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See original article here : http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1577575/posts READER RESPONSES TO ARTICLE : http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/9/26/8/1/ ( sorry, subscription required ) Here is the text of Dr. Phillip Skell's response : http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2950&program=CSC%20Responses ------------------------------------------ Why Do We Invoke Darwin? Phillip Skell Responds By: Phillip Skell The Scientist September 26, 2005 The Scientist, Editor's Note: Philip Skell's Opinion in the Aug. 29, 2005 issue,"Why do we invoke Darwin?" (19 [16]:10)generated a tremendous response from readers. Here we present a selection of edited letters. Please continue the discussion in our new forum on The Scientist website at http://media.the-scientist.com/talkingpoints/. Philip Skell responds: ------------------------------------- My essay about Darwinism and...

We got several emails from readers who heard press secretary Tony Snow interviewed on NPR this morning. Joe Malchow was kind enough to track down the audio; here it is. The fireworks start around five minutes into the clip, but it's all interesting. What I find striking is the hostile attitude of the NPR interviewer, Steve Inskeep. At one point, Snow describes one of his questions as "snarky." Basically, Inskeep was trying to get Tony to agree that past press secretaries had been liars, and pledge not to follow their example. Tony does an excellent job, and keeps his good...

WASHINGTON: More than half of students at four-year colleges in the United States - and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges - lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study found. The literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of graduating students, finds that students fail to lock in key skills - no matter their field of study. The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips....

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food. Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers. More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks. That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare...

Ban all schools? That's a dangerous thought By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 03/01/2006) The Earth can cope with global warming, schools should be banned and we should learn to love bacteria. These are among the dangerous ideas revealed by a poll of leading thinkers. John Brockman, the New York-based literary agent and publisher of The Edge website posed the question: what is your dangerous idea? in reference to a controversial book by the philosopher Daniel Dennett that argued that Darwinism was a universal acid that ate through virtually all traditional beliefs. Brockman received 116 responses to his challenge from...