I wait in vain for a condemnation of Newton’s laws of motion, since they account for so many deaths in virtue of their description of how bullets, speeding automobiles, and the like generate so much energy of impact. F=MA must be immoral.
Why is it Darwin gets all the flack from fundamentalists, when it was Newton who pushed the angels out of the heavens, Hubble who peeked into the universe’s running without gods?
‘All they’ve done is make Alberta look like Northumberland and sound like Arkansas.’— Brian Mason, Alberta NDP leader
Oy. Canada has its own version of the Texas Lege.
Bill 44 represents a deep-seated resentment of education in the hearts of conservatives. It strikes at the purpose of education, to make students aware of society and other people. It suggests that some ideas are so dangerous they cannot be discussed, even to rebut.
Fears of parents and conservatives are real. Often what they fear is not real, or not a problem, or maybe even part of the solution. Can they come to understand that if they can’t even discuss the issues?
Molly Ivins’ untimely passing becomes acutely painful when the Texas Lege comes down to the last days of a session. Who can make sense of it without Molly?
The Bryan dentist has presided over a contentious 15-member State Board of Education that fought over curriculum standards for science earlier this year and English language arts and reading last year. Critics faulted McLeroy for applying his strong religious beliefs in shaping new science standards. McLeroy believes in creationism and that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.
“This particular State Board of Education under the leadership of Dr. McLeroy has been divisive. It’s been dysfunctional, and it has been embarrassing to the point of having commentary on this in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
McLeroy’s leadership, she said, had made Texas “the laughing stock of the nation.”
It takes 11 votes to block a gubernatorial nomination. Van de Putte said all 12 Senate Democrats plan to vote against McLeroy
If the nomination fails, it is still foggy as Donora, Pennsylvania on its worst days as to who will head the group. The chairman must come from one of the 15 elected members. Most people who might win Rick Perry’s selection are creationists. If Perry is wise, he’ll try to choose someone who is a capable administrator, wise chairman of hearings, and who lacks the desire to annoy key players in education, like administrators, teachers, parents, Texas college presidents and professors, and state legislators. Alas for Texas, Winston Churchill is not a member of the SBOE, nor is Mitt Romney.
The Senate rarely blocks a governor’s appointment.
There is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education Agency that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead the board. Like McLeroy, Dunbar also holds strong Christian beliefs and recently authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square.
“We believe that Texans deserve better than divisive, destructive, extreme leadership,” Shapleigh said. “If the governor chooses to appoint someone more extreme and more divisive, we’ll have to deal with that at the appropriate time.”
McLeroy’s tenure as chairman of SBOE is one of those waves we were warned about in 1983 lin the Excellence in Education Report, which warned of a “rising tide of mediocrity.” The divisions and crude politics, heavy-handed destruction of statutory and regulatory procedures, at best distracts from the drive for better education, but more often leans toward the worst, sabatoging the work of students, teachers, parents, administrators and legislatures.
Do you pray? Pray that Texas education be delivered safely and intact from this time of trial. Whether you pray or not, call your Texas legislator and tell her or him to straighten out the SBOE.
Texans, the information on finding your state representative and state senator are below — call them, today.
In a surprise move, the Senate has moved the nomination of Don McLeroy to the floor for an up-and-down vote.
McLeroy has ushered in a new era of bitter, partisan and divisive politics to the State Board of Education. In the past year he has insulted English teachers, citizens of Hispanic descent, unnecessarily gutted a good mathematics text from the approved list (just to show he can do it), and done his best to butcher science education standards for Texas. He suspended work on new social studies curricula because, in part, he doesn’t like the term “capitalism,” insisting on “free enterprise” instead, contrary to almost all scholarly writing on the topic.
The man is a menace to education. He uses wedge political issues to divide educators from parents, parents from schools, schools from the community, students from teachers, and education from propaganda.
In a surprise meeting on the Senate floor, the Senate Nominations Committee in Austin has just approved the appointment of Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. It appears that McLeroy’s supporters plan to bring his confirmation to the full Senate early next week. Confirmation will require a two-thirds vote.
Committee Chairman Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, had said he would not bring up McLeroy’s confirmation for a vote in committee unless he thought there were enough votes to get it in the full Senate. We don’t know at this point whether opposition from nearly all Democrats and some Republicans has softened, but the signs are alarming.
Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller has released the following statement:
“If the Texas Senate genuinely cares about quality public education, they will reject as state board chairman a man who apparently agrees that parents who want to teach their kids about evolution are monsters. And we’ll see whether senators really want a chairman who presides over a board that is so focused on ‘culture war’ battles that it has made Texas look like an educational backwater to the rest of the country.”
She’s being called Ida (EE-duh, to the Brits, EYE-duh to Bob Wills fans). How could you miss all the hype about her unveiling this week?
Science fans complain that the hype might be over done. Creationists appear a bit panicked by the developments.
Ida herself? She’s beautiful. Here’s an interview with Michael Novacek from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, carried on the public television news program World Focus.
Here’s a collection of British television stories on Ida, including David Attenborough’s animation of the reconstruction of her skeleton — some great graphics:
No real Texan would ever entertain the slightest doubt about the accuracy of evolution theory, once that Texan understood how evolution helps fight the imported Argentine fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. And, who could invent flies that turn the tiny ants into zombies as their larva eat the brains of the ants?
Evolution theory suggests that predators, or at least a parasite, exists for almost every species on Earth. Fire ants, though seemingly invincible (hence the species name, invicta), also have predators and parasites. Control of the ants may be a function of finding the right natural enemy of the ant.
Caption from TAES: As the egg of a new type of phorid fly develops inside the heads of red imported fire ants, it takes over the control of the host, said Dr. Scott Ludwig, Texas AgriLife Extension Service integrated pest management specialist. Ludwig released fire ants infested with the parasite at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Overton on April 29. (Texas AgriLife Extension photo by Robert Burns)
It sounds like something out of science fiction: zombie fire ants. But it’s all too real.
Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.
Eventually their heads fall off, and they die.
The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service say making “zombies” out of fire ants is a good thing.
“It’s a tool — they’re not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it’s a way to control their population,” said Scott Ludwig, an integrated pest management specialist with the AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas.
The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that there are as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens that attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.
But this day was different because a second year graduate student, Stanley Lloyd Miller, was speaking, and the room was full because the word had spread that something important was to be presented. In addition to the famous scientists and less famous but equally high-powered scientists was an undergraduate, Carl Sagan attending his first chemistry seminar. The topic was the synthesis of important biological compounds, using conditions thought to have existed on the primitive Earth.
Miller reported that by sending repeated electric sparks through a sealed flask containing a mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor, he had made some of the amino acids found in proteins. Perhaps, he suggested, this was how organic compounds were made on the ancient Earth before life existed.
While Miller was confident of his results, the rows of famous faces in his audience were, to say the least, intimidating. He was bombarded with questions. Were the analyses done correctly? Could there have been contamination? After the event, Miller thought that the questions had been constructive, but since the results were hard to believe, they had simply wanted to ensure that he had not made some mistake. However, Carl Sagan thought that Miller’s inquisitors seemed to be picky and did not appreciate the significance of the experiment. Even the relevance of Miller’s results to the origin of life were questioned. When someone asked Miller how he could really be sure this kind of process actually took place on the primitive Earth, Nobel Laureate Harold Urey, Miller’s research advisor, immediately interrupted, replying, “If God did not do it this way, then he missed a good bet.” The seminar ended amid the laughter, and the attendees filed out with some making complimentary remarks to Miller. Miller changed clothes, went back to the lab and started a paper chromatography run.
The events leading up to this dramatic seminar began two years earlier in October, 1951 when Urey presented the Chemistry Department seminar on the origin of the Solar system. In addition to the usual high powered scientists, the audience had contained the then first year graduate student, Stanley Miller.
Read “Prebiotic Soup—Revisiting the Miller Experiment” by Jeffrey Bada and Antonio Lazcano published in Science300 (2003) 745-726 in full text or as a PDF.
This is an abridged version of the Stanley Miller’s 70th Birthday published in Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere30: 107-112, 2000 by Jeffrey Bada and Antonio Lazcano and The Spark of Life – Darwin and the Primeval Soup by Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada, Perseus Books, 2000.
More than 50 years ago scientists demonstrated that basic chemicals of life, thought previously by some to be too complex to arise naturally, could occur in nature spontaneously. Much of the misunderstanding and crank science behind creationism is devoted to hiding these facts.
Lift a glass to Stanley Miller and his experiment today, a toast to learning, a toast to the truth.
Table of contents for latest Origins of Life, a journal of ISSOL (there are more experiments reported in one issue of this nearing-40-years journal than there are in all of intelligent design/creationism — and this is not even in the realm of evolution theory yet)
The teacher got into hot water because the creationism statement came outside the context of his AP European History class. In making the statement during a discussion of another teacher’s views on evolution, the court could not find any “legitimate secular purpose in [the] statement.”
However, Judge Selna found a second statement that Corbett made about creationism did not violate the student’s First Amendment rights, although it’s an equally pointed critique.
“Contrast that with creationists,” Corbett told his class. “They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
That statement was OK because it came in the context of a discussion of the history of ideas and religion. Thus, its primary purpose wasn’t just to express “affirmative disapproval” of religion, but rather to make the point that “generally accepted scientific principles do not logically lead to the theory of creationism.” One might expect that if creationism came up in the context of evolutionary biology, it would be similarly OK to say, “Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
The nuanced decision prompted the judge to append an afterword. Selna explains his thinking a basic right is at issue, namely, “to be free of a government that directly expresses approval of religion.” Just as the government shouldn’t promote religion, he writes, the government shouldn’t actively disapprove of religion either.
It seems to me, still, that the instructor was well within legal bounds. For example, we would not ask a biology instructor to pay deference to the Christian Science view that disease is caused by falling away from God (sin), and not by germs, and consequently that prayer is effective therapy. As a pragmatic matter, Christian Scientists don’t demand that everybody else bow to their view; but in a legal suit, the evidence of Pasteur’s work and subsequent work on how microbes cause disease would trump any claim that Pasteur was “not religiously neutral.”
We still await word on whether the district and teacher will appeal the decision.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Cover of Desmond and Moore's 2009 book, Darwin's Sacred Cause
It’s another grand book on Darwin from the team of Adrian Desmond and James Moore, based on their deep diving into the archives of writings from and about Darwin in his own time. Their earlier book, Darwin, is a bit of a modern classic in biography, and a must-read for anyone seriously studying Darwin and evolution.
Desmond and Moore confront the claims head on, it appears. How will creationists change their story to accommodate these facts? Or, will creationists resort to denial?
One theme that may be supported in the book is the realization that pursuit of a noble cause frequenly ennobles those who pursue it. Certainly it is easy to make a case that Darwin’s hatred of slavery and advocacy for its abolition colored his views of what he saw, though perhaps not so much as what he saw colored his views of slavery and abolition. Desmond and Moore have a chapter that discusses Charles Lyell’s trips to America, and Lyell’s different views on slavery having traveled the American south. Lyell did not travel as an abolitionist, and his views suffer as a result. Lyell was a product of his times in the portrait Desmond and Moore paint. Darwin demonstrated the power of science, and the power of personal use of science, in using the facts to overcome racism; Darwin used his experience and study to rise above the times. That may be the difference between the men, why we celebrate Darwin today, and remember Lyell as a good scientist, but usually a footnote to Darwin.
But critical evaluation? Just try to post a comment critical of intelligent design.
Why are ID advocates almost to a person such supreme hypocrites, and unintentional clowns? Is there a law that says one must be a noob to be an ID advocate?
____________________
Update, May 3: Here’s my challenge to you, dear reader: See if you can post a comment at all at Wintery Knight’s rant. Post a copy of your comments here, too, and let’s count to see whether this fellow is just one more supreme, Pharisaical hypocrite, or just an incompetent blogger.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
WJCT TV and FM in Jacksonville, Florida, has a televised discussion on evolution in the state science standards set for April 23. It’s set for 8 p.m. — Eastern Time, I’m guessing.
First Coast Forum – Schools, Science, and the State – Thursday, April 23rd at 8pm on 89.9 FM and WJCT TV
The Florida Board of Education recently revised its science standards to require the teaching of evolution. The state legislature has met twice since then, and both times lawmakers have proposed bills requiring a “critical analysis” of this scientific theory. The latest bill— sponsored by Jacksonville Senator Steven Wise—didn’t get far in this year’s session, but this controversial debate is likely to continue. Senator Wise says it’s important to expose students to other ideas such as intelligent design. Critics argue that challenging evolution could open a door for religious doctrine in science classes.
What should our students learn and who should decide? We’ll discuss these issues with local lawmakers, religious experts, teachers, and parents on our next First Coast Forum Schools, Science, and the State, April 23rd at 8pm only on WJCT.
Panelists:
Steve Goyer – pastor representing OneJax
Dr. Marianne Barnes, UNF Education Professor
Stan Jordan, Duval County School Board, former state legislator
Rachel Raneri, Duval County District School Advisory Council Chair
David Campbell, Orange Park Ridgeview H.S. teacher
Quinton White, JU
Paul Hooker of the Presbytery of St. Augustine
Viewers can participate in First Coast Forum
Email questions and comments to firstcoastforum@wjct.org or by calling (904) 358-6347 during the program.
Another press release, FYI. I’ve added some links in for your convenience. Remember, teachers of social studies, social studies is next on the SBOE chopping block — with rumors that SBOE is disbanding the expert panels rather than simply ignore the recommendations. Will they expunge slavery and Native Americans from the history books? Will they rewrite the Vietnam War? Consider Senate Bill 2275, and call your legislator:
Contact:
Steven D. Schafersman, Ph.D.
432.352.2265
tcs@texscience. org
Texas Citizens for Science strongly supports Senate Bill 2275 which transfers authority for curriculum standards and textbook adoption from the State Board of Education (SBOE) to the Texas Commissioner of Education.
For decades, members of the SBOE have censored, qualified, distorted, damaged, manipulated, and rejected curriculum standards and textbooks. All of this was done for political, ideological, and religious reasons, never for educational or pedagogical reasons. In the past, this activity was done secretly, behind closed doors, but now it is being done publicly in full view of the public and press. Recently, inaccurate, censored, and pedagogically- inferior English Language Arts and Science curriculum standards have been written by the SBOE using their power of amendment. This year, the Social Studies standards will be attacked by some SBOE members for non-educational reasons that support their political and ideological agendas.
For textbooks, in the past the SBOE chair would secretly “negotiate” with publishers to make them change the content of their textbooks under the implied threat of being rejected; publishers readily submitted to save multimillion dollar textbook contracts with the state. In numerous instances, textbook content was replaced by watered-down, inferior, and often misleading, inaccurate, and incomplete information. This activity continues today, albeit more openly with both press and public attention. Science textbooks censorship by the SBOE has occurred sinc the 1960s, as has censorship of social studies and other textbooks.
Dr. Steven Schafersman, President of Texas Citizens for Science, says this:
“The Texas State Board of Education has been an embarrassment and a disgrace to Texas for many decades. This Board’s activities that censor and corrupt the accuracy and reliability of specific topics in mainstream Science, Social Studies, and Health Education are well-known to educators throughout the United States as well as in Texas. All educators are aware of the negative and damaging influence the Texas State Board of Education has on textbooks used in Texas and other states.”
“Texas Citizens for Science has opposed the State Board of Education since 1980 in our effort to defend the accuracy and reliability of science education in Texas. We have repeatedly had to defend Biology and Earth Science textbooks from the Board’s predatory efforts to damage their content about such subjects as evolution, the origin of life, the age of the Earth and Universe, the true nature of the fossil record, and several other scientific topics.”
“Although largely successful in the past, only this past month TCS was unable to prevent the State Board of Education from amending the excellent science standards produced by science teachers, professors, and scientists. The State Board’s subsequent amendments created several flawed standards that, while not overtly unscientific, were confusing, unnecessary, poorly-written, and opened the door to insertion of pseudoscientific information, including bogus arguments supporting Intelligent Design Creationism. Among others things the Board accomplished during this exercise in pseudoscience was to remove the e-word and the ancient age of the universe from the standards. These accomplishments were petty, disgraceful, and clear proof of their anti-scientific and pro-Fundamentalist bias. A modern, technologically- advanced state such as Texas does not need such anti-science activity from a state board.”
Texas Citizens for Science urges the Senate Education Committee to approve SB 2275 and send it to the full Senate, the House, and then hopefully signed into law.
From image maker Colin Purrington: Texans' fondness for Biblical literalism indirectly ruins science education for the rest of the country. Texas is the nation's biggest consumer of textbooks, so authors will often write their books "for" the Texas State Board of Education, which usually has at least one delusional freakazoid who believes that fossils are the result of the Great Flood. On the State School Board!! I kid you not. Really amazing, and sad.
On a broad range of issues, mainline clergy affirm equality for gay and lesbian Americans. Roughly two‐thirds of mainline clergy support some legal recognition for same‐sex couples (65%), passing hate crime laws (67%) and employment nondiscrimination protections for gay and lesbian people (66%). A majority (55%) of mainline clergy support adoption rights for gay and lesbian people. Mainline Protestant clergy are strong advocates of church state separation.
A majority (65%) of mainline clergy agree that the U.S. should “maintain a strict separation of church and state.” Mainline clergy are more worried about public officials who are too close to religious leaders (59%) than about public officials who do not pay enough attention to religion (41%).
Mainline clergy are more likely to publicly address hunger and poverty and family issues than controversial social issues. More than 8‐in‐10 clergy say they publicly expressed their views about hunger and poverty often in the last year, and three‐quarters say they addressed marriage and family issues often. Only about one‐quarter (26%) say they often discussed the issues of abortion and capital punishment.
But where is the Methodist church falling down in getting clergy who understand science? If 54% of Methodist pastors don’t think evolution is the best explanation for diversity of life (the question got muddled in the questionnaire, alas), no wonder their congregations are so misinformed. You’d think they’d know better. You’d think the denomination would be truer to its roots of making the minister the best-informed guy in town.
Mainline clergy views of evolution and its place in public school curriculum are complex. On the one hand, the majority of mainline clergy (54%) do not support the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school biology classes. On the other hand, mainline clergy are more evenly divided in their views about the theory of evolution itself. Forty‐four percent of mainline ministers say that evolution is the best explanation for the origins of life on earth, and a similar number disagrees (43%). United Methodist clergy and American Baptist clergy are most likely to disagree. Seven‐in‐ten American Baptist clergy (70%) and a majority (53%) of United Methodist clergy say that evolution is not the best explanation for the origins of life on earth.
One question glaringly missing: Should Christians stick to the facts about science?
Hurry, teachers, get your workshops before the State Board of Education declares science workshops to be illegal:
FREE upcoming teacher training workshops at the Texas Natural Science Center — sign up now! Change Over Timeworkshop — 2 sessions (1 for elementary; 1 for middle school) on Saturday, May 2, 2009.
Enjoy inquiry-based, hands-on activities using the Change Over Time kit containing TEKS-based geological science instructional materials for grades K-8! This workshop is designed to help students master Earth Science concepts tested on the TAKS (Grade 5 and/or Grade 8). Conducted in conjunction with Sargent-Welch, Science Kit, and Ward’s. For information and registration, visit http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/education/profdev/cot/index.html
Texas: Past, Present and Future — 4 one-day workshops: June 30, July 14, July 22, and July 30.
Learn more about geology, paleontology and Texas biodiversity! Participating teachers will explore how animals are adapted to varying environments, investigate how paleontologists use fundamental principles to recreate what life was like in Texas’ past, and learn how to integrate these concepts into the classroom. Workshop participants will receive curriculum guides and be able to check out a Texas Fish and Mammals Loaner Kit for use in their classrooms. For information and registration, visit http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/education/profdev/txppf/index.html
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 