I’ll close the week with an open letter to President Bush just released by the American Astronomical Society’s president, Prof. Robert Kirschner, to express disappointment with his comments on bringing intelligent design into the classroom. Astronomers may not deal with natural selection or fossils, but as a general principle, they don’t like seeing non-science and science getting confused.
A statement from the National Science Teachers’ Association on Bush’s remarks about Intelligent Design:
Continue reading “55,000 Science Teachers: “Stunned and Disappointed” by the President”
The American Geophysical Union just issued a press release in response to Bush’s comments about intelligent design. It’s not online at their web site yet, so I’ve posted it here. (Update: It’s on line now.) This is not the first time that the 43,000 members of the AGU have spoken out against creationism. They protested the sale of a creationist account of the Grand Canyon in National Park Service stores, and condemned the airing of a creationist movie about cosmology at the Smithsonian Institution. But this is the first time they’ve taken on the President.
Continue reading “43,000 Scientists: Bush Puts Schoolchildren At Risk”
After a day-long road trip from Ohio, I finally had the chance to read the news that President Bush thinks that schools should discuss Intelligent Design alongside evolution, so that students can “understand what the debate is about.”
The New York Times, August 2, 2005
Richard Prum, a Yale ornithologist, was hiking through an Ecuadorean forest 18 years ago when he had one of the strangest experiences an ornithologist can have. He watched a bird sing with its wings.
Dr. Prum was observing a male club-winged manakin. The tiny red-headed bird was hopping acrobatically from branch to branch in order to attract female manakins. And from time to time, the male would wave its wings over its back. Each time the manakin produced a loud, clear tone that sounded as if it came from a violin.
“I was just utterly stunned,” Dr. Prum said. “There’s literally no bird in the world that does anything that prepares you for it. It’s totally unique.”
Continue reading “A New Kind of Birdsong: Music on the Wing in the Forests of Ecuador”