Robert Parks is a physicist at the University of Maryland, author of "Voodoo Science" and "Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science", and puts out a weekly enewsletter on science policy and developments titled "What's New". In this week issue of "What's New", there is this news item which I quote:
|3. APOCRYPHA: SCIENCE BOARD HIDES AMERICAN |IGNORANCE. The National Science Board, established by Congress |as a national science policy body, oversees NSF and provides |independent science policy advice to the President and Congress. |It issues a huge biennial report, Science and Engineering Indicators, |which is a compendium of quantitative data on the science enterprise |around the world. The results are disturbing. In their understanding |of science, polls found, most Americans are falling behind, even though |much of the progress was made by American scientists and engineers. |Congress needs to hear these facts. Instead, poll questions dealing |with the origin of the universe and evolution were simply excised from |the report The board member who took the lead in removing the text |was John T. Bruer, a philosopher with close ties to the Vatican. I hope |that Science will publish the apocryphal text so we may judge its |relevance for ourselves. Parks has his own website which archives the enewsletters; see: http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/current_issue.html The website ScienceDaily.com also has an news item on the National Science Board's (NSB) Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) 2010 report which also summarizes key points but doesn't mention Breur: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100115182635.htm For more background on the key players here, here are some sources: For the National Science Board, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Board For John T. Bruer is the president of the James S. McDonnell Foundation and their website has this bio for him: http://www.jsmf.org/about/bruer-biography.htm His is also author of several books, the latest is the following, quoted from the website: |John's latest book The Myth of the First Three Years: A New |Understanding of Early Brain Development and Lifelong Learning debunks |many popular beliefs about the all-or-nothing effects of early experience |on a child's brain and development urging parents and decision-makers to |consider for themselves the evidence for lifelong learning opportunities. The SEI 2010 report is available at the NSF website; see: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/ A digest of the report is also available: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/digest10/ And a slide presentation of major points is also available: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/slides.htm And here is the NSF's press release for SEI 2010: http://www.research.gov/rgov/anonymous.portal?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=news_1_1&news_1_1_actionOverride=%2Fgov%2Fresearch%2Fcore%2Fcms%2Fnews%2Fbegin&news_1_1nodePath=%2FBEA+Repository%2Fnews%2Fitems%2F1263660935269&_pageLabel=page_latest_news To the extent that teachers of psychology see themselves as either scientists or teachers of science or both, these issues might be of some concern. How science is defined and presented, in the classroom, in the popular media, in the government, and to other scientists should help us to understand where we fit intot he process and what direction it is going in. I am intrigued by Parks' comments that polling data on the origins of the universe and evolution apparently were not included in the SEI 2010 report (I've skimmed the digest and did not find anything) and am concerned why such information might be excluded. Was it for scientific reasons or for political reasons? In any event, perhaps people will find the links to resources above useful for other reasons. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1886 or send a blank email to leave-1886-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
