Sunday, February 6th, 2011
STEVEN NEWTON, - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: If you think about it, the Evolution/Creationist controversy says a great deal about us as a culture. Although there are creationists in other countries, for most of the world science informs history. The fixation on Biblical literalism is distinctly American.
On one side are facts. On the other side a story that is, itself, the amalgamation of other stories. It makes moral principles, and presents a metaphysical view, but it has no space time facts. Creationism is a kind of mind control. It is religion pressuring its believers to chose to be willfully ignorant. A trend that is having a damaging effect on our education system and our scientific research.
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA — As 2011 gets under way, those who care about the integrity of science education are bracing for the latest round of state legislation aimed at undermining the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Every year, a host of these bills are filed across the country. In 2008, one was passed in Louisiana, despite protests from scientists and educators. In Oklahoma, State Senator Josh Brecheen (R) has vowed to introduce a bill in the coming legislative session that requires schools to teach ‘all the facts’ on the so-called fallacies of evolution.
The tactics of creationists have evolved since 1925, when Tennessee’s Butler Act forbade the teaching of evolution, and high school biology teacher John Scopes was put on trial for doing so. (Creationists believe that God created the physical universe and all organisms according to the account in Genesis, denying the evolution of species.)
But creationists’ tactics have also evolved since 2005, when a federal court in Pennsylvania established that teaching intelligent design (ID) in public schools is unconstitutional. The judge in the case ruled, ‘ID is not science’ and derives instead from ‘religious strategies that evolved from earlier forms of creationism.’ (Intelligent design holds that ‘certain features of […]
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Saturday, February 5th, 2011
Stephan: Finally, 10 years into these ghastly and unnecessary wars, finally, serious attention is being paid in the Congress to looking after the 1000s of damaged young men and women whose lives and, thus the lives of their families and loved ones, have been so seriously compromised by their service. As usual though the Illness Profit System makes it all so much more complicated, heartless, and inefficient than it needs to be.
A bipartisan group of 74 lawmakers issued a letter Friday demanding that the Pentagon’s health plan cover a treatment for brain-injured soldiers known as cognitive rehabilitation therapy.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) and Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA) the leaders of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, cited an investigation by ProPublica and NPR revealing that Tricare, an insurance-style plan covering soldiers and many veterans, had relied on a controversial study to avoid paying for the intensive and often expensive treatment.
‘We hope that you share our concern that service members returning from the battlefield cannot wait to receive treatment for their injuries,’ the letter states. ‘It is our hope that there exists some contingency plan to provide cognitive rehabilitation for service members who are returning home today.’
Official Pentagon figures show that nearly 200,000 troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries since 2001, though our investigation found evidence suggesting the true toll is far higher. Although the majority of soldiers recover from the most common form of head trauma, known as mild traumatic brain injury or concussion, some suffer lifelong mental difficulties, with trouble remembering words or following directions.
Pascrell and Platts first wrote a letter, also signed by scores of lawmakers, demanding that Tricare […]
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Saturday, February 5th, 2011
PHILIP S. SMITH, - AlterNet
Stephan: Here is the latest on this trend. I find it interesting that money concerns are accomplishing what simple humanity and good sense could not.
As states’ budgets bleed, some of them are shifting from ‘tough on crime’ to ‘smart on crime.’
Struggling with chronic budget crises, lawmakers in more and more states are embracing sentencing and other reforms in a bid to hold down corrections costs. But while sentencing reform has long been the domain of ‘bleeding heart’ liberals, now conservatives are driving those efforts in some states.
It’s not just about dollars. Although fiscal concerns are a driving force among conservatives, there are also signs they are recognizing and confronting the failures of our drug and criminal justice policies. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, none other than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote of ‘more humane, effective alternatives’ to the national imprisonment binge.
Still, as their states bleed red ink, some of them are shifting from ‘tough on crime’ to ‘smart on crime.’ Leading the charge is a newly formed advocacy group, Right On Crime, endorsed by big conservative names including Gingrich, taxpayer advocate Grover Norquist, and former drug czar William Bennett.
Based in Texas, Right On Crime is touting the success the Lone Star State has had with sentencing reform to make such reforms more palatable to conservatives. In 2003, the state passed legislation ordering […]
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Saturday, February 5th, 2011
KENNETH P. VOGEL & MARIN COGAN & JOHN BRESNAHAN, - Politico
Stephan: I am sorry, I just don't think it is o.k. for a Supreme Court Justice to have a spouse who is an activist and extremist, lobbying for issues that will come before them for the highest legal judgment in the nation. Nor do I think it is seemly or appropriate for a Justice to closet with and advise billionaires who have a long history of paying lobbyists to protect their greed and contempt for the larger society. This kind of behavior has not been seen in a century, and I think Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Alito should all be impeached. A democracy based on the fairness of its laws, cannot risk even the appearance, let alone the demonstrable substance of bias, on the part of its supreme justices.
She started as a congressional aide in the 1980s, became a midlevel Republican operative, then briefly left politics, reemerging in 2009 as founder of a tea party group before stepping down amid continued questions about whether her actions were appropriate for the spouse of a Supreme Court justice.
Now, Virginia ‘Ginni
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Saturday, February 5th, 2011
NATASHA PINOL, - American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stephan: Little by little we are unlocking our past, and coming to know more about the great human diaspora.
Artifacts unearthed in the United Arab Emirates date back 100,000 years and imply that modern humans first left Africa much earlier than researchers had expected, a new study reports. In light of their excavation, an international team of researchers led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany suggests that humans could have arrived on the Arabian Peninsula as early as 125,000 years ago - directly from Africa rather than via the Nile Valley or the Near East, as researchers have suggested in the past.
The timing and dispersal of modern humans out of Africa has been the source of long-standing debate, though most evidence has pointed to an exodus along the Mediterranean Sea or along the Arabian coast approximately 60,000 years ago.
This new research, placing early humans on the Arabian Peninsula much earlier, will appear in the 28 January issue of Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.
The team of researchers, including lead author Simon Armitage from Royal Holloway, University of London, discovered an ancient human toolkit at the Jebel Faya archaeological site in the United Arab Emirates. It resembles technology used by early humans in east Africa but not the craftsmanship that emerged from […]
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