Texas officials plan to fight evolution in science standards

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:

2 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Curricula, Education, Education quality, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Politics at the Texas Education Agency

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Creationism, History, Intelligent Design, Law, Politics, State school boards, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The difference between science and intelligent design/creationism

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.)

Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas creationism scandal only one of many

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.

Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Government, Intelligent Design, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Religious/political bias against good education, at Texas Education Agency

December 3, 2007

The religious bias against good education we noted here appears to have exploded into the Texas Education Agency. Unfortunately, there is an ugly political tone to the scrap.

TEA fired a top science curriculum specialist just as it starts a review of science standards, because she passed along word that a defender of science in textbooks was speaking in Austin to several people in an e-mail. The firing was urged by a political apparatchik now working inside TEA, one of several political operatives put into positions of influence in the agency in the past year or so.

(I don’t practice in Texas employment law, and Texas administrative law probably has strong employment-at-will leanings even in government agencies — but this strikes me as an illegal action on the part of TEA; we can’t fire people for doing their jobs as the law requires; we shouldn’t fire public officials for informing people about the law, nor for supporting good academics.)

Several Texas news outlets picked up the story of the firing, but to my knowledge, only the Austin American-Statesman has complained, in a Saturday editorial, “Is Misdeed a Creation of Political Doctrine?”

The education agency, of course, portrays the problem as one of insubordination and misconduct. But from all appearances, Comer was pushed out because the agency is enforcing a political doctrine of strict conservatism that allows no criticism of creationism.

This state has struggled for years with the ideological bent of the state school board, but lawmakers took away most of its power to infect education some years ago. Politicizing the Texas Education Agency, which oversees the education of children in public schools, would be a monumental mistake.

This isn’t the space to explore the debate over creationism, intelligent design and evolution. Each approach should be fair game for critical analysis, so terminating someone for just mentioning a critic of intelligent design smacks of the dogma and purges in the Soviet era.

But then, this is a new and more political time at the state’s education agency.

Robert Scott, the new education commissioner, is not an educator but a lawyer and former adviser to Gov. Rick Perry. This presents an excellent opportunity for the governor and his appointee to step in firmly to put an end to ideological witch hunts in the agency.

The person who called for Comer to be fired is Lizzette Reynolds, a former deputy legislative director for Gov. George Bush. She joined the state education agency this year as an adviser after a stint in the U.S. Department of Education.

The paper is factual and gentle: The position Ms. Reynolds filled at the U.S. Department of Education was in Texas, in a regional office, a plum often reserved for political supporters of the president’s party who need a place to draw a paycheck until the next election season.

(This where the irony bites: The Louisville Courier-Journal editorialized against creationism and the deceiving of students conducted by Ken Ham’s organization with their creationism museum; Kentucky appears to be well ahead of Texas in recognizing the dangers to education of this war against science conducted by creationists.)

Details come from the Texas Citizens for Science, and Steven Schaffersman, here. More details with extensive comments are at Pharyngula, here, here, here, and here.

The firing damages Texas’s reputation, certainly. The state is already portrayed as having an education agency run amok:

There’s a major standards review coming up, and the guy running the show is a bible-thumping clown of a dentist. Note the hint of the wider ramifications: Texas is a huge textbook market, and what goes down in Texas affects what publishers put in books that are marketed nationwide. It is time to start thinking about ending Texas’s influence. If you’re a teacher, a school board member, or an involved parent, and if you get an opportunity to evaluate textbooks for your local schools, look carefully at your biology offerings. If you’re reviewing a textbook and discover that it has been approved for use in Texas, then strike it from your list. It’s too dumb and watered down for your kids.

Nature, one of the preeminent science magazines in the world, has a blog; Texans need to reflect on the article there which lends perspective:

Attitudes to education differ round the world, but things are looking pretty odd in Texas right now. The director of the state’s science curriculum is claiming she was forced out for forwarding an email. Its content was not a risqué joke or a sleazy photo: it was a note about a forthcoming lecture by a philosopher who has been heavily involved in debates over creationism.

The Statesman reports that the Texas Education Agency had recommended firing Chris Comer for repeated misconduct and insubordination (the details of which are unclear) before she resigned. But Comer and others are saying she was forced out for seeming to endorse criticism of intelligent design. An agency memo, according to the Statesman, said: “Ms Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker’s position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.”

In other news, a new international ranking of the science ability of 15 year olds has been conducted by the OECD. The US is below average, a little under Latvia. Finland tops the chart. Those with spare time might find it interesting to compare this chart of the new OECD ranking, with this chart of belief in evolution.

If Ms. Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of good science, her firing explicitly endorses bad science and crappy education, and thereby contradicts the policies of the State of Texas expressed in law and regulation. Firing an employee for supporting the law, which calls for good and high academic standards, should not be the policy of political appointees; it shouldn’t be legal.

It looks really bad:

. . . [A] dismissal letter stated Comer shouldn’t have sided one way or the other on evolution, “a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.”

And:

It can’t be a good thing when a state fires its head of science education for promoting science education. But that’s what happened when the Texas Education Agency put its science curriculum director Chris Comer on administrative leave in late October, leading to what she calls a forced resignation.

When the Texas Education Agency urges “neutrality” on good versus bad, you know something is very, very rotten in Austin.

Action avenues:

  • Gov. Rick Perry‘s phone number is: (800) 252-9600 (Citizen Opinion Hotline); (512) 463-2000 (main switchboard for governor)
  • TEA Commissioner Robert Scott’s e-mail is: commissioner@tea.state.tx.us, and his phone number is: (512) 463-9734

News links:

1 Comment | Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Rampant stupidity, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas, Textbooks | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Puncturing gas bags

November 24, 2007

Bad, from The Bad Idea Blog (the guy who uses that amazingly ugly fish with the huge proboscis-like thing as his avatar), has done a fine job of defending Darwin, evolution, science, reason, manners, Mom, apple pie, the American flag, free markets, liberty, and the 8th Amendment, over at a blog called Seedlings.

The proprietor of Seedlings is unhappy with people who contest his claims. That he’s let Bad go so long is a tribute to Bad — and worthy of your looking in. There is nothing quite so pompous as a creationist ruling that biologists don’t know beans about biology. It’s astounding such rooms full of balloons don’t attract more kids with pins.

Don’t forget to see Bad’s blog, too.

7 Comments | Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Rampant stupidity, Reason, Voodoo science, Weblogs | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Unread scripture: Come, let us reason together*

November 23, 2007

The right-wing nominally Catholic journal First Things features another assault on the quest for reason in its October issue.

Pope John Paul II said evolution is a scientific understanding of creation and should be studied by people, with no claim that it conflicts with Christianity. Since his death, and since the installation of Pope Benedict, Benedict and several cardinals have been backpedaling as fast as they can. When they get called on some of their more radical statements, they claim that “radical atheists” have forced them to their public relations firms and far-right magazines. So far, Pope Benedict has not directly claimed Pope John Paul II to have been in error about evolution. He seems happy to let others make that inference explicitly, however.

I am particularly troubled by Cardinal Dulles’ citing of an article by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, published on July 7, 2005, as an op-ed in the New York Times. Schönborn’s view sounded oddly as if it squared completely with the fundamentalist Christian view espoused from the Discovery Institute in Seattle. It turns out that Schönborn had not written the piece at all, but instead was asked to sign his name to a piece written by one of the Discovery Institute’s commercial public relations groups.

It is probably not fair yet to say that Pope Benedict has been purchased by the Discovery Institute. But it would be good if Catholic officials were to stick to Catholicism and leave the petty, erroneous science politics and destructive education politics to the Discovery Institute; it would be better still if the Discovery Institute were to abandon such things, too.

Tip of the old scrub brush to a commenter at Telic Thoughts. [And, yes, this sat for a while in my draft box.]

* Isaiah 1:18

The verse is almost always cited out of context. In this verse a prophet Isaiah recites words he’s been given from God, by his account. This opens an invitation, from God, to the people of Judah, to discuss their actions. God was particularly concerned about injustices and inequities practiced by the people; for example, in the verses immediately preceding, Isaiah quotes God (CEV): “No matter how much you pray,/I won’t listen./You are too violent./Wash yourselves clean!/I am disgusted with your filthy deeds./Stop doing wrong/and learn to live right./See that justice is done./Defend widows and orphans and help those in need.” It is my view that Cardinal Dulles is missing that context here. The scriptures call us to see that justice is done, first. Slamming evolution and the rest of science is not such action.

Other sources

Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, Accuracy, Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education quality, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Natural history, Religion, Science, Textbook Selection | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Why creationists? Why Rachel Carson critics?

November 22, 2007

At least once a week I buy the New York Times. Tuesday’s edition carries the Science section. It’s better than a weekly science magazine.

And especially since the Dallas Morning News absent-mindedly closed down their award-winning science section and misplaced their award-winning science section editor, Tom Siegfried, the Times is even more important here in Dallas.

Last Tuesday’s main story explained a lot about some of the issues I write about here: Why do people deny obvious stuff — creationists, DDT nuts, history revisionists, Christian nationalists, and so on? Go check out “Denial Makes the World Go ‘Round.”

I’m sorta surprised the guys at denialism blog (“don’t mistake denialism for debate”) haven’t mentioned it.

1 Comment | Creationism, Intelligent Design, Newspapers, Research, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Intelligent designers plagiarize Harvard film

November 20, 2007

Ms. Smith at ERV caught Bill Dembski of the Discovery Institute looking for all the world as if he’s plagiarizing a video produced at Harvard showing the inner workings of a cell in animation.  She’s got the videos to prove it.

Uncomprehensible. Do these guys really represent Christians?

2 Comments | Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Plagiarism, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Live blogging NOVA and Dover evolution trial?

November 13, 2007

For the next couple of hours, I’ll be watching instead of blogging, mostly (“Judgment Day: Evolution on Trial”). PZ is liveblogging, he says. I’d go for the popcorn, but we just finished dinner.

These issues are still very much alive. Texas science standards are up for rewriting now (a bunch to come on that here, from Texas Citizens for Science, soon). Texas biology books will be updated in the near future. Creationists have flocked to Texas in anticipation.

Judge Jones was featured on The News Hour tonight — the man is a statesman of great stature, refusing to denigrate either side, but carefully explaining the law and the judge’s duty.

Stay tuned to PBS tonight. You will not see anything like this program on any commercial outlet, broadcast or cable. PBS remains one of the shining lights of our government, a wonderful idea executed with flair.

_______________________________

7:56 p.m.: The guy playing Kenneth Miller in the trial reenactment is good, but he’s nowhere near as engaging as Miller is. This NOVA is a good deal: I wish someone had a good video of Miller’s presentation to the Texas State Board of Education in the 1990s (1999? 1997? I’ll have to look that up). It was a stellar performance before a hostile crowd, and it was one of the big rocks that stopped the anti-evolution tide.

For that matter, I wish we had copies of the testimony of Andy Ellington and Stephen Weinberg from 2003. I understand a video may still exist (Discovery Institute taped the whole thing, but don’t expect to see them ever let this stuff out for others to see — it’s too powerful). Ellington was afire, and Weinberg was as statesmanlike as anyone will ever see him. It was great.

Nick Matzke got a little camera time earlier. He’s a hero in this story, and he was grand earlier in other states.

Watch this stuff carefully. The scientists and policy defenders of evolution are almost to a person, wonderful people. You’d enjoy a dinner with Eugenie Scott. You’d love to spend an afternoon with Andrew Ellington. There are scientific, political and religious differences galore, but very few really disagreeable people defending evolution. Funny: The pro-evolution side demonstrates the virtues of Christian charity better than the self-proclaimed Christian side. (And as if on cue, just after 8:00 p.m. Bill Buckingham shows up to attack the teachers as non-Christian, or not good Christians, even the ministers’ kids — and he looks crabby, if not downright bothered.)

8:07 p.m.: The actor playing Michael Behe has his voice and delivery down pretty well, but without the usual smirk. I wonder if Behe smirked through his testimony — anybody know? Maybe the ID folks would have been better off to hire an actor to play Behe.

8:10 p.m.: Behe’s irreducibly complex stuff, and bacterial flagella: Has anybody ever asked Behe why an intelligent designer wouldn’t have used a screw propeller, which would be more efficient than a flagellum? Is the designer irreducibly dense, too?

8:55 p.m.: IDists and other creationists won’t like the program. It was fair. In two hours, NOVA offers clear understanding of what happened at the trial, and to people who listen, it tells why evolution came out on top.

Great program. How many will it sway?

In the interim comes word that Kenneth Miller will be in Dallas day-after-tomorrow from something called “Pegasus News Service.” Since Pegasus is the flying horse logo of the old Magnolia Petroleum Company, which was adopted by Dallas-based Mobil (before Exxon-Mobil), it’s clearly a Dallas-based news group. Maybe SMU related. Here are the details of Miller’s visit:

On Thursday, Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Ballroom on the campus of Southern Methodist University, Kenneth R. Miller will lecture on the subject of science and faith in America, and how the falling out of favor of “intelligent design” will affect our understanding of science as a tool for understanding our world. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Only one Scout meeting conflicting . . . can I make it?

___________________________
Resources

6 Comments | Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Jurisprudence, Law, Public education, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Creationism eruption in Cincinnati City Council race

November 5, 2007

Is there a miasma that spreads from the Creationism Museum of Ken Ham, that has finally gotten to Cincinnati?

The Daily Bellwether reports a Cincinnati City Councilman wants to put creationism into the schools. I hope that the schools are not governed by the City Council.

______________________

And — could you guess? — the guy’s an engineer:

Monzel, 39, is trying to hold onto a seat that the GOP appointed him to after he was voted out of office in 2005. He is an engineer and holds a masters degree in public policy from Harvard University. He was the valedictorian at parochial Moeller High School in 1986. He is a very intelligent fellow. He did not elaborate on the questionnaire exactly what it is that teachers should offer as contradicting Charles Darwin. Perhaps intelligent design, perhaps scientific creationism, perhaps Genesis or something from Greek mythology. Perhaps a script from Star Trek.

He was asked about “Alternatives to Evolution,” and the question reads:

“When lessons on the origins of life are taught in Ohio public schools, do you support or oppose requiring teachers to present the evidences (sic) both supportive and contradictory to the theory of evolution?” Monzel is in the supports box.

1 Comment | Creationism, Intelligent Design, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Florida considering high academic standards: Evolution

October 31, 2007

News reports and a syndicated radio program, “Evolution Minute,” talk about the efforts to upgrade science education in Florida. Florida worries that without high science standards in education, their kids will be left behind.

High standards? That’s right: Evolution’s in, intelligent design is not. High quality education, not high feely education.

1 Comment | Education, Education quality, Evolution, Intelligent Design | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Bumper sticker science

October 13, 2007

Wes Elsberry at Austringer does a bit of design on the side. Here’s his latest:

ID flunked

Tip of the old scrub brush to P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula. 

Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Intelligent Design, Politics | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Intelligent design: Pigs still don’t fly

October 1, 2007

Encore Post

On the road for a day and a half. Here is an encore post from last October, an issue that remains salient, sadly, as creationists have stepped up their presence in Texas before the next round of biology textbook approvals before the Texas State Board of Education. I discuss why intelligent design should not be in science books.

Image: Flying Pig Brewing Co., Everett, Washington 
Flying pig image from Flying Pig Brewery, Seattle, Washington.

Flying pig image from Flying Pig Brewery, Everett, Washington. (Late brewery? Has it closed?)

[From October 2006]: We’re talking past each other now over at Right Reason, on a thread that started out lamenting Baylor’s initial decision to deny Dr. Francis Beckwith tenure last year, but quickly changed once news got out that Beckwith’s appeal of the decision was successful.

I noted that Beckwith’s getting tenure denies ID advocates of an argument that Beckwith is being persecuted for his ID views (wholly apart from the fact that there is zero indication his views on this issue had anything to do with his tenure discussions). Of course, I was wrong there — ID advocates have since continued to claim persecution where none exists. Never let the facts get in the way of a creationism rant, is the first rule of creationism.

Discussion has since turned to the legality of teaching intelligent design in a public school science class. This is well settled law — it’s not legal, not so long as there remains no undisproven science to back ID or any other form of creationism.

Background: The Supreme Court affirmed the law in a 1987 case from Louisiana, Edwards v. Aguillard (482 U.S. 578), affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against a state law requiring schools to teach creationism whenever evolution was covered in the curriculum. Summary judgment was issued by the district court because the issues were not materially different from those in an earlier case in Arkansas, McLean vs. Arkansas (529 F. Supp. 1255, 1266 (ED Ark. 1982)). There the court held, after trial, that there is no science in creationism that would allow it to be discussed as science in a classroom, and further that creationism is based in scripture and the advocates of creationism have religious reasons only to make such laws. (During depositions, each creationism advocate was asked, under oath, whether they knew of research that supports creationism; each answered “no.” Then they were asked where creationism comes from, and each answered that it comes from scripture. It is often noted how the testimony changes from creationists, when under oath.)

Especially after the Arkansas trial, it was clear that in order to get creationism into the textbooks, creationists would have to hit the laboratories and the field to do some science to back their claims. Oddly, they have staunchly avoided doing any such work, instead claiming victimhood, usually on religious grounds. To the extent ID differs from all other forms of creationism, the applicability of the law to ID was affirmed late last year in the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover.

Read the rest of this entry »

58 Comments | Bill of Rights, Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Take Ben Stein’s brain

September 27, 2007

 

Ben Stein in a tub of money

Cornelia Dean’s article in the New York Times on September 27 reports that several scientists got the same deceptive invitation to appear in a documentary movie that has not been made, but instead discovered themselves in a different movie, a sort of mockumentary in support of the discredited concept of intelligent design.

Actor/comedian/lawyer/economist Ben Stein is the producer and narrator of “Expelled!” P. Z. Myers kicked off the blog discussions when he noted his own appearance in the movie, not exactly what it was billed — Myers posted the invitation letter, related the story, and eventually posted the kiss-off letter from the producer, who seems too embarrassed to talk about his deceptive actions.

One has to wonder, is such a vanity production in defense of voodoo science the best use of Ben Stein’s money? Is it the best use of Ben Stein’s brain? What was he thinking?

Let the record note: Scientific contributions from intelligent design and the rest of creationism, for 2007 and 2008, was a mockumentary movie, based on deception-obtained interviews.

Is that what they want us to teach the kids in high school?

Also see:

Image: AV Club.com

 

Leave a Comment » | Bogus history, Creationism, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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