Why I Made These Pages...

Probably the most important reason for my making this page is the recent report that U.S. students scored lower in science and math than just about every other nation on the planet along with some forms of bacteria.  All hyperbole aside, this result is very disturbing.  While we can't seem to raise students with basic science and math skills, we have hundreds of "psychic" phone services, preying on those who may be least able to afford the high costs of those fraudulent services.  As a graduate teaching assistant, I've seen large numbers of students that didn't have a grasp of some of the most basic ideas of science and didn't care to learn them.  The most common reason from the students was "this stuff won't matter to me once I graduate".  Perhaps, but this assumption is short-sighted, and dangerous.  As members of a technological society, it's important that we all be informed about the basis of the technology that we live with.  As a biologist, I'm constantly confronted with the attitude that biology is meaningless to the average person.  My response to that is to point out that you can't escape the effects of biology on your life.  Cloning, genetic engineering, new diseases and their treatments are just a few of the ways that biology affects everyone directly or will soon.  If you don't know some basic biology, you won't be properly informed to be involved in debates about these topics.  With all the noise being made about cloning recently, most people still don't know enough biology to begin to understand the debates being carried on.  Since our government is based on a body of voters that understand the issues they're voting for, such ignorance is very dangerous.  As it now stands, the person who gets up and shouts the loudest is going to control the debate...

Anyway, that's why I think it's important to be well-informed about as much as possible.  I'll try to minimize the ranting in the future.  Thanks for listening! (: