Overheard on the train
Friday, July 3rd, 2009 Posted in Education | No Comments »A group of 16 year old girls in the seats across from mine: "Can a cat get a rabbit pregnant?" "Nah" "Why not?" "I dunno" "Are you sure?" "Yeah. Something to do with enzymes." Our education system is crap. For proof, see above.
The Government doesn’t get it
Friday, June 26th, 2009 Posted in Education | No Comments »The government has finally decided to respond to the Royal Society of Chemistry's petition for improvements in school science standards. And guess how it does it? Well, by totally avoiding the point of the petition Listen, government, you really don't get ...
The Scandalous Decline of Rational Thought
Monday, April 13th, 2009 Posted in Education, General Science, Paranormal | 3 Comments »In the most literal sense possible, I urge you to read it and weep. The bit that angers me isn't the whole 'heaven' thing. I can sort-of understand why people would want to believe in an afterlife that is better than ...
Texas Narrowly Upholds Reason
Friday, March 27th, 2009 Posted in Creationism, Education, Politics | No Comments »I suppose I should be happy that the Texas lawmakers have upheld the bill which removed a loophole through which creationists slipped their nonsense into textbooks across the state. The new wording is that students should be taught to "analyze and evaluate ...
Mind Games
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 Posted in Education, General | No Comments »Just a short note to tell you that I've finished working on my latest project, called MindGames. It's a fairly simple freely-downloadable game that lets you practice a selection of simple mental agility problems which will stretch your mind to ...
More cash for science!
Friday, March 6th, 2009 Posted in Education | No Comments »Woo! Finally the government does something right: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7924765.stm Now all they need to do is to start listening to what these scientists tell them, and we'll be fine. I was having a discussion with some colleagues yesterday about the role public funding should ...
Britain in the grip of stupidity epidemic
Friday, February 6th, 2009 Posted in Biology, Creationism, Education, Health | No Comments »The mind boggles. The "Rescuing Darwin Survey" was, IMHO, extraordinarily poor in its design; but that's only a tiny excuse for what is a colossal failure of education, the press, and, frankly, the national intelligence. 33% of adults in the survey believed that ...
Looking Ahead to 2009 – Part 1
Sunday, December 28th, 2008 Posted in Creationism, Education | No Comments »I'm going to do a post every day for the next four days looking forward to the positive and negative aspects that we can expect to see in 2009, looking from four different viewpoints. Firstly, today, I'm looking at the good ...
Questioning science
Monday, December 8th, 2008 Posted in Creationism, Education, Politics | No Comments »I think I finally understand one of the major objections that Creationists without scientific training (if that's not a tautology) put forward when arguing against Evolution and other associated theories. I realised something today when I was listening to the ...
UK Schools Rubbish: It’s Official!
Monday, December 1st, 2008 Posted in Education | No Comments »Two articles on BBC in the space of less than a week. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7755329.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7750717.stm Here's the original Royal Society of Chemistry press release. To cut a long story short - exams are getting too easy, and the so-called 'increase in standards in UK schools' ...
