December 28, 2007
The lead editorial in Thursday’s edition of The Dallas Morning News endorsed science and questioned why a graduate program in creation science should be tolerated by Texas, and specifically by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). It’s an issue discussed here earlier.
In the first part, “Be vigilant on how they intersect in our schools,” the paper’s editorial board is clear that the application from the Institute for Creation Research to teach graduate education courses in creationism is vexing, and should be rejected:
It’s troubling, then, that the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research, which professes Genesis as scientifically reliable, recently won a state advisory panel’s approval for its online master’s degree program in science education. Investigators found that despite its creationism component – which is not the same thing as “intelligent design” – the institute’s graduate program offered enough real science to pass academic muster. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will vote on the recommendation in January.
We hate to second-guess the three academic investigators – including Gloria White, managing director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Dana Research Center for Mathematics and Science Education – but, still, the coordinating board had better give this case a long, hard look.
The board’s job is to certify institutions as competent to teach science in Texas schools. Despite the institute including mainstream science in its programs, it’s hard to see how a school that rejects so many fundamental principles of science can be trusted to produce teachers who faithfully teach the state’s curriculum.
Keven Ann Willey, the editorial page editor at the News, herds a lot of conservative cats on a strong editorial board that probably reflects the business community in Dallas; several members of that board probably argued that there must be recognition and condemnation of the “persecution of Christians” who are required to learn evolution and other science ideas that conflict with various Christian cults. And so the editorial has an odd, second part, “Faith is, by nature, based on the unprovable,” which calls for respect for religious views by science — without saying how that might possibly apply to a science class in a public school.
Faith maintains its unique quality because it is based on things we cannot prove in this life. By reducing it to an empirical science, it ceases to be faith. Yet, no matter how many linkages scientists uncover to show that man evolved from pond slime, they will never do better than those who rely on faith in answering the ultimate question about a greater being behind our existence.
As the debate rages, it’s worth noting that the world’s great religions agree on the need for science. And even the agnostic Albert Einstein conceded that science can’t answer everything: “My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.”
It’s demeaning for the faithful to tout belief as science. But equally so, the advocates of science should be respectful enough to admit that faith is all that remains when science fails to provide the answers we seek.
So, the Dallas Morning News supports the rational view that the ICR’s application to train teachers to violate the Constitution is a bad idea. But they warn scientists to play nice.
Remember, scientists in Texas this year published great research and supported a bond issue to put $3 billion into research to fight cancer. In contrast, IDists and creationists tried to sneak a creationist graduate school into existence, fired the science curriculum director at the state agency charged by law with defending evolution in the curriculum for defending evolution in the curriculum (Gov. Perry is still missing in action, so no word from any Republican to slow this war on science), tried to sneak Baylor University’s name onto an intelligence design public relations site (in the engineering school, of course, not in biology), and tried to pass off a religious rally at Southern Methodist University as a science conference.
Play nice? Sure. But this is politics, not playground, and since the game is hardball, we’re going to play hardball. DMN, you are right in the first half of your editorial: When you’re right, don’t back down. Our children and our economy need your support.
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Creationism, Education, Education quality, First Amendment, Government, Graduate study, Higher education, History, Teaching | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Newspapers, Politics, Religion, Science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 23, 2007
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.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 20, 2007
To provide a little greater access, below the fold I reproduce the complete report from the Texas Citizens for Science on the Institution for Creation Research’s bid to get approval from Texas to grant graduate degrees from the ICR’s Irving, Texas, campus.
If you are tracking this issue, you should also see these posts and sites:
The TCS report is also available at the TCS website.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 20, 2007
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 SCIENCE
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
10:00 a.m., Thursday, December 20, 2007
CONTACT: Steven D. Schafersman, Ph.D.,
President, Texas Citizens for Science
432-352-2265
tcs@texscience.org
http://www.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
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 20, 2007
Mike Thomas at Rhetoric & Rhythm wonders if the deck was stacked against science: The review team sent to evaluate the science education offerings at the Institute for Creation Research does not look like a fair cross-section of educators, had no science representation, and had an odd surplus of creationism connections, he learned from reading the San Antonio Express-News:
What happened is that a delegation of so-called experts made a formal site visit to the ICS in Dallas and gave them a glowing report which led to a unanimous vote of affermation from the accreditation committee. Now the issue will go to the full committee in January.
But who were these “experts” that evaluated the ICS? The E-N reports thusly:
The trio consisted of two scholars at Texas A&M University-Commerce, reference librarian David Rankin and educational leadership professor Lee “Rusty” Waller, and Gloria White, managing director of the Dana Research Center for Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Texas at Austin.
A reference librarian and an education leadership professor? Where are the scientists?? Oh, and here is the kicker. The educational leadership prof is also a Baptist minister.
And the third person, Gloria White, is a graduate of Abilene Christian University, a private religious school in West Texas.
It certainly sounds like the deck was stacked in favor of the fundamentalist crowd.
I’m still wondering why the legal evaluation does not include a question about whether it would be legal to do what ICR trains people to do. Public schools hiring people with graduate degrees in creationism should probably ask for indemnity from ICR against the inevitable lawsuit that comes when they teach what ICR trains them to teach.
The audacity of this plan takes one’s breath away, doesn’t it?
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 19, 2007
Texas’s creationism controversy continues, today with new articles in The San Antonio Express and The New York Times.
Melissa Ludwig’s article in the San Antonio paper gets right to the problem, that the Institute for Creation Research proposes to train educators to do what the law says they cannot do:
Science teachers are not allowed to teach creationism alongside evolution in Texas public schools, the courts have ruled. But that’s exactly what the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research wants them to do. The institute is seeking state approval to grant online master’s degrees in science education to prepare teachers to “understand the universe within the integrating framework of Biblical creationism,” according to the school’s mission statement.
Last week, an advisory council made up of university educators voted to recommend the program for approval by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in January, sparking an outcry among science advocates who have fended off repeated attempts by religious groups to insert creationism into Texas science classrooms.
“It’s just the latest trick,” said James Bower, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas at San Antonio who has publicly debated creationists. “They have no interest in teaching science. They are hostile to science and fundamentally have a religious objective.”
The 43-page site visit report by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) is available for download in .pdf form at the San Antonio Express site (and thanks to the Express for making this available!). This report provides details that regulators should check carefully, such as the library for ICR is in California and unavailable to students. Up-to-date science articles are unavailable to these graduate students, it appears from the report. In science, journal articles provide the most recent research, and often the most interesting work. Graduate students would be expected to rely heavily on such sources for much of their work.
In the Times, the focus is on just getting the facts out. Perhaps understandably, some officials did not want to talk to the Times:
The state’s commissioner of higher education, Raymund A. Paredes, said late Monday that he was aware of the institute’s opposition to evolution but was withholding judgment until the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board meets Jan. 24 to rule on the recommendation, made last Friday, by the board’s certification advisory council.
Henry Morris III, the chief executive of the Institute for Creation Research, said Tuesday that the proposed curriculum, taught in California, used faculty and textbooks “from all the top schools” along with, he said, the “value added” of challenges to standard teachings of evolution.
“Where the difference is, we provide both sides of the story,” Mr. Morris said. On its Web site, the institute declares, “All things in the universe were created and made by God in the six literal days of the creation week” and says it “equips believers with evidences of the Bible’s accuracy and authority through scientific research, educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a thoroughly biblical framework.”
Notable is the absence of consultation with the science community in Texas. Texas officials avoid meeting with scientists, as if they know what the scientists will tell them about programs to offer creationism.
The report to the THECB includes a section on legal compliance. ICR has required building occupancy permits and no obvious OSHA citations, the report says.
The legality of teaching creationism gets no mention. It’s not legal, of course. Generally, a program to train people must not train them to violate a state’s laws, or federal laws. If no one asks that question, the answer that it’s not legal won’t get made.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 19, 2007
Working to be a better reminder: The 150th Carnival of Education comes to you from the Education Wonks, the organizers of the entire enterprise. 150 editions? We can call it an internet institution now, can’t we?
Self interest forces me to be more timely with this notice — a post from this blog is featured, a post on the astounding proposal to award degrees in creationism to educators in Texas.
But that’s one of the lesser reasons you should check it out. Education bloggers give insights on how to improve your classroom that you cannot get anywhere else in such timely fashion, nor so ready to cut and paste into your lesson plans.
Why read it?
That’s a small sampling. The Education Carnival is, week in and week out, one of the more valuable digests of blogs on the web. Teachers — and students and parents — are lucky to have it.
(By the way, is the Carnival of Education blocked from your school’s access? What’s up with that?)
Students in Samangan School, Afghanistan, June 8, 2007; USAID photo.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 18, 2007
P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula has a couple of posts that shed light on part of the recent creationism eruptions in Texas.
The ICR affair is quite astounding: ICR plans to grant degrees in how to violate the Constitution as an educator, and they’re asking Texas to approve it. So far, the approval is on a fast track.
What’s next? Perhaps one of the A&M campuses could start a program on marijuana farming; approval would come from the State of Texas on the basis that all the agricultural stuff is top notch — great course in fertilizing, fantastic stuff on grow lights, wonderful course on marketing agricultural products through ad hoc distribution channels, or through viral marketing.
Okay, that sounds crazy. Now tell me, what’s different about a creationism course? It only violates a different law.
This fight is just warming up. Texas Citizens for Science is in the thick of it. You should be writing to your legislators and to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board:
Third, we need to write to Dr. Raymund A. Paredes, the Commissioner of the THECB to express our disgust at how this process has been handled so far, and to object to granting ICR the Certification it desires. The address is:
Dr. Raymund A. Paredes, Commissioner
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
P.O. Box 12788
Austin, TX 78711-2788
One more chapter in the War on Science, the War on Education — one more time to stand firm for reason against stupidity.
Other resources:
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5 Comments | Creationism, Education quality, Higher education, Law, Rampant stupidity, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Law, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 17, 2007
Texas A&M University will be home to an institute to train students for careers in nuclear power. This is a logical and welcome extension for one of Texas’s, and one of the nation’s premiere engineering schools. Nuclear power offers opportunities for the nation made more urgent by continuing, inherent problems with carbon-based fossil fuels.
Texas is the nation’s second largest state. The institute will provide another source for Texas kids to get career training.
The Nuclear Power Institute will help train staff needed to operate new reactors and generating plants. It will also revamp curriculum for junior high, high school and college students who are interested in pursuing careers in the field, according to officials with Texas A&M Engineering.
The institute was established in a joint effort by the Dwight Look College of Engineering and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES). The Look College is one of the largest engineering colleges in the nation, with nearly 9,000 students and 12 departments.
“The Texas A&M University System is uniquely configured with the ideal combination of education, research and service agencies and universities to lead this effort,” Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering Kem Bennett said in a statement released last week. “The institute will make a significant impact upon the work force and economy of the state and nation.”
The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents signed off on the formal creation of the Nuclear Power Institute earlier this month.
There is a high degree of irony in this announcement at this time. While Texas A&M looks to the future with nuclear power, the state weighs whether to allow a Dallas religious school to train teachers that management of nuclear power is based on flawed theory. A&M will train people to manage nuclear power; the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wants to train high school teachers to teach Texas’s high school kids that nuclear power is mysterious and cannot work.
Does Texas contradict itself? Walt Whitman might have asked. Texas is large. It contains multitudes.
But should it contain a school that teaches much of basic science is just wrong?
It might be nice if a higher percentage of the multitudes had the reasoning power to see what’s wrong with this picture, and why the question is important.
This may be too subtle for people unfamiliar with atomic theory to realize the full impact. Zeno at Halfway There explains the wacky part of ICR’s misunderstanding, or wishful thinking about atomic theory. Simply put, ICR claims to have discovered that God interferes with nuclear reactions, making it difficult to predict that a nuclear reactor won’t suddenly increase its output by ten times, cooking the nuclear power plant and a couple of nearby towns in the doing.
Texas A&M is working to prepare people to live in the late 21st and 22nd centuries. ICR is fighting to take us back to the 16th or 17th century.
If ICR is successful, from what pool will A&M draw its candidates for nuclear engineering and nuclear power management? Against its will, Texas A&M could become one of the largest graduate institutions for all of India and China.
Please see the update, December 18, here: Texas’s face should be creationism red.
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8 Comments | Creationism, Physics, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science | Tagged: Nuclear power, Politics, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 14, 2007
The venerable missionary group known as the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) moved its headquarters from California to Dallas a few months ago. Anyone who follows science education in America is familiar with this group, who deny that the Earth can be more than a few thousands of years old, who argue that geology, astronomy, chemistry and biology are all based on faulty premises.
Dallas is a good location for a missionary agency that flies to churches around the U.S. to make pitches for money and preach the gospel of their cult. DFW Airport provides same-day flights to most of the U.S. Airlines are glad to have their business.
Years ago ICR tried to get approval from the State of California to grant graduate degrees in science, because their brand of creationism is not taught in any research university, or any other institution with an ethics code that strives for good information and well-educated graduates. ICR got permission only after setting up their own accrediting organization which winks, blinks and turns a blind eye to what actually goes on in science courses taught there. It is unclear if anyone has kept count, but there appear to be a few people with advanced degrees in science from this group, perhaps teaching in the public schools, or in charter schools, or in odd parochial settings.
With a new home in Texas, ICR needs permission of Texas authorities to grant graduate degrees. Texas Observer reported that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board put off consideration of the issue until their meeting of January 24 (no action was planned for this meeting, so failure to grant this authority to ICR should not be taken as any sign that the board is opposed to granting it).
Humor aside, this is a major assault on the integrity of education in Texas. For example, here is a statement on college quality from the Higher Education Coordinating Board; do you think ICR’s program contributes in any way, or detracts from these goals?
Enrolling and graduating hundreds of thousands more students is a step in the right direction. But getting a degree in a poor quality program will not give people the competitive edge they need in today’s world economy. Academic rigor and excellence are essential – both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. We also need to attract and support more research in the state for the academic and economic benefits it provides.
Check out the Texas Observer‘s longer post on the issue, and since comments are not enabled there, how about stating here your views on the issue? Comment away.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Texas Citizens for Science.
No, this is not a joke. Here is the agenda for the meeting this week, in .pdf form.
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20 Comments | College, Creationism, Education, Education quality, Ethics, Higher education, Rampant stupidity, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: Business Ethics, Creationism, Education, Religion, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 13, 2007
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:
- The Waco Tribune; it features an opinion piece from Alan Leshner, the executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher of the journal Science, one of the two most respected science journals on Earth. (free subscription may be required) Non-Texans may want to recall that Waco is the home of Baylor University, one of the largest Baptist-affiliated universities in the U.S. Baylor’s biology department has no courses in intelligent design or other forms of creationism.
- Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “Science professors blast ouster of TEA official”; Fort Worth is home to Texas Christian University, affiliated with the Disciples of Christ (the sect that James Garfield, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan all belonged to); TCU has no courses in intelligent design or other forms of creationism in biology, and probably not in theology, either, though Brite Divinity School has a Baptist Studies program for Baptist clergy candidates.
- No Rest for the Rational and Science-loving Person update, 12/14/2007: The Institute for Creation Research is petitioning Texas for authority to grant graduate degrees in creationism. The Texas Observer has the few details available, here and here.
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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
December 11, 2007
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:
- News story from the Austin American-Statesman
- Houston Chronicle
- KGBT Channel 4 News, Rio Grande Valley
- News blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education
- Waco Tribune (American-Statesman story, plus links to archives)
- Fort Worth Star-Telegram
- El Paso Times
- Dallas Morning News
- KRIS TV, Channel 6, Corpus Christi
- KLTV, Channel 7, Tyler/Longview/Jacksonville
- KTEN, Ardmore, Oklahoma
- KSWO, Lawton, Oklahoma/Wichita Falls, Texas
- KVIA, Channel 7, El Paso
- Wichita Falls Times-Record
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.
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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
December 9, 2007
Reaction to the political resignation/firing of the science curriculum director at the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has been almost universally negative. If there are any approving reactions, they are hidden well.
Dr. Barbara Forrest, whose speech in Austin produced the “FYI” memo Chris Comer sent to a dozen people, posted her reaction at the website of the National Center for Science Education; you can get a .pdf download from NCSE, or read the piece with a lot of reaction at Dr. P. Z. Myers’ blog, Pharyngula.
The incident now involving Ms. Comer exemplifies perfectly the reason my co-author Paul R. Gross and I felt that our book, Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, had to be written. (http://www.creationismstrojanhorse.com) By forcing Ms. Comer to resign, the TEA seems to have confirmed our contention that the ID creationist movement — a religious movement with absolutely no standing in the scientific world — is being advanced by means of power politics.
This morning, TEA director Robert Scott’s responses to questions from the Dallas Morning News opinion editors gave the first official reaction from TEA of any substance.
I don’t think the impression was that we were taking a position in favor of evolution. We teach evolution in public schools. It’s part of our curriculum. But you can be in favor of a science without bashing people’s faith, too. I don’t know all the facts, but I think that may be the real issue here. I can’t speak to motivation but … we have standards of conduct and expect those standards of conduct to be followed.
For reading convenience, both statements are below the fold.
No, I’m not reserving judgment, but I am reserving comment for the moment. I am hopeful Scott will recognize the error and take steps to square his agency with education standards, state law, good employment practices, and reason.
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Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Creationism, History, Intelligent Design, Law, Politics, State school boards, Voodoo science | Tagged: Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Law, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 6, 2007
Or is it just the difference between the rational English and the U.S.?
James K. Wilmot in the Louisville (Kentucky!) Courier-Journal:
Last month in England, I toured the Natural History Museum in London. (It’s free by the way.) They too [with Ken Ham’s Creation Museum] have animatronic dinosaurs. However, that’s where the similarity between this “real” museum and the AIG’s creation museum ends. The NHM of London has 55 million preserved animal specimens, nine million fossils, six million plant specimens and more than 500,000 rocks and minerals.
They have a staff of over 300 scientists working on various projects to gain a better understanding of the Earth and the creatures that inhabit (or did inhabit) our planet. Is there not something wrong when thousands of people are flocking to Northern Kentucky and paying $20 a pop to see a Flintstones-like interpretation of pre-history, and yet anyone who lives in or visits London can see one of the world’s greatest real science centers for free?
According to the Courier-Journal, “James K. Willmot is a former science teacher at St. Francis School in Goshen, Ky., and an environmental laboratory director. He is the author of many articles on science, science education and science understanding. Formerly from Louisville, he now lives in Virginia Water, England.” (Be sure to check out the comments, where advocates of the Creation Museum make the case that it is damaging to education and knowledge.)
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, Museums, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 6, 2007
McBlogger has an interesting, Texas-based take on the scandals at the Texas Education Agency: It’s a hallmark of Republicans in Texas government.
In other words, other agencies are similarly screwed up, and the common thread is Republican appointees out of their depth and unaware of it.
(Do short posts make this place start to look like Instapundit? Looks only — check the substance.)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Bluedaze.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Government, Intelligent Design, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas | Tagged: Education, Politics, Religion, scandal, Science, Texas Education Agency | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 