http://factonista.org Science. Humanism. Atheism. Politics. Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:34:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Children and fools are suffered to speak truth; priests and ministers, as men engaged in politics and advertising, are suffered to speak untruth. Like parents who deceive their children about Santa Clause, the men of God enjoy a dispensation to deceive their folds for their own good. Publicly, the shepherds ... http://factonista.org/2009/10/04/why-skeptics-do-not-and-should-not-waste-their-time-with-academic-theology/ I have nine minutes to write this post. I do not have internet at my house, even though I ordered it. I am a slave to the hours of the coffee shop.  There are a few problems that I face with teaching science. First of all the only reason given for ... http://factonista.org/2009/09/21/teaching-science/ Well, I  became a teacher to save the world.  I became a teacher because unscientific, mooshy, subjective thinking dominates the world. I want to teach kids to be driven by reason and critical thinking.  I became a teacher to give youngsters, especially those who are less likely to succeed academically, an edge ... http://factonista.org/2009/09/11/3-weeks-in-and-grades-are-due/ “Look! It’s PZ!” Cheers went up and applause ensued. PZ Myers finally arrived at the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. This was the first time the famous (or infamous) blogger had ever visited the place that defied his field of study, accepting only microevolution, but vehemently denying macroevolution. Like everyone ... http://factonista.org/2009/08/18/good-cop-bad-cop-pz-and-the-creation-museum/ My personal history with faith is quite different from many of the non-believers I have met. Since this is my first post and I've been having trouble coming up with something to write, I'm going to try to draw upon that, to write about why I became involved with secular ... http://factonista.org/2009/08/17/why-does-secular-activism-matter/   [caption id="" align="alignright" width="356" caption="If I had a soul, this is what it would look like. "][/caption] Who is the Punk Teacher?   I decided to create the pseudonym “Punk Teacher” first and foremost so that I could write frankly about my new teaching career without risking drama, or worse, my job.   I am ... http://factonista.org/2009/08/15/confessions-of-a-punk-teacher/ That's the title of the Organizations & Market post referencing this latest New York Times piece. We here in humanities land love to hear that our math can be useful math too. Hot on its heels comes this great crash course in Bayesian reasoning - required reading for every student ... http://factonista.org/2009/08/10/statistics-is-sexy/ The BBC reports: The England team has withdrawn from the World Badminton Championships in India because of "a specific terrorist threat" made by extremists. The eight-strong squad pulled out of the tournament, which starts on Monday in Hyderabad, after reports of threats by Muslim extremists Lashkar-e-Taiba. Lakshar-e-Taiba has shown that, sometimes, terrorism does ... http://factonista.org/2009/08/09/terrorism-wins-badminton/ Introduction The great John Milton, referring to American eloquence, said: "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." It seems that within the framework of what constitutes "liberty", the lighted fire called "free-speech" is the greatest sight. The cracks and fissures ... http://factonista.org/2009/08/08/within-liberty/ The first thing the public wanted to know was: why? Why did 48-year old George Sodini, a gainfully employed middle-aged man with no apparent history of violence, stroll into a gym earlier this week armed to the teeth and shoot thirteen women, killing four of them, before killing himself? Sodini himself ... http://factonista.org/2009/08/07/the-wantonly-amoral-theologically-correct-worldview-of-george-sodini/