Now the server is back and it's approaching the end of 2006, I thought it time to post a few thoughts on things of interest this year. Anyone else feel like contributing one, jump in!
So it's one year on from the Dover decision, which dealt a pretty severe blow to those determined to dilute science with hack theology. With the Cobb controversy over the "critical thinking" labels in biology textbooks finally spluttering out in the last couple of days, this has been a bad year for American creationists and pseudoscience, at least outside of their own target audience for their books and lucrative lecture tours. They're getting more and more bizarre. The recent claims that Judge Jones "plagiarised" the Proposed Findings Of Fact when writing his opinion, and the really lame Flash animation of bits of the opinion being read out in a silly voice and punctuated by farts endorsed (and voiced) by William Dembski seem to demonstrate that the creationists have totally run out of strategy and are resorting to playground tactics... Meanwhile, the focus has moved - there's been funding for creationist material in the UK via the "Truth In Science" organisation (which fortunately got short shrift from the UK's Education Minister) and some of the "faith-based academies", and there have been similar weaselings in Australia. Anti-science moves have caused censure of science in the States, with actual censorship and denial of access, such as recently in the EPA, and here in Australia with a climate conference which involved polluting industries and the government but no environmental groups or even climate scientists. A year both frustrating and gratifying to those who wish to see science taught in science classes and reality-based decision making in government... Charlie _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
