Negligible Knowledge Base

Give whatever name to it you want: “abstinence vows” or “viginity pledges” or “virginity contracts”, it just doesn’t matter. And you goddamned well know that the latest label, “purity rings”, makes no difference either.
Teen abstinence programs don’t work.
When it comes to pledges of abstinence “no pledge” is every bit as effective as “any pledge” or [...]

Hello everybody, and welcome to this very special program. I’m Paul Gates. If you grew up in the Baton Rouge area anytime from 1955 to 1990, you probably–well, you almost certainly watched two local children’s television shows starring Buckskin Bill Black. Every weekday for almost 35 years, thousands and thousands of girls and boys within [...]

Here’s one from the “hmmm, I never really considered that” file at FoxNews: Muslim Scientists Prepare for Battle With Creationists:
The next major battle over evolutionary theory is likely to occur not in the United States but in the Islamic world or in countries with large Muslim populations because of rising levels of education and Internet access [...]

Sorry, alter ego, but uh, I can’t not say something about this.  The Rt. Rev. Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster and the man charged with reversing the decline in attendance at Catholic Mass in the UK, is blaming many, if not most, of society’s ills on… you guessed it: education. Now here’s a guy who [...]

Drudge Report headline: “Condoms Over Abstinence in Obama AIDS Policy…” I can’t imagine the Drudge Report or it’s usual readers view this as a positive development, but those of us committed to rationality certainly do.
The linked story resides at Bloomberg, Condoms Trump Abstinence in Obama Global AIDS Policy:
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — President-elect Barack Obama will reverse [...]

I was just browsing around the website of the National Center for Science Education, as I do from time to time, and came across their 10 Tips for Writing Letters to the Editor on the Resources page. It’s full of practical, well-reasoned tips for being more effective and increasing your chances of getting your letter [...]

A friend recommended a new podcast to me recently, called Grammar Girl. Of course, when I say “new podcast” I mean only that it’s new to me; the podcast apparently has being going strong since early this year.
I checked it out and it is wonderful! Here’s the short description from the website:
Grammar Girl provides [...]

Well, Science Debate 2008 has now received answers from both presidential candidates. Again, it’s really sad that the presidential candidates didn’t have a formal science debate…really sad, since 85% of Americans wanted them to have that debate. In any event, for what it’s worth, the candidate’s answers (which, in my opinion, amount to little [...]

I’m not going to detail the situation with the Royal Society and (former) Director of Education, Michael Reiss. You can read about it Pharyngula if you like.
What I want to do is point out that the Royal Society’s position on creationism in the classroom, contained in their statement regarding Professor Michael Reiss, is both [...]

Mark Perakh, writing in eSkeptic for August 20, 2008, Flagella Myths:
An interesting question arises: Why ID advocates and other creationists, who so eagerly and persistently display pictures like those in Figures 1, 2, and 3, never deign to show much more realistic representations of flagella structure such as those shown in Figures 4, 5, and [...]