Day: February 16, 2008

If warning label is not in place to warn, do not use?!?

OK, so on this paper cutter at the office, there’s this interesting little cap over the spring attached to the blade handle. Am I the only person who sees a problem with this?

cutter.jpg

So, um, how exactly would someone know they should not use the cutter if the guard weren’t in place when they arrived?  Maybe a label on the cutting board warning against using the cutter if the spring guard is not in place?

[tags]Stupid, Cutter, Do not operate, User interface, Design flaws[/tags]

Floridians against evolution?

tb_evolutionpoll_graph225.jpgResults from a badly worded survey are in, and if the numbers are to be believed (hint: they aren’t to be believed), approximately 50% of Floridians are in favor of teaching creationism in place of evolution as science.

Only 22 percent want public schools to teach an evolution-only curriculum, while 50 percent want only faith-based theories such as creationism or intelligent design, according to a new St. Petersburg Times survey.

Here’s a clue. If you only use penicillin to deal with your occasional infection, you can make a reasonable claim that you don’t buy in to the theory of evolution. If, however, you use such as Azithromycin, Ciprofloxacin, Amoxicillin, or any of the other updated penicillin alternatives or medications which fight some of the same classes of illness, then you are getting medicated based on evolution theory. If there were no evolution, you wouldn’t need to fight penicillin-resistant medications, as penicillin would always work against the class of ailments for which penicillin worked many years ago.

If you want to believe in some higher power, that’s great. But don’t confuse faith issues with science and try to get evolution taken out of school just because the science disagrees with your faith. If you feel children must be taught Intelligent Design or Creationism, take them to church and get your Sunday School teachers to educate them. Because as appealing as these concepts are, they are most certainly not science.

I lack the proper command of the language and sufficient depth in the subject to write a very good post about this, but I do know the difference between science and non-science, and am so tired of people trying to teach one as the other. (via Pharyngula)

[tags]Pharyngula, Science, Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design[/tags]