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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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 11, 2008
Reminder: Dr. Barbara Forrest, the noted science historian whose testimony was key to the decision in the Dover, Pennsylvania, evolution trial, is speaking at 6:00 p.m. at SMU tonight, November 11, 2008.
If you’re in Dallas, go.
Also, I got word today that Texas teachers can pick up CEU credits for this event, sponsored by the science and philosophy departments at SMU together with the Texas Freedom Network. Check in at the registration table.
Forrest’s presentation will serve as a warning to Texas: “Why Texans Shouldn’t Let Creationists Mess with Science Education.”
The event is at the Hughes-Trigg Student Center, in the Hughes-Trigg Theatre (map with free parking shown) — more details at the Texas Freedom Network site.
Hope to see you there.
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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
October 24, 2008
Physics Nobelist takes stand on evolution
“By the same standards that are used in the courts, I think it is your responsibility to judge that it is the theory of evolution through natural selection that has won general scientific acceptance. And therefore, it should be presented to students as the consensus view of science, without any alternatives being presented.”
–Dr. Steven Weinberg
[After the 2003 round of hearings on biology textbooks for Texas schools, I edited from the transcript of the hearings before the Texas State Board of Education the short speech made by Stephen Weinberg, who graciously joined in the fight for science, and shipped the remarks to anyone who wanted them. The American Institute for Physics (AIP) put Dr. Weinberg’s remarks up on the web — here they are. Something to think about now that the SBOE has stacked the science standards writing group with creationists unqualified in almost all sciences.
For the record, for your edification, for the advancement of truth in the fight for science, justice and the American Way:]
The following is a transcript of testimony to the Texas State Board of Education. Dr. Steven Weinberg, professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin and a Nobel prize winner for electroweak theory, addresses the Board.
DR. WEINBERG: Thank you. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. I should say at the outset that I haven’t read the textbooks in question and I’m not a biologist.
Stephen Weinberg
My Nobel Prize is not in biology, but is in physics. But I have been a physicist for a long time. And I think I have a good sense of how science works. It doesn’t deal with certainties. We don’t register things as facts that we have to swear allegiance to.
But as mathematics and experiment progress, certain bodies of understanding become as sure as anything reasonably can be. They attract an overwhelming consensus of acceptance within the scientific community. They are what we teach our students.
And the most important thing of all, since our time is so precious to us, they are what we assume as true when we do our own work. Evolution — the theory of evolution through natural selection has certainly reached that status as a consensus.
I’ve been through these issues not very much professionally in recent years, but I was on a panel of the National Academy of Sciences some years ago that reviewed these issues in order to prepare an amicus brief in a similar argument that was taking place in Arkansas at that time. At that time, it had reached the courts. We know that there is such a thing as inheritable variations in animals and plants. And we know that these change through mutations. And it’s mathematically certain that as given inheritable variations, that you will have evolution toward greater adaptation. So that evolution through natural selection occurs can’t be in doubt.
As I understand it, many who want to put alternative theories into our textbooks argue that, although that may be true, we don’t know that that’s all that happens, that there is not some intelligent design that also assists the process of evolution. But that’s the wrong question. We can never know that there isn’t something beyond our theories. And that’s not just true with regard to evolution. That’s true with regard to everything.
We don’t know that the theory of physics, as it’s currently understood, correctly accounts for everything in the solar system. How could we? It’s too complicated. We don’t understand the motion of every asteroid in the asteroid belts. Some of them really are doing very complicated things. Do we know that no angel tips the scales toward one asteroid moving a little but further than it otherwise would have in a certain time? No, we can never know.
What we have to do is keep comparing what we observe with our theories and keep verifying that the theories work, trying to explain more and more. That’s what’s happened with evolution and it continues to be successful. There is not one thing that is known to be inexplicable through evolution by natural selection, which is not the same as saying that everything has been explained, because it never will be. The same applies to the weather or the solar system or what have you.
But I can say this, and many of the peak scientists here will have said, I am sure, the same thing. You must be bored hearing this again and again. But how can you judge? I’m not a biologist, you’re not biologists.
There is a natural answer which is very congenial to the American spirit, I think. And that is, well, let the students judge. Why shouldn’t they have the chance to judge these issues by themselves? And that, I think, is the argument that many are making.
But judge what? Judge the correctness of evolution through natural selection? Judge the correctness of Newton’s law or the conservation of energy or the fact that the Earth is round rather than flat? Where do we draw the line between the issues that we leave open to the student’s judgment and the issues that we teach as reasonably accepted scientific facts, consensus theories?
The courts face a similar question. They often are presented with testimony or testimony is offered, for example, that someone knows that a certain crime wasn’t committed because he has psychic powers or someone sues someone in tort because he’s been injured by witchcraft. The Court does not allow — according to current doctrines, the Court does not allow those arguments to go to the jury because the Court would not be doing its job. The Court must decide that those things are not science. And the way the Court does is by asking: What — do these ideas have general scientific acceptance? Does witchcraft have general scientific acceptance? Well, clearly, it doesn’t. And those — that testimony will not be allowed to go to the jury.
How then can we allow ideas which don’t have general scientific acceptance to go to high school students, not an adult jury? If we do, we are not — or you are not doing your job of deciding what is there that is controversial. And that might be an interesting subject to be discussed, as for example the rate of evolution, the question of whether it’s smooth, punctuated by jumps or whether it’s — or whether it’s just gradual. These are interesting questions which are still controversial which could go to students and give them a chance to exercise their judgment.
But you’re not doing your job if you let a question like the validity of evolution through natural selection go to the students, anymore than a judge is doing his job or her job if he or she allows the question of witchcraft to go to the jury. And why this particular issue of evolution? Why not the round Earth or Newton’s theory or Copernicus, the Earth goes around the sun? Well, I think it’s rather disingenuous to say that this is simply because there’s a real scientific conflict here, because there is no more of a scientific conflict than with those issues.
I do get involved in this issue. I think it’s clear that the reason why the issue was raised with regard to evolution is because of an attempt to preserve religious beliefs against the possible impact of the theory of evolution.
I don’t think teachers have any business either preserving religious beliefs or attacking religious beliefs. I think they should teach science.
And science, as the courts understand it, in that other context, is what is generally accepted by scientists. And what is the evidence that evolution through natural selection is generally accepted through science? I don’t think — general acceptance doesn’t mean unanimity.
I know there are Ph.D. scientists who take an opposite view.
There’s not one member of the National Academy of Sciences who does.
There’s not one winner of the National Medal of Science who does.
There’s not one Nobel Laureate in biology who takes the view that there’s any question about the validity of the theory of evolution through natural selection or that there is any alternative theory that’s worth discussing.
So by the same standards that are used in the courts, I think it is your responsibility to judge that it is the theory of evolution through natural selection that has won general scientific acceptance. And therefore, it should be presented to students as the consensus view of science, without any alternatives being presented.
Thank you very much.
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3 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Evolution, History, Politics, Public education, Science, Texas, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Creationism, Evolution, Politics, Science, Stephen Weinberg, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 8, 2008
Among other issues I’ve not followed closely on the blog due to a way too-busy summer is the issue of teaching the Bible in Texas public schools. The Texas Lege, failing to get a contract with Comedy Central, passed a law that says every public school district in Texas “may” teach a course in the Bible if kids petition for it.
The bill had fancier, slightly more legal language, but was just about that ambiguous (having drafted my first federal law <cough>34</cough> years ago, and having written many amendments to state, federal and local laws, and having survived the rigorous legislative drafting course at George Washington, I feel qualified to complain about the problems in the law’s language).
Left hanging were answers to these questions:
- Who or what determines the curriculum for such a course?
- Does the law require the district to offer the class, when a request is made? For one student? For ten?
- Will the state provide money to offer the class, since every district in the state is under-funded?
- Will the State School Board authorize texts for the class, so individual districts don’t have to spring to buy the texts, even though the state fund is grossly underfunded and text purchases in core areas like mathematics, science and English go begging?
The question about whether the law requires a course to be offered was bucked over to the Texas Attorney General’s office, but so far they have ducked the issue (if Greg Abbott were alive today, I’m sure they would have given a quicker answer so schools could prepare).
The question on whether the SBOE would offer guidance on curriculum was also answered in July. No.
About three dozen school districts in Texas’s 254 counties already offer courses in the Bible. Some have been sued for offering more of a Sunday school class, and they lost, or settled, by requiring real academic rigor.
What are the stakes?
Well, consider that Texas also has among the highest teen-age, school-girl pregnancy rates in the nation, which contributes mightily to a staggering drop out rate. Shouldn’t Texans be happy that kids can get instruction on Biblical history and its use as literature?
Well, have you read the Bible?
Christian Beyer, who blogs at Sharp Iron, noted in comments at John Shore’s blog, Suddenly Christian, in a thread about whether God cares if one is married or unmarried:
You know, I think you just might be right.
Anita over on her blog [Grace Unfolding] wrote an interesting article related to what you are saying, and she surprised the heck out of me with a new Biblical revelation (for me, anyway). The dude and the chick in Song of Songs (Song of Solomon?), even though they ended up in the sack, were NOT MARRIED! [bolding and link added]
http://www.sisterfriends-together.org/gay-okay-sex-no-way/
I never really cared for the Song of Songs before – too many Christian guys quoting it to me when they bragged about how ‘Godly’ their marriage was and how the Holy Spirit was giving their sex life a boost. Puh-leese! Breasts like fawns? What’s next – thigh’s like calves? (Wait a minute… )
How will this play in Crawford, Beaumont, Pleasant Grove, Crockett or Paris? Oh, my.
So far the SBOE has gone with a “teach the controversy” philosophy in science. Turnabout is fair play, no?
Additional resources:
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10 Comments | Education, Politics, Public education, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Bible Classes, Education, public schools, Religion, Teach the Controversy, Texas, Texas Freedom Network | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 17, 2008
The kid in Kearny, New Jersey, who caught his U.S. history teacher peddling religion instead, is at it again.
This time he’s targeting a textbook on government — and it happens to be one written by the most right wing of the semi-mainstream government text writers.
Education Gadfly has the story here, with the Official Fordham Foundation cynicism at anyone who professes to be the the left of Ayn Rand (it’s an endearing cynicism, really — it makes the stuff much more readable, and it indicates that there is gray matter in action behind the comments). CNBC has the Associated Press story here.
Matthew LaClair complains about the book’s slant on climate change and church-state relations — two hot-button issues, to be sure. One wonders why a government text has any view on climate change, and one wonders how anyone could get the church-state thing wrong without criminal intent — but go see for yourself. LaClair, you recall, recorded his U.S. history teacher going on about the glories of Christianity, and blew the whistle. For that Matthew got slapped around unjustly in the local media. He was correct, before, about church state relations, so we might cut him some slack on this complaint.
Read it all; and remember to trust your textbooks no farther than you can throw them. The Bathtub tends to agree with the Gadfly that texts should be accurate, and that the selection processes for texts is out of hand (as defined by Diane Ravitch). But on the other hand, it appears to me that James Q. Wilson and John Dilulio, the authors of the text in question, got some things wrong. They can fix it, and do so with a smile.
Will they?
See also the other bias on the issue, from the Center for Inquiry — with a detailed critique.
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/
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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
February 16, 2008
You know the syndrome: Someone is caught in a scandal relating to sex, and then they take an offer to pose nude for pornography, and end up merely as a naked embarrassment to everybody.
Same syndrome, but mercifully, without the nudism (yet): Creationists taking it just a bit too far. Two examples.
Example 1: Don McLeroy, newly appointed to the chair of the Texas State Board of Education, was embarrassed by the release of tapes of a talk he gave in a church, demonstrating for anyone who didn’t already know that he’s opposed to teaching science in biology, especially if that science involves evolution. Bad enough?
He’s posted a transcript of the tape on his own website. It almost appears he’s hoping for an appointment as a “fellow” of the Discovery Institute.
McLeroy may have posted the transcript to try to correct a statement the transcripts say he made: “”Remember keep chipping away at the objective empirical evidence.”
At McLeroy’s website, it’s listed like this: “Remember keep chipping away with the objective empirical evidence.” It’s a subtle difference, but it suggests McLeroy is ill-informed enough that he thinks there may be evidence to support creationism, rather than devious enough to urge the denial of reality. Bob, at Hot Dogs, Pretzels and Perplexing Questions, wrote:
I’m not quite sure what to make of all this. Was it a Freudian slip? Did he innocently misspeak? Or could it be that he edited the text after the fact? Either way, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference. They have no objective empirical evidence of their own to chip away with, just the objective empirical evidence they stubbornly attempt to chip away at, and to no avail. I’ll leave the discovery of any other discrepancies as an exercise for the reader, at least for now.
McLeroy shows no desire to appear neutral, as employees of TEA are now required to be toward science — or “neutered” toward science, as one might say.
Example 2: McLeroy’s Islamist partner, Adnan Oktar ( aka “Harun Yahya”), is a continuing embarrassment. This isn’t news, but I stumbled across the actual images he pirated — and they are impressive.
The Atlas of Creation purports to show that no evolution has occurred between a few fossil forms and modern forms of animals — therefore, Oktar concludes in his book, evolution could not have occurred at all. Oktar couldn’t sell the book, so he sent copies of the thing to school libraries across Europe, and then to selected people and school libraries across North America.
The book is beautifully printed and bound, with hundreds of full color plates — it must have cost a fortune to produce.
And so, Oktar had to make economies somewhere. He chose to plagiarize photos and not bother with lawyers to procure rights to print the photos. He also chose to abandon the use of fact checkers, it appears.
And so we get embarrassments, like Oktar comparing this caddis fly, below, to one caught in amber, and concluding there’s been no evolution. The problem, as you can plainly see from the photo I borrow from Forbidden Music, is that the “living” example is actually a fishing lure; Oktar has plagiarized a photograph of one of Graham Owen’s wonderul fishing lures.
Jesus urged his followers to become “fishers of men.” McLeroy and Oktar have confused such imprecations, horribly, with the hoax P. T. Barnum line, that there’s a sucker born every minute.
Owen’s lures are designed to fool fish. If McLeroy and Oktar have their way, Texas school children may end up as ignorant as the fish, and as easily fooled.
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213 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Plagiarism, Public education, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Textbook Selection, War on Education | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Evolution, Plagiarism, Religion, Science, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 6, 2008
Must government agencies be “neutral” between science and non-science, between evolution and intelligent design?
The Texas Education Agency lost it’s long-time science curriculum expert Chris Comer last year in a sad incident in which Comer was criticized for siding with Texas education standards on evolution rather than remaining neutral between evolution and intelligent design.
Comes now Timothy Sandefur of the very conservative Pacific Legal Foundation with an article in the Chapman Law Review which argues that science is solid, a good way of determining good from bad, dross from gold. Plus, Sandefur refutes claims that evolution is religion, and so illegal in public schools. TEA’s position in the Comer affair is shown to be not defensible legally; Sandefur’s article also points out that the post-modern relativism of the TEA’s argument is damaging to the search for knowledge and freedom, too.
In short, Sandefur’s article demonstrates that the position of the Texas Education Agency is untenable in liberty and U.S. law.
Moreover, science is an essential part of the training for a free citizen because the values of scientific discourse — respect, freedom to dissent, and a demand for logical, reasoned arguments supported by evidence — create a common ground for people of diverse ethnicities and cultures. In a nation made up of people as different as we are, a commitment to tolerance and the search for empirically verifiable, logically established, objective truth suggests a path to peace and freedom. Our founding fathers understood this. Professor Sherry has said it well: “it is difficult to envision a civic republican polity — at least a polity with any diversity of viewpoints — without an emphasis on reason. . . . In a diverse society, no [definition of ‘the common good’] can develop without reasoned discourse.”
Science’s focus on empirical evidence and demonstrable theories is part of an Enlightenment legacy that made possible a peaceful and free society among diverse equals. Teaching that habit of mind is of the essence for keeping our civilization alive. To reject the existence of positive truth is to deny the possibility of common ground, to undermine the very purpose of scholarly, intellectual discourse, and to strike at the root of all that makes our values valuable and our society worthwhile. It goes Plato one better — it is the ignoble lie. At a time when Americans are threatened by an enemy that rejects science and reason, and demands respect for dog-mas entailing violence, persecution, and tyranny, nothing more deserves our attention than nourishing respect for reason.
III. CONCLUSION
The debate over evolution and creationism has raged for a long time, and will continue to do so. The science behind evolution is overwhelming and only continues to grow, but those who insist that evolution is false will continue to resist its promulgation in schools. The appeal to Postmo-dernism represents the most recent — and so far, the most desperate — attempt on the part of creationists to support their claim that the teaching of valid, empirically-tested, experimentally-confirmed science in government schools is somehow a violation of the Constitution. When shorn of its sophisticated-sounding language, however, this argument is beneath serious consideration. It essentially holds that truth is meaningless; that all ways of knowing — whether it be the scientist’s empirically tested, experimentally confirmed, well-documented theory, or the mumbo-jumbo of mystics, psychics, and shamans — are equally valid myths; and that government has no right to base its policies on solid evidence rather than supernatural conjurations. This argument has no support in epistemology, history, law, or common sense. It should simply not be heard again.
Chapman Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2008
Sandefur’s article is available online in .pdf format at the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
Is anyone at the Texas Education Agency listening?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
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1 Comment | Biology, Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Law, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Textbook Selection, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Biology, Creationism, Evolution, Junk science, Law, Politics, public schools, Religion, Science | 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.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
9 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Religion, Science, State school boards, Textbook Selection, Textbooks | Tagged: Education, Evolution, Religion, Science, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 20, 2008
Joe Lapp, from Austin, Texas, posted this review on Amazon.com of the National Academy of Science’s book Science, Evolution and Creationism. It’s worth reading, and repeating. Despite Joe’s criticism, the book is well worth your time to read; if you know about the example Joe uses, you’re ahead of the game.
Beneath the fold.
In addition to Amazon, the book is available for free download at the National Academy of Science’s site. It’s a great backgrounder for anyone interested in learning “what scientists say” about evolution and creationism, from our nation’s oldest and most trusted society of science advisors (Lincoln called on NAS for advice, and wise policy makers still do).
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1 Comment | Accuracy, Biology, Books, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education quality, Evolution, History, Natural history, Religion, Research, Science, TEKS, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, National Academy of Science, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 31, 2007
The Waco Tribune offered its editorial support to science, and evolution theory, today.
Texas education officials should be wary of efforts to insert faith-based religious beliefs into science classrooms.
* * * * *
Neither science nor evolution precludes a belief in God, but religion is not science and should not be taught in science classrooms.
Those are the opening and closing paragraphs. In between, the authors scold the Texas Education Agency for firing its science curriculum director rather than stand up for science, and cautions the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board against approving a course granting graduate degrees in creationism education.
Support for evolution and good science scoreboard so far: Over a hundred Texas biology professors, Texas Citizens for Science, Dallas Morning News, Waco Tribune . . . it’s a cinch more support will come from newspapers and scientists. I wonder whether the local chambers of commerce will catch on?
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5 Comments | Creationism, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, Science and faith, Separation of church and state, TAKS, TEKS, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Creationism, Evolution, Higher education, Religion, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 11, 2007
Leading biologists at several of Texas’s leading universities sent a letter to the Texas State Board of Education trying to scold the agency back onto the path of good science, in the wake of the firing scandal at the agency late last month. Laura Heinauer wrote in Homeroom, an education blog of the Austin American-Statesman:
More than 100 biology faculty from universities across Texas signed a letter sent Monday to Education Commissioner Robert Scott saying Texas Education Agency employees should not have to remain neutral on evolution.The letter is in response to the departure of former science curriculum director Chris Comer, who says she was forced to resign days after forwarding an e-mail her superiors said made the agency appear biased against the idea that life is a result of intelligent design.“I’m an evolutionary biologist, and I and many others simply feel that good evolution education is key to understanding biology as a whole,” said University of Texas professor Daniel Bolnick, who has been collecting signatures since last week.
More biologists from more Texas universities would have signed, probably, with more time allowed to gather signatures. Word I have is that the author and organizers wanted to get the letter delivered quickly.The letter was forceful, and stern in emphasizing the strength of scientific support for evolution theory, a rebuke to Commissioner Robert Scott’s political assistant, Lizzette Gonzales Reynolds:
It is inappropriate to expect the TEA’s director of science curriculum to “remain neutral” on this subject, any more than astronomy teachers should “remain neutral” about whether the Earth goes around the sun. In the world of science, evolution is equally well-supported and accepted as heliocentrism. Far from remaining neutral, it is the clear duty of the science staff at TEA and all other Texas educators to speak out unequivocally: evolution is a central pillar in any modern science education, while “intelligent design” is a religious idea that deserves no place in the science classroom at all.
A massive body of scientific evidence supports evolution. All working scientists agree that publication in top peer-reviewed journals is the scoreboard of modern science. A quick database search of scientific publications since 1975 shows 29,639 peer-reviewed scientific papers on evolution in twelve leading journals alone2. To put this in perspective, if you read 5 papers a day, every day, it would take you 16 years to read this body of original research. These tens of thousands of research papers on evolution provide overwhelming support for the common ancestry of living organisms and for the mechanisms of evolution including natural selection. In contrast, a search of the same database for “Intelligent Design” finds a mere 24 articles, every one of which is critical of intelligent design3. Given that evolution currently has a score of 29,639– while “intelligent design” has a score of exactly zero– it is absurd to expect the TEA’s director of science curriculum to “remain neutral” on this subject. In recognition of the overwhelming scientific support for evolution, evolution is taught without qualification– and intelligent design is omitted– at every secular and most sectarian universities in this country, including Baylor (Baptist), Notre Dame (Catholic), Texas Christian (Disciples of Christ) and Brigham Young (Mormon).
This last sentence is weaker than it needs to be. Evolution is taught at every major sectarian university in the U.S., including Southern Methodist University, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, all the Jesuit colleges and all other Catholic institutions, in addition to those named. It is only the rare, odd Bible college that may not teach evolution. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, which does not emphasize science, and the strictly fundamentalist, 19th century Bob Jones University are the only two I have been able to confirm who do not teach evolution in biology courses.
Be sure to check out the footnotes in the letter, too.
There is no serious college textbook available which uses a non-evolution model to explain biology.In 2003, when the Discovery Institute presented a letter to the Texas SBOE urging skepticism of evolution theory, and then misrepresented the letter as support for intelligent design, more than 100 professors at the University of Texas at Austin and more than 100 professors at Rice University wrote to support evolution. Texas’s four Nobel winners in Medicine or Physiology also called on TEA and the SBOE to emphasize evolution in textbooks. Physics Nobelist Steven Weinberg personally appeared at the citizen hearings on textbooks to stress the point.Texas’s top science scholars and researchers have been clear, consistently over the past decade.
It takes a particular form of political chutzpah and political hubris to ignore this unity of opinion among Texas’s leading researchers and teachers of biology. But Gov. Rick Perry’s recent appointment of arch-creationist Donald McLeroy to chair the SBOE, and the firing of science curriculum expert Chris Comer over her FYI e-mail alerting people to a speech by science philosopher Prof. Barbara Forrest, seem to have made most scientists nervous that the Texas SBOE is gearing up to get stupid again.
No comments from any State Board member, nor from the commissioner yet.
The story has been playing on Texas radio stations most of the day. It was picked up by major Texas newspapers, generally from the Associated Press wire:
- News story from the Austin American-Statesman
- Houston Chronicle
- KGBT Channel 4 News, Rio Grande Valley
- News blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education
- Waco Tribune (American-Statesman story, plus links to archives)
- Fort Worth Star-Telegram
- El Paso Times
- Dallas Morning News
- KRIS TV, Channel 6, Corpus Christi
- KLTV, Channel 7, Tyler/Longview/Jacksonville
- KTEN, Ardmore, Oklahoma
- KSWO, Lawton, Oklahoma/Wichita Falls, Texas
- KVIA, Channel 7, El Paso
- Wichita Falls Times-Record
See also:
One commenter at the American-Statesman site was happy to hear the news. “Big Fat Phil” wrote, “Hello, sanity. I missed you.”
The full text of the letter, and the full list of signers, is below the fold.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
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
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 