March 25, 2009
If you’re not thinking of Edward R. Murrow’s reports from the roof of the building in London as the bombs fell, you’re not aware of how grave things are in Texas.
The Texas Freedom Network is live-blogging the hearings in Austin, before the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). Testimony of a sort is being offered on whether to force Texas kids to study false claims of scientific error about evolution.
Steve Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science is live-blogging, too, here at EvoSphere.
Schafersman listed several ways you can keep up with the hearings:
I will be live blogging the Texas State Board of Education meeting of 2009 March 25-27 in this column. This includes the hearing devoted to public testimony beginning at 12:00 noon on Wednesday, March 25. I will stay through the final vote on Friday, March 27.
Go to the following webpages for further information:
State Board of Education
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index3.aspx?id=1156
March 25-26 SBOE Meeting Agenda
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3994
March 25 Public Hearing with Testimony, 12:00 noon
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=4034
State Board rules for Public Testimony
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3958#Public%20Testimony
Current Science TEKS as revised in 2009 January
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/home/sboeprop.html
For the live audio feed, go to http://www.tea.state.tx.us/ for the link.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 9, 2009
Science needs your help, Texas scientists.
Last month science won a victory when members of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) agreed to strip creationist, anti-science language out of biology standards.
In the lightning round that followed the vote, however, some bad stuff was proposed. The National Center for Science Education asks every Texas scientist to contact your representative on the SBOE to urge them to vote against the bad stuff at a meeting near the end of March.
Don’t take my word for it. Below the fold, the full rundown of bad stuff, copied from NCSE’s website.
Details are available from Texas Citizens for Science.
New Texas Science Standards Will Be Debated and Voted Upon March 26-27 in Austin by the Texas State Board of Education — Public Testimony is March 25
Radical Religious-Right and Creationist members of the State Board of Education will attempt to keep the unscientific amendments in the Texas science standards that will damage science instruction and textbooks.
THE TEXAS SCIENCE STANDARDS SHOULD BE ADOPTED UNCHANGED!
The Texas Freedom Network has good information, too.
Also check out Greg Laden’s Blog.
Even Pharyngula’s in — Myers gets more comments from sneezing than the rest of us — but if he’s on it, you know it’s good science.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
February 14, 2009
On Darwin’s birthday, two Texas legislators wrote about the stakes in the tussle between creationists on the one side, and educators, scientists and economic development on the other, in the Houston Chronicle.
Somebody gets it! Will Gov. Rick Perry and SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy get the message? McLeroy was reappointed as chairman a week ago — but the appointment must be approved by the State Senate. Is a fight possible?
[Can a newspaper copyright the words of public servants doing their jobs?]
Feb. 12, 2009, 12:14AM
As scientists and educators across Texas and the nation mark the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin with calls for a renewed commitment to science education, the State Board of Education continues to engage in narrow theological debate about the validity of evolution. If Texas schoolchildren are to succeed in the 21st Century economy, the SBOE must focus less on internal philosophical differences and more on improving science instruction.
Last month, the board once again got bogged down in a bitter dispute over this issue. Members tentatively approved new science curriculum standards that protect teaching of evolution in one area, while creationists succeeded in watering it down elsewhere. Sadly, it was just the latest battle in the “culture war” being fought by a board that decides what more than 4.7 million Texas children learn in their public schools.
Families should be the primary educators on matters of faith, not our public schools. Regardless of board members’ personal beliefs on creationism and evolution, science classrooms are not the place for resolving such disagreements about faith. Those classrooms should focus on science.
Despite one’s personal stance on evolution, its teaching is critical to the study of all the biological sciences.
Scientists from our state’s universities have expressed this to the board, and have warned that watering down science education would undermine biotechnology, medical and other industries that are crucial to our state’s future.
Last session, the Legislature committed to investing $3 billion over the next 10 years in making Texas the global leader in cancer research and finding cures. This historic investment is certain to bring economic and academic opportunities to our state.
Sadly, even as our state takes one step forward, the SBOE moves us two steps back by continuing to support a diminished standard for science education. Texas’ credibility and its investment in research and technology are placed at risk by these ongoing, unproductive debates.
This is a critical issue and a critical time. Study after study has demonstrated that states which do well in science education have the brightest long-term economic future. According to Gov. Rick Perry’s Select Commission on Higher Education and Global Competitiveness, despite improved scores in math and reading, Texas’ students continue to lag alarmingly behind other states in science proficiency.
The National Assessment of Education Progress revealed that only 23 percent of Texas 8th graders achieved proficiency in science, compared with 41 percent of students in the top-performing states — the states with which we compete for jobs.
Yet the board continues to undermine high-quality science instruction, allowing our students to slip further behind.
To ensure that the SBOE works as it should, we have filed legislation to place the board under periodic review by the Sunset Advisory Commission and hold them accountable for their performance, just as we do the Texas Education Agency and other state agencies.
The decisions of the SBOE not only impact millions of young lives on a daily basis, but impact the economic progress of our state as well.
For these reasons and many others, the public has a right to full disclosure and oversight.
The board has escaped such scrutiny for far too long. The disregard for educators, instructional experts and scientists can’t continue. It’s time to take a closer look at the operations and policies of the State Board of Education.
Our state, and especially our kids, deserve better.
Ellis represents the Houston area and parts of Fort Bend County; Rose represents Blanco, Caldwell and Hays counties.
Thank you, Houston Chronicle.
Resources:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
February 7, 2009
That hissing sound you hear is hope leaking out of Texas scientists, educators and students. Those trucks you hear are the moving trucks of science-based industries, leaving Texas for California (!), Massachusetts, Utah, New York, Florida and other states where science is taught well in public schools and assumed to be an educational priority.
In his year as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, Don McLeroy has sown strife and discord among board members, professional staff, and educators across Texas. He insulted Texas Hispanics and did his best to eliminate Hispanic heritage from Texas literature studies. He repeatedly dismissed the advice of legally-required advisory committees of teachers and educators. He insulted top scientists who offered advice on science education, and he ignored education experts in the development of curricula and standards for Texas public schools. He promises a religious crusade to gut biology education in Texas.
On Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry reappointed McLeroy as chairman of SBOE, to a term that ends on February 1, 2011.
The Texas Senate must confirm.
Resources:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
February 4, 2009
In administrative hearings at the federal level, it’s a crime to knowingly present false testimony to an agency which might rely on that information to make a decision.
In Texas? The law is not so clear — but Discovery Institute’s John West celebrates false information used by the State Board of Education in considering science standards. (This is one reason, I suspect, why creationists are not more active at the federal level — their tactics are not only unethical, but also illegal.)
Sadly, shockingly but not surprisingly, the false information was presented by SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy in theform of nuggets from the creationist quote mines.
Keep watching that space — with the help of Jeremy Mohn’s blog, which has most of the story in a post from his co-blogger Cheryl Shepherd-Adams.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Tony Whitson and Texas Citizens for Science.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 23, 2009
[Another in a series of posts highlighting testimony supporting evolution offered to the Texas State Board of Education this week.]
Joe Lapp, Testimony to the Texas SBOE, January 21, 2009 - click picture for link to original image at Teach Them Science.com
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 22, 2009
Testimony of Richard Neavel, PhD, to the Texas State Board of Education January 21, 2009
I oppose the inclusion of strengths and weaknesses in the TEKS and I’m going to do a show and tell about why.
At the last public hearing, Board member Gail Lowe asked me whether I was familiar with “polystrate fossils.” I had to admit that I wasn’t.
I Googled the term, and found creationist Paul Ackerman writing: “Polystrate fossils in numerous places around the world are one dramatic piece of evidence that the [young earth] creationists may be right [about earth’s history].” (Footnote [1])
Now I know why I wasn’t familiar with them. Geologists don’t refer to polystrate fossils – creationists do.
Ms. Lowe questioned me about the Lompoc whale fossil that was supposed to be “standing up” within many strata, that is layers of rock. How could this happen, she asked if the strata accumulated over millions of years. (See Figure 1 – next page and Footnote [2].)
That’s the kind of question a student might ask to demonstrate weaknesses of geologic theories.
I didn’t have an answer, so I researched it and here’s what I found.
The fossil is found in Miocene-age rocks about 10 million years old near Lompoc, California.
Creationists have cited it as an anomaly ever since it was uncovered.
Creationists explain it by saying a catastrophe, such as Noah’s flood, buried the whale very quickly.
Here’s what really happened.
Lompy, the whale, is eating plankton in a lagoon off the California coast 10 million years ago.
The ones he doesn’t eat die and their shells drift down to make a silica-rich, oozy sediment.
OH!. OH! Heart attack. Lompy dies, rolls over and sinks to the bottom of the lagoon. (Figure 2)
He rots away, and his skeleton gets covered with more sediment. (Figure 3)
The sediments harden to rock. Along comes a mountain-building force and the rocks are tilted up.
A company mines the rock, called diatomaceous earth, and uncovers Lompy’s skeleton. (Figure 4)
Creationists go wild – it’s a miracle – a whale on its tail.
I’m a PhD geologist and I didn’t have a ready answer to Ms. Lowe’s questions about polystrate fossils.
Do you think a high school science teacher would be able to answer a student’s questions about Lompy?
Members of the Board: Do you really want students to waste time discussing this kind of creationist nonsense in science class? Not weaknesses – just nonsense.
Every other creationist so-called “scientific weakness” can be explained just like this by real scientists — but not necessarily by high school teachers.
PLEASE! PLEASE! DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS EDUCATION. IT’S TOO IMPORTANT TO AMERICA’S FUTURE.
PLEASE BE PATRIOTIC. THANK YOU.
ANY QUESTIONS, CLASS?
[Pictures coming when I can get them to stick in the file! — E.D.]
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 22, 2009
Obama promised to put science in its proper place, in federal policy.
In Texas, however, evolution and science education are under assault today as the State Board of Education (SBOE) looks at revising science standards for public schools. Creationists have been sharpening their knives for months, with a stiff-necked creationist heading SBOE as a fifth columnist.
SBOE votes today (perhaps already, but I can’t find the story of a vote). At issue is the recommendations by scientists, educators and parents to teach evolution without creationist language that misleads students. SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy has vowed to insert more religion into science classes. The board is nearly evenly split between creationists and backers of science, so the vote could go either way.
Here at the Bathtub we’ll feature testimony from science supporters in a few posts, as we can snag them from witnesses.
McLeroy and his supporters at SBOE worked hard to stack the witness list, to prevent testimony from parents, teachers, scientists and educators who all favor new standards that eliminate a decade-old statement about “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution theory, hoary old creationist propaganda that has no place in a curriculum for the 21st century. Several science witnesses were bumped from testifying, and the board was quite rude to some of America’s best scientists, appearing to fear what the scientists had to say.
It’s an ugly situation. Say a prayer for Texas.
Resources:i
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 18, 2009
Stephen Bratteng, a biology teacher at Westwood High School in Austin put this together. I got the list from him when I heard him testify in favor of solid science in biology textbooks, in hearings before the Texas State Board of Education in 2003.
Here are questions that evolution can answer, but intelligent design cannot.
If intelligent design cannot offer any insight into these things, but evolution can, why should we allow intelligent design or any other flaccid “alternative” to evolution into science classes? (Here’s the Institute for Creation Research, spending hundreds of words to fog over their inability to answer a single one of the questions!)
Why not teach our children the best we know, rather than junk we don’t know at all?
Mr. Bratteng’s 13 Questions
- Why does giving vitamin and mineral supplements to undernourished anemic individuals cause so many of them to die of bacterial infections?
- Why did Dr. Heimlich have to develop a maneuver to dislodge food particles from people’s wind pipes?
Dr. Henry Heimlich
- Why does each of your eyes have a blind spot and strong a tendency toward retinal detachment? But a squid whose eyesight is just as sharp does not have these flaws?
- Why are depression and obesity at epidemic levels in the United States?
- When Europeans came to the Americas, why did 90 percent of the Native Americans die of European diseases but not many Europeans died of American diseases?
- Why do pregnant women get morning sickness?
- Why do people in industrialized countries have a greater tendency to get Crohn’s disease and asthma?
- Why does malaria still kill over a million people each year?*
- Why are so many of the product Depends sold each year?
- Why do people given anti-diarrheal medication take twice as long to recover from dysentery as untreated ones?
- Why do people of European descent have a fairly high frequency of an allele that can make them resistant to HIV infection?
- Close to home: Why do older men often have urinary problems?
Cedar tree near Austin, Texas
- And why do so many people in Austin get cedar fever?
Of course, I don’t have the list of all the answers! (Can you help me out, Dear Reader? List what you know in comments.)
Resources:
American Red Cross poster on Heimlich Maneuver, from BusinessInsider
* Update November 2016: Actually, malaria death rates have been below a million/year worldwide since 2000; in 2015, fewer than 470,000 people died. At other posts on this blog you can learn that most of this great progress against malaria has been accomplished without DDT. Mr. Bratteng’s question remains valid, despite the happy decline in malaria deaths.
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17 Comments | Darwin, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Junk science, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks, Voodoo science, Woo | Tagged: Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Science, Science Standards, Textbooks, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 13, 2009
Creationists must be brave indeed — or foolish, or non-comprehending — to steam on in the face of almost daily science discoveries.
Some discoveries are bigger than others. Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science has a good, lay explanation of a recent paper documenting the discovery of a fossil with ancient, simple feathers –– a step in the evolution of feathers that was predicted but had not before been confirmed by fossils.
Until now, their existence was merely hypothetical – this is the first time that any have actually been found in a fossil. Other, more advanced stages in feather evolution have been described, so Beipaiosaurus provides the final piece in a series of structures that takes us from simple filaments to the more advanced feathers of other dinosaurs to the complex quills that keep modern birds aloft.
The simple feathers were discovered by Xu Xing, the famous Chinese palaeontologist who discovered such species as Microraptor and Dilong, among many others. The filaments are longer and broader than those possessed by other dinosaurs and Xu calls them “elongated, broad, filamentous feathers” or EBFFs.
Each is about 10-15cm long and 2mm wide – not exactly thick, but still 10-20 times broader than the simple feathers of Sinosauropteryx. They are also unusually stiff, for despite the rigours of death and fossilisation, very few of them are curved or bent.
In other species of extinct dinosaur, simple feathers probably helped to insulate their bodies. But Beipaiosaurus’s feathers were too patchily distributed to have provided much in the way of insulation and they certainly weren’t complex enough for flight.
Instead, Xu thinks that the animal used them for display – their length and stiffness are well-suited for such a purpose, and they’re only found on parts of the body that bear display feathers in modern birds. They provide strong evidence that feathers were used for display long before they were co-opted for flight.
So, what’s that? 243,694 “missing links,” now found? 243,694 for science, 0 for creationism. Isn’t there a five-inning rule in science?
It will be interesting to watch the next round of hearings at the Texas State Board of Education, to see what sort of excuse creationists will invent for why this chunk of science isn’t exactly what it seems to be.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 10, 2008
Time Magazine’s Person of the Year selection sometimes produces a shudder, such as when Ayotullah Khomeini got the designation for 1979. Time patiently explains that the designation is for the person who most affected the year, not necessarily the good guys. Even bad guys affect history.
The Dallas Morning News designates a “Texan of the Year,” with a month of conjecture and nominations for who it should be. True to the Time tradition, News columnist Steve Blow nominated a member of the Texas State Board of Eduacation, Cynthia Dunbar. Blow explained his nomination:
I mean, how do you top someone who warned us that the next president is a terrorist sympathizer with plans to topple the government?
Thank you, Cynthia Dunbar.
You knew about that, of course.
Dunbar is part of Dark Ages Coalition threatening to take Texas school kids hostage if science standards should — brace yourself — support science in Texas public school classrooms. You think I’m kidding? Blow noted that Dunbar’s views, now available in a book, do not count America’s public schools as things of much value.
In fact, she calls public education itself a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.” (Her kids have been home-schooled and attended private school.)
So on the slight possibility that she’s completely wrong about Barack Obama’s secret plan to overthrow America, I’d make her Texan of the Year for a second reason.
The Prophet Dunbar just might wake Texans up to the circus that is our State Board of Education.
That would be valuable, yes.
Note: I do object, with a smile, to Blow’s calling Dunbar our state Cassandra. Cassandra’s curse was that no one would listen to her, though she accurately foresaw the future. Dunbar doesn’t seem to be connected with accuracy in any discernible fashion.
Other resources:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 19, 2008
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) hearings on proposals for new science standards kick off today — and will probably run long into the night.
You can probably still sneak comments in. You can listen to the hearings in streaming audio, live. You can read the live blog reports from Texas Citizens for Science (TCS) President Steve Schafersman.
Texas science teacher Joe Lapp (a member of TCS) will give the board some good advice — will they listen?
Lapp will say:
My name is Joe Lapp, but I go by Spider Joe. I teach children about spiders, about the biology and physics of a spider’s world. My mission is to stoke passion for science in children and to empower children to think like scientists. I like to think that I’m launching these children into productive future careers as scientists, and indirectly, through them, contributing to solving some of mankind’s most serious challenges.
I’m watching what is going on here in the State Board of Education. You’re vying over what to teach about science and about evolution in particular. Some of you say, “teach the weaknesses with evolution.” Some of you say, “the ‘weaknesses’ are phony, don’t teach them.” You argue over whether science includes the supernatural or is restricted to just natural phenomena.
I ask you, how many of you grew up to be scientists? How many of you make a living teaching science to children? In a world full of people who dedicate their lives to science or science education, how many of you on the board are one of these specialized experts?
I’m suggesting that you recognize that you yourselves don’t have the answers.
We all come to the table with preferences and biases, but we’re talking about our children’s education and their future lives. When a scientist approaches a question, she may have a preferred answer, one that might win her the Nobel prize. When Pons and Fleischmann performed their cold fusion experiment, they wanted to see more energy output than input. Their bias blinded them to the truth, and rather than winning the Nobel Prize they became laughing stocks. If a scientist wants to know the truth, she must design an experiment that might show her desired outcome wrong; she must delegate her answer to the outcome of an experiment that ignores her biases.
The State Board of Education has a choice. One option is to play politics with our children’s future and vote your bias, regardless of the truth. The other option is to delegate your answer to the outcome of an experiment that ignores your biases, so that the answer better reflects the truth.
Fortunately for you, you have already performed the experiment. You delegated answers to your questions about science and evolution to experts in science and science education. They answered in the form of your September TEKS drafts. I urge you not to suffer the embarrassing fate of Pons and Fleischmann and to accept your experimental results. I suspect that politics introduced biases into the November drafts. Don’t fudge your results.
Please show your respect for children and science by making this a scientific decision and not a political one. Launch children into science by example. Envision children growing up to create new biofuels, cure cancers, eliminate AIDS, end malnutrition, reverse global warming, and save our wondrous natural resources for future generations.
Science is our children’s future.
Resources:
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1 Comment | Biology, Business, Creationism, Education, Education reform, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Politics, Public education, Science, Separation of church and state, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: Biology, Business, Education, Education reform, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Science Standards, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 18, 2008
Alaska is still counting ballots in the U.S. Senate race, but for the state offices, most of which were not contended in this cycle, the election is over. Sarah Palin is back at work there — except when she’s on a plane to the lower 48 to do interviews for her out-of-Alaska career.
So, how is education faring there?
Progressive Alaska notes several areas where improvement might be had. (Is that really a photo of Gov. Palin?)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
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 5, 2008
So, last week or so I commented on the woes of Kentucky, where, the polls showed, 28% of voters were yoked with the millstone belief that our president-elect is Muslim. Someone commented, and sent me the link that showed 23% of Texans carry a similar burden in their own swim.
Can it get much more weird, more divorced from reality?
How about we marry bizarre, untrue beliefs about religion with bizarre, untrue beliefs about science? And then — God save us, please — how about let’s put that person on the state school board during a rewrite of science standards?
Meet Cynthia Dunbar, member of the Texas State Board of Education.
At the tinfoil hat website “Christian Worldview” (as if Christians are unable to see normally), Dunbar posted this bizarre statement:
So we can imagine the blatant disregard for our Constitution, but what other threats does an Obama administration pose? We have been clearly warned by his running mate, Joe Biden, that America will suffer some form of attack within the first 6 months of Obama’s administration. However, unlike Joe, I do not believe this “attack” will be a test of Obama’s mettle. Rather, I perceive it will be a planned effort by those with whom Obama truly sympathizes to take down the America that is threat to tyranny.
Challenged by the Texas Freedom Network to do the American, patriotic thing and take the comments down, Dunbar refuses.
Dunbar was not worried about martial law when President George W. Bush actually took the steps she claims to worry about now, assigning troops to domestic crowd control in the U.S. It’s the marriage of presidential power with the bizarre phantasms of “the Christian worldview” that makes Ms. Dunbar’s views so nutty. It’s her position on the Texas State Board of Education that makes her views troubling, if not downright dangerous.
Her statement is as crazy as if she had accused John McCain of being a communist sympathizer, and Manchurian candidate, for ‘having spent so much time schmoozing with North Vietnamese officials.’ It’s also every bit as offensive as such a claim would be.
One mystery remains: Do wacko views produce creationism, or does creationism produce these wacko views? We await the creationist who can make an argument in favor of creationism without making a detour off the deep end.
It’s going to take more than tinfoil to protect Texas’s children, and Barack Obama, from these nuts.
If you want to pray, pray that God grants us reason, to save us and our children from such nuts, and this one especially.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Chris Comer.
_________________
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
