Adventures of a Wetware Hacker

• Body armor. Great for making presentations to creationist school boards, but light enough for daily use in the classroom. Rated for small arms, crossbow, and stones weighing up to 14 pounds.
• Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch. A great read, even if you think science is just for geeks. Buy a copy for yourself while you're at it, and talk about it loudly at cocktail parties.
• Cell phone stun gun. Uppity students will be 23% less creationy if they know there are consequences for spreading ignorance. "Hey, Jimmy, the Intelligent Designer wants to talk to you!"
• Defending Evolution. Tips on teaching evolution, dealing with wacko parents, and more. This book is endorsed by plenty of people who believe in God, and by God.
• Unprotected sex. If your kid's teacher is single, set him or her up with a VMAT2 wild type and tell them to have lots of kids, and to hurry.
• Noah's Ark play set. Add a bucket of large plastic dinosaurs and it's the perfect gift for the science-inclined kindergarten teacher.
• Subscription to Natural History, which is read by people "likely to influence the opinions of their friends and colleagues." Once the home of the late Stephen J. Gould's column on sports metaphors in biology.
• Darwin's favorite plant: Dionaea muscipula. You can buy these little beasties, native to N. and S. Carolina, at Home Depots nationwide. Big specimens will even eat small frogs.
• Adventure vacation to a Creationist town. Travel to Dover, Cobb County, or Grantsburg. Bring kids, courtesy of the Federal "No Child Left Behind" travel fund.
• A book by Darwin. Perhaps On the Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, or, everyone's controversial favorite, The Formation of Vegetable Moulds through the Action of Worms with Observations of Their Habits.
• An e-card. If your teacher is doing a good job with evolution instruction, tell him or her you care. It's free! Find his or her email address on the school's web site.

Take that, Intelligent Design...

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.	This textbook asserts that gravity exists. Gravity is a theory, not a fact, regarding a force that cannot be directly seen. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.	This book discusses heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth orbits around a centrally located sun. Students should be encouraged to fully consider the evidence for, and the evidence against, this interesting idea.
This textbook suggests that the Earth is spherical. Because a few delusional wackos still think the Earth is flat, while others insist it is oblate spheroid, teachers are urged to skip over this controversial topic in lesson plans.	This textbook states that the Earth is over 4 billion years old. Because this fact conflicts rather directly with a hugely popular fictional account, both sides of the argument should be taught to impressionable children.	This book promotes the theory of plate tectonics, the gradual movement of the major land masses. Because nobody actually witnessed the land masses moving, teachers should refer to the theory as unprovable.
This textbook used to contain material about general relativity. General relativity is a scientific theory that promotes relativism, plus few scientists fully understand it. The offending section was therefore cut out of the book with a razor blade.	This textbook suggests that the origin of life was a wholly natural event, not a holy magic trick. Because this view makes fundamentalists go off their medication, readers are encouraged to burn this book along with the author.	This book does not contain the word "evolution," the unifying principle in biology and an important component of the National Science Standards and the Scholastic Achievement Test.
This textbook claims that evolution is not fully accepted by scientists because it is just a theory. The author hopes to confuse you into equating scientific theory with cockamamie theory.	This book discusses God. The existence of entities with supernatural powers is controversial, and many believe that myths, especially other people's myths, are entirely fictional. This material should be approached with a sense of humor.	This book mentions Intelligent Design. Scientists first rejected supernatural explanations for life in the 1800s, and still do today — regardless of how these explanations are named.
This book contains an evolution disclaimer sticker mandated by your local school board. For fun, submit an article that analyzes the impact of weakened science instruction on the success of students' college applications.	This book was anonymously donated to your school library to discreetly promote magical, religious alternatives to the theory of evolution. When you are finished with it, please reshelve the book in the fiction section.	This book discusses evolution. President George W. Bush said, "On the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth." Therefore, until 2009 this material shood be aproched with an open mind, studeed carefuly, and critcly consid'rd.

Got Jesus? Isn't it time you got over it?

posted by Parijata Mackey @ 1:21 AM