I knew they were here

I have met young earth creationists in New Zealand, but they have seemed to be few and far between. New Zealand is a secular society and religious people tend to be moderate, bar the kooks on Queen Street on Friday and Saturday nights. Evolution is the principle that ties all of biology together. Insert Dobzshansky's famous quote here. Thus, it should be taught in biology, and as such it is in New Zealand.

The science curriculum is grouped into several strands linking to the major areas of science. Biology is called "the living world" strand under which the following descriptions is provided:

The living world strand is about living things and how they interact with each other and the environment. Students develop an understanding of the diversity of life and life processes, of where and how life has evolved, of evolution as the link between life processes and ecology, and of the impact of humans on all forms of life. As a result, they are able to make more informed decisions about significant biological issues. The emphasis is on the biology of New Zealand, including the sustainability of New Zealand’s unique fauna and flora and distinctive ecosystems

Furthermore, from level 1--8 (ages 11 to 18) students are taught evolution as evidenced by the achievements and aims of the living world strand. We should expect then that all students who attend state school in New Zealand are exposed to, and taught the basic principles of evolutionary biology.

It turns out that this is not true. Two recent posts (here and here) by Allison Campbell from Wiakato University highlighted two examples of state funded school discarding evolution from their teaching in favour of creationism. The two schools in question are Westminster Christian School and Ponatahi Christian School. Westminster has a pdf of their prospectus that outlines how they have replaced the word 'evolution' with 'creation' and also have a special course called Creation Studies where they seem to go through the days of creation presumably in a literal sense and brainwashing the kids. Ponatahi, on the other hand, has an entire section on their website dedicated to evolution/creation.

I have very little to say on this other than I find these two examples really disgraceful. It makes a mockery of science and how it should be presented to students. The creationist/ID lot love claiming that presenting the "alternative" ideas and letting kids decide for themselves is exactly in the spirit of science. However, when you imply that accepting evolution you are essentially rejecting god and resigning yourself to an eternity of torture. This is mental child abuse and should be stamped out. What I find worse is that these are state funded schools and they are blatantly misteaching those kids. My taxes pay for that and I don;t think it is OK.

Quote of the day

Today's quote is from Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have only seen the film which I enjoyed, although I believe the books are better as is usually the case.

The quote is quite appropriate given subjects covered previously:

" Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable in their disinclination to do so."

Daily? quote

My wife gave me a diary last christmas. I have kept three diaries in the past: one was a diary of a trip to Europe when I was 11, the second was from a trip to New Zealand when I was 15, and the final one started on my OE to England, it didn't last.

To date I haven't used the diary from my wife but I thought now might be a good time to start. I was reminded of the diary by a quote a friend of mine posted on facebook this week "It isn't that I'm not a people person, I'm just not a stupid people person." Why does that remind me of the diary? See the front cover of the diary below for a hint.

Each day in the diary has a quote from an historical figure including scientists, philosophers and musicians. All quote are in the theme of the title of the journal. I think I might try and post one each day, or at least as often as I write in the journal. Who knows? I might publish my memoirs including statements from the journal which themselves will be pyblished in a similar journal in the future.

Todays quote comes from Jean-Paul Sartre. It is rather simple and straight to the point although it does seem a bit too general and I'm not sure how much I agree with it.

Hell is other people

A persons right to choose

Saw this video over at Pharyngula and it initially made me proud to be a New Zealander.

Same sex civil union has been legal in New Zealand since 26 April 2005. A civil union basically affords the same rights to each member of the partnership in the same way as marriage does. As is said I was proud of being a New Zealander and it is because we have the Civil Union Act. However, a little reading reminded me of the controversy that surrounded the implementation of the act. The parliamentary vote was close, 65 for and 55 against. What I find more shocking is that only three of the nine parties voted predominantly yes. The three parties that voted predominantly yes were the Labour Party (45 yes, 6 no), who were leading the government, the Green Party (9 yes, 0 no) and the Progressive Party (2 yes, 0 no). The Act Party did have 5 for and 4 against surprisingly. The National Party, our current government, voted 3 for and 24 against. We have an election soon and it is likely that National will remain the governing party. I hate the thought of bigots being in charge and that is without considering their formal policies per se.

This year the election campaign has been cut quite short because of a certain event that will remain unnamed. However, there have been several campaign videos as well as the usual signs placed on street corners. I haven't watched most of the videos all the way through. I find them quite boring and I have already made up my mind so John Key talking to a fake audience and answering fake questions, or Labour harping on about the past is going to change it. My vote is firmly with the Greens.

The return of a procrastinator: nothing to see here

Inspired by the arrival of my fellow apomorphic hominid over at Still Monkeys (read it) I return from my hiatus. My reason for not posting over the last few months is that I haven't had any pressing deadlines like a thesis for example. I used blogging as a tool for procrastinating in the months leading up to submission followed by a complete halt weeks out from submission and nothing since then. I can quite confidently say that the last few weeks of working on my thesis was the most stressful time in my life. Nonetheless, I came out alive and I was happy with what I produced.

Since handing my thesis is I have been doing some work at the university working on a couple of papers, one of which has been submitted to Ecology and is currently in review (fingers crossed). Having a paper published in Ecology would be fantastic and hopefully be the beginning of a lifetime of publishing research, but who knows. I have be thinking about several lines of future work that seem fruitful but I will divulge more about that in later post. In fact, I haven't posted about my current/masters research although I might wait until the paper is published before I do. Until then you will have to deal with my maniacal ramblings about trees, birds and other things.

Make a difference with food

I became vegetarian about 5 years ago. Very shrtly afterwards I became a vegan. I have since fallen off the wagon and eat cheese and eggs. I LOVE CHEESE. Nonetheless vegansism and vegetarianism are the best way to reduce you consumption of fossil fuels among other things. There is a doco coming out soon called PlanEAT about how the food we eat impacts the planet. Watch the trailer below.

Lazy me

It's been ages since my last post (sounds like confession to the priest). I have been writing my thesis so have not had much time for blogging lately.

Here is something that I read today. It explains how I felt in my last post about the disparities within christianity. Again I stress the point about god's infallible nature. If god were all powerful, with complete power over the universe there is no way this could happen. His word should not lead to confusion. All people who read it should interpret it the same way. And, if they don't god should magically make them understand it in the same way.

Here are some bits that I like from the above link

Some of us, on the basis of our relationship with God, knew him to be loving, compassionate, generous, always reaching out to us, pitying our mistakes rather than condemning them. Others, on the basis of their relationship with God, knew him to be angry, jealous, punitive.

Some of us knew that God had more important things to worry about than our sex lives; others knew that human sexual impurity was deeply offensive to him.

Some of us knew that God wanted us to respond to other people’s shortcomings with tolerance and forbearance and humility; others knew that he wanted sin to be made an example of, to be held up and publicly rebuked.

Some of us knew that God was offended by conspicuous consumption when so many people had nothing; others knew that God showered wealth along with other good things on those of whom he approved.

Some of us knew that God saw all religions as different expressions of people’s yearning for him; others knew that traditional, orthodox Christianity was the only route to him.

Some of us knew that the devil was just a myth to explain the existence of evil; others knew that the devil was very real and a genuine threat to our souls.

Some of us knew that there was no way God could ever allow such a thing as hell; others knew that hell was very much a part of God’s ordained order.