NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2016/09/09
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2016-09-09 17:00.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Minda Berbeco is leaving NCSE. And news of the death of Phyllis Schlafly.
FAREWELL TO MINDA BERBECO NCSE bids farewell to Minda Berbeco, who joined NCSE as a Programs and Policy Director in 2012 to work on its climate change education initiative. In addition to helping NCSE continue to develop its expertise on climate education and threats to it, Berbeco also spearheaded NCSEteach, NCSE's new outreach project now reaching nearly six thousand teachers, and its Scientists in the Classroom project. (In her absence, these projects will be temporarily supervised by Claire Adrian-Tucci.) She was also highly effective in recruiting and supervising a series of interns. As Berbeco explains in a farewell post on NCSE's blog, she will be the new director of the San Francisco Bay chapter of the Sierra Club. All of us at NCSE wish her the best in her new endeavors. For information on NCSEteach, visit: https://ncse.com/teach And for Berbeco's farewell blog post, visit: https://ncse.com/blog/2016/09/farewell-to-ncse-0018365 PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY DIES The conservative political activist Phyllis Schlafly died on September 5, 2016, at the age of 92, according to The New York Times (September 5, 2016). Her "grass-roots campaigns against Communism, abortion[,] and the Equal Rights Amendment galvanized conservatives for almost two generations and helped reshape American politics," according to the Times. She is perhaps most notable for her campaign against ratification of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution: as the obituary in the Guardian (September 6, 2016) remarked, "Although she did not quite defeat the ERA 'single-handedly', as her supporters liked to claim, defeated it was." The teaching of evolution was among Schlafly's targets. The Alabama chapter of the Eagle Forum -- the activist organization founded, as Stop ERA, by Schlafly in 1972 -- successfully lobbied for the inclusion of evolution warning disclaimers in the state's textbooks in 1995; a version of the disclaimer is still required. Through the Eagle Forum's newsletter Education Reporter, Schlafly regularly promoted creationist material (such as Jonathan Wells's Icons of Evolution, its book of the month for January 2001) and causes. In 2004, Schlafly declared in her syndicated column, "The worst censors are those prohibiting criticism of the theory of evolution in the classroom," and praised school boards such as that of Cobb County, Georgia, which then required a disclaimer about evolution to be affixed to its biology textbooks, for "allowing criticism of Darwin's theory." In 2006, she decried Judge John E. Jones III, a George W. Bush appointee, after he "stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District." There are signs that the teaching of climate change was increasingly of concern to Schlafly as well; in 2013, for example, Education Reporter claimed, "Climate change is accepted as manmade in the [Next Generation Science Standards] and children must accept this notion." Schlafly was born Phyllis McAlpin Stewart in St. Louis on August 15, 1924. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1944, earned a master's degree from Radcliffe College in 1945, and married Fred Schlafly Jr. in 1949. She became active in Republican politics, running for Congress herself in 1952 and 1970, with a focus on opposing international Communism. In the early 1970s, her focus shifted to opposing feminism with a campaign to block the ERA. She earned a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, in 1978. A prolific writer, she was the author of over twenty books, including A Choice Not an Echo (1964), supporting Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign. For the obituaries in The New York Times and the Guardian, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/obituaries/phyllis-schlafly-conservative-leader-and-foe-of-era-dies-at-92.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/06/phyllis-schlafly-outspoken-rightwing-activist-has-died-aged-92 And for the most recent news about Alabama's evolution disclaimer, visit: https://ncse.com/news/2016/03/alabama-retains-its-evolution-disclaimer-0016968 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: * Minda Berbeco bidding farewell to NCSE: https://ncse.com/blog/2016/09/farewell-to-ncse-0018365 * Stephanie Keep addressing the idea of de-evolution: https://ncse.com/blog/2016/08/misconception-monday-myth-evolution-part-1-0018358 https://ncse.com/blog/2016/08/misconception-monday-myth-evolution-part-2-0018359 * Glenn Branch investigating the history of the epithet "just-so story": https://ncse.com/blog/2016/09/just-so-stories-0018366 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
» 3658 reads
