Creationism puts faith at risk?

April 4, 2008

Interesting view:  A homeschooler argues that homeschooling parents can do a disservice to the faith of their children by misteaching creationism instead of evolution.  At The Upside Down World.

Those who are teaching their children using creationist curriculum are in particular danger of setting their children up for this fall. To see why, I’d like to offer a challenge. Take your child’s creationist materials and look at whatever footnotes and references are provided. Now take an evening and look up the names of the authors cited. Odds are excellent that virtually all of the authors are creationist scientists. Now, take the names of any mainstream scientists who are quoted or whose work is referenced and attempt to track down their work. Specifically, see if you can find the particular quotes used in your child’s materials. Google books can be a great way of doing this. Now, read through whatever you can find with an eye towards evaluating the accuracy of the quotes provided (ie are words changed, relevant sections replaced by “. . .”). Also try and honestly evaluate if the author of your child’s materials has accurately conveyed the substance of what the author is saying.

If you drink, you may want to keep some strong drink nearby to sustain yourself during this process, because I promise you, you will not be happy with what you find. Unfortunately, the only way creationist materials are able to create the appearance of validity is by only referring to the work of “creation scientists” (who don’t do research, BTW. Their work is limited to analyzing the work of others to look for potential holes which might be able to be seen as supporting a creationist perspective. This is not science.). When creationist materials do refer to the work of mainstream scientists, conducting actual research, they almost uniformly misquote and misrepresent them. If you do not believe me, then take a weekend or two and do the research yourself. The internet is a wonderful tool.

In a later report, it comes out that the biggest problem a Christian mother has raising science-literate kids is opposition from creationists who claim that knowledge is somehow evil.  They just can’t keep their agendas hidden — and there is some ripe stuff in the comments.


Ben Stein busted for Godwin’s law violation

March 26, 2008

Godwin’s law predicts, reductio ad Hitlerum explains.

Image from Stein's

And Vox Day explains it doesn’t mean what Ben Stein thinks it means. Day and Stein ought to get together to coordinate — of course, as Twain noted, if they’d just stick to the facts, they wouldn’t need to coordinate at all.

Lacking any significant response from the movie’s creators or fan, scientists and skeptics have turned to debating who gets to kick the turkey while it’s down.


“Expelled!” incident makes the Big Time

March 22, 2008

Ray Sutera thoughtfully sent a note: The New York Times has a story detailing the expulsion of evolutionary biologist P. Z. Myers from a preview of the creationist movie “Expelled!”

Myers’ account is still funnier.

Why there need to be previews: Myers notes (see the footnote) that the movie appears to again plagiarizes Harvard University’s animation of the operation of a cell, an old creationist trick. If the lawyers get their way, that will be gone by the general release.

Update on the need for previews:  See Myers’ note in which he explains that the cell animation in the movie is not Harvard’s exactly, but a copy of Harvard’s version, repeating Harvard’s errors. It’s an attempt to avoid plagiarizing by adding bad grammar, sorta.


Evolution teacher expelled from creationist movie

March 20, 2008

First the producers lied when they interviewed him for the film, claiming to be doing a different movie, a documentary. Then they refused to let him see anything that might reveal what of his own words they were using in the movie.

And now, the producers of Ben Stein’s great turkey of a movie, “Expelled!,” have booted the evolution teacher out of a viewing of the movie of which he is a star they promoted.

[Spew alert! Put the coffee/coke/beer down, and swallow before clicking on the link and reading the story linked to below.]

But having expelled the evolution teacher P. Z. Myers from the movie “Expelled!” and ironically making the point that the pretense of the movie only a pretense, the producer missed Dr. Myers much more famous guest.

Go, see, and laugh.

Wesley's bumpersticker

Buy the bumper sticker!


Sticks nix creationist pic

March 14, 2008

“Expelled!” producers gave away free tickets. They invited legislators personally. But only about 100 people showed up for an IMAX showing of the movie in Tallahassee, Florida.

benstein-expelled-no.jpg

Hey, I got 1,000 times that many people to click on an 8-frame .gif animation of an ancient goat. Real science trumps creationism again.

Real science is almost always more popular than faux-science and bad religion, but that will not stop creationists from creating trouble in any state agency in any state they can.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula.

[Yes, I’m aware of the historical implications of the headline.]


Homeschooler says ‘teach kids about Darwin’

March 11, 2008

Thoughtful post from a homeschooler, Geek Dad.  Check out the responses.  The heated exchanges reveal a lot.


Teachers under fire: How to handle it

March 6, 2008

Greg Laden wrote a wonderful piece about teachers under fire for teaching evolution.

It’s specific to evolution, so biology, psychology and social studies teachers should take note (yes, social studies — the Scopes trial shows up even in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)).

But teachers under fire for other things should read it, too.

Laden also links to last year’s special edition of the McGill Journal of Education, from Canada’s McGill University.   That’s the issue on teaching evolution.  It’s got something for policy makers, too — see the article by Dr. Eugenie Scott on why “teaching the controversy” is academically flaccid, and not legally correct.


Pat Hardy turns back creationist challenge in Texas

March 5, 2008

Attention focused on one usually-obscure race for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education helped Republican Pat Hardy turn back a malicious challenge. Hardy won her primary against secretive Barney Maddox, a urologist who spent a lot of money on specifically-targeted mailings, but who also refused to speak with reporters or anyone else asking questions.

Showing just how odd and treacherous is the situation in Texas, Hardy got assists from science bloggers across the nation, though her position on science is far from what science advocates would like. Hardy’s genial “don’t gut the textbooks” stand was preferred to Maddox’s mad-dog, teach-creationism-in-science position.

Maddox refused to comment on the election, of course.

Hardy’s district includes parts of Ft. Worth and surrounding counties. According to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram:

State Board of Education

Social conservatives failed in their attempt to take control of the State Board of Education on Tuesday when incumbent Pat Hardy of Fort Worth retained her seat against a challenge from Cleburne’s Barney Maddox.

Hardy, a career educator, has been a moderate voice on the board. The 15-member body still shows a close ideological split, but Hardy has helped keep it on a straight path.

The board’s powers come from its ability to influence the public school curriculum and the selection of textbooks. District 11covers about three-fourths of Tarrant County, plus all of Ellis, Johnson and Parker counties. There is no Democratic nominee for this seat in the November election.

Maddox’s entry in the race had set the stage for debate over the scientific theory of evolution, which he has described as “fairy tales.” Hardy took a better course: Teach kids about all theories, she said, from creation to evolution, and give them enough information to make up their own minds about what to believe.

Spoken like a teacher — and a person who should hold a seat on the State Board of Education

Tip of the old scrub brush to reader Ediacaran. Thanks, Bret.

Update:  News specific to this race from the Fort Worth paper.


Creationists make stealth bid to takeover Texas education board

February 28, 2008

Sane members of the Texas State Board of Education hold a slim majority over scripture-at-any-cost-in-science-books creationists.

Creationists are hammering away to defeat at least two incumbent board members to tip the balance, in classic stealth campaigns where they hide their intentions and spend oodles of money hoping to do evil by catching most voters asleep.  The creationists are campaigning to beat conservative, religious Baptists, because the Baptists are “too liberal” on evolution. 

Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow presents the facts in the State Education District 11 race, where a secretive urologist who patterns his campaign tactics after Kim Jong Il is outspending the sane incumbent at least $12 to $1.  The entire column is below the fold.

District 11 includes most of Tarrant County (Fort Worth), and Parker, Ellis and Johnson counties.

Social studies is also at risk here:  The stealth candidate, Barney Maddox, is making false claims against Texas social studies teachers and Texas social studies books, especially history books.  The guy looks like an ill-informed nutcase, and he has a good chance of winning.

For example, the campaign flier says: “Barney Maddox believes social studies textbooks should devote more space to American presidents than Marilyn Monroe and that the vicious attack of 9-11 should be portrayed as an aggressive act by terrorists, not an American conspiracy.”

Marilyn Monroe makes no appearance in some books; presidents get 100 times more space in any book you choose.  No book portrays 9-11 as an American conspiracy.  The man campaigns like your standard, wild-eyed nutcase.

Call, write and e-mail everyone you know in Texas to warn them to vote against Barney Maddox, and for Pat Hardy, in the District 11 State School Board race.  Your friends may not live in that district, but they should know.  There are other racess with similar problems.  

Early voting in this primary ends tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.  Tuesday, March 4,  is election day.

Blow’s column, below the fold.

While you’re working at making the world safe for science, wander over to the Texas Freedom Network’s site, and sign the petition saying you’ll stand up for science.  Tell ’em Ed sent you.

Read the rest of this entry »


Embarrassing lure of creationism

February 16, 2008

You know the syndrome: Someone is caught in a scandal relating to sex, and then they take an offer to pose nude for pornography, and end up merely as a naked embarrassment to everybody.

Same syndrome, but mercifully, without the nudism (yet): Creationists taking it just a bit too far. Two examples.

Example 1: Don McLeroy, newly appointed to the chair of the Texas State Board of Education, was embarrassed by the release of tapes of a talk he gave in a church, demonstrating for anyone who didn’t already know that he’s opposed to teaching science in biology, especially if that science involves evolution. Bad enough?

He’s posted a transcript of the tape on his own website. It almost appears he’s hoping for an appointment as a “fellow” of the Discovery Institute.

McLeroy may have posted the transcript to try to correct a statement the transcripts say he made: “”Remember keep chipping away at the objective empirical evidence.”

At McLeroy’s website, it’s listed like this: “Remember keep chipping away with the objective empirical evidence.” It’s a subtle difference, but it suggests McLeroy is ill-informed enough that he thinks there may be evidence to support creationism, rather than devious enough to urge the denial of reality. Bob, at Hot Dogs, Pretzels and Perplexing Questions, wrote:

I’m not quite sure what to make of all this. Was it a Freudian slip? Did he innocently misspeak? Or could it be that he edited the text after the fact? Either way, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference. They have no objective empirical evidence of their own to chip away with, just the objective empirical evidence they stubbornly attempt to chip away at, and to no avail. I’ll leave the discovery of any other discrepancies as an exercise for the reader, at least for now.

McLeroy shows no desire to appear neutral, as employees of TEA are now required to be toward science — or “neutered” toward science, as one might say.

Example 2: McLeroy’s Islamist partner, Adnan Oktar ( aka “Harun Yahya”), is a continuing embarrassment. This isn’t news, but I stumbled across the actual images he pirated — and they are impressive.

The Atlas of Creation purports to show that no evolution has occurred between a few fossil forms and modern forms of animals — therefore, Oktar concludes in his book, evolution could not have occurred at all. Oktar couldn’t sell the book, so he sent copies of the thing to school libraries across Europe, and then to selected people and school libraries across North America.

The book is beautifully printed and bound, with hundreds of full color plates — it must have cost a fortune to produce.

And so, Oktar had to make economies somewhere. He chose to plagiarize photos and not bother with lawyers to procure rights to print the photos. He also chose to abandon the use of fact checkers, it appears.

And so we get embarrassments, like Oktar comparing this caddis fly, below, to one caught in amber, and concluding there’s been no evolution. The problem, as you can plainly see from the photo I borrow from Forbidden Music, is that the “living” example is actually a fishing lure; Oktar has plagiarized a photograph of one of Graham Owen’s wonderul fishing lures.

Graham Owen's caddis fly fishing lure, mistaken by Adnan Oktar for a live fly

Jesus urged his followers to become “fishers of men.” McLeroy and Oktar have confused such imprecations, horribly, with the hoax P. T. Barnum line, that there’s a sucker born every minute.

Owen’s lures are designed to fool fish. If McLeroy and Oktar have their way, Texas school children may end up as ignorant as the fish, and as easily fooled.


Creationism isn’t science

February 13, 2008

The Waco Tribune published an opinion piece three weeks ago that I should have noted earlier. Trib columnist John Young noted that creationism isn’t science, and that generally creationists are not friends of science education (or any other education, sadly, not even Bible education).

Conditions surrounding Texas science standards, and education standards in general, have deteriorated very rapidly, with the chairman of the State Board of Education going on the warpath against mathematics, English and science teaching. For quick destruction to get the foolishness out of the way, one might hope he’ll go on the warpath against football and cheerleading. I’ve not had time to pass along all the sad details.

But then, not all crazies are stupid.

Earlier:


Evolution Sunday, even in Texas

February 11, 2008

It was easy to miss it in most Texas churches yesterday, but it was Evolution Sunday. Darwin’s birthday, February 12, comes this week.

Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow offered an explanation that deserves reading outside of Dallas. I think he’s a little optimistic, saying “hundreds” of preachers participate — in Texas? Really?

Blow writes:

“Evolution Sunday offers an opportunity to educate our congregations that science is a gift,” said the Rev. Timothy McLemore, senior pastor at Kessler Park United Methodist Church in Oak Cliff.

“If we believe God is truth, we don’t need to shrink from truth in whatever way it presents itself. We don’t have to be threatened.”

The State Board of Education is set to review and revise science curriculum standards in Texas. And Dr. McLemore said he is “deeply concerned” about attempts to inject religion-based “intelligent design” theories into science classes.

“It seems profoundly unhealthy,” he said. “Do we really want the government deciding what religious beliefs and viewpoints are taught in school? It’s our job to promote our understanding of faith, not the government’s job.”

Even in Texas. We can hope government officials in Texas are listening.

Read the rest of this entry »


Choose wisdom, choose science: Sandefur savages TEA position against evolution

February 6, 2008

Must government agencies be “neutral” between science and non-science, between evolution and intelligent design?

The Texas Education Agency lost it’s long-time science curriculum expert Chris Comer last year in a sad incident in which Comer was criticized for siding with Texas education standards on evolution rather than remaining neutral between evolution and intelligent design.

Comes now Timothy Sandefur of the very conservative Pacific Legal Foundation with an article in the Chapman Law Review which argues that science is solid, a good way of determining good from bad, dross from gold. Plus, Sandefur refutes claims that evolution is religion, and so illegal in public schools. TEA’s position in the Comer affair is shown to be not defensible legally; Sandefur’s article also points out that the post-modern relativism of the TEA’s argument is damaging to the search for knowledge and freedom, too.

In short, Sandefur’s article demonstrates that the position of the Texas Education Agency is untenable in liberty and U.S. law.

Moreover, science is an essential part of the training for a free citizen because the values of scientific discourse — respect, freedom to dissent, and a demand for logical, reasoned arguments supported by evidence — create a common ground for people of diverse ethnicities and cultures. In a nation made up of people as different as we are, a commitment to tolerance and the search for empirically verifiable, logically established, objective truth suggests a path to peace and freedom. Our founding fathers understood this. Professor Sherry has said it well: “it is difficult to envision a civic republican polity — at least a polity with any diversity of viewpoints — without an emphasis on reason. . . . In a diverse society, no [definition of ‘the common good’] can develop without reasoned discourse.”

Science’s focus on empirical evidence and demonstrable theories is part of an Enlightenment legacy that made possible a peaceful and free society among diverse equals. Teaching that habit of mind is of the essence for keeping our civilization alive. To reject the existence of positive truth is to deny the possibility of common ground, to undermine the very purpose of scholarly, intellectual discourse, and to strike at the root of all that makes our values valuable and our society worthwhile. It goes Plato one better — it is the ignoble lie. At a time when Americans are threatened by an enemy that rejects science and reason, and demands respect for dog-mas entailing violence, persecution, and tyranny, nothing more deserves our attention than nourishing respect for reason.

III. CONCLUSION

The debate over evolution and creationism has raged for a long time, and will continue to do so. The science behind evolution is overwhelming and only continues to grow, but those who insist that evolution is false will continue to resist its promulgation in schools. The appeal to Postmo-dernism represents the most recent — and so far, the most desperate — attempt on the part of creationists to support their claim that the teaching of valid, empirically-tested, experimentally-confirmed science in government schools is somehow a violation of the Constitution. When shorn of its sophisticated-sounding language, however, this argument is beneath serious consideration. It essentially holds that truth is meaningless; that all ways of knowing — whether it be the scientist’s empirically tested, experimentally confirmed, well-documented theory, or the mumbo-jumbo of mystics, psychics, and shamans — are equally valid myths; and that government has no right to base its policies on solid evidence rather than supernatural conjurations. This argument has no support in epistemology, history, law, or common sense. It should simply not be heard again.

Chapman Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2008

Sandefur’s article is available online in .pdf format at the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).

Is anyone at the Texas Education Agency listening?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.


Getting the story straight: Galileo and the church

January 31, 2008

Galileo observes the stars

One of the great joys of history, to me, is the diving into a story and finding that the details of the true story do not correspond well with the popular myths. For example, most sailors of the late 15th century were aware the Earth is a globe, when Columbus sailed — his crew did not fear falling off the edge of the Earth. This fact raises questions about why the great European powers were not more enthusiastic about exploring to the west, and that question is probably more difficult to answer. That means more work for the historian.

Here’s an essay from Peter Klein at the economics blog Organizations and Markets, on details of the story of Galileo, setting the record straight, but raising a lot more issues about what actually happened in this story from the history of science.

The problem is that the leaders of Galileo’s day didn’t think the sun revolves around the earth. My former colleague Thomas Lessl is an expert on Galileo, and from him I learned that virtually every aspect of the Galileo legend is false.

Consider these facts:

1. Neither Galileo, nor any other scientist, was put to death by the medieval Church. Giordano Bruno, a 17th-century Dominican, was indeed condemned by the Inquisition, not for his scientific views, but for preaching a quirky, New Age-ish view called hermeticism, which was only incidentally connected to heliocentrism.

2. The Catholic authorities of Galileo’s day had little trouble with heliocentrism per se. Many of the leading Catholic scientists were actually Copernicans. Copernicus’s treatise on heliocentrism had been in print for seventy years prior to Galileo’s conflict with the Church.

3. Galileo remained a devout and loyal Catholic until the end of his life. He held no animosity toward the Church over his conflict with Church authorities.

4. Most important, the conflict between Galileo and the Church took place in the context of the Protestant Reformation, a context that is almost always omitted from popular accounts of Galileo’s trial. The key issue in this conflict was not heliocentrism per se, but the authority of the individual Believer to interpret Scripture. Galileo’s argument that scientists should interpret the Bible to conform to their scientific views was close to Luther’s view that the Believer should be his own interpreter of Scripture. It was Lutheranism, not heliocentrism, that alarmed the Church leaders.

Galileo, in other words, was caught up in a larger, theological and ecclesiastical controversy. He was not simply a truth-seeking scientists going up against a bigoted Establishment.

Klein urges that we should be distrustful of scientists who invoke the old myths about the Galileo story. He fails to assert the more powerful point, to me: Christianity traditionally supported good science, and therefore creationism is the odd duck — the Bible, and Christianity, are not opposed to good science.

Preachers should be preaching for the truth, not for creationism. Of course, one should ponder when, if ever, preachers have paid attention to economists.


Maybe it’s a virus: Imagined racism of Darwin

January 30, 2008

Bad enough Tony Campolo feels compelled to accuse Darwin of being racist without reading the story of Darwin’s life (Darwin was anti-racist, and he and his family supported abolition of slavery and racism, with their political work and money), or without reading what Darwin actually wrote. (See responses here, and here.)

I stumbled into a series of posts at Echidne of the Snakes with the same ill-informed theme, based on the same misguided essay from 1998 — but from an author who staunchly insists on quoting what he thought to be offending passages from Darwin without quoting the rest of what Darwin said — a creationist quote miner, in other words.

He claimed in a thread here to have posted his “final answer” to my frequent urgings that he get the stuff accurate. We can hope it’s his last post on the topic since he won’t fix the errors. We’ll ignore the eerie homage to “final solution” that one could find in his phrasing.

Statue of Charles Darwin as a distinguished scientist. This statue stands (sits?) outside Castle Gates Library in Shrewsbury, Darwin’s boyhood home. The library resides in the 16th-century building which housed Shrewsbury School when Darwin was a pupil. Photo: Pete’s Favorite Things