Fixed Earth? I didn’t know it was broken.
Steve Schafersman, the dogged scientist at the root of Texas Citizens for Science (TCS), snagged a copy of the “evolution is religion” memorandum from Texas Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, and posted it to the TCS website. Also available from the Houston Chronicle’s SciGuy blog (transmission memorandum, the offending memorandum).
Holy mother of pearl! Voodoo science — you couldn’t make this stuff up.
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Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Politics, Religious Freedom, Science, Science and faith, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
First they deny science, then all of reality, then they deny that they denied. Or something like that.
Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges denies having written or sent the memorandum that was circulated in his name to Texas state legislators earlier this week. The Atlanta Constitution provides the incredible details in this morning’s edition:
“I did not put it out nor did I know it was going out,” Bridges said. “I’m not defending it or taking up for it.”
The memo directs supporters to call Marshall Hall, president of the Fair Education Foundation Inc., a Cornelia, Ga.-based organization that seeks to show evolution is a myth. Hall said he showed Bridges the text of the memo and got his permission to distribute it.
“I gave him a copy of it months ago,” said Hall, a retired high school teacher. “I had already written this up as an idea to present to him so he could see what it was and what we were thinking.”
Hall said his wife Bonnie has served as Bridges’ campaign manager since 1996.
Bridges acknowledged that he talked to Hall about filing legislation this year that would end the teaching of evolution in Georgia’s public schools. Bridges said the views in the memo belong to Hall, though Bridges said he doesn’t necessarily disagree with them.
It’s getting so creationists no only can’t do science straight, can’t do religion straight — they can’t even tell whoppers straight. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas State Rep. Warren Chisum said he’s sorry if anyone took offense over his circulating a letter from a Georgia legislator, Ben Bridges, railing at science, and promoting creationism. He’s right to apologize, but the apology stops short of where it needs to go.
This morning’s Dallas Morning News followed up on yesterday’s report of the letter (see preceding post). The letter referred to a bizarre website that argues that the Earth is fixed in space, and other crazy things, including offensive material about Jewish kabals. The Anti-Defamation League complained.
The stuff that causes conflicts between religious beliefs, you know, I’d never be a party to that,” Mr. Chisum said. “I’m willing to apologize if I’ve offended anyone.”
Mr. Chisum’s comments came after he learned that the Anti-Defamation League, which works against anti-Semitism and other forms of hate, was demanding “a repudiation and apology” in a letter to his office. He said he hadn’t seen the letter late Wednesday.
The wild rants against science, knowledge, civilization and bizarre twisting of Christianity? He doesn’t apologize for that stuff.
One might think that Chisum believes stupid and mean is fine, so long as a powerful lobby group does not complain.
The greater danger in the letter is the appeal to ignorance and crank science. Chisum needs to do a lot more apologizing, starting with several million Texas students, and tens of thousands of science teachers.
As if to answer some of Chisum’s religious questions, there is no comment from Molly Ivins. Whoever names the successor to Molly needs to do it fast. The Texas Lege is running wild.
2 Comments | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Public education, Texas Lege, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Be sure to see update here, next post. Worse, even more, here.
Don’t you just love the Texas lege?
And could you make this stuff up if you were writing a novel? Nobody would believe it.
Warren Chisum is a good ol’ boy from Pampa, Texas, and the second most powerful man in the Texas House of Representatives. So when his friend, Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges, asked him to — well, what was it he asked? — Chisum agreed to circulate a petition that calls evolution a plot of the Pharisees, Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan members of a Kabbalistic plot, and Big Bang ancient religion.
The Associated Press report in this morning’s Dallas Morning News (free subscription required eventually):
The memo assails what it calls “the evolution monopoly in the schools.”
Mr. Bridges’ memo claims that teaching evolution amounts to indoctrinating students in an ancient Jewish sect’s beliefs.
“Indisputable evidence – long hidden but now available to everyone – demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion,” writes Mr. Bridges, a Republican from Cleveland, Ga. He has argued against teaching of evolution in Georgia schools for several years. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Comments | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith, State school boards, TEKS, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Divest yourself of that tired and false notion that you’re bad at math. That’s hooey, though it probably sets your self-expectations low enough that it damages your math performance. Don’t make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
New Carnival on the block: Carnival of Mathematics at Alon Levy’s Abstract Nonsense. It’s got some good stuff there for math teachers, and I suspect people with other interests will find something of interest, too. For me, for example, there is the link to the post that Fisks arguments of some of the more unsuspecting intelligent design fogmeisters. More pure historians may like the history of algebra post. There’s a lot more history and controversy in a post about why students should study math at all:
Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals—the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.
—Martin Gardner
quoted by G. Simmons, Calculus Gems
(Take THAT you creators of state history standards!)
Hmmm. I’m teaching algebra and geometry this week (“go figure!”). I may use some of that stuff.
2 Comments | Accuracy, Brain learning, Creationism, Creativity, Education, Education blogs, History, Intelligent Design, Lesson plans, Public education, Science, TEKS, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Thanks to P. Z. Myers, I found a very interesting blog by an intermediate grades teacher in Ross River, Yukon Territory (that’s Canada, folks). Go check out Primordial Blog. It’ll give fits to hoaxers of all stripes, including especially intelligent design, creationism, and history hoaxers.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Creationism, Education blogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Chuck Colson claims to have found God, while in prison, and changed his ways. He’s got a newspaper column and radio feature called “Breakpoint” which generally covers issues at least tangentially related to ministry and church work.
But he’s either fallen victim to a great hoax, or he’s in on it and spread it.
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars alerted us to Colson’s “Breakpoint” commentary dated February 2, in which Colson repeats the disproven claims that Judge John E. Jones of the Middle District of Pennsylvania “plagiarized” significant portions of his decision. The charges are completely out of line, and have not held up under scrutiny. The claims were invented by people at the Discovery Institute who have no knowledge of how federal civil trials work, who misinterpreted trial procedures, and who made an invalid count of the words in the decision (failing to account for most of the 129 pages of the work for reasons that have never been explained).
If this catches you unaware of the issue, you can catch up with several posts. Attorney and Panda’s Thumb contributor Tim Sandefur explains how the charges are false here. Sandefur’s earlier explanation of the statistical errors behind the false claims is here (also at Panda’s Thumb).
You should act. If your local newspaper carries Colson’s column, notify them of the hoax. Give them the links above, and urge them to contact the press people at the National Center for Science Education for comment. Tell them they can quote Panda’s thumb, and that they can contact Sandefur, Brayton, or me, for comment.
Similarly, if your local radio station carries Colson’s commentaries, notify the station. Stations need to check to be sure they are not broadcasting hoaxes for license renewal reasons (though the FCC polices this issue rarely, and not often well).
Were Colson a practicing attorney, of course, he’d probably remember how federal trial procedures work, and not make such errors.
You can help him recall.
22 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Evolution, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Justice, Plagiarism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Swedes entertain skepticism much better than U.S. residents do, or they attain much better understanding of science.
That conclusion can be deduced from the results of a poll showing that 23% of Swedes think astrology is scientific. Most poll results show more Americans put stock in their daily horoscopes than the 23% of Swedes, but not a lot more.
Swedes really doubt intelligent design: Only 14% think there is any science there.
The poll was conducted by the Swedish group Vetenskap & Allmänhet (Public and Science) (VA).
So, contrary to the recent efforts of Seattle’s Discovery Institute to make inroads in Europe, their push for intelligent design is just more than half as credible as Sidney Omar and other fortune tellers.
The poll found support for science and hope for good results from research very high among Swedes:
Nine out of ten people have high confidence in the potential of research to develop more effective and environmentally friendly sources of energy. A smaller but increasing proportion believes that research can contribute to reducing segregation in cities.
Seven out of ten people believe that there is a strong possibility that research will help increase economic growth, which represents a marked increase since 2005. Six out of ten believe that there is a strong chance that research can help reduce climate change.
The poll also hints at a way scientists can more successfully argue against crackpottery and crank science, such as intelligent design: Emphasize the benefits people get from applied research.
Research areas that are currently in the news tend to be viewed by many as important. Most people would like to see support for research that people can benefit directly from, says Karin Hermannson, Research Manager at VA.
Scientists in the U.S. should spend more time explaining how their research is used in the real world.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Kentucky is shopping for a new state commissioner of education. The outgoing commissioner, cognizant of the legal failures of education agencies to insert ID into curricula during the past year, advised that the new person should not be an ID advocate.
Members of the Kentucky State School Board say it is not an issue. The story is here, in the Kentucky version of the Cincinatti Post.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The good news is that Russian high school biology textbooks talk about Darwin, at long last, after the 74-year rule of the Communists decimated the corps of teachers who taught Darwinian evolution, partly because Darwin was ‘too bourgeois.’
The bad news is that Russian creationists, with what appears to be the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, are suing to bring back the old Stalinist views that Darwin was wrong. The case is loaded with irony, not the least that Theodosius Dobzhansky, the famous biologist who noted that biology is only clear under the light of evolution theory, was devoutly Russian Orthodox.
This case appears to have gone on for some time, but details are only now coming to these shores. The Baltimore Sun had a story on the case today. And, as if one would not guess, it appears the case is brought by a public relations company — perhaps the Moscow branch of the Swift Boat Veterans?
Tip of the scrub brush to Panda’s Thumb, where there is guaranteed to be more discussion of the issue.
Leave a Comment » | Bogus history, Cold War, Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, History, Religious Freedom, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Browsing at Positive Liberty today I first saw the news that the Rev. D. James Kennedy suffered a heart attack, and is hospitalized. Kennedy is the head of Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida, and a leader of the history revisionist movement to rewrite especially textbooks to argue that the U.S. should have a religiously-based government.
It appears the news didn’t get out quickly. The Miami Herald had a story just today, though Kennedy’s heart attack was last Thursday. Jonathan Rowe urges a speedy recovery, so Kennedy can continue to provide material for that blog. I think there’s enough material for this blog without Kennedy, but I wish him a complete recovery anyway.
2 Comments | America's founding, Bad Quotes, Creationism, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
National Review kept me alert to developments in the world of conservatives with brains in the latter part of my high school life and through college. I must confess, though, that I have not been a regular reader for nearly two decades. A lot of the intellectual air seemed to leak out after William F. Buckley left.
NR still offers a window into conservatism in America, though. John Derbyshire in his wrap-up of 2006 offers a review of intelligent design advocates that they would do well to pay attention to. Derbyshire keeps alive the flames of thought at NR.
Welcome, readers clicking over from Pharyngula. More posts on intelligent design issues can be found here, at the index of ID posts on this blog.
2 Comments | Creationism, Intelligent Design, Politics, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Rick and Nancy Pearcey — she the author of Christian best-seller Total Truth — have a blog called Pro-Existence. A few days ago I stumbled across the blog because they quoted me :
Praise: “University of Chicago geophysicist Raymond Pierrehumbert called Jones’ ruling a ‘masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking’ while lawyer Ed Darrell said the judge ‘wrote a masterful decision, a model for law students on how to decide a case based on the evidence presented.’ Time magazine said the ruling made Jones one of ‘the world’s most influential people’ in the category of ‘scientists and thinkers.'”
Well, they didn’t quote me directly: They borrowed the quote from a Discovery Institute paper. That’s only significant because such copying is, by their definition, the academic sin of “plagiarizing,” judging from the way they attempt to accuse a federal judge of not doing his duty. (And, if I had to guess, I’d guess they didn’t read the report, but instead copied their stuff from a report in WorldNet Daily — plagiarism of a copy! At least they linked, even if they didn’t attribute, to that publication.)
They borrowed the DI’s criticism of Judge John E. Johns, of the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in his decision against a school board’s requiring intelligent design be inserted to the curriculum of the local schools. DI clumsily, and erroneously, labeled the decision a piece of plagiarism.
I wrote a response. The Pearceys have not seen fit to publish it (it’s a closely moderated blog, and apparently anything that they don’t like, or that calls them to Christian task for their errors, doesn’t make it). I post my response to the Pearcey’s below the fold. If they respond here, I won’t censor them.
1 Comment | Accuracy, Creationism, Ethics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Jurisprudence, Plagiarism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
“Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms.”
— Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,” American Biology Teacher vol. 35 (March 1973); reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, J. Peter Zetterberg, ed., ORYX Press, Phoenix, Arizona, 1983
Dobzhansky in California, c. 1966. American Philosophical Society photo
Video on evolution as the “breakthrough of the year” in 2005, for Science magazine, is here: http://video.biocompare.com/137_1.wmv.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Talk.Origins and Laurence Moran.
1 Comment | Accuracy, Creationism, Evolution, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This would be a good AP History project, or a cross-discipline project for history and biology.
The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed millions, between 20 million and 40 million people by good estimates — it is estimated that 16 million died in India, alone. Soldiers returning from Europe and World War I carried the plague to hundreds of towns and villages where it might not have gone otherwise. The flu was a particularly deadly one for some people, striking them dead within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms.
Public health issues are largely disregarded in most U.S. and world history texts. This story, of the 1918 flu pandemic, needs to be told and studied carefully, however, because of the danger that such a thing could occur again. Small villages and towns need to be ready to deal with the effects, to try to prevent further spread, and to handle the crisis that occurs when many people in a small community die.
Leave a Comment » | Capturing history, Creationism, Evolution, History, Influenza, Lesson plans, Public health, Science, Student projects, World War I | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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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 