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.
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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 | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
August 21, 2008
Here’s the post from über creationist Ken Ham’s site, in its entirety:
Last week, AiG speaker Mike Riddle did a series of talks in Brenham, Texas. On the first day, Mike did four different sessions for 1st–6th graders. He usually speaks to young people on topics like “The Riddle of the Dinosaurs,” AiG’s well-known “7C’s of History,” and fossils.
On the next day, Mike did four special sessions for teachers. Each presentation was geared to help instructors be better prepared to teach origins in the public schools. In addition to speaking on what creationists believe, he spoke on understanding presuppositions and assumptions in the origins debate–and using critical thinking skills. Mike also had the opportunity to meet with the Chairman of the Texas State School Board, Don McLeroy (a biblical creationist), and gave presentations to an open audience at the Brenham High School auditorium.
Mike and Don McLeroy (Chairman, Texas State School Board)
“Special sessions for teachers?” Oy vey.
1. I’ll wager, if those were real, public school teachers, they were given continuing education credits for attending. That would be illegal, especially if Riddle did not preface his presentations with a legal disclaimer that what he urges is contrary to Texas science standards and contrary to the Constitution. Want to wager whether he did?
2. What’s McLeroy doing there? Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to maintain antiseptic separation from such controversial stuff? They fire people from the TEA for attending sessions that are legal and support the Texas standards. What sort of Quisling action is this on McLeroy’s part?
3. Is Rick Perry watching? The state’s legal fees will rise dramatically as a result of this kind of bad judgment at the SBOE. Can Texas taxpayers afford this?
4. Why does Don McLeroy hate Texas’s smarter, college-bound children so?
It takes a particular form of chutzpah to stand idly by while qualified science teachers are fired from the state’s education agency for promoting science, and then go cavort with creationists. It may not be cowardice exactly, but courage is its antonym.
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4 Comments | Education, Ethics, History, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Teaching, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Voodoo science | Tagged: Bad Judgment, Creationism, education standards, Evolution, Ken Ham, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas, Voodoo science | 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.
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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
July 6, 2008
Rev. Michael Dowd has a book out, ThankGod for Evolution, and he wrote an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News on July 1 (as I understand it — wasn’t in Dallas that day).
I don’t vouch for the book — yet, at least. I’ve not read it. I find the study of science, and especially of evolution, offers no barrier to my faith, nor does my faith offer any barrier to my study of science. My faith, which requires an ethical life, offers barriers to creationism — a subject of other posts. But thank God for Charles Darwin? Sure.
“Thank God for Charles Darwin.” T-shirt design from Redbubble
We also need to thank the federal courts, where the First Amendment is enforced, keeping unreasonable fables from diluting science education in public schools.
Which gets us to this: Chris Comer, the former science curriculum expert for the Texas Education Agency (TEA) who was fired for sending out an e-mail seen as supportive of evolution, is suing TEA, to get her job back (it’s illegal to fire public employees for bad religious reasons).
Watch that suit.
Rev. Dowd’s essay, courtesy of Sam Hodges and the Dallas Morning News Religion Blog, below the fold.
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5 Comments | Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, Public education, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, State school boards, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Education Agency (TEA) | Tagged: Charles Darwin, Creationism, Evolution, Religion, Science, Texas, Texas Education Agency | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 15, 2008
Considering recent history and the Texas State Board of Education, how can any reasonable voter or parent read this, except as a declaration of war on science? According to the blogs at the Dallas Morning News:
State Board of Education chairman David Bradley of Beaumont told GOP delegates [at the Texas State Republican Convention] that the board was about to take up the science curriculum for public schools. He forecasted a fight over evolution vs. creationism.
Bradley said there are some on the board (he’s among them) that believe God created Man.
“There are others who think their ancestors were apes. That’s okay. But I’m going to vote the right way,” Bradley said.
Is there anything there that suggests Bradley wants good science in Texas textbooks and Texas classrooms?
Remember the Excellence in Education Commission Report in 1983? The Commission warned that the nation was facing “a rising tide of mediocrity” in schools, in such things as lax science standards.
“Our nation is at risk. The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. History is not kind to idlers.”
25 years later, Commissar Don McLeroy is leading the tide of mediocrity, doing crippling things to our education system that the likes of Nikita Khruschev and Mao Ze Dong could only dream about.
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2 Comments | Creationism, Education quality, Education reform, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Political conventions, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Education reform, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas, War on Education, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 25, 2008
The Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the Texas State Board of Education meetings this week is not well indexed on the web. Following a couple of odd links I found Gary Sharrar’s article (he’s the Chronicle’s education reporter), though the Associated Press Story shows up for the paper’s main article on most indices I found.
Sharrar adds a few details of Kommissar McLeroy’s war on English education, but the significant thing about the story is in the comments, I think. One poster appears to have details that are unavailable even from TEA. Partisans in the fight have details that Texas law requires to be made public in advance of the meetings, while the state officials who need to advise on the regulations and carry them out, do not.
TEA has an expensive website with full capabilities of publishing these documents within moments of their passage. As of Sunday morning, TEA’s website still shows the documents from last March. Surely Texas is not getting its value from TEA on this stuff.
Sharrar wrote:
Two different outside groups offered opposite reactions. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a free-market think tank, favored the board’s action.
“It is obvious that too many Texas public school students aren’t learning the basics with our current curriculum,” said Foundation education policy analyst Brooke Terry. “We are glad the new curriculum will emphasize grammar and writing skills.”
Texas public schools fail to adequately prepare many students for college or the workplace, she said, citing a 2006 survey by the Conference Board found that 81 percent of employers viewed recent high school graduates as “deficient in written communications” needed for letters, memos, formal reports and technical reports.
But the Texas Freedom Network, which promotes public education, religious freedom and individual liberties, called the board divisive and dysfunctional.
“College ready” generally means reading well, and reading broadly in literature. From a pedagogical standpoint, emphasizing “grammar and writing skills” over the reading that is proven to improve grammar and writing skills will be a losing battle. I hope the details of the plan will show something different when TEA ever makes them available to the taxpaying/education consuming public and English teachers. NCLB asks that such changes be backed by solid research — it will be fascinating to see whether there is any research to support the Texas plan (not that it matters; this section of NCLB has been ignored by the right wing from the moment NCLB was signed).
Prior to this week’s series of meetings, Commissar McLeroy expressed what sounds like disdain for reading in the English curriculum to the El Paso Times:
But chairman McLeroy said he would fight against some of the measures the educators want, especially the comprehension and fluency portion.
Their suggestions, he said, would have students waste time on repetitive comprehension strategies instead of actually practicing reading by taking in a rich variety of literature.
“I think that time is going to be lost because they’ll be reading some story, and they’ll just overanalyze,” he said.
By the way, calling the Texas Public Policy Foundation a “free market think tank” is misleading. The group is quite hostile to public education, and features on its board several people who have led fights to gut funding for public schools and impose bleed-the-schools voucher programs. The Foundation appears to endorse preaching in public schools and gutting science standards, among other problems.
If it’s good work, why is it done in secret? Remember that I spent years in right wing spin work in Washington. Here’s what I see: Either McLeroy’s administration at the state board is incredibly incompetent and can’t even get the good news right, and out on time, or there is another, darker and probably illegal agenda at work.
Below the fold, the full text of the comment from “WG1” at the Chronicle’s website.
Other resources:
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9 Comments | Books, Curricula, Education, Freedom of Information, Literature, No Child Left Behind Act, Politics, Public education, State school boards, TAKS, Teaching, TEKS, Texas, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: Education, English standards, Open Meetings Act, Politics, state board of education, Texas, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 24, 2008
Nobody can recall the ceremony, but Don McLeroy made it clear yesterday that he thinks he’s been designated Kommissar of Education, ramming through a proposal altering English standards for the next decade — without debate, without even a chance to read the proposal.
It’s probably not so bad a pig in a poke as it might be — of course, no one had the chance to review it, so no one knows, really — but the processes used, worthy of Napoleon or Kruschev on a bad day, should give cause for concern.
Gotta think about this one for a while.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 20, 2008
With evidence mounting that the politically-motivated rewrite of English standards in Texas schools would harm the education of Spanish-speaking students, the Chairman of the Texas Education Agency told state legislators, English language experts and educators that he will not allow time to analyze the proposed changes to see if they are appropriate, let alone time for changes to the standards.
In short, McLeroy told Texas Hispanics to “drop dead.”
Board chairman Don McLeroy insisted that major changes to the proposed updates are no longer possible. Advocates say the standards need opinions from experts who have researched Hispanic children and understand their learning styles.
“There is no way that ignoring such a sizable chunk of this population from consideration of education policy will do anything but harm the opportunity of a generation,” Herrero said.
McLeroy said there had been plenty of time for experts to weigh in earlier on new curriculum standards. He said he was shocked by accusations that he and others board members are trying to shortchange Hispanic students.
“There’s no malice at all, none, zip, nada. There’s just no time to get another expert in,” McLeroy said. “None of us would do anything to hurt any group of children or any (individual) child. What we want is for them to be successful in the English language because it’s so important.”
In the latest of a string of politically charged bulldozings, McLeroy is pushing standards substituted at the last minute for standards Texas educators had worked on for three years. McLeroy hired a political consulting group to rewrite the standards and substituted the rewrite in a meeting earlier this year (you’ll see my bias when you read the story in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram). Educators, parents, legislators and community leaders criticized the action for disregarding the educational needs of Texas students.
“It’s just ignorance on their part,” said Mary Helen Berlanga, a 26-year board member from Corpus Christi.
The board is set to take a preliminary vote March 27 on the new English language arts and readings standards, which will influence new textbooks for the 2009-10 school year.
A four-member board subcommittee signaled its intent Wednesday to stick with that schedule after state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, pleaded to let Latino experts review the standards first.
McLeroy is flexing never-tried-before political muscles in a series of changes at TEA. Last year he led the SBOE to arbitrarily reject a math book by a major publisher, daring legal action, hoping he could finally win a case establishing that the board can reject books on political grounds. Biology books are due for a review in the near future, and science and biology standards will be rewritten before that process.
Moving against Hispanic students on the English standards, if successful, would tend to demonstrate that Texas educato needs to dance to the red book writings of Chairman McLeroy. While 47% of Texas public school students are Hispanic, Hispanic voters have generally packed less clout.
McLeroy appears to be counting on Obama and Clinton Democrats to demonstrate apathy again near the general election. If election numbers from the March primary hold up, McLeroy will remain chairman of the SBOE, but the legislature will be likely to shift against many of the actions he’s pushed since assuming the chair, and may turn antagonistically Democratic.
The stakes are higher for Texas students.
Critics of the process asked the subcommittee to allow an expert in Hispanic culture and language to assess the proposed new standards before a preliminary vote next week by the full education board.
The four-member subcommittee that worked on the curriculum did not include anyone of Hispanic descent, or anyone from South or West Texas, and critics said the committee did not seek advice from anyone with expertise in Hispanic language or culture.
Statewide, 47 percent of the more than 4.6 million public school students are Hispanic. Eighty-nine percent of El Paso County’s 173,000 students are Hispanic.
According to the Texas Education Agency, about 16 percent of students statewide and about 28 percent of students in El Paso County in 2006 had limited English proficiency.
Resources:
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2 Comments | Books, Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Evolution, Literature, Politics, Public education, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, War on Education | Tagged: Education, English, McLeroy, Politics, SBOE, State testing, TEKS, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 14, 2008
“Expelled!” producers gave away free tickets. They invited legislators personally. But only about 100 people showed up for an IMAX showing of the movie in Tallahassee, Florida.
Hey, I got 1,000 times that many people to click on an 8-frame .gif animation of an ancient goat. Real science trumps creationism again.
Real science is almost always more popular than faux-science and bad religion, but that will not stop creationists from creating trouble in any state agency in any state they can.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula.
[Yes, I’m aware of the historical implications of the headline.]
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 5, 2008
Attention focused on one usually-obscure race for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education helped Republican Pat Hardy turn back a malicious challenge. Hardy won her primary against secretive Barney Maddox, a urologist who spent a lot of money on specifically-targeted mailings, but who also refused to speak with reporters or anyone else asking questions.
Showing just how odd and treacherous is the situation in Texas, Hardy got assists from science bloggers across the nation, though her position on science is far from what science advocates would like. Hardy’s genial “don’t gut the textbooks” stand was preferred to Maddox’s mad-dog, teach-creationism-in-science position.
Maddox refused to comment on the election, of course.
Hardy’s district includes parts of Ft. Worth and surrounding counties. According to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram:
State Board of Education
Social conservatives failed in their attempt to take control of the State Board of Education on Tuesday when incumbent Pat Hardy of Fort Worth retained her seat against a challenge from Cleburne’s Barney Maddox.
Hardy, a career educator, has been a moderate voice on the board. The 15-member body still shows a close ideological split, but Hardy has helped keep it on a straight path.
The board’s powers come from its ability to influence the public school curriculum and the selection of textbooks. District 11covers about three-fourths of Tarrant County, plus all of Ellis, Johnson and Parker counties. There is no Democratic nominee for this seat in the November election.
Maddox’s entry in the race had set the stage for debate over the scientific theory of evolution, which he has described as “fairy tales.” Hardy took a better course: Teach kids about all theories, she said, from creation to evolution, and give them enough information to make up their own minds about what to believe.
Spoken like a teacher — and a person who should hold a seat on the State Board of Education
Tip of the old scrub brush to reader Ediacaran. Thanks, Bret.
Update: News specific to this race from the Fort Worth paper.
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5 Comments | Creationism, Education, Elections, Evolution, Politics, Science, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: 2008 campaign, Creationism, Education, Elections, Evolution, Science, Texas State School Board | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 21, 2008
From Rob Dillon, president of South Carolinians for Science Education:
Creationism is a doctrine to which I, like most Christians, do not subscribe. It springs from a wrong understanding of the Word of God. And anybody who thinks he or she is going to impose his own personal narrow, vain, idolatrous doctrine on the children of this state as they sit helpless in their tenth grade Biology classrooms will have a fight on his hands. Again.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 14, 2008
Florida may be ahead in the race to see which state can get slapped down first for illegally denying science to students in public school science classes. The problem in national, however.
It’s not always a question of setting standards. Sometimes teachers are told to dumb down classes, regardless the standards. Fort Bend County, Texas, offers an example: “Religious Beliefs Trump Thinking In Our Schools.”
No, Fort Bend County is not in rural, far west Texas. It’s just southeast of Houston, Texas’ biggest city.
Be sure to scan the comments, too.
Belated tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 8, 2008
The Houston Chronicle continues its campaign for good education and high education standards, with another editorial taking a stand for evolution over the frivolity pending before two different education agencies in Texas government.
Publication of a call to arms labs and books by 17 different national organizations of scholars gave the Chronicle a spot to tee off:
A coalition of 17 science groups, among them the National Academy of Sciences, has just issued a call for their members to engage more in the science education process — including explaining evolution.
The coalition warns in this month’s issue of the FASEB Journal (the acronym stands for Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) that today’s muddling of scientific education with unscientific alternatives such as creationism weakens Americans’ grasp of the concepts on which science is based.
Texas creationists should be feeling the heat. Hundreds of Texas Ph.D. biologists have called the agencies to task for considering shorting evolution; Texas newspapers that have spoken out, all favor evolution as good pedagogy because it’s good science. The National Academy of Sciences published its updated call for tough standards and explaining why creationism is soft, and wrong. The experts all agree: No junk science, no voodoo science, so, no creationism in science classes.
Should be feeling the heat. Are they?
Look at the comments on the editorial at the Chronicle’s site.
Also see, or hear:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 3, 2008
P. Z. Myers tells us to tune in to a Houston radio station (and he’s in Minnesota, so it must be important to come from so far away):
I was just notified that one of the people working for Texas Citizens for Science (the good guys) will be discussing the Chris Comer incident with someone from the Texas Freedom Network (more good guys). It doesn’t sound like there will be a lot of drama and confrontation, but there will be information and an opportunity to see the decent, intelligent side of Texas represented.
Thresholds’ host George Reiter will be interviewing Steven Schafersman, President of Texas Citizens for Science, and Dan Quinn, communications director for the Texas Freedom Network, on the politics in Texas that led up firing of Chris Comer, director of science at the Texas Education Agency for ‘misconduct and insubordination’ and of ‘siding against creationism and the doctrine that life is the product of ‘intelligent design.’ The show is on KPFT, Houston, 90.1 FM, from 11am-12noon this Thursday, Jan 3, 2008. It can be picked up live on the website, http://www.KPFT.org.
And in his comments, this one is rather vital:
That’s 9 am Pacific, 10 am Mountain, 11 am Central, noon Eastern. Wherever you are, you can go to http://www.kpft.org and click on the ‘listen now’ button.
The host (G. Reiter) is also a professor of physics at U. of Houston and so presumably knows a thing or two about science. (I’m his postdoc, but that might not be much of an endorsement.)
Listen and learn!
Update: You may download the program for a limited time, in MP3 format, from the radio station’s website.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 28, 2007
Ouch!
From the Philadelphia Daily News, an opinion article by a Temple University staff member who teaches math and science education:
Textbook lesson in creationism
By GLORIA C. ENDRES
JUST mentioning a controversial name in an office e-mail can cost you your job in a narrow-minded place like Texas. The Texas Education Agency oversees instructional material and textbooks for the state’s public schools. Recently, Christine Comer, director of science curriculums for the agency, dared to forward an e-mail to colleagues informing them that author and activist Barbara Forrest was to give a talk on her book “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design.”
For this simple communication, Comer was rebuked in a way that forced her to resign. According to the TEA, she had committed, among other fatuous charges, the unforgivable transgression of taking sides in the creation science/ evolution debate.
Score one for the flat-earthers.
Score one for building a reputation for Texas, TEA!
Is that the reputation we want?
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 