Favorite Cartoon Research Articles

Contextualizing Creationists

Research Article| February 01 2013 Contextualizing Creationists Douglas Allchin Douglas Allchin 1DOUGLAS ALLCHIN has taught both high school and college biology and now teaches history and philosophy of science at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455; e-mail: allchin@sacredbovines.net. He is a Fellow at the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science and edits the SHiPS Resource Center (ships.umn.edu). He hikes, photographs lichen, and enjoys tea. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The American Biology Teacher (2013) 75 (2): 144–147. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2013.75.2.16 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Douglas Allchin; Contextualizing Creationists. The American Biology Teacher 1 February 2013; 75 (2): 144–147. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2013.75.2.16 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search Creationists are a perpetual thorn in the side of biology education. Every teacher, it seems, can share a favorite cartoon satirizing creationism or the ironies of so-called “intelligent” design. But ridicule or scorn do not seem very fruitful or respectful strategies in the classroom. How can we make evolution education more effective, or even more compassionate? The standard prescription currently seems to be teaching the nature of science, such as naturalism and its limits, falsifiability, the meaning of “theories,” the nature of historical reasoning, or how to build explanatory models from piecemeal evidence. Students should thereby come to appreciate science and the evidence, and evolutionary knowledge should thus triumph (Nickels et al., 1996; Rudolph & Stewart, 1998; Working Group on Teaching Evolution, 1998; McComas et al., 2002). While research shows this approach to be somewhat effective, viewed pragmatically, the results seem marginal. We need to... You do not currently have access to this content.

Francesco Tullio Altan: Italy ★ Illustrator

Francesco Tullio AltanItaly ★ Illustrator Lydia Kokkola Francesco Tullio Altan was born in Treviso in 1942. After attending school in Bologna, he studied architecture in Venice. In the late 1960s, he moved to Rome where he combined his interest in architecture with his love of drawing as a set designer, as well as working as a script writer. After a short period in Brazil working in the film industry, he returned to Italy in 1975. It was during his time in Brazil that Altan began producing books. Initially they were books for his daughter, Kika, and featured animals who behaved like children. The most popular of these was Timpa, a little white dog with red spots who still appears in regular cartoon strips. Altan’s familiarity with the world of film making is particularly evident in the production of his many cartoon strips. Timpa has been turned into numerous different forms: short cartoons, a 26-minute film, a pop-up book, and coloring books. These cartoons are popular with preschool children who love the way that the little dog brings inanimate objects to life (the armchair reads him stories and he chats with his bedside lamp, Luisa). Timpa’s curiosity is usually about the here and now, but can also extend to serious scientific questions such as why the sun turns red at night. Another of Altan’s well-loved cartoon characters is Kamillo Krono, the small chameleon who keeps changing into the wrong colors. These cartoons are illustrated with bold colors and strong shapes that resemble children’s own drawings. Thick black outlines and bold single colors, blues, reds, greens and powerful pinks, dominate his palette. Altan does not always write his own texts, and some of his most important works are illustrations of other people’s words. For adults, he has illustrated works such as The Nose by Gogol and Directions to Servants by Jonathan Swift. His works for children include a reinterpretation of the works of the former Hans Christian Andersen Award winner, Gianni Rodari; Favole Al Telefono [Fables on the Phone] is a short novel, which Altan enlivens with his full page colorful cartoons. Ci Vuole un Fiore [You Need a Flower] returns to Altan’s preschool audience. This board book designed for the smallest of hands is accompanied by a CD of the songs Altan has illustrated. Altan has also written scripts for film and television. His works for adults are often satirical; his favorite cartoon strip character is Cipputi, a disenchanted communist factory worker. His cross-over works include an illustration of Louis Armstrong’s song What a Wonderful World. Selected Publications Vola Uccellino [Fly Little Bird]. Trieste: Edizioni EL, 1978. Print. Google Scholar Favole Al Telefono [Fables on the Phone]. Text Gianni Rodari. Torino: Einaudi Ragazzi, 1993. Print. Google Scholar Arriva La Pimpa [Here Comes Timpa]. Trans. Michael Reynolds. Modena: Franco Cosima Panini Editore, 1994. Print. Google Scholar Ci Vuole un Fiore [You Need a Flower]. Text Gianni Rodari. Rome: Gallucci, 2003. Print. Google Scholar What a Wonderful World. Text Louis Armstrong. Rome: Gallucci, 2004. Mixed media. [End Page 33] Google Scholar Copyright © 2012 Bookbird, Inc

Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD: from an unquiet mind to rational exuberance.

AS HER DROOPY-FACED BASSET hound, Bubbles, snores on a chair, Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, relates a favorite cartoon: a man in 19th-century garb smiles at a raven and says, “Hello, birdie.” The caption? “Poe on Prozac.” That single frame captures reels of Jamison’s life. The theme, of connections between art and mental health, is a favorite of Jamison’s—the topic of her 1993 book Touched With Fire and a subsequent public television series she produced with her late husband, schizophrenia researcher Richard J. Wyatt, MD. And, like Poe, she lives with manicdepressive illness, a term she interchanges with “bipolar disorder.” Her 1990 textbook on the topic, ManicDepressive Illness, cowritten with Frederick Goodwin, MD, established her as a top expert on the illness. Jamison holds a full professorship and teaches one day a week at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore. Although very few people who take parttime faculty positions at Hopkins advance to become full professors, “With her . . . it was a slam dunk. I mean, she was the world expert,” says Raymond DePaulo, Jr, MD, director of the Department of Psychiatry at Hopkins. Her best-selling 1995 memoir, An Unquiet Mind, broadened Jamison’s renown outside of psychiatric circles and helped trigger a wave of advocacy for mental illness acceptance that is still breaking. Congress, for instance, is considering bills to establish insurance parity for mental health. Jamison’s accomplishments and stature can be intimidating, said another, younger colleague, Hopkins psychiatrist Francis Mondimore, MD. But, “she’s very accessible,” he says.

Why Does Dilbert, the Far Side, and other Cartoons Convey Essential Truths about Human Factors and Ergonomics?

The purpose of this panel session is to explore how cartoons have been used to teach and discuss essential truths about human factors and ergonomics. Naturally, we hope to have fun too. Human factors and ergonomics is often much too serious. Educators and non-educators alike should enjoy the material. Numerous philosophical and practical issues are likely to emerge as the session evolves. The audience, we hope, will be an active participant in the laughter and discussion. Each panelist has been invited to open their lecture files and share their favorite cartoons about a variety of topics such as office ergonomics (see, e.g., Dilbert), aviation displays and controls (see, e.g., the Far Side), industrial ergonomics, human-computer interaction, information design, human error, transportation human factors, medical systems, and so forth. Each panelist brings a unique research and experiential perspective to the panel. For example, a variety of nationalities including the U.K., Canada, Australia, and the U.S. are represented. In addition, panelists will be invited to discuss a number of deeper issues. Are cartoons a useful teaching tool? Can a quiet class be roused from their slumber by the use of visual humor? Is there a best way to introduce or use a cartoon in a lecture? What copyright issues surround the use of cartoons for educational use? Why do we laugh (or cry) at cartoons that succinctly capture poor design in human factors and ergonomics? Can the sting of a poor design evaluation be moderated by the use of humor?

FOOD SAFETY POLICY FIGHTS: A U.S. PERSPECTIVE

Perspective is very important in understanding the area of food safety. This importance is illustrated by a favorite cartoon of mine that features an older, experienced mouse giving advice to a young mouse. The older mouse, in wrapping up, says to the younger, . . . and stay away from scientists— they cause cancer. Facing an avalanche of information on links between diet and health, consumers may, in frustration, sympathize with the mouse's view, and are having some difficulty sorting out which are the important cause-and-effect relationships. Government and industry also are struggling to develop a coherent approach to food safety and nutrition. Here, I stretch the term food safety to cover all linkages between diet and health, including traditional safety concerns (e.g., microbial contamination, pesticide residues, additives, naturally occurring toxicants, and environmental contaminants), as well as the increasingly prominent area of links between dietary composition and health (e.g., between dietary fiber and cancer). In the United States, both types of diet-health linkages have been front-page news throughout the late 1980s. A short review of some key events will serve to set the stage. In 1985 the largest recorded outbreak of salmonella-related food poisoning in the United States occurred in the Chicago area when, it is believed, unpasteurized and pasteurized milk were mixed in a processing plant owned by the Jewel Companies, a supermarket chain. There were over 16,000 confirmed cases of salmonellosis as a result and experts believe more than ten times that number were actually affected (Ryan et al.). In 1986 the U.S. General Accounting Office (1986a, 1986b) released two reports concluding, in effect, that the Food and Drug Administration's (PDA) inspection system for pesticide residues in domestic and imported food was woefully inadequate. In 1987 the television show 60 Minutes aired a report, considered infamous in the eyes of in-

Food Safety Policy Fights: A U.S. Perspective

Perspective is very important in understanding the area of food safety. This importance is illustrated by a favorite cartoon of mine that features an older, experienced mouse giving advice to a young mouse. The older mouse, in wrapping up, says to the younger, “… and stay away from scientists—they cause cancer.” Facing an avalanche of information on links between diet and health, consumers may, in frustration, sympathize with the mouse's view, and are having some difficulty sorting out which are the important cause-and-effect relationships. Government and industry also are struggling to develop a coherent approach to food safety and nutrition.