04/28/2008
Emails sent to family and friends....
Good News: +80% of students rally for "Teacher of the Year" who won't take his Bible off his desk...
02/01/2008-Take a Roe IQ test 03/01/2008-"father of Christian rock music" died this week 03/04/2008-High Profile Court case being argued today in California broadcasted live 03/10/2008-Has Bush done anything right??? 03/13/2008-3 great new movies Expelled (Ben Stein).. 03/26/2008-Awesome 2 minute online videos worth sharing/And an Ex Muslim testimony of Christ/The Hutcherson story 03/29/2008-Fwd: Grandma Behind Bars 04/01/2008-Darfur, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia and Namibia: Americas' Approval Ratings Soaring in Africa 04/03/2008-Breaking Good News from Jena, Louisiana 04/05/2008-March 24th the #1 item on Blogs was... 04/09/2008-Update: Breaking Bad News for NM photographer 04/13/2008-Finally reported on in NM but... 04/15/2008-The Smithsonian/A can't miss Interview with Michael Moore/Starbucks and more??!!! 04/18/2008-You be the Judge: Official Email conversations in the NM Photographer case.. 04/21/2008-In the mouth of 2 or 3 witness'. My first 2 emails this morning were... 04/28/2008-Good News: +80% of students rally for "Teacher of the Year" who won't take his Bible off his desk... 05/04/2008-Good News: Update on Jena Revival/Racial Reconciliation 05/06/2008-What costs American Tax Payers a trillion a decade!!! 05/08/2008-Fwd: McCain Courts Judicial Conservatives 05/12/2008-Burma in depth: What Lies in Darkness? (Please be advised photos are graphic) More to come and archived emails to be added soon...
| Last update on Expelled/related stories:
As you all know I have been milking this subject to the point of obsession! This will be my last report on Expelled, unless something really interesting developes. I just so happen to run across these official documents and some related recent happenings/legislations partaining to this issue and decided just to add them here over the last week and so here they are!
Official documents including the Smithsonian Institutes response in Dr Sternbergs' case that was highlighted in Expelled and the ACTUAL PEER REVIEWED PAPER that caused the controversy and was later retracted and majro web site of Expelled dissenters, you be the judge if you got the time!
Intolerance and the Politicization of Science at the Smithsionian-by The United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform December 2006. "Smithsonian Top Officails Permit the Demotion and Harrassment of Scientist Skeptical of Darwinian Evolution."
The appendix to the above report including ample pages of emails and the Smithsonians response.-Actual printed out email conversations like "The whole situation sounds like a pain in the... neck. Hopefully, the ID folks will get distracted with something else soon. After spending 4.5 years in the Bible Belt, I have learned how to carefully phrase things in order to avoid the least amount of negative repercussions for the kids. And I have heard many amazing things!! The most fun we had by far was when my son refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the 'under dog' part..."
Imagine this, John and Yoko and all the people (see below for why this imagery)...if somebody were being accused of sexual orientation discrimination and they found emails degrading that point of view. What do you think the NM Commission would have done then???? Here you have discussions that is quite revealing in the emails and to apply same principles it seems we have a fair game here in comparing the 2. Also, in the emails Dr Sternberg is accused of being an IDer and YEC because he has been involved with some YEC events and listed as a Darwin Dissenter on some list somewhere. Which really should not have mattered even according to the emails themselves, so why the necessity to dig up all this stuff except to bias the SI with bad info. Before the NCSE implied some sort of deceit on his behalf they should have checked out his responses which is now here on his web site at http://www.rsternberg.net. He also responds to The Scientist, Nature and Science which I believe are scientific magazines. And this is all public information for public review on his web site. On 04/15/2008 update on Expelled I emailed this web site with comments.
United States Office of Special Counsel preliminary investigation.-"The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency...OSC's primary mission is to safeguard the merit system by protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices, especially reprisal for whistleblowing."
The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories-The actual paper submitted that caused all this controversy. "In the article, entitled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories", Dr. Meyer argues that no current materialistic theory of evolution can account for the origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms. He proposes intelligent design as an alternative explanation for the origin of biological information and the higher taxa."
Unlike the NM Commissions' findings against the NM Photographer I believe you have much more evidence of discrimination against scientist who are dissenters in one way, shape or form here then you do in the photography case, just review the emails of how they talk about YEC and IDers. I could be wrong but it seems if you reviewed the evidence from the photography case then applied same evidence of findings to the SI case you would conclude the SI discriminated. Now I would argue that it is possible neither did but to be consistent in evidence. Maybe this is like comparing apples with oranges and in some sense I am sure it is. But none the less some value of understanding may be there. I mean its not as though the scientific community is immune to bias's that could actually thwart scientific progress even though in the name of "science" itself. So its good to have a public/scientific critique, ever so once in a lifetime often, of the scientific community by scientist themselves for the sake of science. This is a great movie for that end....Check it out...and support the progress of science...
Expelled Dissenters:
ExpelledExposed.com-web site provided as a rebuttal to the film by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) which is mentioned in the OSC investigation and Eugenie Scott of the NCSE is futured in Expelled. Here is what the OSC said concerning the NCSE and the SI. "Of great import is the fact that these same SI and NMNH employees immediately aligned themselves with the National Center for Science Education (NCSE)."
NCSE web site-"The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) defends the teaching of evolution in public schools. We are a nationally-recognized clearinghouse for information and advice to keep evolution in the science classroom and "scientific creationism" out."-Imagine this (see below why the Imagin imagery)....Unbiased Scientific Education!!! Cause if the NCSE gets its way that's all we will be able to do in public schools thanks to the ACLU!!! If the SI went to the NCSE for counsel what does that tell you about the SI? How could this have allowed the SI to be able to do a fair investigation of the alleged complaints of Dr Sternberg? But none the less I post the site here for another point of view from probabily the strongest on the Expelled dissenters advocacy list, the NCSE.
Expelled making a rumble:
Expelled came in as the number 5 movie on its first weekend of revenue per theatre!!!Vena and I saw the movie last Friday night and it was packed (the ticketbooth asked us if it was ok that we had to be in the front row) and many clapped at the end of the movie.
Check out the News section-""Big Science Academy" is proud to have the support of the "Mainstream Press" in stifling the rise of freedom of speech in our science classrooms. In so many ways, "Big Science" and "Big Media" are on exactly the same page, when it comes to making sure that dissenters and troublemakers are properly expelled."
The Expelled Chronicle-Headlines read: "Lawsuit by Yoko Ono" another reads "Expelled producers file lawsuit" for recent assertions of XVIVO, LLC. This is going to probabily be one of the most controversial films this year with the most biased coverage both ways and/or non coverage a film with this much controversy will get. Does that make sense? A must see just for the controversy and it is a well articulated documentary and may make a little history in the scientific philosophy and academic freedom circles!!! Get out and see it for yourself....
Recent legislation inacted to support Academic Freedom:
Good news!!!
Fla. Senate Passes Evolution Academic Freedom Act-"The Florida Senate voted 21-17 Wednesday, following a strong majority vote in the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee, to submit the Evolution Academic Freedom Act for vote in the House....In addition to Florida, two other states, Missouri and Louisiana, have also submitted Academic Freedom legislation."-See below...
Christian attorney hopeful Florida's 'Academic Freedom' bill becomes law-"David Gibbs, an attorney with the Florida-based Christian Law Association, says his organization is frequently contacted by teachers who are fearful about losing their jobs when they challenge evolution."
"Evolution Academic Freedom Act" (Florida): (Co-sponsored by Stephen R Wise (R) and Carey Baker (R)) and : "Prohibits a teacher from being discriminated against for presenting such information. Prohibits students from being penalized for subscribing to a particular position on evolution, etc. EFFECTIVE DATE: 10/01/2008...04/08/08 SENATE Favorable by- Judiciary; YEAS 7 NAYS 3 -SJ 00478...04/23/08 SENATE Read 3rd time -SJ 00704; Amendment(s) failed -SJ 00704; CS passed; YEAS 21 NAYS 17 -SJ 00704...04/28/08 HOUSE Read 3rd time; CS passed as amended; YEAS 71 NAYS 43.." As far as I can tell this means that all that needs to be done is the Governor to sign into effect and since Florida has a Republican Governor it will probabily not be vetoed!!!!
Missouri House Bill No. 2554 (Wayne Cooper (R)) "Neither the state board of education, nor....shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of theories of biological or chemical evolution."-Missouri House Bill No. 2554
Louisiana Academic Freedom Act (Senator Ben Nevers (D)): Similar to above but includes: "Such topics may include those topics in Paragraph A(4)...biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy.."Louisiana Academic Freedom Act".
Bad News!!!
Creation Graduate School Under Attack Again-"ICR had been issuing master's degrees in California from 1981 to 2007..Paredes has claimed that what ICR teaches is contrary to what is required in Texas's public schools, and that because ICR's program insists on accepting the biblical account of creation, it inadequately covers science...In 1990, the California Department of Education decided not to approve the school's degree program, which would have effectively closed the school. ICR, however, won that case in federal court."
Really Good News:
Vena and I, just had a vacation with the kids last month and we actually passed thru this small town in Ohio where this occured at. Very close to Ahmish country near Pennsylvania so I am sure quite conservative and thus....
"Science teacher John Freshwater was deeply moved by the response of students who organized a 'Bring Your Bible to School Day.' ...Freshwater estimates that at least eighty percent of the school's students came armed with their Bibles on Friday"-04/22/2008 Family News in Focus.
Other interesting facts about this situation:
Ohio public school teacher ordered to remove Bible from classroom desk-"John Freshwater has taught science at Mount Vernon Middle School for 20 years and last year was named "Teacher of the Year." For the past 18 years, Freshwater has kept his personal Bible on his desk in order to provide strength and encouragement."-04/21/2008 OneNewsNow.com
Teacher Refuses to Remove Bible from Desk-"In the past, Freshwater has taught his students about the "holes in evolution," and about Intelligent Design, the theory that a supernatural power created complex forms of life, said Dave Daubenmire, a spokesman for Freshwater."-04/18/2008 CBNnews.com Source: ABC News,Columbus Dispatch
Ohio Teacher Accused of Burning Crosses on Students' Arms-"Freshwater also is accused of handing out Bibles to students and teaching them the meaning of Good Friday and Easter."-04/23/2008 Christian World News: Source AP.
Wow. This is going to be interesting!!! Only in conservative land but why not let conservative land remain conservative!!!
It seems if public schools can promote a "Day of Silence" each year nationally to promote the acceptance of homosexual relationships which undermines Conservative Biblical Christianity then I don't see why one teacher can't pass out Bibles that teache an alternative view of homosexuality in a biblically conservative area of the country in one public school.
If you are interested in happenings of this sort and many other faith and family conservative issues then click on Family News in Focus (provided by Focus on the Family who most know Dr. Jame Dobson is founder or cofounder of). And there are about one month worth of archives for review to see if you would like to add this site to your favorites or have a podcast of this 7 minute quick news program each day from a faith and family conservative perspective. You will find out alot of information that is missing from mainstream media and will help aide in balancing out some of the issues that come our way. Also, you may hear these reports on some christian radio programs but here you can listen to them on your time and convenience.
Yanking Back the Balance/Filling in the Gaps/Emphasizing the Missing Headlines
"It's (EXPELLED) going to appeal strongly to the religious, the paranoid, the conspiracy theorists, and the ignorant –– which means they're going to draw in about 90% of the American market."-Atheist blogger and fabulist PZ Myers, on a film he has not yet seen. Sounds a little paranoid and conspirative, must be a fellow American.
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