Darth Vader was a thoroughly bad man, destroying planets, kidnapping princesses, and such. That’s the way it should be-we like our movie villains uncomplicated. Mr. Vader’s only virtue was in begetting Luke Skywalker, and in the finale, after we had hissed for a few hours, that relationship was enough to redeem him. Yet what if the opening scenes of Star Read More ›
A cliché among airline flight attendants describes half their job as “taking people’s garbage and saying thank-you.” And so it seems with American civilization today. Politicians, athletes, entertainers, intellectuals, media, activists, business people: We take their garbage and we say thank-you . . . and often pay for the privilege. That resemblance points toward other similarities. Indeed, perhaps nothing captures Read More ›
Science is a congeries of great quests, and cosmology is the grandest of the great quests. Taking as its province the universe as a whole, cosmology addresses the old, the ineradicable questions about space and time, nature and destiny. It is not a subject for the tame or the timid. For the first half of the 20th century, cosmology remained Read More ›
Publicity of “political correctness” (PC) on the nation’s campuses has alarmed many within and beyond academia. Attempts to silence students and faculty who defy campus ideological fashion have raised questions about the extent to which universities remain havens of free inquiry. Yet to date concern about PC has centered primarily upon the humanities and the social sciences where ideological uniformity Read More ›
Science teaching, and the teaching of evolution in particular, continue to be a flashpoint in American education. Hoping to correct the problem, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation just released a report (with the American Association for the Advancement of Science), “Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States.” Written by Lawrence Lerner, the report recommends increased emphasis in America’s Read More ›
September 25, 2000 By JIM TORREYand SUSAN CASTILLOTHIS WEEK, leaders from the Pacific Northwest will gather in Eugene to share economic and environmental strategies. How can we help our economy and our communities thrive in an increasing global world? How can we link high speed rail, revitalized downtowns, trade and tourism corridors, and environmental efforts to improve our quality of Read More ›
On Tuesday, we will be welcoming delegates for this year's Cascadia Conference, organized by the Cascadia Project, a nonprofit alliance of communities in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Delegates from Eugene, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, B.C., and other cities will spend two days in workshops with their counterparts from rural communities. In partnership with the University of Oregon, we are looking forward to showcasing our city and county as a national model for "green communities." Panels and workshops will include: High speed rail: A high-speed passenger rail system linking Eugene/Springfield to Vancouver, B.C., and relieving pressure on Interstate 5 is a pivotal project to achieving the Cascadia vision. Delegates will hear from Amtrak West CEO Gil Mallery about the $10 billion High Speed Rail Investment Act...The federal bill could result in more than $500 million in new track improvements, improving the travel times of both passenger and freight rail, and enhanced rail crossings for safer and improved pedestrian access...The local success of the Amtrak Cascades service, which links Eugene, Portland and Seattle, continues, and we've seen continued ridership increases and positive customer satisfaction.
Read More ›More than one-third of the states (19) do an “unsatisfactory to dreadful job” of including evolution in public school science standards, including 12 states that shun the “E-word” and four that avoid the subject, says a study out Tuesday. The rest do “at least a satisfactory job,” says the study, “Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States,” published Read More ›
http://slate.msn.com ——————————- CRSC response: Ms. Shulevitz’s bigoted rant (note the religious insult in the opening sentence) is such a gem that it requires little comment, except to mention regrettably that Slate has already begun editing out her gaffs. The original story had the following: “The fossil record is full of evidence that some primitive gizmo, such as the eyespots on Read More ›
The Fordham Foundation’s highly touted report by Lawrence Lerner, “Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States,” recommends increased emphasis in America’s public schools on biological evolution–which the report never adequately defines. (1) But the Lerner report fails to point out that students are being systematically misled about the scientific evidence, and it thereby encourages precisely the sort of Read More ›