English 106 Blog

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Wednesday

Today I was able to write two paragraphs on the possible effects of a scientifically illiterate country. I will try to finish this section by Friday and maybe start the third section, which is possible ways for scientists and educators to teach the public. I will have time later today to be able to work on it.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Inclass work

Today I finished the first part of my paper, which is a quick overview of the scientific illiteracy in the United States, especially with regards to creationism. This included mentioning a couple of the cases in the past couple of years about teaching intelligent design in public science classes. For next time I will start writing the next part of my paper, which is the possible harms and fallouts of a scientifically illiterate country.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Thesis and outline

Thesis- In this day and age, when so much of our society depends on the development of scientific progress, it is absolutely essential that kids are exposed to the truth in school. The problem, though, is that a large percentage of the citenzry of the United States buys into pseudoscientific ideas; seen no more clearly than the amount of people who believe in creationism, or as it has recently started to be called in an attempt to appear scientific, intelligent design.

Outline-
1st point- I will first do a quick overview of the amount of people who believe in creationism, as well as other bogus sciences such as astrology and seances. Then I'll mention a couple of the recent cases where people have tried to get creationism back into public schools. After that, I will review why in all of those cases the judge and jury ruled in favor of evolution instead of creationism.

2nd point- I will next focus on the problems and outcomes of having a scientific illiterate country. I will reference history as well as the present. This will include European countries such as Sweden, France, and England, and how the majority of their populations have grown pass infantile beliefs and turned instead towards science and reason. And how becuase of this, in certain scientific aspects, they are more enlightened than the United States.

3rd point- My third point will focus on what educators and scientists can to do to address this problem. And also briefly talk about what the role of education is.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Revisions for annotated bibliography

The first revision I have to do is arrange the sources in category headings. I also have to add more in my summaries of how I am going to use a certain article in my paper. I kind of focused more on just summarizing the article than explaining how I will use it. There are a couple of spelling errors that I need to correct too.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Annotated Bibliography

Cracraft, Joel (2004). The New Creationism and Its Threat to Science Literacy and Education.
Bioscience, 54 (1). Retrieved October 31, 2007, from
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=104&sid=877c77c5-183f-48e1-b23c
faf66d5436d8%40sessionmgr102

This short article out of the journal Bioscience deals with creationism and gives a brief explanation of the problems that teaching it in public science classrooms poses. The author mentions in the beginning that there is a large percentage of the population of the United States who buys into pseudoscientific theories, whether it is UFO landings, astrology, or séances. But obviously from the title the author’s main focus is creationism, or as it is beginning to be called in a desperate attempt to appear scientific, intelligent design theory. He talks about the intelligent design (ID) movement and how, when all the appearance of science is stripped away, it is a calculated attempt to get God and religion into public science classrooms and impose a state religion, which of course clearly violates the First Amendment. The author shows that there is hope for the future though. He references some statistics that the percentage of people who accept the theory of evolution is on a continuous rise. Also that a substantial majority believes evolution should be taught in schools, and another substantial majority that believes evolution is not incompatible with a belief in god, which seems to have always been a main argument by creationists. Since this article is from a journal called Bioscience, the author is obviously happy about the fact that acceptance of evolution is on the rise. As he says in the last paragraph, “A religious worldview, under the pretext of science, should not be imposed on children in the public schools--hence the need for science education that deals squarely with the nature of scientific inquiry.” Since the article is brief it will not be my main source. It does not further expound on the quote above, about how educators can confront the problem of scientific illiteracy in the United States. I will be able to pull out some main facts from the article though, such as the rise of the percentage of Americans accepting evolution which I mentioned above.

Wapshott, Nicholas (2005). A New Age of Unreason. New Statesman, 134 (4762). Retrieved October 31, 2007, from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=104&sid=877c77c5-183f-48e1-b23c-faf66d5436d8%40sessionmgr102.

This article uses the trial in Dover between evolution and intelligent design as an example to illustrate a larger point of scientific illiteracy. As the author of the article says, "It is evidence of a wider malaise, the emergence of a new age of unreason which glorifies the irrational and dignifies ignorance." The article also briefly mentions what the harm was when American schools did not teach evolution and other scientific theories in the first half of the 20th century. This refers to 1957, when the Soviet Union launched a satellite into space before the U.S. That was an extremely humiliating moment for the United States and Eisenhower, and it was after that, that our government investigated science teaching and issued new textbooks that were based on real science. This included putting evolution firmly at the center of biology class. The author also touches on how most European countries are no longer having this debate; the majority of them accept evolution. This could be why most of the nobel prizes for scientific fields have gone to Europeans in the past two decades. Overall, this was a really good article that had many statistics I will be able to use in my paper.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Library Sources

Monday, October 29, 2007

Primary/Secondary sources

Primary sources- A potential primary source for my topic could be to interview a biology teacher. And to get the other side of the argument, I could interview a priest or some other clergyman to get his view on the topic.

Secondary sources- My secondary sources will mostly consist of scholary research from either the internet or the library. I have already found a couple real good sites and articles by quailified authors on the topic. I will also probably incorporate court cases dealing with the subject, to show that there is still a controversy going on.