Texas biologists stand up for evolution


 

Leading biologists at several of Texas’s leading universities sent a letter to the Texas State Board of Education trying to scold the agency back onto the path of good science, in the wake of the firing scandal at the agency late last month. Laura Heinauer wrote in Homeroom, an education blog of the Austin American-Statesman:

More than 100 biology faculty from universities across Texas signed a letter sent Monday to Education Commissioner Robert Scott saying Texas Education Agency employees should not have to remain neutral on evolution.The letter is in response to the departure of former science curriculum director Chris Comer, who says she was forced to resign days after forwarding an e-mail her superiors said made the agency appear biased against the idea that life is a result of intelligent design.“I’m an evolutionary biologist, and I and many others simply feel that good evolution education is key to understanding biology as a whole,” said University of Texas professor Daniel Bolnick, who has been collecting signatures since last week.

More biologists from more Texas universities would have signed, probably, with more time allowed to gather signatures. Word I have is that the author and organizers wanted to get the letter delivered quickly.The letter was forceful, and stern in emphasizing the strength of scientific support for evolution theory, a rebuke to Commissioner Robert Scott’s political assistant, Lizzette Gonzales Reynolds:

It is inappropriate to expect the TEA’s director of science curriculum to “remain neutral” on this subject, any more than astronomy teachers should “remain neutral” about whether the Earth goes around the sun. In the world of science, evolution is equally well-supported and accepted as heliocentrism. Far from remaining neutral, it is the clear duty of the science staff at TEA and all other Texas educators to speak out unequivocally: evolution is a central pillar in any modern science education, while “intelligent design” is a religious idea that deserves no place in the science classroom at all.

A massive body of scientific evidence supports evolution. All working scientists agree that publication in top peer-reviewed journals is the scoreboard of modern science. A quick database search of scientific publications since 1975 shows 29,639 peer-reviewed scientific papers on evolution in twelve leading journals alone2. To put this in perspective, if you read 5 papers a day, every day, it would take you 16 years to read this body of original research. These tens of thousands of research papers on evolution provide overwhelming support for the common ancestry of living organisms and for the mechanisms of evolution including natural selection. In contrast, a search of the same database for “Intelligent Design” finds a mere 24 articles, every one of which is critical of intelligent design3. Given that evolution currently has a score of 29,639– while “intelligent design” has a score of exactly zero– it is absurd to expect the TEA’s director of science curriculum to “remain neutral” on this subject. In recognition of the overwhelming scientific support for evolution, evolution is taught without qualification– and intelligent design is omitted– at every secular and most sectarian universities in this country, including Baylor (Baptist), Notre Dame (Catholic), Texas Christian (Disciples of Christ) and Brigham Young (Mormon).

This last sentence is weaker than it needs to be. Evolution is taught at every major sectarian university in the U.S., including Southern Methodist University, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, all the Jesuit colleges and all other Catholic institutions, in addition to those named. It is only the rare, odd Bible college that may not teach evolution. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, which does not emphasize science, and the strictly fundamentalist, 19th century Bob Jones University are the only two I have been able to confirm who do not teach evolution in biology courses.

Be sure to check out the footnotes in the letter, too.

There is no serious college textbook available which uses a non-evolution model to explain biology.In 2003, when the Discovery Institute presented a letter to the Texas SBOE urging skepticism of evolution theory, and then misrepresented the letter as support for intelligent design, more than 100 professors at the University of Texas at Austin and more than 100 professors at Rice University wrote to support evolution. Texas’s four Nobel winners in Medicine or Physiology also called on TEA and the SBOE to emphasize evolution in textbooks. Physics Nobelist Steven Weinberg personally appeared at the citizen hearings on textbooks to stress the point.Texas’s top science scholars and researchers have been clear, consistently over the past decade.

It takes a particular form of political chutzpah and political hubris to ignore this unity of opinion among Texas’s leading researchers and teachers of biology. But Gov. Rick Perry’s recent appointment of arch-creationist Donald McLeroy to chair the SBOE, and the firing of science curriculum expert Chris Comer over her FYI e-mail alerting people to a speech by science philosopher Prof. Barbara Forrest, seem to have made most scientists nervous that the Texas SBOE is gearing up to get stupid again.

No comments from any State Board member, nor from the commissioner yet.

The story has been playing on Texas radio stations most of the day. It was picked up by major Texas newspapers, generally from the Associated Press wire:

See also:

One commenter at the American-Statesman site was happy to hear the news. “Big Fat Phil” wrote, “Hello, sanity. I missed you.”

The full text of the letter, and the full list of signers, is below the fold.

Text of the letter, and list of signers:

December 10, 2007

To Robert Scott, Commissioner of Education for Texas,

As biology faculty at Texas universities1, we are deeply concerned by the forced resignation of Chris Comer, the director of science curriculum for the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Ms. Comer’s ouster was linked to an email that she forwarded announcing a lecture by Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor and distinguished critic of the intelligent design movement. A few days after sending the email, Ms. Comer was told she would be terminated. The memorandum she received from her superiors claimed that evolution and intelligent design are a “subject on which the agency must remain neutral”.

It is inappropriate to expect the TEA’s director of science curriculum to “remain neutral” on this subject, any more than astronomy teachers should “remain neutral” about whether the Earth goes around the sun. In the world of science, evolution is equally well-supported and accepted as heliocentrism. Far from remaining neutral, it is the clear duty of the science staff at TEA and all other Texas educators to speak out unequivocally: evolution is a central pillar in any modern science education, while “intelligent design” is a religious idea that deserves no place in the science classroom at all.

A massive body of scientific evidence supports evolution. All working scientists agree that publication in top peer-reviewed journals is the scoreboard of modern science. A quick database search of scientific publications since 1975 shows 29,639 peer-reviewed scientific papers on evolution in twelve leading journals alone2. To put this in perspective, if you read 5 papers a day, every day, it would take you 16 years to read this body of original research. These tens of thousands of research papers on evolution provide overwhelming support for the common ancestry of living organisms and for the mechanisms of evolution including natural selection. In contrast, a search of the same database for “Intelligent Design” finds a mere 24 articles, every one of which is critical of intelligent design3. Given that evolution currently has a score of 29,639– while “intelligent design” has a score of exactly zero– it is absurd to expect the TEA’s director of science curriculum to “remain neutral” on this subject. In recognition of the overwhelming scientific support for evolution, evolution is taught without qualification– and intelligent design is omitted– at every secular and most sectarian universities in this country, including Baylor (Baptist), Notre Dame (Catholic), Texas Christian (Disciples of Christ) and Brigham Young (Mormon).

Evolution education is more than an academic question. Biotechnology is a key player in our economy, and biotech firms move to places with well trained biologists. Evolutionary biology has made fundamental contributions to drug synthesis, medical genetics, and our understanding of the origins and dynamics of diseases. Principles of evolution are at the basis of human genomics and personalized medicine and are applied daily by people working in medicine, agriculture, engineering, and pharmaceuticals. In contrast, anti-evolutionary ideas like intelligent design have yet to produce any medical or technological advances.

Even if the scientific evidence were not so one-sided, there remains the fact that intelligent design is a religious concept. In the 2004 court case Kitzmiller vs. Dover, Judge John E. Jones III (an appointee of President Bush) concluded that “not one defense expert was able to explain how the supernatural action suggested by ID [intelligent design] could be anything other than an inherently religious proposition” and that the school board was trying to present “students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory.” Teaching intelligent design in public school science classes clearly violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, as emphasized in the 1987 Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard. The Texas Education Agency has a constitutional duty to keep intelligent design out of public school science classes, and leave religious instruction of children to their parents.

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Judge Jones concluded that the school board exhibited “breathtaking inanity” when it tried to adopt “an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy.” The TEA appears to be flirting with an equally unsupportable policy. There can be no neutrality on an issue that is scientifically and legally clear-cut: evolution should be taught at the K-12 level in the same fashion that we teach it in universities, an accepted and rigorous science, not juxtaposed with a religious idea however politically popular. The agency should work to bolster evolution education in Texas rather than undermining it.

Sincerely,

  1. Dr. Daniel Bolnick, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  2. Dr. David Hillis, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  3. Dr. Sahotra Sarkar, Professor of Philosophy and Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  4. Dr. Dick Richardson, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  5. Dr. Hans Hofmann, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  6. Dr. Kirk Winemiller, Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M
  7. Dr. Eric Pianka, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  8. Dr. Ken Whitney, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice U.
  9. Dr. Michael Singer, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT AustinDr. Claus Wilke, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  10. Dr. Darryl de Ruiter, Assistant Professor of Physical Anthropology, Texas A&M
  11. Dr. Bill Murphy, Associate Professor of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, Texas A&M
  12. Dr. Volker Rudolf, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice U.
  13. Dr. Anja Schulze, Assistant Professor of Marine Biology, Texas A&M
  14. Dr. Sharon Gursky, Associate Professor of Physical Anthropology, Texas A&M
  15. Dr. Thom DeWitt, Associate Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M
  16. Dr. Jennifer Rudgers, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice U.
  17. Dr. David Queller, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice U.
  18. Dr. Gil Rosenthal, Assistant Professor of Biology, Texas A&M
  19. Dr. Fran Gelwick, Associate Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M
  20. Dr. Christopher Marshall, Assistant Professor of Marine Biology, Texas A&M
  21. Dr. Jose Panero, Associate Professor of Botany, UT Austin
  22. Dr. Bradford Wilcox, Professor of Ecosystem Science and Management, Texas A&M
  23. Dr. Martin Terry, Assistant Professor of Biology, Sul Ross State U.
  24. Dr. Caitlin Gabor, Associate Professor of Biology, Texas State U.
  25. Dr. Yousif Shamoo, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice U.
  26. Dr. Susan Schwinning, Assistant Professor of Biology, Texas State U.
  27. Dr. Mathew Leibold, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  28. Dr. Amy Dunham, Research Faculty of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice U.
  29. Dr. Dean Hendrickson, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  30. Dr. Elizabeth Erhart, Assistant Professor of Physical Anthropology, Texas State U.
  31. Dr. Kerrie Lewis, Assistant Professor of Physical Anthropology, Texas State U.
  32. Dr. Claud Bramblett, Professor Emeritus of Physical Anthropology, UT Austin
  33. Dr. Jim Woolley, Professor of Entomology, Texas A&M
  34. Dr. Michelle Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Physical Anthropology, Texas State U.
  35. Dr. Michael Huston, Professor of Biology, Texas State U.
  36. Dr. Christine Hawkes, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  37. Dr. Richard Gomer, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice U.
  38. Dr. Andrew Aspbury, Senior Lecturer, Texas State U.
  39. Dr. Molly Cummings, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  40. Dr. Daniel Wagner, Assistant Professor, Rice U.
  41. Dr. Ronald Parry, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice U.
  42. Dr. Ira Greenbaum, Professor of Biology, Texas A&M
  43. Dr. Robert Edwards, Professor of Biology, UT Pan American
  44. Dr. David Crews, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  45. Dr. Tom Juenger, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  46. Dr. Beryl Simpson, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  47. Dr. Mike Ryan, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  48. Dr. Randy Linder, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  49. Dr. Ryan King, Assistant Professor of Biology, Baylor U.
  50. Dr. Michael Stern, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice U.
  51. Dr. Liza Shapiro, Professor of Physical Anthropology, UT Austin
  52. Dr. Tony Frankino, Assistant Professor of Biology & Biochemistry, U. Houston
  53. Dr. Ricardo Azevedo, Assistant Professor of Biology & Biochemistry, U. Houston
  54. Dr. Richard Strauss, Professor of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University
  55. Dr. Steve Pennings, Associate Professor of Biology and Biochemistry, U. Houston
  56. Dr. Diane Wiernasz, Associate Professor of Biology and Biochemistry, U. Houston
  57. Dr. Blaine Cole, Professor of Biology and Biochemistry, U. Houston
  58. Dr. Tom Waller, Regents Professor of Biology, U. North Texas
  59. Dr. James Grover, Professor of Biology, UT Arlington
  60. Dr. Owen Lind, Professor of Biology, Baylor U.
  61. Dr. Lee Hughes. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, U. North Texas
  62. Dr. Brad Keele, Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Baylor U.
  63. Dr. Rebecca Dickstein, Professor of Biological Sciences, U. North Texas
  64. Dr. Pamela Padilla, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, U. North Texas
  65. Dr. Robert Baldridge, Professor of Biology, Baylor U.
  66. Dr. Mark McGinley, Associate Professor of Biological Scienes, Texas Tech U.
  67. Dr. Joseph White, Associate Professor of Biology, Baylor U.
  68. Dr. Darrel Vodopich, Assistant Professor of Biology, Baylor U.
  69. Dr. David Cannatella, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  70. Dr. Andy Ellington, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, UT Austin
  71. Dr. Terry Maxwell, Professor of Biology, Angelo State University
  72. Dr. Basset Maguire, Professor Emeritus of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  73. Dr. Jill Nugent, Instructor, Biological Sciences, U. North Texas.
  74. Dr. Nathan Collie, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech U.
  75. Dr. Deborah Carr, Research Associate, Department of Physiology, Texas Tech U.
  76. Dr. Jim Carr, Professor of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech U.
  77. Dr. Gad Perry, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Management, Texas Tech U.
  78. Dr. Frederick Gehlbach, Research Professor of Biology, Baylor U.
  79. Dr. Bryan Brooks, Associate Professor of Biomedical Studies, Baylor U.
  80. Dr. Ernest Lundelius, Professor Emeritus of Vertebrate Paleontology, UT Austin
  81. Dr. Denné Reed, Assistant Professor of Physical Anthropology, UT Austin
  82. Dr. Larry Gilbert, Professor of Integrative Biology, UT Austin
  83. Dr. Garland Upchurch, Associate Professor of Biology, Texas State U.
  84. Dr. Rasika Harshey, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  85. Dr. Makkuni Jayaram, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  86. Dr. Richard Aldrich, Professor of Neurobiology, UT Austin
  87. Dr. Jackie Dudley, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  88. Dr. Harold Zakon, Professor of Neurobiology, UT Austin
  89. Dr. John Sisson, Associate Professor of Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology, UT Austin
  90. Dr. Chris Nice, Associate Professor of Biology, Texas State U.
  91. Dr. Andrew Gore, Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, UT Austin
  92. Dr. Alan Lloyd, Associate Professor of Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology, UTAustin
  93. Dr. Edward Marcotte, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UT Austin
  94. Dr. Arturo De Lozanne, Associate Professor of Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology, UT Austin
  95. Dr. Tanya Paull, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  96. Dr. Jeff Gross, Assistant Professor of Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology, UT Austin
  97. Dr. Tigga Kingston, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech U.
  98. Dr. Robert Krug, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  99. Dr. Kenneth Kohnson, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UT Austin
  100. Dr. Jon Robertus, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UT Austin
  101. Dr. JoAnn Hunter Johnson, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, UT Austin
  102. Dr. Paul. Szaniszlo, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  103. Dr. Arlen Johnson, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  104. Dr. Nigel Atkinson, Associate Professor of Neurobiology, UT Austin
  105. Dr. Vichy Iyer, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin
  106. Dr. Dave Stein, Associate Professor of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, UT Austin
  107. Dr. Clarence Chan, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UT Austin

_____________________

1 The opinions expressed in this letter are not necessarily those of our Universities, but rather our own professional opinions as Ph.D. biologists.

2 Counting all articles in the following journals devoted exclusively to evolutionary topics: Evolution, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Systematic Biology, Evolutionary Ecology Research, Evolutionary Ecology, American Naturalist, and counting articles in Nature, Science, Proceedings of the Royal Society, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that have ‘Evolution’ in the title or abstract. By restricting the search to these few journals and the short time-span (since 1975), we are likely to vastly underestimate the number of research papers on evolution, which is probably several times higher than what we found here.

3 A search for “Intelligent Design” in the same journals listed above finds one article, which is critical of intelligent design. Opening the search to all indexed scientific journals (to be generous to ID), one finds 410 articles in all, most of which are irrelevant to biology, focusing on engineering or computer science. Restricting the search to “Biology and Intelligent Design” yields 24 papers, all critical of intelligent design.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Biology, Creationism, Education quality, Evolution, Politics, Science, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to Texas biologists stand up for evolution

  1. What do the Creationists want with you? | AlunSalt says:
    July 14, 2014 at 12:22 pm

    […] The Creationists know exactly what role their God will have in Texas. They know how they plan to deal with any­one who doesn’t share their view of God. The real debate is about who will be allowed to ques­tion Authority in Texas. There’s noth­ing spe­cial about sci­ent­ists, it just hap­pens that they’re at the top of the list as their jobs are based on ques­tion­ing Authority. The best response for sci­ent­ists to cre­ation­ists is to make clear that sci­entific debate is impossible because cre­ation­ists have noth­ing to debate with. […]

    Like

  2. James Kessler's avatar James Kessler says:
    March 12, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    Isn’t Rick Perry a textbook case of evolution?

    Or rather..a textbook case of deevolution.

    Along with well…most of the GOP.

    Like

  3. Unknown's avatar A Texas riddle indeed « Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub says:
    August 21, 2008 at 6:28 pm

    […] separation from such controversial stuff? They fire people from the TEA for attending sessions that are legal and support the Texas standards. What sort of Quisling action is this on McLeroy’s […]

    Like

  4. Unknown's avatar Where to find the Texas biologists’ letter « Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub says:
    December 13, 2007 at 2:54 pm

    […] to find the Texas biologists’ letter Remember the letter that more than 100 Texas Ph.D. biologists sent to the Texas Education Agency a couple of days ago, urging support of evolution and good […]

    Like

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