[lbo-talk] Fun with science from the ReDiscovery folks

[cgrimes at rawbw.COM]

Chris, how do you find these guys? More fun with science from the
ReDisovery folks, who boost their senior fellow Dr. Azo Mazur---also
executive director of The American Society for Prohibition of Arabic
(Muslim) Numbers...

I have a hard time not believing this is a spoof... Go here for more
fascinating bullshit:

http://www.re-discovery.org/

CG

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Inorganic Chemistry

By Richard Rahnsid
Fellow, reDiscovery Institute

reprinted from the Proceedings of the reDiscovery Institute

Inorganic Chemistry has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of
study for recipients of federal education grants.

The omission is inadvertent, smiled Katherine McLeane, a spokeswoman
for the Department of Education, which administers the grants. "There
is no explanation for it being left off the list," Ms. McLeane
said. "It has always been an eligible major." Another spokeswoman,
Foduy Yudof, said inorganic chemistry might be restored to the list,
but only after a series of public hearings.

If a major is not on the list, students in that major cannot obtain
federal grants, said Barmak Nassir, associate executive director of
the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions
Officers. "If a field is missing, that student would not even get into
the process," he said.

The omission worries some scientists concerned about threats to the
teaching of Chemistry and Chemical Periodicity. An article about the
issue was posted Tuesday on the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher
Education. Though references to chemistry and inorganic chemistry
appear in listings of other fields of study, the inorganic chemistry
sub-subsection is missing from a list of "fields of study" on the
National Grant List -- there is an empty space between line 27.1302
(Physical Chemistry) and line 27.1304 (Analytical Chemistry).

Some scientists said they found the clerical explanation unconvincing,
given the opposition by the religious right to the teaching of
chemical periodicity in public schools. "It's just awfully
coincidental," said Steven W. Falling, an inorganic chemist at Ohio
State University.

Dr. Azo Mazur, of the reDiscovery Institute believes that inorganic
chemistry is overrated and probably should be omitted from the
chemistry curriculum. "Most of those inorganic chemistry courses are
make-work projects for underemployed and rather non-productive
inorganic chemistry professors," Mazur noted, "It would be best to
replace inorganic chemistry with 'Chemical Design', which stresses the
hand of the 'Intelligent Agent' in chemical and biochemical
processes."