From Rob Dillon, president of South Carolinians for Science Education:
Creationism is a doctrine to which I, like most Christians, do not subscribe. It springs from a wrong understanding of the Word of God. And anybody who thinks he or she is going to impose his own personal narrow, vain, idolatrous doctrine on the children of this state as they sit helpless in their tenth grade Biology classrooms will have a fight on his hands. Again.
9 Comments | 
Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Religion, Science, State school boards, Textbook Selection, Textbooks | Tagged: Education, Evolution, Religion, Science, Textbooks | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Yes, I know: It’s a test of human evolution, and evolution passed. When I put “proof” in the headline, more people will give it the attention it deserves.
Teachers, you can register for the teacher information, and download this video for free use in your classroom presentations. I recommend it highly. (These rights are rather fuzzy about blogs, so I have not put the video here.)
This has become part of Ken Miller’s presentation to teachers — it was part of his lecture at Southern Methodist University on November 16, and I suspect it was a key part of his presentation to the Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST) in Austin, on November 17 — a conference sponsored by the Science Teachers Association of Texas (STAT) and at which attendance would probably get Texas state education officials fired.*
__________________________
* Chris Comer was a featured speaker at this meeting. It’s likely the poobahs at the Texas Education Agency didn’t figure out that any meeting of science teachers and scientists in Texas would feature evolution; one may hope that they don’t figure that out, if they continue to campaign against evolution and other science.
2 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Evolution, History, Science | Tagged: Education, Evolution, human evolution, Science, video | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Joe Lapp, from Austin, Texas, posted this review on Amazon.com of the National Academy of Science’s book Science, Evolution and Creationism. It’s worth reading, and repeating. Despite Joe’s criticism, the book is well worth your time to read; if you know about the example Joe uses, you’re ahead of the game.
Beneath the fold.
In addition to Amazon, the book is available for free download at the National Academy of Science’s site. It’s a great backgrounder for anyone interested in learning “what scientists say” about evolution and creationism, from our nation’s oldest and most trusted society of science advisors (Lincoln called on NAS for advice, and wise policy makers still do).
1 Comment | Accuracy, Biology, Books, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education quality, Evolution, History, Natural history, Religion, Research, Science, TEKS, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, National Academy of Science, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Florida may be ahead in the race to see which state can get slapped down first for illegally denying science to students in public school science classes. The problem in national, however.
It’s not always a question of setting standards. Sometimes teachers are told to dumb down classes, regardless the standards. Fort Bend County, Texas, offers an example: “Religious Beliefs Trump Thinking In Our Schools.”
No, Fort Bend County is not in rural, far west Texas. It’s just southeast of Houston, Texas’ biggest city.
Be sure to scan the comments, too.
Belated tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
2 Comments | Biology, Creationism, Religion, Science, State school boards, Teaching, TEKS, Texas | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, Religion, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Houston Chronicle continues its campaign for good education and high education standards, with another editorial taking a stand for evolution over the frivolity pending before two different education agencies in Texas government.
Publication of a call to arms labs and books by 17 different national organizations of scholars gave the Chronicle a spot to tee off:
A coalition of 17 science groups, among them the National Academy of Sciences, has just issued a call for their members to engage more in the science education process — including explaining evolution.
The coalition warns in this month’s issue of the FASEB Journal (the acronym stands for Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) that today’s muddling of scientific education with unscientific alternatives such as creationism weakens Americans’ grasp of the concepts on which science is based.
Texas creationists should be feeling the heat. Hundreds of Texas Ph.D. biologists have called the agencies to task for considering shorting evolution; Texas newspapers that have spoken out, all favor evolution as good pedagogy because it’s good science. The National Academy of Sciences published its updated call for tough standards and explaining why creationism is soft, and wrong. The experts all agree: No junk science, no voodoo science, so, no creationism in science classes.
Should be feeling the heat. Are they?
Look at the comments on the editorial at the Chronicle’s site.
Also see, or hear:
4 Comments | Biology, Creationism, Evolution, Higher education, Politics, State school boards, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo science | Tagged: Biology, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Junk science, Politics, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Science, Evolution and Creationism was released today by the National Academies of Science (NAS), restating the position of the nation’s premier science organization that creationism has no place in science classrooms.
 |
 |
|
 |
||
| Read this FREE online! |
||
The press release is here; the book itself is available free here (or you can order a print copy for $12.95 from NAS).
Here is the NAS press release:
Date: Jan. 3, 2008
Contact: Maureen O’Leary, Director of Public Information
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.eduFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Scientific Evidence Supporting Evolution Continues To Grow; Nonscientific Approaches Do Not Belong In Science Classrooms
WASHINGTON — The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) today released SCIENCE, EVOLUTION, AND CREATIONISM, a book designed to give the public a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the current scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom. Recent advances in science and medicine, along with an abundance of observations and experiments over the past 150 years, have reinforced evolution’s role as the central organizing principle of modern biology, said the committee that wrote the book.
“SCIENCE, EVOLUTION, AND CREATIONISM provides the public with coherent explanations and concrete examples of the science of evolution,” said NAS President Ralph Cicerone. “The study of evolution remains one of the most active, robust, and useful fields in science.”
“Understanding evolution is essential to identifying and treating disease,” said Harvey Fineberg, president of IOM. “For example, the SARS virus evolved from an ancestor virus that was discovered by DNA sequencing. Learning about SARS’ genetic similarities and mutations has helped scientists understand how the virus evolved. This kind of knowledge can help us anticipate and contain infections that emerge in the future.”
DNA sequencing and molecular biology have provided a wealth of information about evolutionary relationships among species. As existing infectious agents evolve into new and more dangerous forms, scientists track the changes so they can detect, treat, and vaccinate to prevent the spread of disease.
11 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Public health, Religion, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Biology, Curricula, Education, Evolution, National Academy of Sciences, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Oh, I got distracted: Robert Scott, Texas Commissioner of Education, responded to the letter signed by more than 100 biologist Ph.D.s in Texas, regarding their concern that the firing of Chris Comer indicates animosity to good science — that is, animosity to evolution theory — on the part of the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
Full text below the fold, for the record, and to encourage distribution and reading.
Generally, the letter is lukewarm to science, at best. Notably, Scott misinterprets the bravery of the scientists as an indication that they, too, are lukewarm about the science, and don’t want to be too closely associated with evolution.
The letter is available at the Texas Citizens for Science site, and at Thoughts in a Haystack.
Dr. Bolnick, the originator of the biologists’ letter, has responded to Scott’s response — again, full text below the fold — I found it at Thoughts in a Haystack, at Texas Citizens for Science, and at Panda’s Thumb.
1 Comment | Biology, Creationism, Curricula, History, Politics, Scandals, Science, TEKS, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, Politics, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Spectacular blend of history, botany and story.
One of a series of short films produced by KERA Television in Dallas over the past few years, this one by veteran filmmaker Rob Tranchin. A lot more details here — and frankly, the video quality is vastly superior at KERA’s site — go view the film there.
I hope it’s available on DVD for classroom use, especially around Dallas, soon.
Hundreds of historic trees grace America’s cities and countryside. We could use a dozen more films this good to tell their stories.
6 Comments | Biology, History, Science, Texas, trees, Video and film | Tagged: Biology, film, History, Media, trees | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I hope he doesn’t mean it.
Maybe he had a staffer draft it for him, and he is really not familiar with the issue (though he’s been on the Texas State Board of Education for several years, through at least two rounds of biology textbook selections) — but it’s difficult for me not to see a declaration of war on evolution in science classes in the letter to the editor Texas State Board of Education Chair Don McLeroy sent to the Dallas Morning News:
Science education has to have an open mind
Re: “Teaching of evolution to go under microscope – With science director out, sides set to fight over state’s curriculum,” Thursday news story.
What do you teach in science class? You teach science. What do you teach in Sunday school class? You teach your faith.
Thus, in your story it is important to remember that some of my quoted comments were made in a 2005 Sunday school class. The story does accurately represent that I am a Christian and that my faith in God is something that I take very seriously. My Christian convictions are shared by many people.
Given these religious convictions, I would like to clarify any impression one may make from the article about my motivation for questioning evolution. My focus is on the empirical evidence and the scientific interpretations of that evidence. In science class, there is no place for dogma and “sacred cows;” no subject should be “untouchable” as to its scientific merits or shortcomings. My motivation is good science and a well-trained, scientifically literate student.
What can stop science is an irrefutable preconception. Anytime you attempt to limit possible explanations in science, it is then that you get your science stopper. In science class, it is important to remember that the consensus of a conviction does not determine whether it is true or false. In science class, you teach science.
Don McLeroy, chair, State Board of Education, College Station
(Letter printed in the Dallas Morning News, December 21, 2007, page 24A; photo, Associated Press file photo, 2004)
My concerns, below.
These are the encouraging parts of Chairman McLeroy’s letter: “What do you teach in science class? You teach science.” And this closing sentence: “In science class, you teach science.”
Most of the three paragraphs in between those sentences is laced with the code language of creationism and intelligent design partisans who aim to strike evolution from schools by watering down the curriculum and preventing students from learning the power and majesty of the science theory derived from observing creation, by limiting time to teach evolution as state standards require so that it cannot be taught adequately, and by raising false claims against evolution such as alleged weaknesses in the theory.
No, we don’t teach dogma in science classes. Dogma, of course, is a reference to religious material. “Dogma” is what the Discovery Institute calls evolution theory.
Evolution is one of the great ideas of western civilization. It unites disparate parts of science related to biology, such as botany, zoology, mycology, nuclear physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology and archeology, into a larger framework that helps scientists understand nature. This knowledge in this framework can then be applied to serious matters such as increasing crop yields and the “green revolution” of Norman Borlaug, in order to feed humanity (a task we still have yet to achieve), or to figuring out the causes and treatments, and perhaps cures for diabetes.
In Texas, we use evolution to fight the cotton boll weevil and imported fire ants, to make the Rio Grande Valley productive with citrus fruit, and to treat and cure cancer and other diseases. We use corroborating sciences, such as geology, to find and extract coal, petroleum and natural gas.
Am I being dogmatic when I say Texas kids need to know that? None of that science rests solely on a proclamation by any religious sect. All of that science is based on observations of nature and experiments in laboratories. Evolution theory is based on extensive observations in nature and millions of experimental procedures, not one of which has succeeded in finding any of the alleged weaknesses in the theory.
If Chairman McLeroy would stipulate that he is not referring to evolution when he says public school science classes are “no place for dogma,” this letter is good news.
But I’ve listened to the chairman too many times, in too many forums, to think he has changed his position.
So his letter should be taken, I believe, as a declaration of war against science in Texas school science classrooms.
I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, Chairman McLeroy, but you’ll need to catch up on the science and modify those views expressed in the paper today to start persuading.
An olive branch: Dr. McLeroy, I will be pleased to sit down with you and other commissioners to explain how and why evolution is important to know especially for people who do not “believe” in it. I would be happy to explain why I and other educators, like former Education Sec. Bill Bennett, believe we have a duty to teach evolution and teach it well, and why that is consistent with a faith-respecting view of education. Even better, I would be pleased to arrange visits for you with some of Texas’s leading “evolutionists” so you can become familiar with their work, and why evolution is important to the economy and future of Texas.
Update: Welcome readers from Thoughts in a Haystack, and from Pharyngula. Please feel free to leave a comment, and nose around to see what else is here on evolution and Texas education.
90 Comments | Biology, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas, Voodoo science | Tagged: Biology, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Religion, Science, state board of education, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It’s not God driving the creationists to grant degrees in Texas; it’s Mammon.
See the press release from the Texas Citizens for Science, below:
TEXAS CITIZENS FOR SCIENCEPRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
10:00 a.m., Thursday, December 20, 2007CONTACT: Steven D. Schafersman, Ph.D.,
President, Texas Citizens for Science
432-352-2265tcs@texscience.org
TITLE: The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wants the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) to Give ICR Certification to Grant Graduate Degrees in Science Education in Texas for Monetary Reasons
In a major report on the ICR’s quest for official certification by the THECB, Texas Citizens for Science (TCS) believes it has identified the major motivation for the rapid, incompetent, and–until now–stealthy process of the ICR site evaluation and approval by two committees of the THECB. ICR is on-track to make millions of dollars by charging Protestant Fundamentalist students from many foreign countries tuition at its new on-line distance education graduate school. ICR says:
“The graduate school of ICR also offers resident Master of Science degrees in astronomy and geophysics, biology, and geology. These degree programs are currently being developed for web-based, distance education platforms to accommodate a growing number of students who desire quality advanced science instruction from a thoroughly biblical perspective.”
The certification to award Master’s Degrees in Science Education will apply to distance degree programs as well as on-site classroom study. In fact, ICR’s Henry Morris Center in Dallas has only a single equipped classroom. ICR, therefore, intends to sell its Young Earth Creationism graduate program to students from all over the United States and foreign countries who would be interested in obtaining a science master’s degree that is legal, authentic, and fully-certified by the State of Texas. With Web-based distance education so powerful and available today, he potential market contains thousands of individuals, and ICR is on-track to make many millions of dollars.
In the Report on the ICR, TCS President Steven Schafersman writes, “The only thing better than offering distance education courses for thousands of Protestant Fundamentalist students in India, China, Africa, and South America is being able to give them certified and legitimate Masters of Science degrees from the United States. And the only thing better than that is charging each of those thousands of Protestant Fundamentalist students all over the world many thousands of dollars for tuition. With a fat Texas-certified Master’s Degree in Science Education thrown in, every student will get super-extra “value added” for their money. ICR stands to earn tens of millions of dollars
from tuition fees if they can award real Masters of Science degrees to thousands of distance students over the world. Likewise, they will lose those millions of dollars if THECB certification is not granted on January 24, 2008, in Austin.”The financial motivation for the so-far successful progress of the ICR to obtaining its official Texas certification to award legal and authentic master’s degrees in science has not been uncovered until now.
The Report is now available at
http://www.texscience.org/reviews/icr-thecb-certification.htm
1 Comment | Biology, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Higher education, Junk science, Religion, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, creationism controversy, Higher education, Politics, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
No, unfortunately, not at either the State Board of Education/Texas Education Agency nor the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
At a better place, perhaps. A permanent exhibit on evolution, “Explore Evolution, opened October 1 at the Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas. The exhibit, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, explains evolution for students. It appears essentially the same at six different museums in the Midwest:
Explore Evolution permanent exhibit opens Sept. 10 at NU State Museum
Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 7, 2005 — Using cutting edge research, a new exhibit at the University of Nebraska State Museum gives a modern shine to Charles Darwin’s 146-year-old theory on evolution. The permanent exhibit, Explore Evolution, which opens to the public Sept. 10, was developed by a consortium of six partner museums led by the NU State Museum and prominently features the work of two UNL scientists.
The project is made possible by a $2.8 million, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Informal Science Education program and consists of nearly identical permanent exhibit galleries at six partner museums in the Midwest and South — regions where evolution education is controversial. Other components of the project include a Web site, inquiry-based activities for middle-school children in the form of a book titled “Virus and the Whale, Exploring Evolution in Creatures Small and Large,” and collaborations with five statewide 4-H programs.
“Interested 4-H’ers will have the opportunity to explore exciting scientific concepts and cutting-edge research methods,” said Bradley Barker, UNL 4-H.
Priscilla Grew, director of the museum, said the exhibit is a big win for Nebraska.
“By funding the Explore Evolution project, the National Science Foundation has elevated UNL’s State Museum into a national leadership position in museum science education,” she said. “Evolution has been called the cornerstone of modern biology. The scientific understanding of evolution is fundamental to advances in modern medicine, agriculture and biotechnology. It is essential both to scientific research on the biodiversity of today’s world, and to the scientific interpretation of the fossil record through geologic time.”
The museum exhibit features seven current research projects, each presenting a major discovery about the evolution of life by a leading scientist or team of researchers. Through graphics and interactive displays, museum patrons explore evolution in organisms ranging form the smallest to the largest.
UNL’s contributions to the project are significant. While the exhibit galleries were built by the Science Museum of Minnesota, a team from UNL played major roles in the creation of the artwork and content. Judy Diamond, professor at the NU State Museum, wrote the original grant request for the project and is the team leader on the project. Research from two UNL scientists — virologist Charles Wood and geologist Sherilyn Fritz — is featured in two of the seven sections of the exhibit.
Wood’s research takes him to central Africa to study how the HIV/AIDS virus is transported from mothers to their infants. Wood’s research showcases the virus and how it evolves rapidly in newborns, with new strains being produced that are resistant to the infant’s immune system.
Fritz, working with Edward Theriot from University of Texas at Austin, used core samples from Yellowstone Lake to investigate the evolution of an organism called a diatom. Sampling tracks the diatom’s evolution from the lake’s formation 14,000 years ago and shows how diatoms — which are good barometers of climate change — developed within the first 4,000 years of the lake.
Other scientific endeavors featured in Explore Evolution include Cameron Currie’s work on farmer ants and their coevolving partners; Kenneth Kaneshiro on sexual selection among Hawaiian flies; Rosemary and Peter Grant on Galapagos finches; Svante Paabo on the genetic ties between humans and chimps; and Philip Gingerich on fossil discoveries of walking whales.
3 Comments | Biology, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Texas history, Travel | Tagged: Biology, Education, Evolution, Museums, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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 science?
It will have a permanent home at the website of Texas Citizens for Science. If you need to link to the letter, you can link there.
If you happen to be a Ph.D. biologist who wishes to add your name to the letter, you can do that, too, eventually, according to TCS President Steven Schafersman.
Leave a Comment » | Biology, Evolution, State school boards, Texas Citizens for Science | Tagged: Biology, Education, Evolution, Science, state board of education, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas political conservatives stand exposed in their plans to gut biology standards to get evolution out of the curriculum after the Dallas Morning News detailed their plans in a front-page news story today.
LEANDER, Texas – Science instruction is about to be dissected in Texas.
You don’t need a Ph.D. in biology to know that things rarely survive dissection.
The resignation of the state’s science curriculum director last month has signaled the beginning of what is shaping up to be a contentious and politically charged revision of the science curriculum, set to begin in earnest in January.
Intelligent design advocates and other creationists are being up front with their plans to teach educationally-suspect and scientifically wrong material as “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. Of course, they also plan to fail to teach the strengths of evolution theory.
“Emphatically, we are not trying to ‘take evolution out of the schools,’ ” said Mark Ramsey of Texans for Better Science Education, which wants schools to teach about weaknesses in evolution. “All good educators know that when students are taught both sides of an issue such as biologic evolution, they understand each side better. What are the Darwinists afraid of?”
Texans for Better Science is a political group set up in 2003 to advocate putting intelligent design into biology textbooks for religious reasons. It is an astro-turf organization running off of donations from religious fundamentalists. (Note their website is “strengthsandweaknesses” and notice they feature every false and disproven claim IDists have made in the last 20 years — while noting no strength of evolution theory; fairness is not the goal of these people, nor is accuracy, nor scientific literacy).
Scientists appear to be taking their gloves off in this fight. For two decades scientists have essentially stayed out of the frays in education agencies, figuring with some good reason that good sense would eventually prevail. With the global challenges to the eminence of American science, however, and with a lack of qualified graduate students from the U.S.A., this silliness in public school curricula is damaging the core of American science and competitiveness.
Can scientists develop a voice greater than the political and public relations machines of creationists.
As Bette Davis said on stage and screen: Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Also see:
2 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Curricula, Education, Education quality, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state | Tagged: Education, education standards, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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.
4 Comments | Biology, Creationism, Education quality, Evolution, Politics, Science, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks | Tagged: Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Texas Education Agency has lost its mind. Again, or still.
P.Z. has details. I’m off to discuss economics with economics teachers. Talk among yourselves until I get back later tonight.
If someone organizes a march on the TEA with torches and other farm implements, somebody text message me, please.
3 Comments | Biology, Evolution, Paranoia, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Science and faith, Separation of church and state, TEKS, Texas | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, Religion, Texas Education Agency | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the archives for the Biology category.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 