In the U.S. only 40 per cent of adults believe whole-heartedly in evolution, while 39 per cent called it “absolutely false” in the 2005 survey...

The study's authors say that after decades of debate it seems the American public is more confused than ever on the issue of evolution. Over the past 20 years, the number of Americans unsure about their stand on evolution has tripled from 7 per cent in 1985 to 21 per cent in 2005.

Jon Miller, the professor who authored the study, said religious fundamentalism in the United States has fuelled skepticism in evolution.

“When you compare the U.S. to Europe, it's clear we're way out in right field by ourselves,” said Mr. Miller. “There is a different protestant movement in this country, one that often rejects science. It's different than that of Europe and certainly of Canada.”

“The Republicans have been taken over by religious conservatives,” he said. “Partly because of the fundamentalism, we have a more ideological politics than ever before. Now more than ever we're seeing the politicization of this issue and others like stem cells, the morning after pill and global warming. Republicans do it because it works.”

Mr. Miller said the results of the study are concerning and paint a grim portrait of American science education.

“It doesn't say anything very good about education here,” he said. “The findings should be of substantial concern to science educators in the United States because we've spent billions of dollars, we have a high percentage of young people going to college and taking science courses and yet we have a very ambivalent attitude on a subject that's a closed book almost everywhere in the world.”

Simply Shocking.

In evolution, Americans are big non-believers

Real human bodies, preserved through an innovative process and then respectfully presented. Experience the human body like never before at The Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center.

Screw the fish tank, the ATL Memestreamers totally need to go see this!

BODIES...The Exhibition - Opening March 4th, A Limited Engagement

Americans don’t accept evolution

Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation was guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years.

Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the concept is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.

“When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20 percent turn out to be scientifically literate,” said Jon Miller, director of the centre for biomedical communication at Northwestern University.

He said science and especially mathematics were poorly taught in most US schools, leading both to a shortage of good scientists and general scientific ignorance.

US school students perform relatively poorly in international tests of mathematics and science. For example, in 2003 US students were ranked 24th in an international test that measured the mathematical literacy of 15-year-olds, below many European and Asian countries.

Scientists bemoan the lack of qualified US candidates for postgraduate and doctoral studies at American universities and currently fill around a third of available science and engineering slots with foreign students.

The larger article is very important but I found these statistics frightening.

American's view on The Big bang, Evolution, and Science

Great animation about how DI rounds from M1A1's and A10's can breech tank armor, and how the rounds get converted to radioactive dust.

BBC - How Depleted Uranium rounds breech armor plating

(Well, thats not true. I learned most of this in the mid 90s from the Internet, but only because I went looking for it).

The BBC has a series of diagrams and explainations describing:

-The Mining of Uranium
-Converting and Enriching Uranium
-Design of gun-type Nuclear bombs
-Nuclear power plants
-Reprocessing nuclear waste in "breeder" reacters
-Design of implosion-type Thermonuclear bombs

I quick look on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) turns up much more detailed descriptions of enrichment (no chemical formulas, though any graduate chemistry book should have the need reactions). Also includes many more designs to cause a mass to go critical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design

Here is something odd:

SADM - Backpack sized nuclear weapon to be parachuted in with special forces to take out a hardor or dam. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition)

BBC: From the mine to the bomb, or everything I ever wanted to know about building nuclear weapons but no one in the US would print

] Known as a rectangular projection, this map is one way of
] looking at the spherical Earth as a flat map. Both the
] size of continents and their shape get distorted as you
] move away from the equator. Compare this with a Mercator
] projection, which greatly distorts sizes in favor of
] keeping the shapes correct, or a Peters projection which
] distorts shapes but gives a true indication of relative
] size.
]
] Also available is a semi-realistic view of dawn and dusk
] from far above the Earth, a look at the moon, and
] information about how this works.

On the same vein as the "world at night" photos, here are some cool maps the whole earth's surface.

World Sunlight Map

] The jackpot is actually 12 jewels hidden in very public
] places around the United States. Think diamonds, think
] rubies, think the rarest, most perfect Kashmir sapphire.
]
] All you need to do to get any or all the gems is to
] decipher clues in the book "A Treasure's Trove." The
] clues lead to a dozen 18-karat gold tokens. Author
] Michael Stadther, who hid each of the tokens himself,
] promises that they are all in public places where they
] can be easily accessed without digging, moving or
] disturbing objects or structures.

That is really cool!

$1 million treasure hunt hidden in pages of fairy tale

] ] Now, a year later, the "NOVA" team is back with "Welcome
] ] to Mars," featuring data collected by the robots as they
] ] searched for signs that the planet may once have harbored
] ] tiny forms of life. The program airs at 8 tonight on PBS.
]
] This was fun. Hope you can catch the rerun.

I saw this last night and was pretty impressed. A nice overview of what each rover found, what is means, and theories about Mars the findings support. Some cool facts:

-The rovers go to sleep every night. So the engineers pour over the data that was received, and form the next day's mission plan, uploading it at the start of the next day.

-Rovers were mostly batch driven: NASA would download extreme resolution pictures. They would then use a CAD representation of the surrounding landscape and create a series of commands to do the next days mission. A lot like LOGO graphics! The rovers didn't seem to be controlled in realtime.

-Mars' days are 24 hours 40 minutes. This forced the NASA members to keep getting up later and later, until they were going to work at 8pm at night!

RE: 'NOVA' welcomes viewers to Mars - 01/04/05

Imagine two people standing about 500 feet from a car that is against wall around a bend. One is holding binoculars, the other a piece of paper. One looks through his binoculars at the car and says, "Someone was driving that car too fast, skidded out, and slammed into the wall."

The other person says, "I don't believe that, the police report says that it was placed there by God."

"I know that the report says that, but I can pretty clearly see skid marks on the road, the car is smashed, the windows shattered, and there is broken glass on the road."

"I don't necessarily agree. I see what you mean about the marks, but they don't look that clear to me. I am also not sure that the stuff on the road is glass. To me it looks like it could be water. Besides, I believe Officer Joe, he is a good man."

"I know that Officer Joe is honest, but I think he is mistaken. Through my binoculars it looks pretty clear that the car was driven into the wall. It looks like a man drove it there, the skid marks are clear, that is definitely say that the stuff on the road is broken glass and not water. I also think I see the man's head leaning against the steering column. It looks to me like an accident."

"That is fine. It is just your opinion though. I believe the report that God put it there. You know, binoculars often produce optical distortions, there is no such thing as a perfectly accurate lens. In addition, you aren't entirely sure about the man's head, it may not be that there is a man in the car, you said that you aren't sure. If there is not a man in the car, then how could it have gotten there? The police report says it was placed there by God, and if no one was driving it..."

"Ok, ok, I know about distortions and all, but I use these binoculars all the time and I know what is and is not a distortion. Besides, to say that the car was put there by God just sounds a little..."

"A little what?"

"I mean, come on. The car was driven into the wall. This is a stupid argument. I can see that..."

"Can you see the driver?"

"Well I can sort of make out..."

"No, you can't say for sure. But you are calling me stupid. Why can't you admit that you have your opinion and that I have mine?"

------------------------------

If you are a scientist, this is what the creationist argument looks like. The scientist isn't smarter or better than the other person, he just has a set of mathematical and instrumental tools, the binoculars, that he is skilled at using with knowledge of their limitations.

With the techniques of modern biology, the evolution argument is about that obvious. The scientist sees an incredible amount of evidence that people descended from primates. Just like in the metaphor, the creationist seems to be lacking binoculars. The only difference is that in reality the toolset is differential equations, statistics, technology, chemistry, and complex instrumentation. Unfortunately, this i... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Evolution in Education

] "We are taking a risk with the global climate," said Paal
] Prestrud, vice-chair of the Arctic Climate Impact
] Assessment (ACIA) report, which says emissions of gases
] from cars, factories and power plants are mostly to
] blame.
]
] The Arctic icecap has shrunk by 15-20 percent in the past
] 30 years and the contraction is likely to accelerate,
] Prestrud said. The Arctic Ocean could be almost ice-free
] in summer by the end of the century.

Arctic melt accelerates, governments split