Creationists make stealth bid to takeover Texas education board

February 28, 2008

Sane members of the Texas State Board of Education hold a slim majority over scripture-at-any-cost-in-science-books creationists.

Creationists are hammering away to defeat at least two incumbent board members to tip the balance, in classic stealth campaigns where they hide their intentions and spend oodles of money hoping to do evil by catching most voters asleep.  The creationists are campaigning to beat conservative, religious Baptists, because the Baptists are “too liberal” on evolution. 

Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow presents the facts in the State Education District 11 race, where a secretive urologist who patterns his campaign tactics after Kim Jong Il is outspending the sane incumbent at least $12 to $1.  The entire column is below the fold.

District 11 includes most of Tarrant County (Fort Worth), and Parker, Ellis and Johnson counties.

Social studies is also at risk here:  The stealth candidate, Barney Maddox, is making false claims against Texas social studies teachers and Texas social studies books, especially history books.  The guy looks like an ill-informed nutcase, and he has a good chance of winning.

For example, the campaign flier says: “Barney Maddox believes social studies textbooks should devote more space to American presidents than Marilyn Monroe and that the vicious attack of 9-11 should be portrayed as an aggressive act by terrorists, not an American conspiracy.”

Marilyn Monroe makes no appearance in some books; presidents get 100 times more space in any book you choose.  No book portrays 9-11 as an American conspiracy.  The man campaigns like your standard, wild-eyed nutcase.

Call, write and e-mail everyone you know in Texas to warn them to vote against Barney Maddox, and for Pat Hardy, in the District 11 State School Board race.  Your friends may not live in that district, but they should know.  There are other racess with similar problems.  

Early voting in this primary ends tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.  Tuesday, March 4,  is election day.

Blow’s column, below the fold.

While you’re working at making the world safe for science, wander over to the Texas Freedom Network’s site, and sign the petition saying you’ll stand up for science.  Tell ’em Ed sent you.

Read the rest of this entry »

20 Comments | Accuracy, Campaigns, Creationism, Ethics, Politics, TAKS, Texas, Textbooks, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Meanwhile, back at the school: Carnival!

February 17, 2008

I always loved school carnivals. The elementary school versions always featured silly games and activities to appeal to kids of third grade mentality — right up my alley! Then I joined the PTA board at our kids’ elementary, and saw the numbers. The annual carnival took in several tens of thousands of dollars. A lot of that money bought new library books, some bought new science programs, all of it went for better education.

I really like a well-run carnival now.  Here are a few well-run carnival events.

Carnival of the Liberals #58 flew to England, at Liberal England. Double the posts, ten from England, ten from the Americas.  Geography and history teachers might be particularly interested in a post at Pickled Politics on whether Australia’s government will follow up with real action following their official apology to the continent’s aboriginals, for past mistreatment.

Will I ever catch up with the Carnival of Education? Teachers ought to browse this weekly — I haven’t looked at it weekly in the past month. Let’s go back to #155: Bluebird’s Classroom has a post about a teachable moment, involving her unit on weather, and the tornado warning that popped up during class. Pay particular attention to her use of the LCD projector and live television link. Odds are that your classroom can’t support such teaching, as mine cannot right now.

Hot 4 Teacher candy

The rest of Carnival of Education #155 plays out at Median Sib. But I’m much farther behind. #156 resides at Creating Lifelong Learners. #157 can be found at Colossus of Rhodey. #158 moves in at Instructify. That one features this post (from Creating Lifelong Learners) about using your iPod in class to high purpose. I’ll wager there is not a school of education in the U.S. that teaches iPod use as a tool of classroom control and educational excellence. This is why we need to read these on-line collections. (“Hot 4 Teacher” graphic borrowed from Instructify.)

2 Comments | Anthropology, Education, Education blogs, Education quality, History, Justice, Politics, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, War on Education, Weblogs | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Embarrassing lure of creationism

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.

Graham Owen's caddis fly fishing lure, mistaken by Adnan Oktar for a live fly

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.

213 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Plagiarism, Public education, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Textbook Selection, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Choose wisdom, choose science: Sandefur savages TEA position against evolution

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.

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: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Moment of silence legal, not enforced

January 27, 2008

Adding legal irony to the Texas legislature’s running from education problems in the state, a federal court in Dallas upheld the state’s “moment of silence” law a few weeks ago, saying it is not an illegal establishment of religion. The fact that many or most of the students in the state refuse to follow the law earned no mention in the decision.

It’s more shooting at education and educators in the continuing War on Education.

So the law is legal, but largely unenforced, and maybe unenforceable. The law is on the books. I have yet to find a school in Texas that is ambitious about enforcing the law. A suggestion that kids should “honor a moment of silence” is often met with laughter, and generally met with conversations and actions that do anything but follow the law. The lesson the kids take away is that laws can be flouted, or maybe that they should be flouted. I’m imagining a bit — I don’t know what lesson the kids are taking away. The Texas moment of silence is not honored by students in many schools; administrators are reluctant to enforce it with any disciplinary action. Students are not learning respect for religion, nor respect for any God. Sadly, they’re not learning respect for others’ faiths, either.

Teachers are charged with assuring compliance with the law. The legislature decided not to punish students for disobeying it, but instead hold teachers responsible for making sure students obey it.

I imagine the defenders of the law, including Kelly Shackleford at Plano’s Liberty Legal Institute, think this law is a boon to faith. It seems to function much as the establishment laws in Europe, however: It discourages kids from making their faith their own, discourages an honoring of faith, and ultimately pushes kids out of the pews. Students do not think the moment is anything other than a time for prayer in my experience. Some schools get around much trouble by making the legally required minute last about 15 seconds.

There’s no law on the books that says legislators and judges must be intelligent and show common sense. One wishes they would use common sense once in a while. Mark Twain noted that God goofed in prohibiting the apple to Adam; God should have prohibited the snake, then Adam would have eaten it instead, Twain said. In this case, the legislature has prohibited talking. Guess what happens.

Plaintiffs plan to appeal according to David Wallace Croft, the chief plaintiff, at his blog. Teachers and students are stuck with the law as it is (see the actual opinion), an embarrassing moment in the day. According to an Associated Press story in the Houston Chronicle:

David and Shannon Croft filed their initial lawsuit after they said one of their children was told by an elementary schoolteacher to keep quiet because the minute is a “time for prayer.” The complaint, filed in 2006, named Gov. Rick Perry and the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, which the Crofts’ three children attended in the suburbs of Dallas.

District Judge Barbara Lynn upheld the constitutionality of the law earlier this month, concluding that “the primary effect of the statute is to institute a moment of silence, not to advance or inhibit religion.”

Resources:

Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Education, Education reform, First Amendment, Religion, School prayer, Texas Lege, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

BBC’s Horizon: Intelligent design a threat to science

January 26, 2008

Greg Laden’s Blog noted the program on intelligent design from Horizon, a BBC Two series somewhat similar to PBS’s NOVA, but without political shackles.

A YouTube video exists (below); and the Horizon website has some text and several useful links — and a picture of Bill Dembski doing his best Big Jule routine.

Horizon also reported on global dimming — no, that’s not what happens to intelligence when intelligent design is taught. At least, not yet.

Sheesh! Are creationists in Texas feeling the heat yet?

5 Comments | Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Why eugenics doesn’t work

January 25, 2008

Dog and cat breeders, pigeon fanciers, racehorse breeders, and others whose livelihoods depend on their trying to do better than nature at the Darwinian game often offer anecdotes about breeding failures. They thought they might get a faster horse, but they got a skittish one instead; they thought they were getting a good bird dog, but the dog would panic at the shot of a gun.

Breeders know genetics carry a lot of traits, and trying to select for one is difficult. One may amplify a bad trait in addition to the desired trait.

In short, as the actors told us in the old Chiffon Margarine advertisements, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, and not always easy.

Enron tilted E sign, Associated Press photo

In one classic paper that more critics of Darwin should read, researchers discovered that instead of getting better egg production, they got mean chickens that damaged production of the entire flock.

Adam Lerymenko at Greythumb.blog notes the paper, and notes how the phenomenon was demonstrated among humans at the now-failed and discredited Enron Corp. (While informative, the piece may not be wholly safe for profanity filters in schools; the comments may be a problem, too.)

One of my favorite papers in evolutionary biology, which I have mentioned here before, is this:

Muir, W.M., and D.L. Liggett, 1995a. Group selection for adaptation to multiple-hen cages: selection program and responses. Poultry Sci. 74: s1:101

It outlines the group selection effects observed when trying to breed chickens for increased egg production in multiple-hen cage environments. In short, selecting individual chickens for increased productivity in a group environment didn’t select for increased productivity. Instead, it selected for mean chickens. The result was an overall reduction in productivity. Only by selecting at the group level was productivity increased.

The topic is a worthy one for discussion in economics courses, especially with regard to incentives for certain behaviors.

There is this caution: Adam notes that Enron annually fired the “bottom 10%” as a matter of policy, trying to encourage everyone else to work harder, trying to reward productive people, trying to prune deadwood from the corporate vine. At one point, some divisions of GE Corp. would purge the bottom 25%. That’s even more intensive selective pressures, for evil as well as good.

W. Edwards Deming was right, in his 14-point program for getting quality production from corporations and other organizations. He said no corporation ever appears to get it right when they select individuals to blame for problems with annual performance reviews, rather than working to improve processes to improve quality of their products. (See Point 12)

And when legislators try to purge education of bad teachers? Can they possibly hope to get anything but mean chickens? Economists indict our reliance on standardized tests of students.

So much to learn, so many a–holes.

Resources:

Photo: Enron tilted E sign from the Houston headquarters; Associated Press photo via ABC News, January 22, 2008.

Leave a Comment » | Business, Business Ethics, Capitalism, Darwin, Economics, Education quality, Ethics, Evolution, psychology, Science, Teaching, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A Warren Chisum special: Bill gives Texas kids “right” to Bible classes

January 8, 2008

Cleaning up the mess left by the Texas Lege: Texas kids need help on history, Texas history, math, English and science, according to test scores. Texas colleges are fighting a wave of kids who graduate high school and head off to college without the key tools they need in writing and calculating.Texas Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa

But Republican state Rep. Warren Chisum has awarded them a “right” to get a Bible class, the better to avoid preparation for college, I suppose. No kidding.

Molly Ivins’ Ghost is pounding on your door trying to get your attention. From the San Antonio Express:

A new law soon will require all Texas public school districts to offer a Bible as Literature course if 15 or more students express interest, but one San Antonio public school has been offering such a course for more than 30 years.

Churchill High School in the North East Independent School District has offered the Bible as Literature since the 1970s, when English teacher Frances Everidge pioneered the course. Last year, Reagan High School, also in the NEISD, added one. New Braunfels High School has offered the course for a year, and Seguin High School will begin offering it in the fall.

Last spring, the Legislature passed House Bill 1287, along with two other bills regarding religion in public schools. HB 1287, which Gov. Rick Perry signed into law last summer, states that all school districts must offer the course as an elective at the high school level by the 2009-10 school year.

Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee the bill’s author, said that if 15 or more students express interest in the Bible as Literature course, districts must offer it.

School districts may not be able to provide the mathematics instruction kids need, but — By God! — they must provide instruction in the Bible.

If Warren Chisum were not real, Norman Lear, William Faulkner, the Coen brothers and the screenwriters for “Deliverance” couldn’t dream him up.

Chisum is at least up front about his bigotry against science, math, literature and other faiths:

Because the law requires a school district to offer the Bible as literature course if 15 or more students express interest, what if 15 or more students express interest in the Koran or any other religious text?

“The bill applies to the Bible as a text that has historical and literary value,” Chisum said. “It can’t go off into other religious philosophies because then it would be teaching religion, when the course is meant to teach literature. Koran is a religious philosophy, not of historical or literary value, which is what the Bible is being taught for.”

One marvels at the coincidence that Chisum never had to take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) — with history chops like that, it’s unlikely he could pass the test every high school kid must. (There is neither an education nor intelligence requirement to serve in the Texas legislature.)

I was unaware of the mandatory nature happy to hear the mandatory part had been stripped from of Chisum’s Folly. Nothing like a drunken-sailor-spending unfunded mandate from the legislature. Charles Darwin at least supported Sunday school classes with his personal fortune. Warren Chisum doesn’t have such ethics — he’s stealing the money from your property tax contributions to do it, while stealing education from the kids.

We need one of those New Yorker cartoons with some sage carrying a sign, “The End is Near.”

Cynical tip of the old scrub brush to Texas Ed Spectator (the blog formerly known as TexasEd, now in a new home)

11 Comments | Education quality, Literature, Molly Ivins' Ghost, Rampant stupidity, TEKS, Texas, Texas Lege, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas’ face should be creationism red

December 18, 2007

P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula has a couple of posts that shed light on part of the recent creationism eruptions in Texas.

The ICR affair is quite astounding: ICR plans to grant degrees in how to violate the Constitution as an educator, and they’re asking Texas to approve it. So far, the approval is on a fast track.

What’s next? Perhaps one of the A&M campuses could start a program on marijuana farming; approval would come from the State of Texas on the basis that all the agricultural stuff is top notch — great course in fertilizing, fantastic stuff on grow lights, wonderful course on marketing agricultural products through ad hoc distribution channels, or through viral marketing.

Okay, that sounds crazy. Now tell me, what’s different about a creationism course? It only violates a different law.

This fight is just warming up. Texas Citizens for Science is in the thick of it. You should be writing to your legislators and to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board:

Third, we need to write to Dr. Raymund A. Paredes, the Commissioner of the THECB to express our disgust at how this process has been handled so far, and to object to granting ICR the Certification it desires. The address is:

Dr. Raymund A. Paredes, Commissioner
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
P.O. Box 12788
Austin, TX 78711-2788

One more chapter in the War on Science, the War on Education — one more time to stand firm for reason against stupidity.

Other resources:

5 Comments | Creationism, Education quality, Higher education, Law, Rampant stupidity, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Crazies promise to abandon California public schools?

October 21, 2007

No, the news is not that good, really. It’s not really news, either. WorldNet Daily, an on-line publication of borderline sanity, may have left the border.

If only it were a promise, instead of a “call to abandon the schools.”

“We’re calling upon every California parent to pull their child out of California’s public school system,” Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, told WND.

“The so-called ‘public schools’ are no longer a safe emotional environment for children. Under the new law, schoolchildren as young as kindergarten will be sexually indoctrinated and introduced to homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality, over the protests of parents, teachers and even school districts,” he said.

The law at issue went through the California legislature as SB 777, and now bans in school texts and activities any discriminatory bias against those who have chosen alternative sexual lifestyles, Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for Capitol Resource Institute, said.

There are no similar protections for students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs, however. Offenders will face the wrath of the state Department of Education, up to and including lawsuits.

“So-called ‘public schools?'”

Below the fold, the full text of the law. You’ll note, Dear Reader, that the law includes protections for “students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs,” under the prohibition of discrimination on the bases of religion or sexual orientation, “or any other characteristic contained in the definition of hate crimes that is contained in the Penal Code.”

The new law will make it a crime to bully homosexual kids. Is that the real reason WND is worried about the bill, that it makes bullying a crime?

Why would anyone want to defend a right to bully kids? The purpose of the law is clear, from its purpose clause:

Existing law states that it is the policy of the state to afford equal rights and opportunities to all persons in the public or private elementary and secondary schools and postsecondary educational institutions of the state regardless of their sex, ethnic group identification, race, national origin, religion, or mental or physical disability and prohibits a person from being subjected to discrimination on those bases and contains various provisions to implement that policy.

Existing law prohibits a teacher from giving instruction, and a school district from sponsoring any activity, that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, sex, color, creed, handicap, national origin, or ancestry.

This bill would revise the list of prohibited bases of discrimination and the kinds of prohibited instruction and activities and, instead, would refer to disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic contained in the definition of hate crimes that is contained in the Penal Code. The bill would define disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation for this purpose.

Would you pull your kid out of a public school because she doesn’t have a right to bully anybody?

Critics of the bill object even to correcting English usage on forms asking information about students; forms may now ask “gender” rather than the more gauche “sex.” California’s Catholics for the Common Good found that correction a threat, somehow:

“Who knows what the consequences would be of deleting the definition of ‘sex’ of a child as a biological fact and replace it with ‘gender,’ a subjective term to be determined by the student. The legislature never investigated the cost of accommodating student preferences for lavatory and locker room facilities.” Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Civil Rights, History, Law, Public education, Rampant stupidity, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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