Bad Science Stories of the Year

Now that I have a working draft of my next BioLogos post done, I can, in good conscience, blog again. Science Daily has a good story on the bad science stories of the year and in there is one of my favorite scientists, Michele Bachmann, who manages to completely mangle the concept and definition of science when she can. Kate Kelland writes:

After Bachmann used an appearance on a television show to tell a story of a woman from Tampa, Florida, who said her daughter had become "mentally retarded" after getting an HPV vaccine designed to protect against cervical cancer, doctors said they feared the damage done may take many years to reverse.

"It's tempting to dismiss celebrity comments on science and health, but their views travel far and wide and, once uttered, a celebrity cancer prevention idea or environmental claim is hard to reverse," said SAS's managing director Tracey Brown.

"At a time when celebrities dominate the public realm, the pressure for sound science and evidence must keep pace."

Wow, did I really just read that? Bachmann sometimes seems like a one-woman war against sound science, one battle at a time.

Please don't vote for this woman.

This article reflects the state of scientific education. I don't think people should be able to exit high school without being able to pass a test on basic science education. That ought to be square one.

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Michele Bachmann: Schools Should Teach ID

The GOP came closer to making the teaching of intelligent design and the promotion of “academic freedom” a plank of their platform with the public utterance of Michele Bachmann, a GOP presidential candidate. According to Peter Hamby of CNN:

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann explained her skepticism of evolution on Friday and said students should be taught the theory of intelligent design.

Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, also proposed a major overhaul of the nation’s education system and said state administrators should be able to decide how they spend money allocated to them by the federal government.

“I support intelligent design,” Bachmann told reporters in New Orleans following her speech to the Republican Leadership Conference. “What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don't think it's a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”

The problem, of course, is that there isn't reasonable doubt on both sides. The vast majority of individuals working in the biological sciences have no problems supporting evolution, which has over a hundred and thirty years of hypothesis testing behind it, while intelligent design has no testable mechanisms at all. It is, perhaps, too much to expect Ms. Bachmann to know this. Yet another reason why politicians shouldn't be involved in the education process.