NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2016/07/29
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2016-07-29 17:00.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, News of the death of Tim LaHaye. And kudos for Richard Alley and Naomi Oreskes.
TIM LAHAYE DIES The evangelical writer and activist Tim LaHaye died on July 25, 2016, at the age of 90, according to NBC News (July 25, 2016). LaHaye was best known for the Left Behind series of novels, coauthored with Jerry B. Jenkins, in which he imagined the Apocalypse unfolding according to his premillennialist and pretribulationist understanding of Scripture. In 2005, Time magazine included LaHaye and his wife Beverly LaHaye -- founder of Concerned Women for America -- in its list of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America. LaHaye was deeply involved with creationist efforts throughout his career. In 1971, he founded Christian Heritage College (now San Diego Christian College), which recruited Henry M. Morris to direct its Creation Science Research Center. After the mother-and-son team of Nell Segraves and Kelly Segraves took control of the center and dissociated it from the college in 1972, Morris reorganized the remaining staff into the Institute for Creation Research, which became autonomous from the college in 1981. LaHaye continued to decry the teaching of evolution in such books as The Battle for the Mind (1980), The Battle for the Public Schools (1983), and Mind Siege (2000, coauthored with David Noebel), according to which a humanist conspiracy is responsible for perpetrating "[t]he biggest hoax of the nineteenth and twentieth century ... that evolution is a scientific fact." LaHaye was born on April 27, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan. He served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He received a B.A. from Bob Jones University in 1950 and served as the pastor of Scott Memorial Baptist (now Shadow Mountain Committee) Church outside San Diego from 1958 to 1983, receiving a D.Min. from Western Theological Seminary in 1977 as well as honorary degrees from Bob Jones and Liberty Universities. He was involved in a number of political initiatives of the religious right. For the obituary from NBC News, visit: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/left-behind-co-author-tim-lahaye-leading-voice-evangelicalism-dies-n616481 For Time's article about the LaHayes, visit: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1993235_1993243_1993291,00.html CONGRATULATIONS TO ALLEY AND ORESKES NCSE is delighted to congratulate Richard Alley on receiving the Climate Communications Prize and Naomi Oreskes on receiving the Ambassador Award from the American Geophysical Union. The Climate Communications Prize "highlights the importance of promoting scientific literacy, clarity of message, and efforts to foster respect and understanding of science-based values as they relate to the implications of climate change," while the Ambassador Award honors "outstanding contributions to the following area(s): societal impact, service to the Earth and space community, scientific leadership, and promotion of talent/career pool," according to the AGU. Alley is the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University and the author of The Two-Mile Time Machine (2000) and Earth: The Operator's Manual (2011). A professor of the history of science at Harvard University, Oreskes is the author, with Erik M. Conway, of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming (2010). Both Alley and Oreskes are previous recipients of NCSE's Friend of the Planet Award, Alley in 2014 and Oreskes in 2015. For AGU's press release about the awards, visit: http://news.agu.org/press-release/american-geophysical-union-announces-recipients-of-the-2016-union-medals-awards-and-prizes/ For Daniel Bedford's review of Earth: The Operator's Manual (PDF), visit: http://reports.ncse.com/index.php/rncse/article/viewFile/158/318 And for a free excerpt (chapter 6) from Merchants of Doubt, visit (PDF): https://ncse.com/files/pub/evolution/Excerpt--merchants.pdf WHAT'S NEW FROM THE SCIENCE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Have you been visiting NCSE's blog, The Science League of America, recently? If not, then you've missed: * Glenn Branch researching a quotation from James Clerk Maxwell: https://ncse.com/blog/2016/07/god-to-make-it-work-part-1-0018263 https://ncse.com/blog/2016/07/god-to-make-it-work-part-2-0018264 * Stephanie Keep asking big questions about tiny arms: https://ncse.com/blog/2016/07/tiny-arms-big-questions-0018314 And much more besides! For The Science League of America, visit: http://ncse.com/blog Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website -- http://ncse.com -- where you can always find the latest news on evolution and climate education and threats to them. -- Sincerely, Glenn Branch Deputy Director National Center for Science Education, Inc. 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 600 Oakland CA 94612-2922 510-601-7203 fax 510-788-7971 branch@ncse.com http://ncse.com Check out NCSE's blog, Science League of America: http://ncse.com/blog Read Reports of the NCSE on-line: http://reports.ncse.com Subscribe to NCSE's free weekly e-newsletter: http://groups.google.com/group/ncse-news NCSE is on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd http://twitter.com/ncse NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today! http://ncse.com/join
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