The Skeptics television series Exploring the Unknown is rerunning Friday nights on Fox Family Channel at 10pm. I am told by the V.P of programming there that they love the show, the series continues getting good ratings, but that they have yet to hear from the powers that be on a pick up of another run of them but that we should hear soon. Stay tuned ...
Okay, okay, okay, I goofed big time. Sorry. I definitely should have checked before sending out that last e-mail about the leap year goof. I even already knew that because I had written it up for my last book, but them promptly forgot (or mixed up) the rule for when to skip a leap year and when not. We have a February 29 every four years except on century ends (1700, 1800, 1900) when we don't, unless the century is divisible by 400 (1600, 2000), in which case we do have a Feb. 29. Here are some web pages describing it as well as some readers' explanatory comments.
http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/leapyear/leapyear.html
http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/new_mill.htm
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/faq/docs/leap_years.htm
Emma Waghorn writes
Interestingly, although England was, of course, in existence in 1600, it had not adopted the Gregorian reforms. (Queen Elizabeth and her scientific advisers wanted to adopt them, but the Archbishop of Canterbury vetoed the move, on the grounds that the Pope was the Antichrist!) So England was still using the Julian Calendar, which meant that we were ten days behind Catholic Europe, which had dropped ten days from their calendars in 1583 or 1584. And we stayed ten days behind for an amazing 170 years! The year 1600 was nevertheless a leap year throughout Europe, in England because it was still using Julius Caesar's simple leap-year rule, and in Catholic Europe because it was using Aloysius Lilius's more complicated leap-century rule. The year 1700, however, was a leap year in England but not in Catholic Europe, and so when Great Britain (as it was by then called) eventually adopted the Gregorian reforms, in September 1752, they had to drop eleven days from the calendar, changing from the Old Style (OS) to the New Style (NS) calendars, as they were termed. Naturally, this applied in Britain's colonies across the Atlantic, too! Benjamin Franklin, writing in Quaker Philadelphia, offered reassurance:
"Be not astonished, nor look with scorn, dear reader, at such a deduction of days, nor regret as for the loss of so much time, but take this for your consolation, that your expenses will appear lighter and your mind be more at ease. And what an indulgence is here, for those who love their pillow to lie down in peace on the second of this month and not perhaps awake till the morning of the fourteenth."
You might be interested to know that the AZ legislature is contemplating forcing teaching of creationism (or is that cretinism?) in HS biology classes. Here's an article on the topic taken from The Tucson Weekly:
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/2000-01-20/skinny.html
MONKEY BUSINESS: Yet another report reveals that Arizona continues to shortchange education. Education Week magazine reported last week that Arizona is dead last in education funding. While critics of the report say it's based on 1998 numbers and that funding has improved, the bottom line remains the same: lawmakers don't have a real commitment to public education. They've spent a bundle developing education alternatives like charter schools while allowing public schools to deteriorate. The result, as seen in the recent dismal AIMS test scores: kids aren't getting much of an education.
Lawmakers seem to think they've finally found a solution to these problems: creationism. Rep. Karen Johnson, another one of those peculiar Mesa Republicans, wants to pass a law forcing teachers to "present scientific evidence that supports or is consistent with the theory of evolution, and scientific evidence that does not support or is not consistent with the theory of evolution."
"If you come from a little bit of slime out of a pool, then what's so great about life?" Johnson told the Associated Press. "I believe we are children of a heavenly father. I believe in Adam and Eve -- all of that." Believe it or not, you can believe life is pretty damn wonderful even if you don't believe Adam was magically brought to life from clay or that Eve was made from his rib. Johnson is free to believe whatever she wants -- just as we're free to believe, as we of course do, that space aliens seeded life on this planet. But we're not asking teachers to include Close Encounters in the curriculum, and we wish Johnson and her pals would quit trying to put a scientific spin on matters of faith."
Title: DESIGN AND ITS CRITICS
Date: June 22-24, 2000
Place: Concordia University Wisconsin
Conferees arrive late afternoon. Buffet dinner served.
OPENING DEBATE 7:00-9:00pm: Is Design a Good Idea for Science? Stephen C. Meyer [Whitworth College/Discovery Institute] (confirmed)
Michael Shermer [Skeptics Society/Occidental College] (confirmed)
[40 minutes per talk, discussion between speakers, and Q&A]
PLENARY SESSION 8:00-10:00am: Design in the Biological Sciences
Moderator: Kelly Smith [Clemson] (confirmed)
Michael Behe [Lehigh University/Discovery Institute] (confirmed)
Scott Minnich [University of Idaho] (confirmed)
Ken Miller [Brown University] (confirmed)
[30 minutes per talk, discussion between speakers, and Q&A]
BREAK 10:00-10:30am
PLENARY SESSION 10:30am-12:30pm: Design in the Physical Sciences
Robin Collins [Messiah College] (confirmed)
John Leslie [Guelph, emeritus] (confirmed)
Lee Smolin [Penn State] (UNconfirmed)
[30 minutes per talk, discussion between speakers, and Q&A]
LUNCH 12:30-1:30pm
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 1:30-2:30pm and 2:30-3:30pm
BREAK 3:30-4:00pm
PLENARY SESSION 4:00-6:00pm: Design in the Public School Science Classroom
David DeWolf [Gonzaga University Law School] (confirmed)
Warren A. Nord [UNC - Chapel Hill] (confirmed)
Eugenie Scott [National Center for Science Education] (confirmed)
[30 minutes per talk, discussion between speakers, and Q&A]
CONFERENCE BANQUET 6:30-8:30pm.
Banquet speaker: Diogenes Allen [Princeton Theological Seminary] (confirmed)
PLENARY SESSION 8:00-10:00am: How to Detect Design
Michael Ruse [Guelph] (confirmed)
Del Ratzsch [Calvin College] (confirmed)
William Dembski [Baylor University/Discovery Institute] (confirmed)
[30 minutes per talk, discussion between speakers, and Q&A]
BREAK 10:00-10:30am
PLENARY SESSION 10:30am-12:30pm: Design's Philosophical Bona Fides
Patrick Henry Reardon [Touchstone] (confirmed)
Robert O'Connor [Wheaton College] (confirmed)
Michael Roberts [Chirk, United Kingdom] (confirmed)
[30 minutes per talk, discussion between speakers, and Q&A]
LUNCH 12:30-1:30pm
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 1:30-2:30pm and 2:30-3:30pm
BREAK 3:30-4:00pm
PLENARY SESSION 4:00-6:00pm: Panel Discussion--Prospects for Design Paul Nelson [Discovery Institute] (confirmed)
Ted Davis [Messiah College] (confirmed)
Kelly Smith [Clemson] (confirmed)
Lenny Moss [Notre Dame] (confirmed)
[10-15 minutes statement from each panelist, discussion between panelists, and Q&A]
DINNER 6:00-7:30pm
End of Conference
Check out this article (front page of New York Times today, 1-28-2000).
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/regional/ny-welfare-psychic.html
Excerpts:
The city's welfare department has been recruiting welfare recipients to work from home as telephone psychics since April. Fifteen people have been hired so far by a company called Psychic Network, said Ruth Reinecke, a spokeswoman for the Human Resources Administration.
Clairvoyance is not among the qualifications listed on the city's recruitment flier. Any public assistance recipient with a high school equivalency degree, "a caring and compassionate personality" and the ability "to read, write and speak English" can qualify for Psychic Network's "minimum starting salary of $10 per hour, plus bonuses," the flier says.
Those interested are asked to call Business Link, a division of the city's Human Resources Administration that finds and trains workers from the welfare rolls, and to sign up for a group screening session.
"What if I'm not a psychic?" a caller to Business Link asked.
"They'll train you," the city employee who answered the telephone replied. Ms. Reinecke said that applicants were trained to read tarot cards by a representative from Psychic Network at the city's Business Link office on West 34th Street.
She refused to provide any other information about Psychic Network, citing a promise of confidentiality to participating companies.
As part of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's welfare-to-work effort, the city set up Business Link in 1995 to connect businesses that needed workers and welfare recipients who needed jobs.
Investigators typically reacted with disbelief to New York City's welfare-to-work psychic venture, but an enforcement official with the Federal Communications Commission, where 40 percent of all complaints concern psychic pay-per-call operations, laughed uncontrollably, then begged for anonymity.