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Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Evidence of absence
I'm sure it was just an oversight:
Whoops, maybe not:Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed to reward students majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain foreign languages.
That absence apparently indicates that students in the evolutionary sciences do not qualify for the grants, and some observers are wondering whether the omission was deliberate.
I think it's important to note that this isn't a Bob Jones University scholarship program or a Kansas state board of education plan, this is the f'n U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION! Is there any part of the government that this administration will not pervert for political purposes? (Yes, I realize the answer is "no".)The department has an index of classification numbers -- referred to as "CIP codes," for the Classification of Instructional Programs -- for all academic areas of instruction,
Under that classification scheme, there is a heading for "Ecology, Evolution, Systematics and Population Biology," under which 10 biological fields are defined. For instance, ecology is 26.1301, and evolutionary biology is 26.1303.
But on a list that defines majors eligible for the grants, issued by the department in May, one of those 10 is missing. On that list, the classification numbers rise in order from 26.1301 to 26.1309 -- with the exception of a blank line where 26.1303, or evolutionary biology, would fall.
3 Comments:
We're just lucky that the principles of evolutionary biology don't have any application in important fields like medical research. Otherwise, bullshit like this would have real consequences.
Where'd the quoted text come from?
I'd like to pass it along, but it would be nice to know the source first.
Thanks!
By 
, at
2:25 PM
It's from the Chronicle of Higher Education. You should be able to get to it by clicking on "just an oversight" in the original post. For some reason some of my links have not worked right lately so if that doesn't work just go to:
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=v6pywllczrz22q3ybkb4b94qrx35ckr7
