
Will teaching history become thing of the past?
Cicero wrote that “Not to know what happened before one was born is to remain a child.”But, hey, who was Cicero, anyway? Don’t ask too many college students these days, they probably won’t know. Why would they? Instruction in history is dying out. In the vernacular, “It’s history.” No wonder a Hearst Corporation study showed that 45% of those surveyed Read More ›
Rapid rail may link more of our cities

Americans all part of huge ‘Idea’
MT. RUSHMORE–America is at peace, the world’s superpower and more prosperous than ever. Surely we are too complacent to give proper thanks for our blessings. It will be a rare civic official who makes a 4th of July speech anywhere across the land today, because almost no one wants to hear one, and the politicians are out of practice. Yet, Read More ›

Q&A: Wedge Issues

Fact, Myth, and the Scopes Monkey Trial
People who only want unbiased, honest science education that sticks to the evidence are bewildered by the reception they get when they try to make their case. Their specific points are brushed aside, and they are dismissed out of hand as religious fanatics. The newspapers report that “creationists” are once again trying to censor science education because it offends their religious beliefs. Why is it so hard for reasoned criticism of biased teaching to get a hearing? The answer to that question begins with a Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee play called Inherit the Wind, which was made into a movie in 1960 starring Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Frederic March. You can rent the movie at any video store with a “classics” section, and I urge you to do so and watch it carefully… The play is a fictionalized treatment of the “Scopes Trial” of 1925, the legendary courtroom confrontation in Tennessee over the teaching of evolution. Inherit the Wind is a masterpiece of propaganda, promoting a stereotype of the public debate about creation and evolution that gives all virtue and intelligence to the Darwinists. The play did not create the stereotype, but it presented it in the form of a powerful story that sticks in the minds of journalists, scientists and intellectuals generally…
Read More ›Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds
Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds is directed at a lay audience who is trying to understand how to open up serious dialogue over evolution. UC Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson and program advisor for the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, explains that the core question in the creation/evolution debate is not about the age of the earth, but about Read More ›

Overregulation of phone industry leads to hidden taxes
In ancient China the mandarin class ruled the country in such a complicated way that ordinary people could not begin to figure things out. Eventually the rules of the imperial court grew so tangled that the mandarins themselves couldn’t figure out what was going on. It apparently had something to do with calligraphy. What mattered was how you wrote, not Read More ›

Forces of SILLY threaten takeover of the national agenda
The following anonymous document was delivered to this office by a conscience-stricken participant in a cult of public relations sociopaths that apparently has yet to come to the attention of the FBI, the CIA, CNN or Sally Jesse Raphael. It is reprinted here as a public service.——————————————————————————– Confidential UpdateTO: Members of SILLYFROM: Your Leader When we first began our work, Read More ›
Science Friday, Scopes Trial 75th Anniversary, part 1
To hear in Real Audio go to “http://www.sciencefriday.com/” HEADLINE: SCOPES TRIAL AND THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION VS. CREATION IRA FLATOW, host: This is TALK OF THE NATION/SCIENCE FRIDAY. I’m Ira Flatow. Today is the 75th anniversary of the day a Tennessee jury, after deliberating for nine minutes, handed John Scopes a guilty verdict. The crime: violating Tennessee’s law that banned Read More ›