September 5, 2007

Tory Wants to Tell Stories in Science Class

September 5, 2007 – 11:53 pm
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As the Ontario provincial election approaches, Pro(Re)gressive Conservative Leader John Tory has come out in support of teaching creationism in religious schools… with taxpayers paying the storytellers:

Speaking to reporters at the a Jewish day school in Thornhill, Ont., on Wednesday, Mr. Tory defended his plan to bring Jewish, Islamic and other religious schools into the public education system.

“They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs,” Mr. Tory said at the Kamin Education Centre.

If elected premier on Oct. 10, Mr. Tory has promised to give private religious schools $400-million if they opt into the public system.

“Jewish, Islamic and other religious schools”… What about the Pastafarians?

Link: “Creationism raised as Ont. election issue” - Globe and Mail

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Microfluidics In Neuroscience

September 5, 2007 – 11:26 pm
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single_neuron_scale_b.jpg“Microfluidics is a multidisciplinary field - a combination of chemistry, physics, engineering and biotechnology - which involves the manufacture of devices that contain sub-millimeter-sized channels and which can be used to control the movements of miniscule amounts of fluids (nano-, or even picoliters).”

Link

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Ubuntu China Community Logo

September 5, 2007 – 9:52 pm
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Ubunut China Community Logo

Link to artist’s page…

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[Video] Dangerous Knowledge

September 5, 2007 – 4:33 pm
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p6240754The lives of four mathematicians and their work which shattered all notions of certainty is explored in this documentary… dangerous ideas that undermine - then as now - the established order of things:

“The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God’s messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann’s struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Kurt Gödel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death.

Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.”

Interspersed are interviews with leading mathematicians of today… Gregory Chaitin especially is fun and engaging and - by lucky coincidence - I just picked up his book Meta Math! from the library… This video is an excellent introduction to some ideas that will put your mind at unease… and this is a Good Thing!

Link

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