The Age reports on the pressing issue of the growth of independent schools teaching from a faith-based curriculum in Australia. Presenting religious indoctrination in the Howard era clothing of “choice”, some such schools are teaching creationism in science classes and directly counteracting government efforts to provide sex education to students.
For example, the principal of one […]
Archive for the 'rationality' Category
no ape in 08: i !heart huckabee
06Dec07FYI, Mike Huckabee, potential Republican presidential candidate and by extension potential President of the United States, has this to say about creationism (and the fact that he believes in it):
If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, that’s fine. I’ll accept that. I just don’t happen to think that I […]
abnormal is the new normal
19Sep07This is an excellent piece by Barry Jones in The Australian in which he highlights the extraordinarily dangerous attitude currently being promoted as the “new normal” by politicians and their lackeys in the western world, in which objectivity, rationality and informed debate are completely subsumed by “faith”, expedience and knee-jerk reactivity:
We live in an era […]
Repeating the mantra that members of parliament meet with Australian citizens “all the time”, it has emerged that the Government’s links to the extremist Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren remain as strong as ever. As mentioned previously (1, 2), the sect both prohibits its members from voting or from participating in society generally, and […]
There’s quite an interesting post here about this article in the LA Times, in which the Times’ religion reporter William Lobdell describes finding and then losing his faith in the process of reporting on the subject. He was initially attracted to Catholicism:
Meanwhile, Roman Catholicism, with its low-key evangelism and deep ritual, increasingly appealed to […]
two thoughts on nuclear power
20Jul07There are increasing signs that Australia is going to go nuclear in the medium term.
First Thought
One way of looking at the benefits of nuclear power versus the risks is to consider the worst case scenario of an accident, rather than the base likelihood of an accident.
As an analogy, consider the difference between a plane and […]
what are you, gay?
09Jul07I’m sure you’re familiar with the old “homophobes are really closet gays” line of reasoning. Interestingly, this research seems to confirm that theory. From the abstract:
The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men and a group […]
petitio principii
29Jun07This is a dangerous piece of circular reasoning: the solution to the problems created by an ageing population is to increase population growth.
The ‘logic’ employed appears to be that, in order to sustain the current number of wrinklies in their retirement, society requires a greater number of youngsters to be working, paying taxes, and generally […]
on teaching science
26Jun07I enjoyed this article about the teaching of physics to school children in the United Kingdom, and reforms which seem to be focused on teaching kids to talk “about” science rather that teaching kids science itself.
Perhaps the most startling point is that calculation has been removed from the physics syllabus. Everything must be […]
Further to previous posts (one, two), here’s some great “Jesus with the little dinosaurs” art (thanks to KO):
Meanwhile Legal Eagle points to this article on the actual details of the legal battle in the Ham v Anti-Ham lawsuit.
it is more important to force raped women to have children than to stop murder and torture: god
15Jun07Those wacky funsters at the Vatican are at it again - this time they’re misrepresenting Amnesty’s new policy regarding abortion and instructing Catholics not to support the organisation. Amnesty’s position is that women who are pregnant as a result of rape or incest, or whose health is endangered by pregnancy, have the right to […]
You will recall our friend Ham, curator of the Creation “Museum”, from the story about dinosaurs with saddles - he who told us that T-Rex ate grass until “the fall” and other such nuggets of wisdom.
It seems that some of Ham’s former followers have decided to wrest back control of their (pre)destiny as an unthinking […]
The double standards on display in relation to this story are fascinating. A religious leader threatening members of the New South Wales parliament with holy consequences if they vote for a particular piece of legislation:
Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life […]
This is the headline this afternoon from the ABC news website:
The headline is a reference to the proposal that Australia implement a carbon trading scheme to (finally) start doing something about our greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon trading works, in part, on the basis of charging businesses for the greenhouse gases they produce. […]
The Electoral Commission has finally referred the matter of the Exclusive Brethren cult’s involvement in the funding of pro-Government election ads at the last election to the Australian Federal Police. A company linked to the cult spent more on pro-Government, anti-Greens advertising than the Australian Conservation Foundation or the Wilderness Society spent on their ads. […]
