For more information about David Berlinski – his new books, video clips from interviews, and upcoming events – please visit his website at www.davidberlinski.org. Genes, Girls, and Gamow After the Double Helix by James D. Watson Knopf, 304 pp., $26 A DOCTORATE from Indiana University in 1949, the Cavendish laboratories at Cambridge University, the discovery of DNA. Thereafter, immortality. James Read More ›
After the U.S. Congress adopted a statement in December calling for students to be exposed to a diversity of views when topics “such as biological evolution” are taught, a pro-Darwin group is absurdly trying to claim victory through a creative reinterpretation of the legislative record. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education asserts that the recent statement by Read More ›
Every student of biological evolution learns about peppered moths. The dramatic increase in dark forms of this species during the industrial revolution, and experiments pointing to differential bird predation as the cause, have become the classical story of evolution by natural selection. The same careful scientific approach which established the classical story in the first place, however, has now revealed Read More ›
Brave New World has arrived at last, as we always knew it would. On January 22, 2001, Britain’s House of Lords voted overwhelmingly to permit the cloning and maintenance of human embryos up to 14 days old for the purposes of medical experimentation, thereby taking the first terrible step toward the legalization of full-blown human cloning. Meanwhile, an international group Read More ›
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/ps20020206.shtml How the subject of evolution is treated in the classroom has emerged again as a source of controversy, this time in the Ohio State Board of Education. Until now, Ohio public schools have not mandated any direct teaching about the subject. “Standards” is the new fad sweeping across schools today, and the Ohio legislature has ordered that the Ohio Read More ›
My Beltway friend was furious. “Every cocktail party I go to, the liberals are claiming it was Bill Clinton’s military that won Afghanistan.” “Glad we go to different parties,” rejoindered I from Seattle. Then I started hearing it on television, and noticed a similar claim in, of all places, The Washington Times. According to Morton Kondracke’s column of Feb. 4, Read More ›
For more information about David Berlinski – his new books, video clips from interviews, and upcoming events – please visit his website at www.davidberlinski.org. The God Hypothesis Discovering Design in our “Just Right” Goldilocks Universe by Michael A. Corey Rowman & Littlefield, 256 pp., $27 GOD’S EXISTENCE is not required by the premises of quantum mechanics or general relativity, the great Read More ›
I first began teaching freshman chemistry at Berkeley in the spring of 1983. Typically we lectured in halls that held about 550. On the first day of class you could fit in 680, which we had that particular morning. It was a full auditorium. Those of you who have had freshman chemistry at a large university will know that many have mixed feelings about that course.
I had never addressed a group of 680 people before and was a bit concerned about it. But I had a fantastic demonstration prepared for them. At Berkeley in the physical science lecture hall, the stage is in three parts. It rotated around, so you could go to your part of the stage and work for several hours before your lecture, getting everything ready. My assistant, Lonny Martin who did all the chemistry demonstrations at Berkley, was in the process of setting up 10 moles of a large number of quantities—10 moles of benzene, iron, mercury, ethyl alcohol, water, etc. At just the right time, at the grand crescendo of this lecture, I was going to press the button and Lonny would come turning around and show them the ten moles of various items. The student would have great insight as they realized that all these had in common was about the same number of molecules of each one.
It was going to be wonderful. We got to that point in the lecture and I said, “Lonny, come around and show us the moles.” I pressed the button to rotate the stage but nothing happened. I didn’t realize that he was overriding my button press because he wasn’t ready with the moles. This was very embarrassing. I went out in front of the 680 students and was really at a complete loss of what to say, so I made some unprepared remarks. I said, “While we’re waiting for the moles, let me tell you what happened to me in church yesterday morning.”
I was desperate. There was great silence among those 680 students. They had come with all manner of anticipations about freshman chemistry, but stories about church were not among them!
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