Are students learning the whole truth about Darwin’s theory of evolution? According to a growing number of scientists, the surprising answer is no Some scientists now claim that many of the most famous Icons of Evolution, including Darwin’s Tree of Life, finches from the Galapagos Islands, and embryos that look remarkably similar, are based on outdated research and sloppy logic. Read More ›
In 2001 Congress adopted report language in the No Child Left Behind Act Conference Report encouraging educators to teach “the full range of scientific views that exist” on controversial topics “such as biological evolution.” Known as the “Santorum language” (because it was originally proposed by Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania), this statement of congressional science education policy was passed with Read More ›
Click here to read the full text of the letter from the Department of Education. SEATTLE, MARCH 9 – The US Department of Education has given its clear support to the right of state and local school boards to teach the scientific debate that now exists about biological evolution. In a March 8 letter signed by Acting Deputy Secretary Gene Read More ›
Is it possible, within our children’s lifetimes, to have a world where war and state sponsored terrorism is very remote? The answer is not only yes, but we are much closer to that ideal than most people think. A truly peaceful world can only be and will be a world where virtually everyone lives under a regime reasonably close to Read More ›
In the last half-century, under which president did the economy perform the best? Most Americans would answer Ronald Reagan, while some Democratic commentators have argued it was Bill Clinton or John F. Kennedy. What is the truth? A president has a major influence on tax, spending, regulatory and trade policies that largely determine the rate of economic growth, but he Read More ›
REMAINING FACTUAL ERRORS TO BE CORRECTED IN BIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS PROPOSED UNDER PROCLAMATION 2001 The Texas State Board of Education voted last year to adopt eleven proposed biology textbooks for use in state schools after a commitment from the Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency that all remaining factual errors in the textbooks would be addressed by publishers before the textbooks Read More ›
IN LATE APRIL, a Beaumont, Texas, jury voted to award $1 billion to the family of a plaintiff who allegedly lost her life as a result of taking fen-phen, a drug combination popular among dieters in the 1990s before it was linked to heart-valve damage. The woman, who was morbidly obese and whose family had a history of heart problems, Read More ›
“PEOPLE NEED A FAIRY TALE,” Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss, explaining why scientists have allowed society to believe wrongly that stem cells are likely to effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease. “Maybe that’s unfair, but they need a story line that’s relatively simple to understand.” Read More ›
Opponents of human cloning and federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research are being fast marginalized by a myth that cloning will be an immediate panacea to the ravages of degenerative disease and disabling injury. The intensity of belief in science as savior, combined with a desperate desire that it be so, has become so fervent that faith in this research has Read More ›
Did you know that the U.S. has the fastest-growing economy among all of the rich nations? During the past year, the U.S. has been growing threefold the rate of the average of the European Union countries and about 50 percent faster than Japan, and is now experiencing the fastest rate of GDP growth in 20 years. The unemployment rate is Read More ›