Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1729

California Educator Showed the Bill Nye/Ken Ham Debate in Class To Teach Students “Both Sides of the Argument”

There are plenty of ways to teach evolution in a high school science class. And Brandon Pettenger of Arroyo Grande High School in California doesn’t seem to know any of them.

He thought it would be appropriate to watch the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate in the classroom… and then have his students summarize blog posts on Creationist websites.

This doesn’t belong in a science class

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science teamed up to write a letter to...

Catholic School Expels 12-Year-Old Cancer Survivor After Too Many Absences

And you thought Catholic schools were at their worst when handling LGBT issues…

Rose McGrath (below) just got kicked out of St. Joseph Catholic Middle School in Battle Creek, Michigan due to her poor attendance.

Why’d she miss so much school?

Oh, right. She’s recovering from her cancer treatment.

She’s been with the Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools all her life, but attending school got difficult when she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2012.

“Even though she’s now done with h...

What Do Anti-Vaxxers Have to Say About the Latest Study Debunking Their Beliefs?

A major new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Tuesday, found no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, even in high-risk kids.

But until someone gets a statement from Jenny McCarthy, let’s see what the Onion‘s panelists have to say:

You can read a couple more at their site.

Seriously, though. There’s no connection. None. When there’s this much science contradicting your beliefs, you need to adjust your thinking or get a job at the Creation Muse...

If These Guys Can’t Find Bigfoot, No One Can

A couple of guys went on the search for Bigfoot/Sasquatch and produced this documentary that looks and sounds real… until you pay close attention to what they’re saying.

I loved the explanation of the Bigfoot family tree and how many of them should still be around. Because science.

(via Turtle Canyon Comedy)

COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey Wins Peabody Award

Back in August, we learned that COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey won an impressive 4 Emmy Awards, including “Outstanding Writing For Nonfiction Programming.”

Today, they received an even more impressive honor: The Peabody Award, celebrating overall excellence in quality. (For those unfamiliar with it, this is one of those awards the winners will mention even in short biographies. It’s a big deal.)

The show was praised for its “dazzling virtual tour of the final frontier and its energetic evangelizin...

Salon Writer Says We Should Stop Criticizing Astrology; Here’s Why He’s Wrong

Eric Adams considers himself a “man of science,” but doesn’t want to be a dick about it to astrology believers. That alone isn’t a bad idea — it’s hard to change minds by insulting people. In a piece for Salon, he shared how how he’s learned to strike a balance… but it quickly took a strange direction:

I have very few buttons people can press that will elicit any sort of knee-jerk reaction. Actually, I only have one: Astrology… The subject strikes a nerve because my main avocation happens to b...

Faithful Hindus Give Their Gods Billions of Dollars in Gold, Resist Government Bid To Put It In Interest Accounts

Gods need gold:

India is the world’s biggest consumer of gold and its ancient temples have collected billions of dollars in jewellery, bars and coins over the centuries — all hidden securely in vaults, some ancient and some modern. … Now, the Narendra Modi government reportedly wants to get his hands on this temple gold, estimated at about 3,000 tonnes, more than two-thirds of the gold held in the U.S bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, to help tackle India’s chronic trade imbalance.

The...

Five Challenges Atheists Face and How We Can Overcome Them

Today is Openly Secular Day and Tom Krattenmaker uses the opportunity to bring up five challenges atheists still face.

I wanted to summarize his points and add a few thoughts of my own:

1) Even though we’re despised in some parts of the country and discriminated against in some ways, we don’t really get bullied or picked on. That makes it harder to gain sympathy for our views.

Krattenmaker is right (and I’m glad he is, because the alternative would be awful). We often make a lot of comparisons b...

Elementary Schoolers in Maine Learned About Transgender People and Conservatives Are Panicking

By now, you may have heard about a storm brewing at an elementary school inKittery, Maine. Teachers read the book I Am Jazz, an autobiographical children’s book by transgender teenager Jazz Jennings, to K-3 students. One 7-year-old reportedly asked his mother when he got home if he was transgender.

Enter conservative media, like Fox Nation writer Todd Starnes.

Starnes’coverage of the incidentis virtually indistinguishable from satire, so I’m going to go ahead and rewrite it so you can get a sen...

Greenville (SC) County Council Members, Ignorant of the Law, Won’t Let Atheists Deliver Invocations

When it comes to invocations at government meetings, the Supreme Court said last year that prayers are fine — even sectarian prayers “in Jesus’ name” are fine — as long as the process is open to everybody. If they want invocations, city councils must set policy so that even minority faith groups have a chance of delivering them. And we’ve seen the consequences of this for a while now, with atheists, Pagans, and Wiccans making the most of their opportunities.

But that message seems to have esca...