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Ohio House Passes Bill Allowing Students to Give Technically Wrong Answers if They're Based on Their Religious Beliefs
It's a common Republican talking point that students—especially those in universities—are coddled by their professors, prioritizing students' feelings and strongly-held beliefs over a well-rounded education.
Yet, in a stunning rejection of scientific facts, the Ohio House of Representatives passed H.B. 164, or the Student Religious Liberties Act, on Wednesday. The bill allows public school students to give inaccurate answers to scientific questions, as long as their inaccuracies are religiously based.
Climate Change Isn't Only Altering Our Environment, It's Also Impacting Human Evolution
Though many still deny it, climate change poses an existential threat to humanity and other life everywhere.
Shifts in climate are triggering evolutional adaptation in a range of plants and animals, from owls to salmon to thyme to snails to fruit flies.
Some Fruits Actually Adapt Themselves to Attract the Animals That Eat Them, and It Makes a Lot of Sense
Can’t resist that juicy, ripe summer raspberry? It turns out your appetite may not be driving the show — the raspberry plant likely knows exactly what it’s doing.
Almost all fruits have seeds, and they’re designed that way for reproductive purposes; animals eat the fruit, transport the seeds internally, and — eventually — deposit them far and wide, ensuring the continuation of the plant species.
A group of white-faced capuchin monkeys in Panama has begun using stone tools to feed themselves, thus entering their own Stone Age. They’re the second group of monkeys that researchers have observed using tools in the past two years, providing intriguing insights into humans’ own evolution.
The Panamanian group lives on the small island of Jicarón, which is part of Coiba National Park. One group of monkeys is particularly adept with its stones, using them to crack open coconuts, snails, and nuts. Researchers first reported the Jicaron monkeys’ use of stone tools in 2004, but a team returned to the island in 2017 to record and document their findings.
If the GOP gets its way in Arizona, students at public and charter schools will no longer learn about evolution in science class. A new draft revision of state science standards replaces the scientific term “evolution” in the curriculum with the phrase “theory of evolution,” which serves to diminish its relevance and dismiss the vast body of evidence that supports it.
The proposed new standards address the origins of life in its Life Sciences section: “The theory of evolution seeks to make clear the unity and diversity of living and extinct organisms,” says the document, which was developed by more than 100 teachers, parents and community members, but then revised, allegedly to the liking of State Superintendent of Education Diane Douglas. Many of the revisions can be seen as visible corrections on the draft.
We all want to leave a legacy. Whether that takes the form of creative works, breakthrough discoveries, children, or other actions, we all want a way to show we were here. For nearly all of us, though, that legacy will be a literal ton of plastic garbage. Every disposable cup, straw, food wrapper, plastic bag, toy and bottle we use adds up to a lot of trash—9 billion tons of it and counting. The vast majority is still here, and will still be here thousands of years after we are gone. It is our most lasting legacy.
It is a problem of monumental proportions, and a solution is urgently needed. Perhaps science has discovered one. At a recycling plant in Japan in 2016, researchers discovered a microbe that has evolved to eat plastic.
Anyone who has ever had any contact with a “sick” man before knows that man flu is real. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “man flu” is a “cold or similar minor ailment as experienced by a man who is regarded as exaggerating the severity of the symptoms.” Basically, too sick to unload the dishwasher, but not so sick that he can’t stay up until midnight watching sports. (True story.)
But what if millions and millions and millions of women are wrong? What if men really do experience the terrible, debilitating effects of a runny nose more than women do?