The latest (2011) results of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which asses reading, and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which tests mathematics and science, are in, and they aren’t pretty, particularly for the U.S., Canada and Australia.
In the 4th grade PIRLS reading tests, the United States ranked an unimpressive 7th, behind Singapore, the Russian Federation, Northern Ireland, Finland, England and Hong Kong. Canada ranked even lower (11th), and Australia ranked a dismal 17th, the lowest of English-speaking nations in the list (see PIRLS, pg. 68-69).
In the 4th grade TIMSS mathematics tests,
Continue reading Alarm bells sound over latest international test scores
With movements such as young-earth creationism, we certainly have seen examples of religion being shanghaied into the service of anti-science. But some recent rhetoric in opposition to environmentalism and climate change science takes the cake.
For example, E. Calvin Beisner, leader of the Cornwall Alliance (a consortium of evangelical clergy) has declared that environmental movement is “deadly to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” and that believing in climate change is “an insult to God.” On November 30, 2012, in a televised discussion with his colleague Bryan Fischer, Beisner further argued that it is an affront to God to not utilize
Continue reading Is believing in climate change “an insult to God”?
Curiosity Rover: Nominee for Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2012. Image courtesy NASA.
In an announcement today, NASA poured cold water on rumors that its Curiosity rover had found life on Mars. Curiosity found evidence that it had landed on an ancient riverbed, and it identified some interesting chemical species involving chlorine, sulfur, water and organic compounds, but nothing that could be construed as clear-cut evidence for life on Mars, past or present.
All of this underscores Carl Sagan’s caution, reiterated for example in his book Billions and Billions, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It also
Continue reading Life on Mars!? Maybe we are all Martians
In an interview with GQ, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who has been mentioned as a rising star and potential U.S. presidential candidate in 2016, was asked “How old do you think the Earth is?” He responded:
At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7
Continue reading What on earth do they think? U.S. politicians on the age of the planet
In an article being published in PLOS ONE, a leading social science research journal, two researchers (one from the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago and the other from Western University in London Ontario Canada) found that when anticipating a mathematical task or activity, persons with higher levels of mathematics anxiety experience brain activity in regions associated with threats and pain.
Some of the mathematical tasks that the subjects were asked to imagine include “Receiving a math textbook,” “Walking to a math class,” “Being given a set of addition problems to solve on paper”, and “Realizing you have
Continue reading Does math anxiety trigger pain networks in the brain?
Recently there has been a rash of reports of scientific discoveries that, if the facts were fully known, should not have been publicized, to put it mildly. In most cases, the journalists reporting the work failed to rigorously investigate the background of the discovery to determine if it was real, sound and truly worthy of being reported in major news sources.
Some other upsetting examples are discussed in our 2011 Conversation article “When things don’t add up: statistics, maths and scientific fraud“. In addition, very recent analysis shows that deliberate scientific fraud in the biomedical areas — as
Continue reading The heart of the matter: do scientific journalists need ground rules?
Most fairly well educated people recognize pseudoscience as bunkum when they see it — astrology, young-earth creationism, alien abduction, pyramid power, etc. Yet some of these same people are now being sucked into a movement that is, according to all rigorous scientific analysis, equally without foundation as the ones listed above: the anti-smart meter movement.
“Smart meters” are devices now being installed by electric and gas utilities in millions of homes and apartments, both in the U.S. and internationally, which a few times per day briefly send a report on usage by a wireless system entirely similar to that used
Continue reading Smart meters for dummies
My brother, Peter Borwein, is a distinguished Canadian mathematician who has something intimate in common with Ann Romney. They both have multiple sclerosis. But as you will see from the following letter that he just wrote to me, the differences outweigh their similarities.
Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1998. She was born in 1949. I was diagnosed with MS in 1996. I was born in 1953. Exact dates of diagnosis are inexact. MS rarely has an exact starting date. But we were both in our mid-to-late forties: a little atypically-late onset but not extreme.
Continue reading Ann Romney and my Brother
The political world is seldom a source of high scholarship, but the current U.S. presidential campaign sets new lows. In addition to the worse-than-normal avoidance of substantive issues, and a very unpleasant level of mudslinging, numerical literacy has hit a new low. Here are some telling examples:
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, during a July 2012 trip to the Middle East, compared the per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Israel, which he says is “about $21,000,” to that of Palestinian areas, which is “more like $10,000.” But as the U.K. Guardian notes, Israel’s per-capita GDP was $31,000 in 2011, while
Continue reading Numerical nonsense in the U.S. presidential campaign
In the wake of our previous article “Algebra is essential in a 21st century economy” (see Math Drudge blog and Huffington Post article), one of the present bloggers (DHB) participated in a “televised” interview with Andrew Hacker, the author of the New York Times article in question, together with several other respondents, organized by the Huffington Post. This transcript will be made available here when ready.
Here are some other “talking points” to consider on this issue:
Our economy is moving inexorably to information-age, high-technology careers, many of which require mathematics backgrounds. In a ranking of the top jobs published
Continue reading Talking points for “Algebra is essential in a 21st century economy”
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