Nobody can recall the ceremony, but Don McLeroy made it clear yesterday that he thinks he’s been designated Kommissar of Education, ramming through a proposal altering English standards for the next decade — without debate, without even a chance to read the proposal.
It’s probably not so bad a pig in a poke as it might be — of course, no one had the chance to review it, so no one knows, really — but the processes used, worthy of Napoleon or Kruschev on a bad day, should give cause for concern.
Gotta think about this one for a while.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Mr. Hoeppner,
There are no relevant competing theories. A scientific theory (unlike the casual usage of “theory” as a guess or an idea) is overwhelmingly supported by evidence and heavily scrutinized through peer-reviewed scientific research until it gains general acceptance in the scientific community. Scientific theories provide a framework for understanding the natural world, and can be used to make predictions that can be tested and applied in the natural world. ID fails utterly to qualify – it is an attempt to force nonscientific ideas into the science curriculum.
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In Kansas, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee and Pennsylvania, ID advocates have proposed to “add” ID to the biology curriculum. In each case, the proposal required that evolution be presented as less than it is, that instruction on evolution theory be pared back, and that evolution be presented as tentative where it is certain. In each case the proposal was based on testimony that made false claims about evolution and the rest of biology.
In none of the four cases could ID proponents state just what ID theory might be. In all cases, most advocates urged adoption of ID as “necessary” to balance biology books religiously.
Errors are errors. You have cited no errors in biology books. When asked to present them, you point to a physics site that talks in general about errors in scinece and math texts other than biology.
I suppose, from this example, IDists think they should get a royal pass on having to provide academic rigor, valuable information, and the truth. If ID requires that we relax our academic and moral standards, of what use is it, really?
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I guess errors in textbooks are OK so long as they are your errors. You make the statement that ID advocates wish to gut evolution but when was that the case? In reality ID advocates only want to be able to have their relevant competing theories to be studied along with evolution. The sad fact is that ONLY evolution is taught and it is taught as fact, which is not open to question.
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Intelligent design advocates in Texas argued to introduce new errors. It’s highly ironic that anyone would claim ID advocates are troubled by errors in science texts — and then, just to add to the gall, the errors complained about aren’t in the biology texts.
As a former publisher, I can testify that it’s nearly impossible to get a publication done without a few errors. In a text, featuring work from dozens of authors, hundreds of sources, with thousands of photographs, with supplemental material from dozens more sources, there will be errors due to editing difficulties and time.
None could be so huge as gutting evolution, as ID advocates have urged in the past, or as adding ID now, as a few ID advocates hope.
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James F: “I am curious, though: which scientific errors are you referring to, Mr. Hoeppner?”
James F, you might want to check out the ‘multi volume Prentice Hall series.’
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/sciencebookerror.html
I am in the process of attempting to obtain my own copies.
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As much as I like to cite the fact that ID has failed to produce any data in a single peer-reviewed scientific research paper (this is astonishing when you stop and think that the National Library of Medicine has about 17 million papers publicly indexed), we must never forget that their “research” programs are a total sham. ID is an attempt to assign supernatural causation to science, and since science does not deal with anything outside of the natural world, it amounts to fruitless neo-creationism. Spending ten times the money to disprove the theory of gravity would have similar results.
I am curious, though: which scientific errors are you referring to, Mr. Hoeppner?
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The only connection is to their dictatorial natures. Dictators are like that.
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The question is what do they have to do with the point you were trying to illustrate? Imagine a student just chose something example out of the air.
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You’re right — I’m too tough on those dictators..
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I don’t understand the references to Kruschev and Napoleon. What did they do that is related to this process?
Kruschev, after much consultation, gave a speech denouncing Stalin. Napoleon, after much consultation, published the Napoleonic code.
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I think you’re missing something in these cases. In the case of intelligent design, SBOE finally listened to the scientists, curriculum experts, teachers and U.S. Constitution, and after a transparent process, SBOE did the right thing.
In the English standards, SBOE has told Hispanics to drop dead, told English curriculum experts they don’t know what they’re talking about, told teachers and parents and voters to butt out, and has done the wrong thing.
If advocates of ID want to get it into the curriculum, they should develop a hypothesis of ID and go into the lab and field and test it, and write up the results of the experiments for publication. That’s all that’s necessary. Yet ID advocates have spent more than $20 million on public relations campaigns, and to the best of my knowledge, less than $1 million on now-aborted research efforts. Science is research, not public relations.
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Now you might have an inkling how advocates for Intelligent Design feel when textbooks have been rammed through the Texas educational system with scientific errors in them.
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I have a slightly different take from eyeingtenure’s. From
http://curricublog.org/2008/05/24/tx-ela/
(which also includes links to the news coverage):
The Texas State Board of Education’s shocking action Friday (May 23, 2008) in adopting new standards for K-12 English/Language Arts is being viewed by some as a harbinger of things to come for the new science standards, which are the next to be revised.
. . . .
This action shows that the Right-Wing school board majority is not above doing anything they can — without regard for either fairness or for competence — to get whatever outcomes they’re committed to. That’s unfortunate for the English and literacy education of Texas students.
As for science, however, I think this incident means that those supporting science education will be prepared to counter tactics and strategies that they might otherwise have thought to be beyond the capacity for malfeasance of even this board majority.
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From the same article, this says it all:
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Help! I’m already having second thoughts about teaching high school English. It hasn’t even been a week since I got the acceptance letter in the mail. Come to think of it, I’ve got some letters to write myself. Perhaps an ultimatum is in order.
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