The SATs

Comments on Shannon’s post reminded me of a news report I’d heard this morning.

The College Board is trying to put a pretty face on it, but the fact remains: “For the class of 2006, overall combined scores for mathematics and critical reading dropped by seven points from last year,” although they finish the sentence with “which represents less than 1 percentage point.” If you want to see the scores over a long period (which doesn’t make us boomers look all that bad), look at Table 2. Various other tables give other data, including a graph that shows the improvement in math scores over the last decade – though certainly not back to 1967 levels – as well as those in critical thinking.

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Kolthoff

As the first scientist in the series of geeks you should know, I give you Izaak Maurits Kolthoff. My first introduction to him was at a conference where a student from Minnesota was wearing a t-shirt that read �I.M. Kolthoff � and you�re not.� He was revered, feared, and marveled at during his own tenure, publishing 809 articles until his retirement, after which he published 136 more as an emeritus. Let me repeat that: 945 articles, and 136 peer-reviewed articles as an emeritus! He taught 67 graduate students, and his scientific progeny number in the thousands, now. If for no other reason that that level of publication and educational output, he should be widely known. Instead, he�s Chemistry�s equivalent of Appert.

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Disproportionate Response

Famed blogger Steven den Beste asked me if I would mind posting a few of his thoughts. Not at all! And here they are.

During the recent war in southern Lebanon, one of the many complaints leveled at Israel was that its response was “disproportionate”. Care to hear the reason why the complainers wanted Israel to limit itself to “proportionate” responses?

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Evangelicals and U.S. Foreign Policy

I read this paper by Walter Russell Mead in Foreign Affairs last week. It is a typically excellent Mead product.

I think the main thing Mead is trying to accomplish with this article is to show unreligious people who are part of the Northeastern establishment that (1) there is a lot more to the so-called “religious right” than their stereotypes can capture, (2) that the impact of the evangelical community is going to continue to be major, and growing influence on US foreign policy, and (3) that the policies that this community is going to advocate in the future, again, may differ from the stereotypes which the non-religious establishment has of evangelicals. Basically, American evangelicalism is a vast and influential and active world unto itself that most people who are interested in or participate in public policy know nothing about. One friend commented that Mead is being more than fair to these folks. I think he is appropriately fair. But Mead�s goal is not to criticize this community, but to try to explain them to an uncomprehending and hostile audience.

RTWT.