November 10, 2008
Update: Teachers may sign up to get CEU credits for this event. Check in at the sign-in desk before the event — certificates will be mailed from SMU later.
It will be one more meeting of scientists that Texas State Board of Education Chairman Dr. Don McLeroy will miss, though he should be there, were he diligent about his public duties.
Dr. Barbara Forrest, one of the world’s foremost experts on “intelligent design” and other creationist attempts to undermine the teaching of evolution, will speak in the Faith and Freedom Speaker Series at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas. Her evening presentation will serve as a warning to Texas: “Why Texans Shouldn’t Let Creationists Mess with Science Education.”
Dr. Forrest’s presentation is at 6:00 p.m., in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center in the Hughes-Trigg Theatre, at SMU’s Campus. The Faith and Freedom Speaker Series is sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network’s (TFN) education fund. Joining TFN are SMU’s Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development, Center for Teaching Excellence, Department of Anthropology, Department of Biological Sciences, and Department of Philosophy.
Hughes-Trigg is at 3140 Dyer Street, on SMU’s campus (maps and directions available here).
Seating is limited for the lecture; TFN urges reservations be made here.
Dr. Forrest being interviewed by PBS's NOVA crew, in 2007. Southeastern Louisiana University photo.
From TFN:
Dr. Barbara Forrest
is Professor of Philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University. She is the co-author with Paul R. Gross of Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (2004; 2007), which details the political and religious aims of the intelligent design creationist movement. She served as an expert witness in the first legal case involving intelligent design, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the National Center for Science Education and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Widely recognized as a leading expert on intelligent design, she has appeared on Larry King Live, ABC’s Nightline, and numerous other television and radio programs.
Also see:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 4, 2008
Abe Books’ e-newsletter features “Bookshelves of the Rich and Famous,” showing off a number of volumes one could purchase, if one had the inclination and a very large pocketbook.
This one caught my eye:
1st edition, Darwin's On the Origin of Species
On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin
$179,090.31
If your collection includes books on genetics and evolution, this first edition, first issue from the Father of Evolution is a must have. It was published in 1859, and in a true testament to survival of the fittest, is in handsome condition 149 years later. It’s one of only 1250 copies issued. For only $179,000 and change, it would be a fantastic addition to any library. However, if you want to study the species a little more intently, you could put your cash toward 140 life-sized, hand-finished, fully flexible model human skeletons.
The book’s 1,250 copies sold out the first day of sales. In 1859, that counted as a massive best seller.
Turns out the book is for sale in England, at Peter Harrington, Antiquarian Bookseller. That listing has a few more details:
Description: [On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,] or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. First Edition, first issue of “the most influential scientific work of the 19th century” (Horblit) and “the most important biological book ever written” (Freeman), one of 1250 copies. “The publication of the Origin of species ushered in a new era in our thinking about the nature of man. The intellectual revolution it caused and the impact it had on man’s concept of himself and the world were greater than those caused by the works of Copernicus, Newton, and the great physicists of more recent times Every modern discussion of man’s future, the population explosion, the struggle for existence, the purpose of man and the universe, and man’s place in nature rests on Darwin” (Ernst Mayr). 8vo, with adverts dated June 1859. Original green cloth, titles to spine gilt, decoration to boards in blind, chocolate brown coated endpapers, all edges untrimmed, Edmonds & Remnants binder’s ticket. Folding diagram, slit at fold. Slightly cocked, small ink mark to edge of spine, else a very nice copy with cloth bright and fresh, hinges uncracked and with no repairs. Rare thus. Bookseller Inventory # 40762
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: London: John Murray, 1859
Publication Date: 1859
Edition: 1st Edition
Nine more gems, for the rich, at Abe Books. One of them is Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon. C’mon, lottery ticket!
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 28, 2008
The Constructive Curmudgeon headlined his post on the matter “Atheist for Intelligent Design in Boulder. This is not a Joke.”
But of course, it is a joke. The punchline is bad, which suggests it’s a bad joke, but the science is worse, which makes it a joke.
It only means there are atheists with bad ideas, too. Atheism is a big tent, apparently.
It’s our old buddy Bradley Monton, the darling of Telic Thoughts.
You’ll note Monton’s science background is not front and center: He’s a philosopher.
No matter how often the philosophers tell us that somebody should be watching out for all the damage flying pigs could do to aircraft and parked cars, we are obligated to point out that pigs don’t fly.
Monton will argue for federal regulation of flying pigs intelligent design at Old Main Chapel in Boulder, Tuesday, October 28, at 7:30 p.m. Douglas Groothuis, the Constructive Curmudgeon and philosopher at a Denver seminary, may be there to lead the standing ovation, and to distribute newspapers to protect the audience from flying pigs as they go back to their cars.
(The lecture series is hosted by Alistair Norcross, a philosophy prof at Colorado University who usually argues for scalar utilitarianism. I guess he’s not bothered to check out the usefulness of intelligent design — or, more accurately, its uselessness.)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 26, 2008
A sure sign of scientific naiveté, especially among those of the creationist religion, is the raft of pseudo complaints about dating the ages of objects, especially fossils, through the use of radioisotopes.
First, creationists will complain that dating things with radiocarbon is impossible. They aren’t sure why they think that, but it just makes sense to them that radioactivity in stones can’t be used to tell time, and don’t confuse them with any information about how their watches on their wrists are driven by electric currents sent through quartz crystals, and for God’s sake do not confuse them with any references to quantum theory and the workings of the cell phones most of them use to tell time since they evolved to lose the ability to read analog watches anyway (evolution always is to the detriment of the creature they believe, and try to demonstrate).
Then, without any hint that they understand or even see the irony, creationists complain that scientists lie when they say isotope dating puts the age of the Earth and the Moon at about 4.5 billion years, because, they observer, carbon dating is only good to about 50,000 years in most circumstances, and certainly no more than 100,000 years. Don’t confuse them by telling them that dating of rocks almost always involves an isotope of an element other than carbon, like uranium.
As if to prove their science untrainability, from time to time a creationist will send a sample of something to a lab, asking that it be dated. When the lab returns a date of several million years for the stuff dated, the creationists crow that they had crushed a brick, or in some other way provided a tainted sample, and they’ve “proven” that carbon dating doesn’t work.
Aardvarchaeology offers a quick primer on carbon dating, “Think before you carbon date.” Bookmark the site. It’s a good rebuttal for whatever pseudo science claims creationists make about carbon dating.
Real scientists have to do real work. Radiocarbon dating, or any isotope dating, is usually pretty expensive as a general rule. It’s not something to be done lightly. In addition to the expense, to get the dating done correctly, there is a lot of preparation to be done. Martin Rundkvist details the process, from a live project of his. If you read his piece carefully, you note that he’s giving a primer in dendrochronology, too, the science of dating by tree rings.
Real science is always more interesting than creationists can imagine. Go see how it works. Great stuff
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5 Comments | Accuracy, Archaeology, Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, Physics, Science, Technology | Tagged: Archaeology, Creationism, Dendrochronology, Evolution, History, Radiocarbon dating, Science, Technology, Tree Rings | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 24, 2008
Physics Nobelist takes stand on evolution
“By the same standards that are used in the courts, I think it is your responsibility to judge that it is the theory of evolution through natural selection that has won general scientific acceptance. And therefore, it should be presented to students as the consensus view of science, without any alternatives being presented.”
–Dr. Steven Weinberg
[After the 2003 round of hearings on biology textbooks for Texas schools, I edited from the transcript of the hearings before the Texas State Board of Education the short speech made by Stephen Weinberg, who graciously joined in the fight for science, and shipped the remarks to anyone who wanted them. The American Institute for Physics (AIP) put Dr. Weinberg’s remarks up on the web — here they are. Something to think about now that the SBOE has stacked the science standards writing group with creationists unqualified in almost all sciences.
For the record, for your edification, for the advancement of truth in the fight for science, justice and the American Way:]
The following is a transcript of testimony to the Texas State Board of Education. Dr. Steven Weinberg, professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin and a Nobel prize winner for electroweak theory, addresses the Board.
DR. WEINBERG: Thank you. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. I should say at the outset that I haven’t read the textbooks in question and I’m not a biologist.
Stephen Weinberg
My Nobel Prize is not in biology, but is in physics. But I have been a physicist for a long time. And I think I have a good sense of how science works. It doesn’t deal with certainties. We don’t register things as facts that we have to swear allegiance to.
But as mathematics and experiment progress, certain bodies of understanding become as sure as anything reasonably can be. They attract an overwhelming consensus of acceptance within the scientific community. They are what we teach our students.
And the most important thing of all, since our time is so precious to us, they are what we assume as true when we do our own work. Evolution — the theory of evolution through natural selection has certainly reached that status as a consensus.
I’ve been through these issues not very much professionally in recent years, but I was on a panel of the National Academy of Sciences some years ago that reviewed these issues in order to prepare an amicus brief in a similar argument that was taking place in Arkansas at that time. At that time, it had reached the courts. We know that there is such a thing as inheritable variations in animals and plants. And we know that these change through mutations. And it’s mathematically certain that as given inheritable variations, that you will have evolution toward greater adaptation. So that evolution through natural selection occurs can’t be in doubt.
As I understand it, many who want to put alternative theories into our textbooks argue that, although that may be true, we don’t know that that’s all that happens, that there is not some intelligent design that also assists the process of evolution. But that’s the wrong question. We can never know that there isn’t something beyond our theories. And that’s not just true with regard to evolution. That’s true with regard to everything.
We don’t know that the theory of physics, as it’s currently understood, correctly accounts for everything in the solar system. How could we? It’s too complicated. We don’t understand the motion of every asteroid in the asteroid belts. Some of them really are doing very complicated things. Do we know that no angel tips the scales toward one asteroid moving a little but further than it otherwise would have in a certain time? No, we can never know.
What we have to do is keep comparing what we observe with our theories and keep verifying that the theories work, trying to explain more and more. That’s what’s happened with evolution and it continues to be successful. There is not one thing that is known to be inexplicable through evolution by natural selection, which is not the same as saying that everything has been explained, because it never will be. The same applies to the weather or the solar system or what have you.
But I can say this, and many of the peak scientists here will have said, I am sure, the same thing. You must be bored hearing this again and again. But how can you judge? I’m not a biologist, you’re not biologists.
There is a natural answer which is very congenial to the American spirit, I think. And that is, well, let the students judge. Why shouldn’t they have the chance to judge these issues by themselves? And that, I think, is the argument that many are making.
But judge what? Judge the correctness of evolution through natural selection? Judge the correctness of Newton’s law or the conservation of energy or the fact that the Earth is round rather than flat? Where do we draw the line between the issues that we leave open to the student’s judgment and the issues that we teach as reasonably accepted scientific facts, consensus theories?
The courts face a similar question. They often are presented with testimony or testimony is offered, for example, that someone knows that a certain crime wasn’t committed because he has psychic powers or someone sues someone in tort because he’s been injured by witchcraft. The Court does not allow — according to current doctrines, the Court does not allow those arguments to go to the jury because the Court would not be doing its job. The Court must decide that those things are not science. And the way the Court does is by asking: What — do these ideas have general scientific acceptance? Does witchcraft have general scientific acceptance? Well, clearly, it doesn’t. And those — that testimony will not be allowed to go to the jury.
How then can we allow ideas which don’t have general scientific acceptance to go to high school students, not an adult jury? If we do, we are not — or you are not doing your job of deciding what is there that is controversial. And that might be an interesting subject to be discussed, as for example the rate of evolution, the question of whether it’s smooth, punctuated by jumps or whether it’s — or whether it’s just gradual. These are interesting questions which are still controversial which could go to students and give them a chance to exercise their judgment.
But you’re not doing your job if you let a question like the validity of evolution through natural selection go to the students, anymore than a judge is doing his job or her job if he or she allows the question of witchcraft to go to the jury. And why this particular issue of evolution? Why not the round Earth or Newton’s theory or Copernicus, the Earth goes around the sun? Well, I think it’s rather disingenuous to say that this is simply because there’s a real scientific conflict here, because there is no more of a scientific conflict than with those issues.
I do get involved in this issue. I think it’s clear that the reason why the issue was raised with regard to evolution is because of an attempt to preserve religious beliefs against the possible impact of the theory of evolution.
I don’t think teachers have any business either preserving religious beliefs or attacking religious beliefs. I think they should teach science.
And science, as the courts understand it, in that other context, is what is generally accepted by scientists. And what is the evidence that evolution through natural selection is generally accepted through science? I don’t think — general acceptance doesn’t mean unanimity.
I know there are Ph.D. scientists who take an opposite view.
There’s not one member of the National Academy of Sciences who does.
There’s not one winner of the National Medal of Science who does.
There’s not one Nobel Laureate in biology who takes the view that there’s any question about the validity of the theory of evolution through natural selection or that there is any alternative theory that’s worth discussing.
So by the same standards that are used in the courts, I think it is your responsibility to judge that it is the theory of evolution through natural selection that has won general scientific acceptance. And therefore, it should be presented to students as the consensus view of science, without any alternatives being presented.
Thank you very much.
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3 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Evolution, History, Politics, Public education, Science, Texas, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Creationism, Evolution, Politics, Science, Stephen Weinberg, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 20, 2008
Visited the website for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) lately?
NCSE redesigned the website — it looks great!
NCSE is the only group in America — which means it may be the only group in the world — that stands for science education so stoutly, especially with regard to the teaching of evolution.
Arrayed against much more munificently funded “ministries” of many stripes, against the oddball but money-rich Discovery Institute, NCSE is the only organization that stands to defend the teaching of the hard science of evolution in America’s schools.
Particularly in times like these, when forces of darkness mass to assault science education, we need NCSE. Go check out their website.
And, teachers: Bookmark that site. It’s one of the verifiable, good sites you can point your students to for any research project. Click on the logo to see.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 7, 2008
Viewers of NOVA tonight get to see some of the pride of Dallas on display. “Arctic Dinosaurs” documents the work of a paleontologist from the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science digging dinosaurs in or near the Arctic Circle.
NOVA takes viewers on an exciting Arctic trek as one team of paleontologists attempts a radical “dig” in northern Alaska, using explosives to bore a 60-foot tunnel into the permafrost in search of fossil bones. Both the scientists and the filmmakers face many challenges while on location, including plummeting temperatures and eroding cliffs prone to sudden collapse. Meanwhile, a second team of scientists works high atop a treacherous cliff to unearth a massive skull, all the while battling time, temperature, and voracious mosquitoes.
The hardy scientists shadowed in “Arctic Dinosaurs” persevere because they are driven by a compelling riddle: How did dinosaurs—long believed to be cold-blooded animals—endure the bleak polar environment and navigate in near-total darkness during the long winter months? Did they migrate over hundreds of miles of rough terrain like modern-day herds of caribou in search of food? Or did they enter a dormant state of hibernation, like bears? Could they have been warm-blooded, like birds and mammals? Top researchers from Texas, Australia, and the United Kingdom converge on the freezing tundra to unearth some startling new answers.
Tony Fiorillo, curator of earth sciences at the Dallas museum, is one of the scientists featured in the NOVA production. The film highlights the museum’s efforts to push science work as well as displays for the public.
Previously, the museum had relied on Texas volunteers to help unearth and mount displays on prehistoric creatures from Texas, under the direction of Charles Finsley, a venerable Texas geologist. One one hand, it’s good to see the level of science kicked up a notch or two. On the other hand, it was great to have such a high level outlet for amateur and future, volunteer scientists at a major museum.
In any case, the PBS program demonstrates that science goes on in Texas despite foolish creationist eruptions from the State Board of Education. Every piece of accurate information helps eclipse the anti-science leanings of education officials.
Resources:
_______________________________
Update: Wonderful program. There’s a lot of good science, and a good deal of geography in the program. Geography teachers may want to think about using this as supplement to anything dealing with Alaska, or the Arctic.
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2 Comments | Education, Evolution, Geography - Physical, Paleontology, Science, Television, Texas | Tagged: Arctic, Dinosaurs, Education, Evolution, geography, Media, Paleontology, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
September 25, 2008
New candidate for “oldest rocks on Earth,” from Canada. They come in perhaps as old as 4.28 billion years.
They’re older than John McCain!
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Posted by Ed Darrell
August 24, 2008
From comments at the website of the New York Times today, on the story, “A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash”:
I teach biology and I would like to add a story in encouragement to other biology teachers. About 15 years ago I was teaching a botany course to college sophomores and started discussing the evolution of land plants. Expressions began to harden. Students stopped taking notes. So I stopped and asked if my discussion of evolution was bothering them. Many nodded and one said, “Why do teachers act like evolution is a fact?” At the time I had little experience and had assumed they had a working knowledge of evolution from previous classes at college as well as from high school biology. They did not. I didn’t have much time left that day, but I did explain some of the lines of evidence that support evolution.
The next day, one of my students came in and slammed a stack of books onto her table. She said, “I am so mad! I am so angry!” She looked near tears. She said, “My parents never let me even hear the word, evolution! They said it was all lies! I went to the library last night and got out books about it!” (and here she held up Origin of Species) Then she said, “It makes so much SENSE! I am so angry I never got to learn about it before!”
Now I teach a class entirely about evolution and I think of her often. She still gives me inspiration to keep on trying to open up minds.
— Bio prof, Ohio
Related resources:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
August 24, 2008
Page A1 of the New York Times on Sunday, August 24, 2008: “A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash.”
Read it, and consider these questions:
- Would your local paper have the guts to report on this issue, for your local schools? (The Times went to Florida; heaven knows few Florida papers could cover the issue in Florida so well.)
- What is your local school board doing to support science education, especially for evolution, in your town? Or is your local school board making it harder for teachers to do their jobs?
- What is your state education authority doing to support science education, especially in evolution, in your state? Or is your state school board working to make it harder for teachers to do their jobs, and working to dumb down America’s kids?
- Do your school authorities know that they bet against your students when they short evolution, because knowledge about evolution is required for 25% of the AP biology test, and is useful for boosting scores on the SAT and ACT?
- Does your state science test test evolution?
- Do your school authorities understand they are throwing away taxpayer dollars when they encourage the teaching of voodoo science, like intelligent design?
It takes a good paper like the Times to lay it on the line:
The Dover decision in December of that year [2005] dealt a blow to “intelligent design,” which posits that life is too complex to be explained by evolution alone, and has been widely promoted by religious advocates since the Supreme Court’s 1987 ban on creationism in public schools. The federal judge in the case called the doctrine “creationism re-labeled,” and found the Dover school board had violated the constitutional separation of church and state by requiring teachers to mention it. The school district paid $1 million in legal costs.
That hasn’t slowed the Texas State Board of Education’s rush to get the state entangled in litigation over putting religious dogma in place of science. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is already embroiled in one suit, brought by the science-promoting science curriculum expert they fired for noting in an e-mail that science historian Barbara Forrest was speaking in a public event in Austin. TEA may well lose this case, and their side is not helped when State Board Chairman Don McLeroy cavorts with creationists in a session teaching illegal classroom tactics to teachers. Clearly Texas education officials are not reading the newspapers, the court decisions, or the science books.
Here’s one of the charts accompanied the article. While you read it, consider these items: The top 10% of science students in China outnumber all the science students in the U.S.; the U.S. last year graduated more engineers from foreign countries than from the U.S.; the largest portion were from China. China graduated several times the number of engineers the U.S. did, and almost all of them were from China.
Copyright 2008 by the New York Times
Can we afford to dumb down any part of our science curriculum, for any reason? Is it unfair to consider creationism advocates, including intelligent design advocates, as “surrender monkeys in the trade and education wars with China?”
Update: 10:00 p.m. Central, this story is the most e-mailed from the New York Times site today; list below the fold.
Read the rest of this entry »
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5 Comments | Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, State school boards, Teaching, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Evolution, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 18, 2008
Louisiana’s state legislature — the legislature that the Supreme Court slapped down in 1987 for trying to introduce religion into science classes in Edwards v. Aguillard — rushed through a bill drafted by the deaf-to-the-law Discovery Institute which purports on its face to make it legal for Louisiana science teachers to teach creationism, intelligent design, tarot card reading, UFO-ism, or any other crank science that the teacher feels compelled to offer.
A Louisiana alligator used by c design proponetsist Denyse O'Leary to illustrate a blog post about Louisiana's litigation bait law on creationism in schools. Without any appreciation of th irony, or as a subtle warning, we can't say. (photo from The Advocate?)
Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-Mars, rushed to sign the brain-sucker into law, in his ambitious quest to get John McCain to name him as the nominee for vice president. It appears on the surface that Jindal’s national political aspirations will have to wait, but the law he signed requires Louisiana’s school districts to be ready when the students come back in the next few weeks, to do whatever it is they are going to do about creationism and other crank science.
Discovery Institute minions have been hawking creationism wares, and other creationists have offered to put Genesis into the science curriculum — but the law does not authorize those actions or wares itself. Instead, it passes the judgment to local school boards, sort of.
“Sort of.” Words that make a litigator’s heart flutter when talking about to-be-implemented laws! You’d think that, with all the money the Discovery Institute spends to entice legislators and school board members to poke their noses into matters they do not know, DI could spend a few thousands of dollars to get a competent legislative law drafter to draft a workable law. The cheapskates always pay more, Click and Clack say, and here’s another case to prove the point. It would have been difficult to intentionally write a law better intended to get local school boards sued.
A few of us noted the law does not indemnify local school districts against lawsuits if they goof and put religion into science classes. This is important, because the law requires local school districts to step up to the line and have a policy in place by the start of this school year. Which means, if the district doesn’t have the policy written out now, they’re late.
Tony Whitson at Curricublog spent time this summer pondering exactly how the law works, what it requires, and who it requires to act. His analysis — that the law is litigation bait just waiting to snare a local school board, a real “Dover Trap” — is cool, hard, and chilling. Go read it at his blog.
Whitson recommends that the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education get an opinion from the state’s attorney general. This will not comply with the impossible and punishing deadline the legislature established, but it’s a much wiser stewardship of local monies, to try to avoid litigation. Tony wrote:
Taking stock of the situation: To summarize where things now stand, in light of everything above:
The law is by no means so benign as its promoters pretend. It will unleash all manner of chaotic mischief. On the other hand, there is a method to this madness, making it predictable that the perpetrators’ strategy will be to insinuate Exploring Evolution into the state’s (and then other states’) public schools.
BESE and the school districts cannot comply with the statute, which commands that
The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and each city, parish, or other local public school board shall adopt and promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this Section prior to the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year.
There are legal requirements (public notice, etc.) for adopting administrative rules for implementing legislation that make it impossible for that to be done by every state and district school board before the new school year begins.
So what can BESE do?
My suggestion is that BESE, at it’s meeting Tuesday, should move to request an opinion from the State Attorney General. They should ask him for an opion advising them, the district Boards of Education, and individual school principals, as to who will be responsible for the costs of defending against litigation for unconstitutional state promotion of religion in the use of supplemental materials. Presumably, if there’s a suit brought directly against BESE itself because of the substance of a text they have approved, then they would be defended by the AG’s office, on behalf of the state (like when the AG hired Wendell Bird as as special assistant for defending the state’s “Balanced Treatment” law). But will the AG commit his office to defending every district, every school, and every teacher whose use of “supplemental materials” is challenged for violation of the First Amendment?
Louisiana’s legislature set a trap for Louisiana science teachers and local school boards — whether intentionally or not is immaterial. Rather than authorize specific material for the curriculum, the new creationism law requires school boards to analyze materials to supplement the science curriculum. The law passes the buck to the local school boards.
So, Louisiana school board members now must become expert on science, and Constitutional law.
Rule of thumb: It costs a school board about $1 million every time they goof and put religion into science classrooms, in litigation costs alone. Louisiana’s legislature didn’t appropriate any money to compensate the school boards.
This law promises to entangle science educators and curriculum, and ensnare local school boards – all of which helps dumb down science achievement and prevent U.S. kids from getting the education they need to compete in a global economy. Alas.
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3 Comments | Creationism, Education, Education success, Evolution, First day, History, Intelligent Design, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Teaching, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Louisiana, Politics, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 13, 2008
Sometime in the spring I let a long-running discussion with pastor Joe Leavell taper off. I thought I’d be back to it more quickly. It’s that sort of summer.
In one of his last posts, Joe said he’d been to a lecture by some folks from the Institute for Creation Research, the same bunch that tried to hornswoggle Texas into letting them grant graduate degrees in science education and biology for teaching creationism to their students instead, as a way of injecting creationism into the schools stealthily but still illegally. Texas refused to give them the authority. ICR promises to appeal and sue for the privilege.
Joe said:
The response was rather lengthy, but they talked about the research that they have been doing over the past 7-8 years or so and the difference accredited scientists that are working for them. They also claimed that creationists get criticized for not writing peer reviewed articles in journals, but they claimed that they had submitted countless articles over the years and they all get rejected. They simply can’t get printed, was the claim, so they print their own stuff. They also pointed me to the RATE project, which honestly, without knowing a ton about science (though I do know some), is very convincing to me.
Here’s the link:
https://www.icr.org/rate/
The main argument that I found convincing was the presence of helium in the rocks which wouldn’t be there if the rocks were millions of years old. They said they’ve been working on this project about 8 years and have spent $1.5 million on it. They also submitted all of their research to top labs in the country to make sure they weren’t accused of “fudging” the evidence. Check it out (if you have time) and let me know what you come up with.
I’ll be brief in my response here, at least to start: Same old fraud, not even new wineskins.
Dr. Russell Humphreys, a famous creationism crank (to serious geologists and other scientists), claims that the amount of helium he detected in some zircon crystals was so high that the crystals could not be more than a few thousands of years old, rather than the millions of years old all other dating methods by all other scientists produce. Humphreys’ findings have never been submitted to any science journal for publication, but were instead distributed to donors to a creationist ministry.
Oh, Joe: These guys depend on a lack of normal skepticism and a lack of knowledge to perpetrate these frauds on honest Christians. I do wish more Christians would hold their feet to the fire.
A few observations:
First, this project exhibits most of Bob Parks’ seven warning signs of bogus science. Those signs are:
- The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media. In this case, to media and donors.
- The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work. This thread runs through all ICR work. Humphreys’ later attempts at character assassination against his critics specifically for their critiques of the RATE project are exactly the warning sign of bogus science that we should expect, from bogus science. (See the final three paragraphs here.)
- The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection. This sign, not so much.
- Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal. In place of the usual description of methodologies used so other scientists can replicate the measurement, we get a story about samples for other purposes, purloined for this measurement. Most of the critical references to the conclusion were unpublished, or revealed only in crank science publications.
- The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries. See the paper: “Many creationists believed . . .”
- The discoverer has worked in isolation. In this case, it’s difficult to know for certain; there is no methodology, no statement of where the work was carried, by whom, and no peer review. No other labs appear to be working on these issues. Dollars to doughnuts this work at government laboratories in Oak Ridge and Los Alamos is not catalogued in the labs’ work records, nor is it reported to Congress. Not only working in isolation, but completely on the sly.
- The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. Humphreys had earlier proposed diffusion rates far in excess of anything measured, and in this case, he assumes similar, completely uncorroborated conclusions.
Second, the conclusions have been challenged (“debunked” might be a better description) by scientists who know the subject matter. There’s a thorough discussion on Talk.Origins, by Kevin Henke (at the University of Kentucky); to summarize, there is no reason to think that helium could get out of those zircon crystals at depth, especially under the pressures at the depths the samples were recovered from; plus there are other problems:
Throughout Humphreys (2005), Dr. Humphreys stresses that his YEC conclusions must be correct because his Figure 2 shows a supposedly strong correlation between his “creation model” and vacuum helium diffusion measurements from Humphreys (2003a, 2004). However, Dr. Humphreys’ diagram has little scientific merit. First of all, his helium diffusion experiments were performed under a vacuum rather than at realistic pressures that model the subsurface conditions at Fenton Hill (about 200 to 1,200 bars; Winkler, 1979, p. 5). McDougall and Harrison (1999), Dalrymple and Lanphere (1969) and many other researchers have already shown that the diffusion of noble gases in silicate minerals may decrease by at least 3-6 orders of magnitude at a given temperature if the studies are performed under pressure rather than in a vacuum. Secondly, because substantial extraneous helium currently exists in the subsurface of the Valles Caldera, which is only a few kilometers away from the Fenton Hill site, Dr. Humphreys needs to analyze his zircons for 3He, and quartz and other low-uranium minerals in the Fenton Hill cores for extraneous 4He. Thirdly, chemical data in Gentry et al. (1982b) and Zartman (1979) indicate that Humphreys et al. and Gentry et al. (1982a) may have significantly underestimated the amount of uranium in the Fenton Hill zircons, which could reduce many of their Q/Q0 values by at least an order of magnitude and substantially increase Humphreys et al.‘s “creation dates.” Dr. Humphreys needs to perform spot analyses for 3He, 4He, lead, and uranium on numerous zircons from all of his and R. Gentry’s samples so that realistic Q/Q0 values may be obtained.
The “dating” equations in Humphreys et al. (2003a) are based on many false assumptions (isotropic diffusion, constant temperatures over time, etc.) and the vast majority of Humphreys et al.‘s critical a, b, and Q/Q0 values that are used in these “dating” equations are either missing, poorly defined, improperly measured or inaccurate. Using the best available chemical data on the Fenton Hill zircons from Gentry et al. (1982b) and Zartman (1979), the equations in Humphreys et al. (2003a) provide ridiculous “dates” that range from hundreds to millions of “years” old (average: 60,000 ± 400,000 “years” old [one significant digit and two standard deviations] and not 6,000 ± 2,000 years as claim by Humphreys et al., 2004). Contrary to Humphreys (2005), his mistakes are not petty or peripheral, but completely discredit the reliability of his work.
I think ICR is affect loaded. For years they argued that because there is so little helium in the atmosphere, the Earth cannot be very old. Helium gas floats to the top of the atmosphere and drifts off into space, so there can never be a large accumulation of the stuff in the air. ICR is making a similar argument here: That helium must migrate out of rocks and drift away. Alas, there isn’t much support for the claim that helium cannot be contained in a rock matrix, especially under significantly greater pressures achieved in large rock masses, deep underground. There are a lot of examples of gases being trapped in rocks; that helium in the air drifts away does not mean helium in rock will drift away.
Third, the RATE project tends to rely on disproven or highly questionable claims, rather than solid science. The claims of polonium haloes once were published in a reputable journal, but retracted by the journal after scientists trying to replicate the results discovered that the author had sampled much newer magma intrusions in granite*, and not the base granite at all (* that is, lava that squeezed into cracks in the granite). ICR continues on as if the paper had not been found faulty, as if the results had never been retracted. In any other context, this would be considered academic fraud at best. Were it done as research under a federal grant, it would be a felony.
Fourth, there is the issue of whether RATE can do anything other than fog up the area. One of the original goals of RATE was to date the rocks from Noah’s flood. As you know, claims that such a flood ever occurred are regarded as crank science among geologists. After several years of discussion and meetings, RATE participants announced they had been unable to distinguish which rocks on Earth are pre-flood, and which are post flood. Consequently, dating the rocks of the flood was precluded because they could not be found, reliably (or at all!).
This is long-term scam stuff, Joe. How many little old ladies and upstanding men in how many congregations have given how many millions of dollars to this quackery? Imagine what good could have been done had those dollars gone to honest enterprise among Christians.
Joe, does this stuff make you angry? It should. ICR confesses to have spent $1.5 million in this project over eight years — ostensibly a science project, and yet not one single publishable science paper out of it.
This is academic fraud of the most foul kind, to me. It angers me that ICR carries on these frauds with money contributed by trusting Christians. One has a right to expect better ethics from people who claim to be engaged in ministry for Jesus, I believe.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
86 Comments | Creationism, Ethics, Evolution, geology, Higher education, History, Hoaxes, Physics, Religion, Science, Texas | Tagged: Creationism, geology, History, Hoaxes, Institute for Creation Research, Polonium Haloes, Religion, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 12, 2008
This will be a short post, and so will confuse the long-winded but short-thought intelligent design advocates, especially those who claim to be philosophers, and especially those who claim to be philosophers of science who can see a role for intelligent design.
A short visit to Telic Thoughts last week produced a revelation that they have a new philosopher who wants to argue that intelligent design “philosophically” could be science, if. I answered that argument at some length, in lay terms, here: “Intelligent Design, a pig that does not fly.”
Dr. Francis Beckwith, at Baylor, appears to have dropped his campaign to teach philosophy in science classes since he rediscovered that God visits the Pope, and since he moved on to more serious philosophical pursuits and away from his practice of confusing people about the law of separation of church and state in America (especially confusing the Texas State Board of Education). We hope Beckwith sticks with philosophy and stays out of Texas textbooks.
So there was a vacancy in the phalanx of defenders of intelligent design, in the slot reserved for company store philosohers. Dr. Brad Monton volunteered for the job. Monton has a blog, here. Monton philosophizes at the University of Colorado.
What should be the role of theism in science? Exactly this: Theism should encourage scientists to be diligent, to be honest, to ask tough questions, and be kind. Theism should encourage scientists to be wise stewards of their lab resources and time, and to share the fruits of their work with humanity, for the benefit of all creation (no, not “creationism”).
That’s it. Honest and thorough, not mean. Work quickly and true.
If scientists stick to the noble purposes of their work, using these noble methods, we will see a quick death to creationism and intelligent design, which clamor and riot to be included in the science texts though they have not a lick of evidence to support them that is honest, true and nobly gained.
Philosophical debates do not belong in high school science classes, nor middle school or elementary school science classes. The fun of science, the honest ethics of science, the value of science, and the stuff of science are appropriate topics for those science classes. Especially school kids should not be encouraged to offer unevidenced, petulent denials of the facts as we know them. That will only encourage them to become larcenists, disturbed individuals, and Republican state legislators. Heaven knows we don’t need those.
Wes Elsberry agrees at his blog, The Austringer, but with more felicity:
The issue is not whether science could make progress in spite of re-adoption of 17th century theistic science, but whether theistic science could provide any benefit to the methods of science today. Monton, Plantinga, and the neo-Luddites have not convincingly made that case. Mostly, they haven’t even badly made that case. They seem to assume that science would be better off reverting to 17th century theistic science and become perplexed when scientists disagree with them. We had that debate, we call it “the 19th century”. Nobody has shown that the mostly-theistic body of scientists who decided to eschew supernatural conjectures as part of science were wrong to do so. Mostly, I think, because they were right to do so, and their reasoning still applies today.
Monton seeks a publisher. I wish he’d seek a course in botany, another in zoology, another in genetics, and one in evolution. He might find something worth publishing, then.
Philosophically, anything fits in science, if there is evidence to support it, and especially if there is theory that supports it and offers solid explanations that can be relied upon. But we don’t teach philosophy to kids. We teach the kids the evidence. Philosophically, any voodoo science could be considered science, if there were evidence to support it. Philosophically, the FAA should regulate flying pigs that pose a threat to commercial and general aviation. Pragmatically, however, pigs don’t fly. In regulation of our air space, and in our science classes, we rely on theory backed by hard evidence. I wish theists would all agree on that point, and shut up about intelligent design until some institute of discovery actually provides research results that provide evidence that ID is science, rather than philosophy.
See? I said it would be short.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
10 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Teaching, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evidence, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science, State Boards of Education, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 11, 2008
You can see it here, at the Sneer Review.
What do you think? Is Darwin outed forever?
Gotta run. Someone is knocking at the door — Mencken’s Ghost, probably.
Could be Ben Stein, I suppose.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Kevin Fisher, Texas Citizens for Science.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, History, Hoaxes, Humor, Religion, Science | Tagged: Ben Stein, Darwin, Evolution, History, hoax, Religion, Satire, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 10, 2008
Y’all with a smattering of understanding about evolution: Go to this blog and help straighten out the creationists, will you?
“Creationist medical dilemma” at Unreasonable Faith
This is one of the hottest posts in the WordPress blogging continent at the moment. Unreasonable Faith posted the old Doonesbury cartoon about the guy whose doctor diagnoses tuberculosis, and then asks the guy whether he’s a creationist before prescribing treatment (if you don’t know the cartoon, go see!). I don’t think it was intended to attract so much traffic.
In the past three days creationists have moved into the comments section with all manner of creationist misinformation. Few of the creationists are the hard-shelled, obnoxious type, but they could use some good information on genetics, mutations and evolution rates from someone familiar with the topics.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Health care, Religion, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, Evolution, Health care, Medical Care, Religion, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 