Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

 Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest, April 13, 2000

 Visit the CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine website at
 http://www.csicop.org. Receiving over 200,000 hits per year, the CSICOP site
 was rated one of the top ten science sites by HOMEPC magazine. Send comments
 regarding SI DIGEST to editors Matt Nisbet at mcn23@cornell.edu and Barry
 Karr at skeptinq@aol.com.

 --AP: Oklahoma Passes Creationism Bill
 --NY TIMES: A Hit Movie is Rated 'F' in Science
 --NY TIMES: Rampage Killers/A Statistical Portrait
 --NY TIMES: A Conservation with Ira Flatow
 --NY TIMES: Oops, Sorry: Seems that My Pie Chart is Half-Baked

 --AP: OKLAHOMA PASSES CREATIONISM BILL

 Wednesday April 5 9:26 PM ET
 Okla. House Passes Creationism Bill
 By TIM TALLEY, Associated Press Writer

 OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Science books used in Oklahoma public schools would be
 required to acknowledge ``that human life was created by one God of the
 universe'' under legislation passed Wednesday by the Oklahoma House of
 Representatives. The House addressed the issue of creationism in an
 amendment to a bill dealing with the embattled State Textbook Committee,
 which last year ordered biology books to carry a disclaimer about the
 teaching of evolution that described it as a ``controversial theory.'' The
 disclaimers were scrapped after Attorney General Drew Edmondson said the
 committee has no authority to require them. But House members approved an
 amendment that says ``the committee shall ensure'' that science textbooks it
 approves for use in public schools ``include acknowledgment that human life
 was created by one God of the universe.''The House went a step further when
 it passed another amendment that gives the committee ``authority to insert a
 one-page summary, opinion or disclaimer into any textbook reviewed and
 authorized for use in the public schools of Oklahoma.''The original intent
 of the bill was to require that two members of the textbook committee be
 elementary level teachers and two be secondary level teachers. The bill now
 goes to a joint House-Senate conference committee for review. Last summer,
 the Kansas Board of Education sparked a national debate by passing new
 testing standards that minimized the importance of evolution.


 --NY TIMES: A HIT MOVIE IS RATED 'F' IN SCIENCE

 April 11, 2000
 By Gina Kolata
 For the full article, go to
 http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/041100sci-science-hollywood.
 html

 [It should be no surprise to viewers of the hit movie "Erin Brockovich" that
 the science portrayed in the movie is not really science. After all, this is
 a major motion picture coming out of Hollywood. It comes from a fairy tale
 land where women are abnormally beautiful, men are lusciously handsome,
 where sex is unusually profligate and violence casual and frequent. So if
 audiences are willing to suspend disbelief in every other arena, why should
 anyone care about something so dull as the veracity of the scientific
 methodology? Yet many scientists are offended by the movie, and it is worth
 asking why. The problem, they say, is not that they cannot enjoy a good yarn
 in which virtue triumphs over evil and the little guys win. It is not that
 they want to take sides in this litigation from years past. Their complaint
 is more subtle: While it is easy to see that the sex and violence in movies
 are fantasies, it is hard for any but scientists to discern when science in
 movies crosses the line from verity to hyperbole and indoctrination.

 --NEW YORK TIMES: RAMPAGE KILLERS/A STATISTICAL PORTRAIT

 April 8, 2000
 New York Times
 For the full article, go to
 http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900rampage-killers.html

 By FORD FESSENDEN
 They are not drunk or high on drugs. They are not racists or Satanists, or
 addicted to violent video games, movies or music. Most are white men, but a
 surprising number are women, Asians and blacks. Many have college degrees,
 but most are unemployed. Many are military veterans. They give lots of
 warning and even tell people explicitly what they plan to do. They carry
 semiautomatic weapons they have obtained easily and, in most cases, legally.
 They do not try to get away. In the end, half turn their guns on themselves
 or are shot dead by others. They not only want to kill, they also want to
 die. That is the profile of the 102 killers in 100 rampage attacks examined
 by The New York Times in a computer-assisted study looking back more than 50
 years and including the shootings in 1999 at Columbine High School in
 Littleton, Colo., and one by a World War II veteran on a residential street
 in Camden, N.J., in 1949. Four hundred twenty-five people were killed and
 510 people were injured in the attacks. The database, which primarily
 focused on cases in the last decade, is believed to be the largest ever
 compiled on this phenomenon in the United States....]

 --NEW YORK TIMES: A CONVERSATION WITH IRA FLATOW

 For the full text, go to
 http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/040400sci-flatow-science.htm
 l

 April 4, 2000
 By Claudia Dreyfuss

 [Ira Flatow is one of the most influential communicators of science.
 His National Public Radio talkfest, "Science Friday" (2 to 4 p.m. Eastern
 time) is a weekly dialogue with scientists and members of Mr. Flatow's
 audience of two and a half million listeners, who phone in questions, ideas
 and opinions. And for six years, he was host and writer of "Newton's Apple,"
 a PBS science program for children. But don't call him a popularizer. "You
 don't have to popularize science," he said recently over coffee in
 Manhattan. "All you have to do is make it accessible to people." Mr. Flatow
 grew up in Brooklyn and on Long Island. In 1971, not long after graduating
 from the State University of New York at Buffalo with an engineering degree,
 he began science reporting for NPR and has been there since.
 Mr. Flatow, 51, lives in Connecticut with his wife, Miriam, and their three
 children....]

 --NY TIMES: OOPS, SORRY: SEEMS THAT MY PIE CHART IS HALF-BAKED

 April 8, 2000

 For the full text of the article, go to:
 http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/arts/research-credibility.html

 Some researchers have political agendas (or financing from
 organizations that do), some are insulated academics, some
 are prominent scholars, some are eccentric outsiders.
 Whatever the case, more and more frequently the results are
 published before any independent expert has verified the
 claims.

 --------------------------------

 SI Electronic Digest is the biweekly e-mail news update of the Committee for
 the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)

 Visit http://www.csicop.org/.

 Rated one of the Top Ten Science sites on the Web by HOMEPC magazine.

 The Digest is written and edited by Matthew Nisbet and Barry Karr. SI Digest
 is distributed directly via e-mail to over 3000 readers worldwide, and is
 sent from CSICOP headquarters at the Center for Inquiry-International,
 Amherst NY, USA.

 To subscribe for free to the SI DIGEST, go to:
 http://www.csicop.org/list/

 PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRINT OR REPOST ON THE WEB.
 WE ENCOURAGE TRANSLATION INTO OTHER LANGUAGES.
 PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS.

 Direct media inquiries regarding Skeptical Inquirer and CSICOP to Kevin
 Christopher at 716-636-1425 or SIKevin@aol.com.

 CSICOP publishes the bimonthly SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, The Magazine for Science
 and Reason.  The March/April 2000 issue features articles on "Vividness,
 Availibility, and the Media Paradox," "Physics and the Paranormal,"
 "Efficacy of Prayer," and "A Skeptical Analysis of Reverse Speech."

 To subscribe at the $18.95 introductory Internet price, go to:
 http://www.csicop.org/si/subscribe/


 --30--