One of the claims Bethel makes is that the theory of evolution is not falsifiable, and therefore not scientific. Bethel is wrong. As I pointed out in the comments: [T]he theory of evolution most certainly is falsifiable. If the fossil record […]

Einstein’s famous equation is relatively old: In 1905, it was final proof of the genius and imagination of a young German-born scientist who had yet to land a university post. … Einstein showed in a handful of lines that as you accelerate an object, it not only gets faster, it also gets heavier. That in […]

It seems that in at least one case our government’s restrictions on stem cell research are causing scientists to pursue their research in other countries: Two government biologists heavily recruited by Stanford University have decided to work in Singapore instead, saying they will face fewer restrictions on stem cell research overseas. …Copeland and Jenkins are […]