Post by Ralph on Jun 17, 2004 14:31:23 GMT -5
I am curious about many thoughts on this paper...
Spreading Scientific Illiteracy Among Minorities - Part I: Multicultural Pseudoscience
Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall 1991, pp 46-50
Reproduced with permission
There is general agreement that minorities are underrepresented in science and engineering. There is also agreement that it could be useful to give young people in minority groups examples of the role minority researchers play and have played in science. Unfortunately, one widely distributed attempt to do this will increase scientific illiteracy and impede the recruitment of African-American children into scientific careers.
In 1987, the Portland, Oregon, school district published the African-American Baseline Essays, a set of six essays to be read by all teachers and whose contents are to be infused into the teaching of various subjects in all grades. The purpose of the essays is to provide resource materials and references for teachers so that hey can use the knowledge and contributions of Africans and African-Americans in their classes. The Science Baseline Essay, titled "African and African-American Contributions to Science and Technology" (Adams 1990), was written by Hunter Haviland Adams, who claims to be a research scientist at Argonne National Labortory. Actually, Adams is an industrial-hygiene technician who "does no research on any topic at Argonne," and his highest degree is a high school diploma (Baurac 1991).
The Science Baseline Essay follows a pattern familiar to students of pseudoscience. It is a farrago of extraordinary claims with little or no evidence; it argues for the existence of the paranormal and advocates the use of religion as a part of the scientific paradigm. No distinction is made between information drawn from popular magazines, vanity press books, and the scientific literature, and quotations are often not attributed or are not accurate. There are a number of references to the existence and scientific validity of the paranormal in the context of its use by the ancient Egyptians. In this work, Egyptians are considered to be black and their culture is claimed as ancestral to African-Americans.
Adams mentions the use of the zodiac and of "astropsychological treatises" by Egyptians. He clearly implies that it is science. Elsewhere he has stated that astrology is based in science and that "at birth every living thing has a celestial serial number or frequency power spectrum" (Adams 1987). The Science Baseline Essay also states that the ancient Egyptians were "famous as masters of psi, precognition, psychokinesis, remote viewing and other undeveloped human capabilities." It argues that there is a distinction between magic, which is not scientific, and "psychoenergetics," which is, but gives no basis to distinguish one from the other. It defines psychoenergetics as the "multidisciplinary study of the interface and interaction of human consciousness with energy and matter" and states that it is a true scientific discipline. The essay says that Egyptian professional psi engineers, hekau, were able to use these forces efficaciously and that psi has been researched and demonstrated in controlled laboratory and field experiments today. Apparently this is why Aaron T. Curtis, who is identified as an electrical engineer and psychoenergeticist, is included in a list of African-American contributors to science at the same level as Benjamin Banneker, George Washington Carver, and Ernest E. Just.
The essay is aimed primarily at grade-school teachers, many of whom suffer from science illiteracy. Thus this essay, endorsed by a school district, prepared by someone identified as a research scientist at Argonne, and written using scientific-sounding jargon, is certain to influence some teachers to accept psi as a scientifically valid concept. The effect will be that many minority - and majority - children will be taught in their science classes that psi is valid, in addition to being subjected to the usual barrage of "New Age" material.
Another fundamental problem is the claim in the Baseline Essay that Egyptian religion was supposed to be a key organizing principle of Egyptian society. This included beliefs such as: (1) Acknowledgment of a Supreme Consciousness or Creative Force, (2) Existence via Divine Self Organization, (3) A Living Universe, (4) Material and Transmaterial Cause and Effect, (5) Consciousness Surviving the Dissolution of the Body, and (6) Emphasis on Inner Experiences for Acquiring Knowledge. According to the Baseline Essay, Maat represented the first set of scientific paradigms and was the basis from which "ancient Egyptians did all types of scientific investigations." Adams admits that Maat’s paradigms are antithetical to those of Western science. But an unsophisticated audience will see the long list of claimed early Egyptian discoveries and successes in science presented in the Baseline Essay as evidence that Maat is equivalent to or better than the standard scientific method. This approach, just like that of the "scientific" creationists, violates the First Amendment's clause on separation of church and state because it confuses the fundamental distinction between science, which can only use natural laws to explain observed phenomena, and religion. This distinction was crucial in the ruling of judge Overton in McLean vs. Arkansas that teaching "scientific" creationism violated the First Amendment.
Spreading Scientific Illiteracy Among Minorities - Part I: Multicultural Pseudoscience
Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall 1991, pp 46-50
Reproduced with permission
There is general agreement that minorities are underrepresented in science and engineering. There is also agreement that it could be useful to give young people in minority groups examples of the role minority researchers play and have played in science. Unfortunately, one widely distributed attempt to do this will increase scientific illiteracy and impede the recruitment of African-American children into scientific careers.
In 1987, the Portland, Oregon, school district published the African-American Baseline Essays, a set of six essays to be read by all teachers and whose contents are to be infused into the teaching of various subjects in all grades. The purpose of the essays is to provide resource materials and references for teachers so that hey can use the knowledge and contributions of Africans and African-Americans in their classes. The Science Baseline Essay, titled "African and African-American Contributions to Science and Technology" (Adams 1990), was written by Hunter Haviland Adams, who claims to be a research scientist at Argonne National Labortory. Actually, Adams is an industrial-hygiene technician who "does no research on any topic at Argonne," and his highest degree is a high school diploma (Baurac 1991).
The Science Baseline Essay follows a pattern familiar to students of pseudoscience. It is a farrago of extraordinary claims with little or no evidence; it argues for the existence of the paranormal and advocates the use of religion as a part of the scientific paradigm. No distinction is made between information drawn from popular magazines, vanity press books, and the scientific literature, and quotations are often not attributed or are not accurate. There are a number of references to the existence and scientific validity of the paranormal in the context of its use by the ancient Egyptians. In this work, Egyptians are considered to be black and their culture is claimed as ancestral to African-Americans.
Adams mentions the use of the zodiac and of "astropsychological treatises" by Egyptians. He clearly implies that it is science. Elsewhere he has stated that astrology is based in science and that "at birth every living thing has a celestial serial number or frequency power spectrum" (Adams 1987). The Science Baseline Essay also states that the ancient Egyptians were "famous as masters of psi, precognition, psychokinesis, remote viewing and other undeveloped human capabilities." It argues that there is a distinction between magic, which is not scientific, and "psychoenergetics," which is, but gives no basis to distinguish one from the other. It defines psychoenergetics as the "multidisciplinary study of the interface and interaction of human consciousness with energy and matter" and states that it is a true scientific discipline. The essay says that Egyptian professional psi engineers, hekau, were able to use these forces efficaciously and that psi has been researched and demonstrated in controlled laboratory and field experiments today. Apparently this is why Aaron T. Curtis, who is identified as an electrical engineer and psychoenergeticist, is included in a list of African-American contributors to science at the same level as Benjamin Banneker, George Washington Carver, and Ernest E. Just.
The essay is aimed primarily at grade-school teachers, many of whom suffer from science illiteracy. Thus this essay, endorsed by a school district, prepared by someone identified as a research scientist at Argonne, and written using scientific-sounding jargon, is certain to influence some teachers to accept psi as a scientifically valid concept. The effect will be that many minority - and majority - children will be taught in their science classes that psi is valid, in addition to being subjected to the usual barrage of "New Age" material.
Another fundamental problem is the claim in the Baseline Essay that Egyptian religion was supposed to be a key organizing principle of Egyptian society. This included beliefs such as: (1) Acknowledgment of a Supreme Consciousness or Creative Force, (2) Existence via Divine Self Organization, (3) A Living Universe, (4) Material and Transmaterial Cause and Effect, (5) Consciousness Surviving the Dissolution of the Body, and (6) Emphasis on Inner Experiences for Acquiring Knowledge. According to the Baseline Essay, Maat represented the first set of scientific paradigms and was the basis from which "ancient Egyptians did all types of scientific investigations." Adams admits that Maat’s paradigms are antithetical to those of Western science. But an unsophisticated audience will see the long list of claimed early Egyptian discoveries and successes in science presented in the Baseline Essay as evidence that Maat is equivalent to or better than the standard scientific method. This approach, just like that of the "scientific" creationists, violates the First Amendment's clause on separation of church and state because it confuses the fundamental distinction between science, which can only use natural laws to explain observed phenomena, and religion. This distinction was crucial in the ruling of judge Overton in McLean vs. Arkansas that teaching "scientific" creationism violated the First Amendment.
