Sorry the quality isn’t any better; the native resolution of the file, from Ellery’s Square One site, is pretty small.

Square One succeeded because it treated kids as intelligent and interested viewers. It was digestible for its 8-12 target audience, but it was never delivered with condescension, nor were the concepts ever dumbed down. Instead, the material was delivered with both a respect for the subject and a little snark directed at the pop-culture source material.

The best part of the show, of course, was Mathnet, a series of serials in which Kate Monday and George Frankly (Mathnet!) use math to fight crime. Each week had a new five-part case; Fridays, when the villain was unmasked (once literally, in the mother of all cases where George was put on trial for robbing a bank), was pretty much one of the most anticipated parts of my week for a while. (Yes, my childhood was kind of dorky. But someone else out there remembers being hooked on Square One, right?) Many of the serials are available in pieces on YouTube; in addition, Ellery’s site has sample clips of several of them.

YouTube and Ellery also have several of the music videos. All the uploaders have my thanks for keeping these clips available; the show has never been released on DVD. Make sure to check out Archimedes and the Angle Dance for examples of the show’s awesomeness at its zenith.

Michael B. just pointed me to a recent article in today’s Journal Gazette called, rather obliquely headlined, “Species of education: Evolution teaching, beliefs vary for two local students“.

Reporter Jaclyn Youhana talked with two local students about how they felt about their evolutionary science education in high school. Because Indiana Department of Education rightly says that science class curricula must pertain to science, evolution is taught exclusively.

Youhana spoke with Thomas Humbert, a Carroll HS student:

Humbert doesn’t believe in evolution. Raised Lutheran – he now considers himself non-denominational – Humbert believes in the biblical account of creation: That God made the world in seven days.

…

Ideally, Humbert said, he’d like to see different classes on different theories: an evolution class and a creationism class. He sees the flaws in the plan – hiring more teachers requires more money the district just doesn’t have – but wishes the topic was handled differently.”I think the best way to understand which (theory) is the best is to present them to all the kids,” he says. “In no way do I think we should focus only on one perspective because it’s not realistic. You are going to have challenges (and people who disagree), but that’s how you become stronger in what you believe.”

Humbert says he enjoyed the evolution lesson and was excited for it beforehand. Shortly before, he read “The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points toward God” by Lee Strobel. Once an atheist, Strobel started to question the facts of evolution and came to believe that much of evolutionary theory is outdated or incorrect. The information helped solidify Humbert’s belief in creationism.

Through Ben Stein’s “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a documentary about suppressing discussion of intelligent design, Humbert learned that in France the government doesn’t dictate what can and cannot be taught in schools.

“To me, that seems like democracy at its best,” he says. “They get to teach what they want. Here, the government monitoring what teachers teach doesn’t make much sense.”

Really, Thomas Humbert? REALLY? Lee Strobel and Ben Stein? I think that Strobel can easily be debunked (warning: weird website with frames) and Ben Stein’s documentary is just facepalm-worthy.

If you value a democracy of ideas, Thomas, and want all sides of an issue put forth, add someone else besides Strobel and Stein to your repetoire. Maybe some Jerry Coyne, or some Ken Miller. How about Tim Berra or Carl Sagan?

Secondly, let’s talk about democracy, shall we? Science class isn’t a democracy. It’s fact-based, and the theory of evolution is fact. (And as such, a scientific theory is not the same as the more popular use of the word, in the second definition here.) Something isn’t true because a majority decides it is.

As the Guardian’s Susan McCarthy wrote today,

…(Y)ou don’t have to believe in science to benefit from it. You don’t have to believe in photons to flip a switch and get light. You don’t have to think geologists understand fossil fuel origins to fill a tank of gas. You don’t have to believe in natural selection to take a new antibiotic for bronchitis.

But to do medical research, it helps to understand natural selection. To get good scientists, it helps if they don’t have to play catch-up for half their college years. And to get informed voters, it helps not to teach them that science is a matter of personal intuition. Or fundamentalist faith.

(Link)

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Let’s keep politics and the culture wars out of science class.

It all started going horribly awry when the youth ministers started soliciting contact info from minors and inviting kids to services (gasp) without parents even knowing anything about it.

Arguably, it started going awry when the school let the youth ministers in to begin with, but letting them interact, unfiltered with kids, getting personal information, was just plain idiotic. Now parents are outraged and the school is freaked because a parent’s right to control their child’s belief structure is “sacrosanct.” (Their words, not mine.)

As a non-parent, I am thrilled that this is something about which likely I shall not have to worry. On the other hand, it’s just another reason that parents need to maintain a strong, open line of communication with their kids. You wouldn’t want them dragged off into some cult from a hip youth pastor who knows how to use MySpace.

Who is this for?

You’ve probably heard the term RSS before but haven’t been able to get any clear direction or information on what it is exactly. This first post will be dedicated to the non-geeks out there. You know who you are and I won’t hold it against you I will publish a second half of this discussion that will delve a little deeper into some advanced features of RSS, despite how simple RSS really is there is an incredible amount of power in the protocol.

What is RSS?

Any good discussion of RSS would be missing something if it didn’t at a minimum discuss what the abbreviation RSS stands for. RSS currently means Really Simple Syndication and there is a reason for this rather untechnical name. You’d expect RSS to mean Robot Super Scripting or include some kind of Star Trek reference but you’d be disappointed (or not).

Before you can use RSS you have to be able to find an RSS feed. Any decent website, blog or podcast will very clearly label their feed. It will be labeled as “Subscribe to our feed” or “Subscribe via RSS” or simply “Subscribe” (like FreeThoughtFortWayne.org, look in the upper right hand part of the webpage). Often times the RSS feed will be identified by an orange icon with white “radio” waves (See the image to the right).

This is a really succinct rundown of those on the school board and those running for seats. It just all sounds like a political nightmare.

I have to admit that I have a hard time listening to the man in the video. He’s kinda crazy looking, in a conspiracy-theory-the-government-is-putting-flouride-in-the-water-to-control-our-minds type of way. But he has a lot of great points, and this makes me glad I don’t live in Texas.

At least our local school board election isn’t fighting over whether or not we should be teaching evolution or creationism intelligent design.  We stick to actual isues like the Code Yellow vs. Code Blue remonstrance debates. is this a concern we might face in the future, though? I’d love to hear your ideas on the topic in the comments.

“SHAM- How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless” by Steve Salerno. A review

SHAM is an acronym for the self-help and actualization movement and it is the ultimate self-book for self-help books. This journey in skepticism shines a light on the 8.53 billion dollar (2003) direct revenue industry. Salerno estimates the true economic costs will be in the trillions when you factor in government spending, lawsuits, medical costs, opportunity costs, and growth trends. I fell victim to several of the authors below and I feel better already after reading SHAM. My skepticism skills from studying science versus faith-based reasoning now enlighten other topics and it is easy to see how anecdotal these self-help books really are.

If you have read from Zig Ziglar, Stephen Covey, Rick Warren, Tony Robbins, Suze Orman, Dr. Phil McGraw or other Men are from Mars/Chicken Soup for the Soul types of books, or any help book pushed by Oprah and Larry King, you need to read this book.

The theme of the book distinguishes between two main types of self-help. The first is the victimization movement. This shows up in the 12 step programs. (There are many different types of these groups and books). These surprisingly religious organizations involve a person saying they are powerless and they have to give themselves over to a “higher power.” Alcoholism is no longer a disorder but a full on “disease.” (Yes, there is a physical addiction but this is not cancer.) SHAM states one has a better chance of actually quitting drinking by going “cold turkey” than attending a single AA meeting. Those groups hide their numbers, too. The victimization movement has contributed to many frivolous lawsuits, unfounded rape allegations (think hypnosis fed mental memories), and people not willing to say they are responsible for their actions by blaming anyone else for their circumstances. America bought it up.

The other big theme of the book and the one more in our face today is the empowerment movement in self-help. Think Dr. Phil “Pick Yourself Up by Your Boot Straps” or today’s “The Secret’s” if you really believe it will happen law. This creates a situation where the thesis cannot be falsified. If a person achieves what they desire then the author was correct. If one fails they didn’t believe in it hard enough (like faith healing) and then they buy another self-help book after failing. It is worse if you flip the logic around by saying one cannot be healthy because they didn’t believe in themselves hard enough regardless of any genetic predisposition to their disease.

The victimization and empowerment movements feed off on another. The main results are more people keep buying more self-help books. Ever wonder why Oprah has self-help books all the time? What happened to the ones from a year ago? Didn’t they work? Salerno thinks the empowerment movement has help feed the divorce rate by having couples that are not always in a state of bliss empower and break-up.

A couple of celebrity highlights: Tony Robbins started giving $50 dollar sessions using coal walking to pump people up and overcome their fears. (This is just physics). Dr. Phil was failing as a psychologist and he helped “coach” Oprah in a court case about her statements about her distrust of beef during the Mad Cow disease scare. The two hit it off. Dr. Phil does have a degree in what he does unlike many pseudo-helpers. The main problem with Dr. Phil and others (like the hypocritical Dr. Laura Schlessinger) is their pop-psychiatry. One cannot dish out accurate advice in a ten-minute segment. It is just scary. Real therapy takes time. One has to think about long term and shot term decisions and repercussions. Suze Orman gives good money advice such as stay out of debt, know your credit score, and put people above money and things. She gets into woo-woo with her empowerment money laws for example, “if one is honest they will attract money.” We all know there are people who are not very ethical, who nonetheless make a lot of money.

The best part of the book for me was the chapter entitled “Ya Gotta Want It” about today’s Sportsthink in business. I had a gun-hoe sports-nut manager who loved the sports hero types such as Vince Lombardi, Tommy Lasorda and Tiger Woods quotes. I laughed all the way through this chapter! There is something weird happening when businesses are bringing locker room mentality to the boardroom. Americans like sports and business so why not combine them? The problem with this analogy is in sports; teams are usually playing one team at a time with well-defined rules. In business, there are many simultaneous competitors and the rules can be broken from any direction. The internal danger here is a witch-hunt on an employee who didn’t have the “religious locker room” mentality and the firm could miss new creative opportunities and talent. There is always an undercurrent to this type of thinking and firms have spent much money and time trying to pump up the “sales” team usually with poor results. One doesn’t hear about it because that would mean the manager who hired the motivational speaker or dished out the BS would have to admit to their boss they wasted time and money. There is a great chapter on the unregulated, unlicensed, and ridiculous “life coaches.”

There is a chapter on criminals who now write books and give speeches after finding Jesus. Schools hire them to scare kids straight but what Selerno argues there is a “glory” shown to the past gang banging activities. American loves a good come back story so many schools have wasted resources on this.

Selerno goes into great depth about how our school systems now focus on “self-esteem” rather than achievement and competition. I bet our teachers could comment a lot on this one. This is the scariest topic in the book. The public school classroom is focusing on feelings rather than focusing on academic subjects. It brings up the participations awards and how some schools are paying and passing kids just to show up!!! Some school sports do not have any losers anymore. Teachers have to focus on the bottom of the class in order to get them all to pass standardized tests. Schools administrators will fight holding someone back that needs to be because this might upset the child or their parent’s feelings.

There is a rather long section on health quackery and its relation to self-help. The usual suspects are here such as and therapeutic touch, distance healing, art therapy, feng shui, magnet therapy, detoxification therapy, and faith healing.

Salerno quotes many voices of reason throughout the book such as James Randi, George Carlin, and Stephen Barret of Quackwatch. This book should be required reading for all of us skeptics. It is scary what happens when we leave science for the anecdotal chicken soup way of thinking. Enjoy!

-Andy

PS: I found Steve’s blog SHAMBOOK.  It looks great.