Committees to decide final proposals for Texas science standards on Dec. 4-6

According to Steven Schafersman of the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog, the standards-drafting committees will have one more opportunity to revise the proposed Texas science standards on Dec. 4-6 and after that the standards can be changed only by the state board of education by majority vote at a Jan. 21 meeting.

Review:
The state board of education held a long hearing on the proposed science standards on Nov. 19, with many public commenters (about 90 signed up, though not all spoke). The main issues were the "strengths and weaknesses" language of the first drafts of the chemistry and astronomy high-school standards and the "strengths and limitations" language of the second drafts of the biology, chemistry, and physics high-school standards. The Integrated Physics and Chemistry committee did not participate in the revision of the first draft, hence there is no second draft of the IPC standards. Four of the science committees -- IPC, environmental systems, aquatic science, and Earth and Space Science -- never added the "weaknesses" or "limitations" language. The "strengths and weaknesses" language has been in the state science-education regulations for about 20 years (the language was in the textbook proclamations for about the first 10 years). In comments I submitted, I proposed using the word "criticisms" instead of "weaknesses" or "limitations."

For more background info, see the two "Texas controversy" post-label groups in the sidebar of the home page. The second drafts and the instructions for submitting comments are here.

I will next send in a comment recommending that the committees ignore a survey report of Texas college biologists. I will make the following points:
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(1) The timing of the release of the full survey report and the press releases and news reports was very unfair, only 1-2 days before the Nov. 19 hearing and just a few days before the final revisions of the proposed standards on Dec. 4-6, not leaving enough time to challenge the results of the survey.

(2) Only about 45% of the survey's addressees responded, and there are a lot of reasons to believe that the respondents were not a representative group.

(3) The reported questions were loaded, ambiguous, and/or unnecessarily restrictive.

(4) The survey results are not consistent with the "strengths and weaknesses" language and the "strengths and limitations" language in some of the proposed standards.

(5) The full report of the survey reported the results for only a small fraction of the 59 questions in the survey. Furthermore, survey results reported in the full report were cherry-picked by press releases and news reports to give the false impression that the respondents almost universally oppose the "weaknesses" language.

(6) The names of some scientists who did not respond were revealed by the full report's identification of the one institution that sent in no responses. In today's climate of political correctness, merely being known to have not responded to the survey could damage one's career.

(7) The responses to the question about the compatibility of religion and evolution should have no influence on the state science standards -- people should not be told what their religious beliefs are supposed to be.

(8) The survey's sponsor, the Texas Freedom Network, is a Darwinist outfit that strongly opposes the "weaknesses" and "limitations" language. Though this fact alone is not sufficient to disqualify the survey, it is a negative factor when viewed in combination with other factors.
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Two blogs about the holocaust

The two blogs are:

One Person with Proof -- a holocaust-revisionist blog by Bradley Smith, who is associated with CODOH (Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust).

Deborah Lipstadt's blog -- an anti-revisionist blog.

I am adding both blogs to my list of external links in the sidebar of the home page. I already have two holocaust websites in the list -- CODOH and the Institute for Historical Review -- but neither website accepts comments. These two new blogs offer opportunities to comment.

I am a holocaust revisionist. My main argument is that a "systematic" Jewish holocaust was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews. This is an unusual argument -- I have never seen this argument raised directly by anyone else. The argument has been indirectly raised by others, particularly by Edwin Black in his book "IBM and the Holocaust," in which he claimed to have discovered the means by which the Nazis identified all of the Jews of Europe: by means of IBM Hollerith-card machines. My blog has two post-label groups of articles about holocaust revisionism [1] [2] (the reason for the two groups is that the Blogger.com template format that I am using limits me to 20 articles per post label). My blog also has two post-label groups about the Darwin-to-Hitler issue [3] [4]. These post labels are also listed in the sidebar of the home page.

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01-21-09 oral hearing on Texas science standards limited to 4 hours

The Texas Freedom Network said of the Texas board of education's 01-21-09 oral hearing -- the last scheduled oral hearing -- on the proposed Texas science standards,

Today (Nov 21) board Chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, announced that testimony at the January 21 hearing will be limited to four hours — 8 a.m. to noon. That’s it. If folks are still waiting to testify at noon, we guess, then that’s just too bad for them.

Well, maybe the board just got tired of hearing the same old tired arguments over and over again at the November 19 hearing, e.g.,

(1) The "weaknesses" and "limitations" language is just a plot of the Discovery Institute to sneak religion into science classrooms (never mind that the "weaknesses" language was introduced long before the DI existed).

(2) Teaching the "weaknesses" or "limitations" of evolution theory will severely harm students, the state of Texas, and the nation.

(3) Many religious people see no conflict between evolution and religion. So what -- people should not be told what their religious beliefs are supposed to be.

Just repeating these same arguments over and over again is a public demonstration, not a hearing. However, I agree that the board should try to accommodate as many commenters as possible -- some people seeking to comment might actually have something new to say.
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The "weaknesses" and "limitations" terms actually have a lot of support in the standards-drafting committees. "Strengths and weaknesses" was in the first drafts of the chemistry and astronomy standards. The "strengths and weaknesses" language was dropped in the second drafts but the biology, chemistry, and physics committees added the "strengths and limitations" language to the second drafts. Only the standards for Integrated Physics and Chemistry, Environmental Systems, Aquatic Science, and Earth and Space Science did not have "weaknesses" or "limitations" in either the first or second drafts (the Engineering Design and Problem Solving standards don't count). The Integrated Physics and Chemistry committee did not participate in the revision of the first drafts and hence there is no second draft for the IPC standards. Because of biological evolution, the "weaknesses" and "limitations" terms are the most contentious in the biology standards and so it is especially noteworthy that the second draft of the biology standards included "limitations."

Also, of the seven board members who have shown support for the "weaknesses" language, the two who were seriously challenged in the last election kept their seats. The board is more likely to listen to the general electorate than to scientists, teachers, clergy, etc.. And the question of whether to teach both strengths and weaknesses (or criticisms or limitations) does not require any scientific expertise to answer, so there is no reason to give any extra weight to scientists' opinions on that question.

The Texas Freedom Network article says,

Speakers who support watering down instruction on evolution were outnumbered by about 8-1 on Wednesday by those who support giving Texas kids a science education that’s appropriate for the 21st century.

Perhaps one of the reasons for that 8-1 lopsidedness is that there was practically no advance publicity of the hearing -- I am on the email list of the science department of the Texas Education Agency and I do not recall receiving any email notice about the hearing. Maybe some Darwinist insider(s) got the word out to Darwinist organizations and individuals.

Also, I am disturbed by the timing of the release of the reports on the survey of Texas college scientists. The reports were released only 1-2 days before the state board of education's Nov. 19 oral hearing on the proposed science standards, not giving enough time to debate the significance of the survey results. Some commenters at the oral hearing favorably cited the survey's results.

As I have said, I have proposed that the term "criticisms" be used instead of "weaknesses" or "limitations." The term "criticisms" does not imply anything about whether the criticism is valid or not, and a pseudoscientific or otherwise invalid criticism should not be called a "weakness" because it is not a real weakness. Also, a "criticism" can be an attack on an entire theory or just an attack on an imperfection in a theory. "Criticism" is a fairly neutral term.

Just spoonfeeding students the strengths of scientific theories is a bad idea. As I have said, teaching criticisms of scientific theories -- even pseudoscientific criticisms -- serves the following purposes: broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, helping students learn the material, increasing student interest, helping to prevent misconceptions, and helping to assure that technically sophisticated criticisms are taught by qualified science teachers.
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Report on the oral hearings on the Texas science standards

There was practically no advance publicity of the Texas board of education's Nov. 19 oral hearing on the proposed Texas science standards -- I would have been unaware of the hearing had I not seen it announced on the Evo.Sphere blog. I am on the email list of the science department of the Texas Education Agency and I do not recall receiving an email notice from them. Nonetheless, the hearing was well attended, with 92 public commenters signed up according to the Evo.Sphere blog. The public comments started at about 3 or 4 PM CST in the afternoon and continued until about 11 PM. I listened to a lot of the hearing in a live audio broadcast. The archived audio files are now here -- unfortunately, with my slow dial-up connection, I am not able to listen to them continuously (I was able to listen to the live broadcast continuously). The archived audio files are in four parts, A, B, C, and D -- the hearing on the science standards presumably starts somewhere in the B or C files. The commenters had 3 minutes each to make their presentations and the meeting was prolonged by extensive questioning of the commenters by the board members. Some commenters had to leave early to catch a plane or something like that -- I don't know why they could not have been moved up in the commenting order in a case like that (maybe they had to leave before the commenting even started). The comments of at least one commenter who had to leave early were read in absentia.

Detailed but biased coverages of the hearing are on the Evo.Sphere blog and the Texas Freedom Network blog. "Stupid Steven" Schafersman's Evo.Sphere article is especially one-sided -- he does not discuss or present any of the comments of the "anti-science" commenters. Nice pictures, though.

Many organizations involved in the controversies were represented by commenters: Texas Freedom Network, Freemarket Foundation, ACLU, etc.. One of the commenters was, of course, "Stupid Steven" Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science.

By way of review:

The "strengths and weaknesses" phrase has been in the Texas science-education regulations for about 20 years. In the first draft of the proposed new standards, this language was retained only in the chemistry and astronomy sections. In the second draft, the "strengths and weaknesses" phrase was dropped entirely but the phrase "strengths and limitations" was added to the biology (ironically), chemistry, and physics standards. For details, see this post. Darwinist commenters at the hearings spoke out against the word "limitations" as well as the word "weaknesses." Of course, a limitation on a strength is not the same thing as a weakness. I have proposed using the word "criticisms" instead of "weaknesses" or "limitations" -- "criticisms" covers both "weaknesses" and "limitations" and does not imply anything about whether the criticism has any validity. The term "weakness" is inappropriate for pseudoscientific or otherwise invalid criticisms because such criticisms are not real weaknesses.

Spoonfeeding students only the strengths of scientific theories is not a good idea. The analysis of criticisms of scientific theories -- including pseudoscientific criticisms -- actually offers students more opportunity to use critical thinking than the analysis of the strengths does; how can students get practice in finding flaws by only analyzing strengths that have no flaws? For example, my analysis of the problems of co-evolution has taught me a hell of lot about biology -- I learned about the different kinds of co-dependencies between different organisms (obligate mutualism, non-obligate mutualism, parasitism, commensalism, and amensalism), buzz pollination, orchids' mimicry of female wasp sex pheromones, the difference between mutualism and symbiosis (in symbiosis, the two organisms live constantly in physical contact or close proximity), extremely complex parasitisms (including multi-host parasitisms), etc.. I learned that there is a lot more to co-evolution than just "mutual evolutionary pressure." Details are in the "Non-ID criticisms of evolution" post-label group listed in the sidebar of the homepage. And as I said, many of the scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution are so technically sophisticated that they should be taught only by qualified science teachers. Suppressing criticisms of evolution is anti-science and anti-intellectual.

Many of the commenters at the hearing spoke only about religion -- that of course is just a straw-man issue.
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Fatheaded Ed condemns ID'ers for differing in opinion

According to Fatheaded Ed Brayton, if proponents of Intelligent Design don't all think alike, then they are all a bunch of hypocrites. Fatheaded Ed wrote on his blog,

One of the things we hear constantly from the ID crowd is their silly claim that they don't want ID taught in public schools, only the "arguments for and against evolution" taught (silly, of course, because ID is nothing but a list of arguments against evolution). In fact, they feign much outrage whenever we say that they want ID taught in science classrooms. Problem is, they keep letting the cat out of the bag. Like this statement from a recent book:

If future courts recognize the many flaws in the Kitzmiller ruling, it may fare better in the courts and the classrooms. Such a scenario, balancing design and chance rationales for the origins of the universe and life, should be proposed in school boards, taught in public school classrooms, and presented in legislation. For legislators or teachers who are truly not seeking to get the "Bible back into school" but simply want fair representation of all competing scientific theories to be presented to students, intelligent design offers a real possibility to achieve that goal.

This is from an essay called Darwinism and the Law, written by H. Wayne House, a graduate of Pat Robertson's law school, in a book called Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain the Key Issues.

And it was gullible activist judge "Jackass" Jones whose Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling made Intelligent Design a dirty word. And Judge Jones said in a Dickinson College commencement speech that his Dover decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions.

It's no wonder that Fatheaded Ed arbitrarily censors visitors' comments on his blog.

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Biased reports of a biased survey of Texas college biologists

There is a lot of ballyhoo about a report of a survey of Texas college-level biology faculty members in which 97.7% of the ~45% who responded rejected "intelligent design" as valid science. The survey was reported in the Dallas Morning News, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Houston Chronicle. The Texas Freedom Network posted a short summary of the report and a long summary of the report.

The Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin said of the ~45% response rate to the survey,

"It’s a self-selecting survey. There’s a well-documented culture of intimidation that makes scientists uncomfortable expressing their doubts about Darwinism. This just serves to reinforce that climate of intimidation."

However, the responses of individuals were not published, so I doubt that intimidation was a biasing factor. IMO what was a biasing factor is that the wording of some of the questions -- e.g., the term "creationism/intelligent design," which lumps together creationism and intelligent design -- caused some of the survey's addressees to recognize the survey as a crank survey and they decided not to help legitimize the survey by responding to it.

None of the news summaries of the full report of the survey mentioned the following survey result that is the most significant result in regard to the issue of whether the "strengths and weaknesses" language should be retained in the Texas state science standards (in the full report, page 16 of the PDF file and page 11 marked on the document):
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Our survey sought to learn more than simply what Texas biologists and biological anthropologists think about the "weaknesses" argument. The survey further queried respondents about whether the State Board of Education "should amend the [state's science] curriculum standards to exclude discussion of the 'weaknesses' of evolution as advanced by proponents of creationism and intelligent design theory."

First of all, note that the question was loaded -- the question asks the respondents only about creationism and intelligent design and not about other specific criticisms of evolution theory or criticisms of evolution theory in general. This presumption that creationism and intelligent design are the only criticisms of evolution theory shows great ignorance. Also, no one has actually proposed amending the state science standards to expressly exclude discussion of weaknesses or criticisms of evolution theory, but responses to the above question would give an indication of how the respondents feel about retaining the "strengths and weaknesses" language. The report continues,

Of all respondents, 67% said either that they strongly agree or agree somewhat with excluding such discussions. Another 6% said, "not sure," while 13% replied they "disagree somewhat" and 15% of the respondents chose "strongly disagree."

This 67% figure, though a strong majority, is lower -- generally far lower -- than the percentages that the news summaries reported for pro-Darwinist responses to other questions. For example, the Texas Freedom Network reported,

The survey results are contained in a new report, Evolution, Creationism and Public Education: Surveying What Texas Scientists Think about Educating Our Kids in the 21st Century.

The report highlights five key findings from the survey:

1. Texas scientists (97.7 percent) overwhelmingly reject “intelligent design” as valid science.

2. Texas science faculty (95 percent) want only evolution taught in science classrooms.

3. Scientists reject teaching the so-called “weaknesses” of evolution, with 94 percent saying that those arguments are not valid scientific objections to evolution.

4. Science faculty believe that emphasizing “weaknesses” of evolution would substantially harm students’ college readiness (79.6 percent) and ability to compete for 21st-century jobs (72 percent).

5. Scientists (91 percent) strongly believe that support for evolution is compatible with religious faith.

Note that the title itself of the survey report is biased -- it only mentions creationism and does not mention any of the scientific or pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution theory. Also, the question for item #2 above was loaded -- the scientists were asked "if they would prefer to teach 'just evolution,' 'just creationism/intelligent design as a valid account of origins,' or 'both.'" (emphasis added -- page 14 of PDF file, page 9 of document of full report). Note that they were only asked for their preferences -- they were not asked if they would object to teaching creationism/intelligent design or other criticisms of evolution theory. Also, they were not asked if they would be willing to teach creation/intelligent design -- or other criticisms of evolution theory -- as invalid accounts of origins or without regard to being valid accounts or not.

Also, it is surprising that the 67% figure is significantly lower the 79.6% and 72% figures above (item #4 in the TFN report) -- it seems that those who think that teaching the "weaknesses" would harm students would also want the "weaknesses" to be excluded from the curriculum.

The full report of the survey continues,

Even here, we must consider the possibility that some giving a "disagree" answer actually did so because they would wish to be able to include discussion of the "weaknesses" in order to debunk such claims. Indeed, some open-ended comments from those who do wish to include discussion of "weaknesses" indicate that they hope to discredit such claims . . .

Who in the hell cares what reasons respondents had for giving a "disagree" answer? What counts so far as the question of retaining the "strengths and weaknesses" language is concerned is that they gave a "disagree" answer.

The full report continues,

Clearly, the latest shift in strategy from promoting intelligent design to pushing "weaknesses" of evolution has not made any significant inroads into the science community.

As reported above, 13% "disagreed somewhat," 15% "strongly disagreed," 6% were not sure, and only 67% agreed with the idea of amending the state science standards "to exclude discussion of the 'weaknesses' of evolution as advanced by proponents of creationism and intelligent design theory." Those percentages represent "significant inroads." Also, the "strengths and weaknesses" language is not a "shift in strategy" in Texas -- this language has been in the state science-education regulations for about 20 years.

Also, regarding the survey's finding that '[s]cience faculty believe that emphasizing 'weaknesses' of evolution would substantially harm students’ college readiness (79.6 percent) and ability to compete for 21st-century jobs (72 percent)": It is one thing to say that not learning evolution theory in high school leaves students incompletely prepared to study biology in college -- evolution is discussed in a lot of scientific papers in biology and cladistic taxonomy is based on evolution theory. However, it is something else entirely to say that "emphasizing 'weaknesses' of evolution would substantially harm students’ college readiness" -- that's completely ridiculous, as is the statement that such emphasis would harm students' "ability to compete for 21st century jobs." Also, college students not majoring in biology or related fields would generally not be significantly affected by a lack of knowledge of evolution.

Also, the full report says (page 11 of PDF file, page 6 of document),

EXAMINING THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THOSE WHO DO SUPPORT THE TEACHING OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

What can we say about the small minority of Texas science faculty (2%) who evidence some measure of support for intelligent design/creationism? (For purposes of this analysis, intelligent design/creationist supporters are all respondents who indicated either "Modern evolutionary biology is right about the common ancestry of all extant organisms, but it is necessary to supplement it by invoking periodic intervention by an intelligent designer" or "Modern evolutionary biology is mostly wrong. Life arose through multiple creation events by an intelligent designer, although evolution by natural selection played a limited role.")

The educational profile of this group is revealing. Ten supporters of intelligent design/creationism responded to the question, "Have you taught a course that included a substantial block of material on human evolution?". Of the ten, seven persons replied "no," as compared to three who replied "yes." So we readily see that most intelligent design supporters identified in this survey do not teach courses that address evolution. Even more strikingly, no person in the subsample of those supporting intelligent design reported teaching graduate students about human evolution within the past five years. (Another way of phrasing this last point is to say that there was no person out of the total sample of 464 respondents who said they both supported intelligent design and had taught graduate students within the past five years.) We are therefore safe in concluding that the already thin support for teaching intelligent design vanishes to essentially zero when looking at established Texas biology and biological anthropology faculty who teach at the graduate level.

What does teaching evolution -- or human evolution specifically -- to graduate students within the last five years have to do with the validity of a biologist's opinion about the evolution controversy? Also, there is this non-sequitur: "no person in the subsample of those supporting intelligent design reported teaching graduate students about human evolution within the past five years. (Another way of phrasing this last point is to say that there was no person out of the total sample of 464 respondents who said they both supported intelligent design and had taught graduate students within the past five years.)" (emphasis added) The sentence in parentheses is not "another way of phrasing" the first sentence -- the first sentence talks about teaching human evolution and the sentence in parentheses does not. Finally, without knowing what percentage of all the respondents taught evolution or human evolution to graduate students in the past five years, no conclusions can be drawn about the fact that none of the ten ID supporters are in that group of respondents. To take an extreme example, if only 1% of all respondents taught evolution or human evolution to graduate students in the past five years, it would not be statistically significant that none of the ten ID supporters are in that group.

This was a highly biased survey designed to achieve a desired result -- it is not like a survey by an unbiased polling agency like Zogby, Harris, Gallup, etc..

Anyway, the question of whether to retain the "strengths and weaknesses" language does not require any scientific expertise, so there is no reason to give extra weight to scientists' opinions about that question. Also, the state board of education members are more likely to listen to the general electorate than to biologists, and the two supporters of the "weaknesses" language who were seriously challenged in the last election were re-elected.

Evolution News & Views also has an article about the survey.
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Nov. 19 oral hearing on proposed Texas science standards

Steven Schafersman on the Houston Chronicle Evo.Sphere blog has posted an article about the state board of education's oral hearing tomorrow on the proposed Texas science standards. He says that around 100 people are going to testify -- I checked with the Texas Education Agency and was told that the number is more like about 60. Even that number is surprisingly high because this meeting was not widely publicized because it is not considered to be an official oral hearing on the proposed Texas science standards -- the official oral hearing is supposed to take place next year. I suspect that tomorrow's hearing will have a lot of testimony about the scientific issues involved in the evolution controversy. I consider those scientific issues to be largely irrelevant -- I made no mention of them (e.g. , my non-ID criticisms of evolution, including criticisms concerning co-evolution) in comments that I submitted about the proposed science standards.

There will be a live audio Internet broadcast of tomorrow's SBOE meeting -- a link to the broadcast will probably be posted tomorrow in the left sidebar (The link, titled "*Click here for a live audio broadcast of the SBOE meetings*", is posted in the main section of the webpage, just above "Schedule and Agendas.") of this webpage. Fortunately I can listen to a continuous audio transmission even with my slow dial-up Internet connection. The meeting starts at 9:00 AM Central Standard Time but the proposed Texas Science standards are the last item on the agenda and no one knows when the public comments on those standards will start.

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First revision of proposed Texas science standards finally posted

The first revision is here -- the standards of most interest are the high school standards. Insertions in the revision of the proposed high-school standards are noted by underlined text and deletions are noted by "balloons" in the right margin. The committee for the Integrated Physics and Chemistry standards did not participate in the revision, and hence the second draft of the IPC standards is the same as the first draft. Oral hearings for the proposed science standards are scheduled for tomorrow, Nov. 19.

I am now against having any state science standards at all, though 49 of the 50 states have them (Iowa does not have its own science standards, and I don't know what science standards Iowa uses, if any). IMO authors of textbooks do not need to be told how to write them. IMO if a textbook author wants to include discussions of holocaust revisionism or criticisms of evolution theory, that's fine. I am against all government standards for public education -- these standards just give high-pressure special-interest groups extra opportunities to try to dogmatize public education.

The revised standards follow some of my recommendations (I don't know if other commenters also made the same recommendations):
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(1) There now appears to be uniformity of the core principles in the introductory sections of the standards for the different branches of science (except for the Integrated Physics and Chemistry standards -- as noted above the committee for those standards did not participate in the revision). These core principles in the introductory sections are under the following headings: nature of science, scientific systems, scientific investigations, and science and social ethics. However, having the same introduction for the different branches is redundant -- there should be one introduction for the entire group of science standards. Some of the "knowledge and skills" standards should also be in a single introduction for the entire group.

(2) An inappropriate use of the word "evolution" was eliminated -- "evolution of the atmosphere" was changed to "changes of the atmosphere." It is inappropriate to use the word "evolution" for directionless changes that are not a development or a pattern of progression. However, "evolution of the universe" and "geological evolution" were wrongly retained.

The "strengths and weaknesses" language of section 3(A) of "student expectations" was removed from the only branches that had this language in the first draft, the chemistry and astronomy branches. The "strengths and weaknesses" language has been in the Texas science education regulations for about 20 years. I think it is doubtful that this language will be retained unless the state board of education overrules all of the standards-drafting committees, which I think is unlikely. I decided that I didn't like the term "weaknesses" myself -- for various reasons, I think it is appropriate to teach pseudoscientific criticisms of scientific theories, and a pseudoscientific criticism is not a real weakness. I proposed that the term "weaknesses" be replaced with "criticisms" (I suggested the phrase, "scientific strengths and scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms"). The Biology, Chemistry, and Physics standards have the following new language that was not in section 3(A) of the first draft:

-- analyze and evaluate strengths and limitations of scientific explanations including those based on accepted scientific data, and evidence from students' observations, experiments, models, and logical statements.

IMO that language is no good because a "limitation" of a scientific explanation is not necessarily the same thing as a criticism that directly attacks a scientific explanation or theory.

Standards for the other branches of science -- Integrated Physics and Chemistry (no second draft, as noted above), Environmental Systems, Aquatic Systems, Astronomy, and Earth and Space Science -- have the new language that was in most of the standards (except Chemistry and Astronomy) in the first draft of the proposed standards:

-- analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing.

Anyway, neither of these two new versions of Sec. 3(A) would prevent the adoption of biology textbooks containing criticisms of evolution theory.

The introductions in the second drafts, as in the first drafts, have too much philosophizing about science. Also, the introductions in the second drafts give non-standard definitions or descriptions of "scientific theories," and as I noted before, I think that is a very bad idea:

NATURE OF SCIENCE: Science is a way of describing and making testable predictions about the natural world. Scientific hypotheses are tentative and testable statements that must be capable of being supported or not supported by observational evidence. Hypotheses of durable explanatory power that have been tested over a wide variety of conditions become theories. Scientific theories are based on natural and physical phenomena and are capable of being tested by multiple, independent researchers. Students should know that scientific theories, unlike hypotheses, are well-established and highly reliable, but that they may still be subject to change as new information and new technologies are developed . . . . .

For example, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary's definition of the scientific meaning of the word "theory" is: "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena." My printed dictionary, "Webster's New World Dictionary: Third College Edition," gives the following definition of the scientific meaning of "theory": "a formulation of apparent relationships or underlying principles of certain observed phenomena which has been verified to some degree." There is no talk about scientific theories being "well-established and highly reliable," being "capable of being tested by multiple, independent researchers," etc..
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Steven Schafersman rebutted by Darwinist co-blogger

"Stupid Steven" Schafersman is president of the Texas Citizens for Science, a blogger on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog, and is unfortunately a member of the Earth & Space Science standards-drafting committee for the proposed Texas science standards. He can hardly write anything without saying something stupid. His latest folly on the Evo.Sphere blog is an article titled, Why Scientific Theories Do Not Have "Weaknesses". The article was just so bad that another blogger on Evo.Sphere wrote a whole article rebutting it: Scientific theories do have strengths and weaknesses -- I posted a comment under this article.

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First revision of Texas science standards not posted yet

I was told that the first revision of the proposed Texas science standards (Science TEKS) was expected to be posted online by Wednesday and it still has not been posted. The state board of education is scheduled to review this first revision in a Nov. 19-21 meeting. To those who wish to comment, I recommend submitting now whatever comments or additional comments that you want to make regarding the original proposed standards. Follow the instructions here for submitting comments. Background info is in the two "Texas controversy" post label groups in the sidebar.

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More about the Tiktaalik controversy

The axolotl [1] [2], a Mexican species that is critically endangered in the wild, bears a strong resemblance to Tiktaalik. The axolotl, classified as a salamander, develops lungs but retains gills and remains aquatic into adulthood and has digits on its limbs. Picture is from Wikipedia.

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This is a continuation of the article: A fish story: Your Fishy Inner Fish. Casey Luskin wrote,

. . . .the paper’s lead author, Catherine A. Boisvert, boasted in an interview with The Scientist that "it is now completely proven that fingers have evolved from distal radials already present in fish that gave rise to the tetrapod." Boisvert also praised her findings, stating: "The disposition of distal radials in Panderichthys are much more tetrapod-like than in Tiktaalik."

Confident that her fossil showed evolution better than Tiktaalik, Boisvert and other Darwinists then proceeded to admit striking criticisms of Tiktaalik: The interview with Boisvert at The Scientist states, "Previous data from another ancient fish called Tiktaalik showed distal radials as well -- although the quality of that specimen was poor. And the orientation of the radials did not seem to match the way modern fingers and toes radiate from a joint, parallel to each other." (emphasis added by Luskin)

An interview of Boisvert on a blog named "A Free Man" said,
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AFM [A Free Man blog]: The creationist Discovery Institute has pounced on some of the statements in your paper regarding sample quality as evidence that scientists are trying to backpedal on previous hypotheses regarding digit development and evolution. Can you clarify your statements regarding sample quality of Tiktaalik and Panderichthys?

CB [Catherine Boisvert] : As you know, the “Discovery” Institute tactic is not to go to the primary literature in order to understand it but rather to use quotations from secondary, even tertiary sources, reorganise or use them out of context opportunistically to their own convenience. In this case, they used an article where the journalists unfortunately misunderstood me. Tiktaalik’s material is in fact exquisite, it is very well preserved, basically uncrushed and can be prepared out to be examined in three dimensions. I never said the quality was poor. I have simply explained that the morphology of the fin of Panderichthys is more tetrapod-like than that of Tiktaalik, which has nothing to do with the quality of the material.

But though Luskin did not cite the paper, he did use a primary source of sorts, the interview of Boisvert in The Scientist magazine. As noted above, Boisvert was quoted as saying, and I presume this is a verbatim quote,

"Previous data from another ancient fish called Tiktaalik showed distal radials as well -- although the quality of that specimen was poor. And the orientation of the radials did not seem to match the way modern fingers and toes radiate from a joint, parallel to each other."

Luskin said,

Darwinists are now praising Panderichthys for having features that are "much more tetrapod-like than in Tiktaalik," and are retroactively confessing weaknesses in their precious Tiktaalik, which is now admitted to be a fossil with a "quality" that was "poor."

IMO Casey misinterpreted the statement "the quality of that specimen was poor" as meaning that Tiktaalik is (1) poor as a transitional form between fish and tetrapods and/or that (2) the overall state of preservation of Tiktaalik was poor. However, as I noted before, though the Tiktaalik fossil may be a poor example of tetrapod-like limb development, Tiktaalik has other features that may be considered transitional between fish and tetrapods -- e.g., a bendable neck, a rib cage, and a flattened snout. Also, as before, IMO Casey Luskin was correct in saying that the "digits" on Panderichthys look more like bone fragments than like digits.

Anyway, IMO Tiktaalik is a greatly overrated fossil -- IMO it is not that much different from both living and extinct species. The axolotl shown above bears a strong resemblance to Tiktaalik.

Also, Panda's Thumb has an article about the Boisvert interview on the A Free Man blog.
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Long-known Auschwitz drawings falsely called a new discovery

An AOL news article says,

BERLIN (Nov. 10) – The original construction plans believed used for a major expansion of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in 1941 have been found in a Berlin flat, Germany's Bild newspaper reported on Saturday.

The daily printed three architect's drawings on yellowing paper from the batch of 28 pages of blueprints it obtained. One has an 11.66 meter by 11.20 meter room marked "Gaskammer" (gas chamber) that was part of a "delousing facility" . . . .

The plans, published ahead of the 70th anniversary of the "Kristallnacht" or the Nazi pogrom that was a harbinger of the Holocaust, also include a crematorium and a "L. Keller" -- an abbreviation for "Leichenkeller" or corpse cellar . . . . .

The mass-circulation newspaper quoted Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, head of the federal archives office in Berlin, as saying the blueprints offered "authentic evidence of the systematically planned genocide of European Jews." . . . . .

"These documents reveal that everyone who had even anything remotely to do with the planning and construction of the concentration camp must have know that people were to be gassed to death in assembly-line fashion," Bild wrote.

"The documents refute once and for all claims by those who deny the Holocaust even took place," it added.

However, JTA, a Jewish news agency, says,
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Auschwitz documents touted as a sensational find by a German newspaper have been known to historians for years, an expert told JTA.

Historian Robert Jan van Pelt, an expert on Auschwitz, said he had checked the "so-called ‘new’ material" on the Web site of Bild, a high-circulation daily, and found that "the drawings that are on their site are all old material, perfectly known" and published by himself and others in the 1990s.

"If they are original drawings from which blueprints were made, this would be an interesting story," van Pelt, a professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, told JTA in a telephone interview. But, he said, there were "tons of such drawings in 300 boxes at Auschwitz ... copies of the originals." Some were found in the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and published by van Pelt and others . . . .

Van Pelt expressed dismay that the Bild’s claim of a new discovery had been picked up by newspapers around the world.

"Everyone is repeating the same nonsense, and the deniers are having great fun because it shows how people are gullible," he told JTA.

. . ."it is completely and utterly incomprehensible" that the director of the national archive would "open his mouth on something so sensitive without having consulted the literature." And when the Bild publishes this "without doing any homework, it puts us back 20 years. It’s as if we didn’t publish these documents already."

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Why the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics should be taught as a criticism of evolution

Sleazy PZ Myers [1] [2] (identical posts) and Jason Rosenhouse [3] [4] are only proving my point that studies of criticisms of evolution theory -- even pseudoscientific criticisms -- are worthwhile educational experiences for students. Indeed, their discussion of the relation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to evolution shows that even many professional scientists and engineers are unaware of or ignore some of the best reasons why the SLoT is not a valid criticism of evolution (the engineers who get the most training in thermodynamics are mechanical and chemical engineers -- aeronautical engineering is really a branch of mechanical engineering and an "aerospace engineer" is any engineer who works for an aerospace company).

Here are two reasons why the SloT is not a valid criticism of evolution:
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(1) There are many different ways of defining or describing the SLoT, but many of these ways have nothing to do with biology. Probably the most popular statement of the SLoT is as follows: "It is impossible to construct an engine which, operating in a cycle, does nothing but absorb heat from a single reservoir and perform an equivalent amount of work." This principle is illustrated by the Carnot cycle. The work performed by a Carnot engine operating in a Carnot cycle (see the above diagram) is represented by the enclosed area inside the pressure-volume diagram of the cycle. It is evident that to have both (1) a positive enclosed area and (2) a return of the cycle to its starting point, there must be a stage where the engine rejects heat to a reservoir -- the Carnot engine cannot return to the starting point by a purely adiabatic process. The rejected heat represents the inefficiency of the Carnot engine. However, this statement of the SLoT does not introduce the concept of entropy, and SLoT arguments against evolution theory are often based on the concept of entropy.

(2) The SLoT's entropy property is quantified only for homogeneous substances and mixtures of homogeneous substances (e.g., water and steam) -- for example, entropy values are given in steam tables and Mollier charts. However, living things are generally not homogeneous, even at the microscopic, submicroscopic, and even molecular levels -- for example, a DNA molecule is not homogeneous. Yet both PZ Myers and Jason Rosenhouse present arguments that attempt to quantify the entropy of living things.

Also, Jason Rosenhouse insists that SLoT criticisms of evolution be quantified, but SLoT arguments cannot always be quantified -- for example, my above SLoT arguments are not quantified. Jason says,

Knowledgeable people will not show any respect for Sewell's argument, because he has produced virtually no argument at all. He describes it as his opinion that evolution violates the second law. This is not the sort of thing about which scientists are supposed to have opinions. We have ample evidence that evolution happened and that natural selection was the driving force of it. Biologists find evolutionary thinking to be very helpful in their research. If Sewell believes that it runs afoul of the second law nevertheless, then he needs to carry out the calculations that show that to be case. Otherwise he has only an opinion based on nothing.

Anyway, as the Darwinists point out, even if the entropy of the biosphere could be calculated, the biosphere is not a closed system and hence a decrease in the entropy of the biosphere could be compensated by an increase in entropy elsewhere, and hence the SLoT would not be violated.

I previously discussed the SLoT here and here.
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Darwinist testified at Dover trial "with evident fierce joy"

Kevin Bunkum and Archie Bunker

-- from Uncommon Descent

====================================================

The National Center for Science Education says,

The expert witness testimony given by paleontologist Kevin Padian was a highlight of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. . . . .

Padian's testimony was cited several times in the court's legal decision (PDF) in the case. For example, "A series of arguments against evolutionary theory found in Pandas involve paleontology, which studies the life of the past and the fossil record. Plaintiffs' expert Professor Padian was the only testifying expert witness with any expertise in paleontology. His testimony therefore remains unrebutted. Dr. Padian's demonstrative slides, prepared on the basis of peer-reviewing scientific literature, illustrate how Pandas [the book "Of Pandas and People"] systematically distorts and misrepresents established, important evolutionary principles." The judge also noted that "Padian bluntly and effectively stated that in confusing students about science generally and evolution in particular, the disclaimer makes students 'stupid.'"
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Author Edward Humes wrote in his book about the Kitzmiller trial,Monkey Girl (Ecco 2007), "Kevin Padian, Berkeley paleontologist and curator of his university's Museum of Paleontology, entertainingly brought the bone hunter's perspective to the courtroom, the sort of character on whom the fossil-hunting hero of the film Jurassic Park was based. Padian happily showed slides of his 'critters,' as he tended to call the ancient fossils and bones he used as a window on the past. ... Padian, with evident fierce joy, debunked the often repeated claim that the absence of 'transitional fossils' was a problem for evolution and an argument for creation or intelligent design."

Padian is Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, Curator of Paleontology at the University of California Museum of Paleontology, and president of NCSE's board of directors.

So Padian showed "evident fierce joy" in jawboning about how jawbones evolved into middle-ear bones.

This is the same dude who handed out "Friend of Darwin" certificates at a reunion of the Dover plaintiffs team.

I always suspected that Darwinists are sort of crazy. I wonder what comedian is going to play Padian in "Dover: The Movie."

BTW, I never thought of the "fossil hunter" in "Jurassic Park" as a Darwinist, certainly not as a stereotype for Padian.
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Update on proposed Texas science stardards

The Texas Education Agency informed me that the first revision of the proposed Texas science standards will soon be posted online, maybe on Wednesday. There will not be much time to send in comments on this revision because the state board of education is scheduled to review it on Nov. 19-21. So please stay tuned. If you want to send in comments now, see this. For more info, see the "Texas controversy" post-label groups in the sidebar of the homepage (ignore the instructions here for sending in comments and follow the instructions given in the preceding TEA document). To keep down the number of comments that I send in, I am not going to send in more comments until I see the revised standards -- however, here are my general principles concerning the high school (grades 9-12) standards:
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(1) Rule SE 3A -- Instead of eliminating the "strengths and weaknesses" language entirely, replace it with the words, "scientific strengths and scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms." This language has the following features: (i) It makes no assumptions about whether the criticisms are scientific or pseudoscientific; (ii) a pseudoscientific criticism is not a real "weakness," so the term "weaknesses" was changed to "criticisms" (my original proposed rewording had the term "weaknesses"); and (iii) the term "scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms" excludes "poof"-type creationism and supernaturalism because those things do not pretend to be scientific. Teaching criticisms -- even pseudoscientific criticisms -- of prevailing scientific theories serves the following purposes: broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, helping students learn the material, increasing student interest, helping to prevent misconceptions, and helping to assure that technically sophisticated criticisms are taught by qualified science teachers. For example, IMO the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not a valid criticism of evolution theory, but analysis of the SLoT as a criticism of evolution theory would be a worthwhile educational exercise for the students.

(2) There should be uniform core principles for all of the different branches of science. I have been informed that the revised standards have this.

(3) The standards should not philosophize about science -- e.g., discuss testability and falsifiability. It is impossible to reach any consensus on philosophies of science.

(4) The standards should not define terms -- defining terms is likely to lead to confusion. In particular, attempts to define "scientific theories" as strong by definition should be avoided; standard dictionaries do not define "scientific theories" in this way -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. The definitions of terms should be left to standard dictionaries.

(5) Don't misapply the term "evolution" to directionless changes that do not represent development or patterns of progression. So "stellar evolution" is OK but "evolution of the atmosphere" and "evolution of the geosphere" are not.
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Eugenie Scott lectures full of trite "Darwinisms"

An article by Brandon Haught(y) on the Florida Citizens for Science blog says,

Eugenie Scott is not a fire breathing Darwinist. Heck, she doesn’t even believe in evolution. And those are just a few of the things I learned Monday from Dr. Scott’s two lectures she gave at the University of Central Florida.

There we go again with Darwinist word games. Eugenie Scott is a fire-breathing, fire-eating Darwinist and she believes in evolution.

Dr. Scott is the executive director of the National Center for Science Education. The folks at the UCF Department of Biology brought her to town as part of their speaker series honoring the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s work on evolution. Her first lecture was targeted at graduate students and focused on how universities can do a better job of teaching about evolution. The second event was a public lecture for a generalized audience and provided a guided tour of the history of “academic freedom” bills that are popping up across the nation, including here in Florida.
The graduate student lecture had at least 70 people in attendance with some latecomers forced to find a spot on the floor to sit. Dr. Scott’s lecture was entitled “Genie’s Top 10 Ways to Teach Evolution Better.” She politely admonished the university system for not emphasizing evolution enough when training future public school teachers.

Did Genie present any evidence that the university system does not emphasize evolution "enough" when training public school teachers? We have heard a lot of propaganda about how public-school science teachers have supposedly been avoiding teaching about evolution, but in a recent national survey of science teachers, only 2% of respondents said that they don't teach "general evolution processes" at all and an astounding ~38% percent of respondents said that they spend a horrendous 10-20 hours or more on that subject, and some teachers spend even more hours on human evolution!

Evolution simply can’t be set off into a separate course while ignoring it in other life science courses.

Why not? In my engineering program, different subjects were set off in different courses: statics & dynamics, thermodynamics, strength of materials, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, electrical engineering, etc.. There was overlap between the courses only where necessary -- for example, Newton's laws apply wherever the concepts of force, mass, gravity, etc. apply. There are many areas in life science courses where evolution simply does not apply.

That’s irresponsible, especially since many non-biology majors won’t ever make it to that higher-level evolution course.

In colleges and universities, many subjects have terminal elementary courses for non-majors and other courses for majors. Of course, the elementary courses for non-majors need to be more general and comprehensive than the individual courses for majors. Did Genie present any evidence that the elementary courses for non-biology majors do not cover evolution adequately?

Evolution should instead be the main theme driven home again and again during even introductory level biology courses.

There we go again with that outrageous cockamamie idea that evolution is a "central" or "unifying" concept in biology. There are many areas of biology where evolution is simply irrelevant. Making evolution the "main theme driven home again and again" is indoctrination.

She then took a step away from evolution and made a few points about the nature of science overall. For instance, the general public does not understand how science uses the words law, fact and theory.

(yawn) -- and there we go again with that cockamamie line that the great unwashed masses still don't understand that "scientific theories" are "well-supported" and "widely accepted" by definition.
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Arbitrary Censorship on a Houston Chronicle blog

This article shows a comment I submitted in response to an article posted by Steven Schafersman on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog. Schafersman rejected the comment, claiming that the comment contains falsehoods. I showed here that those alleged falsehoods are in fact substantially true.

The Evo.Sphere blog is not Schafersman's personal blog but is an official blog of the Houston Chronicle, and therefore Steven Schafersman should not be permitted to arbitrarily censor comments submitted to the Evo.Sphere blog. I am complaining to the Houston Chronicle staff about this.

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Another Darwinist redefinition of "scientific theory"

I have pointed out that dogmatic Darwinists often redefine "scientific theory" as being strong by definition [1] [2]. A good example is the Florida state science standards' definition of "scientific theory" as being "well-supported" and "widely accepted." That's ridiculous -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. However, the description of the term "scientific theories" that was given by David HIllis in his review of the proposed Texas science standards -- he was one of six panelists chosen by the Texas board of education to review the standards -- takes the cake:

Some of the draft standards confuse the concepts of scientific theories and scientific hypotheses. The standards for the grade 9-12 Physics course -- 112.47(a)(2) -- get it right: "A hypothesis is a tentative and testable statement that is based on observation. Students should know that scientific theories, unlike hypotheses, are well-established and highly reliable, but they will still be subject to changes as new areas of science and new technologies are developed." This is good, but additional explanation may be needed here, given the common misunderstanding of the meaning of "scientific theory." Students should know that scientific theories are based on a huge body of scientific investigations, and that scientific theories represent scientific consensus based on an evaluation of scientific evidence (typically from hundreds of thousands of scientific investigations across many decades or even centuries).

I have not seen any standard dictionary's definition of "theory" that defines scientific theories as being strong by definition. If scientific theories are strong by definition, then what should weak scientific "theories" be called? "Weak scientific theories" cannot be called "strong scientific hypotheses," because a "theory" is more than a hypothesis.

State science standards should not define or redefine terms -- that will only create confusion. This is a particularly big problem with state science standards because of the possibility that textbooks will be tailored to suit state science standards -- this is an especially strong possibility in the case of the Texas science standards, because Texas textbooks are selected and purchased on a statewide basis, because Texas is one of the biggest single purchasers of textbooks, and because school systems outside Texas often adopt the Texas textbooks. Definitions of terms should be left to standard dictionaries, except where terms are defined for one-time use only -- for example, public laws and regulations will often have glossaries that give terms special definitions for use in those documents only.

The argument that the public is misinformed about the scientific meaning of the word "theory" is really getting stale -- probably practically everyone who has been closely following the evolution debate is aware of the controversy over the scientific meaning of the term. And it is the Darwinists who are misinformed -- or act as if they are misinformed -- about the scientific meaning of the term: they incorrectly define "scientific theories" as being strong by definition.

Also, the physics standards' statement "A hypothesis is a tentative and testable statement that is based on observation" is ambiguous -- does the hypothesis seek to explain an observation or is the hypothesis itself based on observation?

Also, state science standards should not philosophize about science, e.g., discuss issues of testability and falsifiability. It is impossible to reach any consensus about philosophies of science.

Definition of "process server": one who serves process on a state board of education in a lawsuit charging that state science standards call evolution a "theory" without noting that the scientific meaning of "theory" is different from the term's common everyday meaning.
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Important update about proposed Texas science standards

Steven Schafersman reports on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog that standards drafting committees have already made the first revisions of the proposed Texas science standards (Science TEKS -- Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills), but the Texas Education Agency has not posted the revised standards yet. There will not be much time for commenting on the revised standards:

The SBOE will receive and discuss the revised science standards during their November 19-21 meeting, one day--Nov 19--will be devoted to public testimony, and the science panels will have one last attempt to revise the standards to final form during December 4-6. After that, only the SBOE can revise the science standards by majority vote during their January 2009 meeting. The standards receive final adoption in March 2009 and are to be used by teachers and textbook publishers for the next ten years.

As I said, the Texas science standards have a lot of influence well beyond the borders of Texas.

Schafersman's article has links to the six reviews written by the recently appointed panel of experts. Evolution News & Views also has links to these reviews.

I posted the following comment -- which should appear shortly -- under Schafersman's article:
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The original post says,
--The panels all carefully reviewed all the expert and public feedback and the two comparisons, and made revisions or not by consensus.--

So you are saying that the panels (committees) for all the different disciplines have already made the first revisions in the original draft of the standards. Where are these revised standards?

The Texas Education Agency was very tardy in starting to accept public comments about the original draft of the standards -- the TEA started accepting public comments about 4 weeks after the original standards were released and just days before the review of the public comments, and the TEA caused further delay by asking that public comments be submitted on a PDF comment form that could not save or email entered data! There simply was no time or not enough time for review of public comments. I am really going to keep after the TEA this time and try to make sure that they are not so tardy again. Also, I am going to urge that the TEA accept comments in a blog-type format so that commenters will be able to see and comment on the comments of others.

--All eight high school science panels agreed to use the same language about the definition, nature, and methods of science in their course introductions.--

Sounds good -- in my comments on the original draft, I pointed out that having inconsistent and possibly conflicting core principles for the different branches of science was creating problems. I would of course like to see what uniform language was adopted. I am especially concerned about (1) excessive philosophizing about science and (2) giving non-standard definitions of "scientific theory."

--All eight high school science panels removed the notorious term "weaknesses" from rule 3A, although some small differences remain in the remaining language.--

So you are saying that the two committees (chemistry and astronomy) that retained the "strengths and weaknesses" language in the original draft dropped that language in the first revision.

--the old standards contained a Creationist leftover from a 20-year old textbook Proclamation and the original 10-year old TEKS: the unscientific TEKS process skill or rule 3A, which ask that students to know the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific explanations. --

This is the first time that your opening post said that the "strengths and weaknesses" language is 20 years old (or thereabouts) instead of only 10 years old -- I had to correct you twice about that (and the first time you were very rude about my even bringing up the issue).

--Seven radical religious right and Creationist members of the SBOE want to keep the "strengths and weaknesses" language in,--

There you go again with name-calling and stereotyping. Do you really know the motives of all the board members who want to retain the "strengths and weaknesses" language?

-- although over a thousand Texas scientists have joined together to form a 21st Century Science Coalition, and signed a statement asking the SBOE to "encourage valid critical thinking and scientific reasoning by leaving out all references to 'strengths and weaknesses,' --

The question of whether to retain the "strengths and weaknesses" language does not require any scientific expertise to answer, so the opinions of scientists should not carry any extra weight here.

-- . . . which politicians have used to introduce supernatural explanations into science courses. --

The "strengths and weaknesses" language is around 20 years old and you have not presented one single example of where politicians have used it to introduce supernatural explanations into science courses. As I said, there are sound pedagogical reasons for teaching criticisms of scientific theories, even criticisms that are known to be pseudoscientific. Those reasons are: broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, helping students learn the material, increasing student interest, correcting misconceptions, and helping to assure that technically sophisticated criticisms are taught by qualified science teachers. For example, IMO the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not a valid criticism of evolution, but analyzing the SLoT as a criticism of evolution is a worthwhile educational exercise for students.

I am going to propose that the original rule 3A "scientific strengths and weaknesses" language be reworded to "scientific strengths and scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms." This wording has the following features:

(1) This language makes no assumptions about whether the criticisms are scientific or pseudoscientific.

(2) A pseudoscientific criticism is not a real "weakness," so the term "weaknesses" was changed to "criticisms." My original proposed rewording had the term "weaknesses."

(3) The term "scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms" excludes creationism and supernaturalism because those things do not pretend to be scientific.

-Two science professors and one pseudoscientific think-tank administrator who are anti-evolutionists and Intelligent Design Creationists: --

The "pseudoscientific think-tank administrator," Stephen Meyer, is a philosopher of science and so is eminently qualified to be a reviewer of the Science TEKS because so much of the Science TEKS consists of philosophy of science.

--It is my intention to analyze the feedback of the three anti-evolutionists, and this will be done soon. --

Why not analyze the feedback of the three evolutionists too? Is their feedback above criticism just because they are evolutionists?

--even by enlisting the support of out-of-state pseudoscientific zealots. --

There you go again with that ridiculous "out-of-state" thing -- the fact that Meyer and Seelke are from out-of-state has absolutely no bearing on the quality of their reviews of the state science standards.

Also, as I pointed out, the two SBOE supporters of the "weaknesses" language who were seriously challenged in the recent elections held onto their seats -- see
http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2008/11/fundies-keep-texas-board-of-education.html

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Will Florida science standards be revisited before end of 2011?

A news article says,

After the bruising battle over the new state science standards ended in February, everybody thought the new standards were good to go until 2014. But are they? Maybe not, according to some overlooked wording in one of last spring's major education bills and the opinion of a key legislative staffer.
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SB 1908 requires the state Board of Education to adopt top-notch Next Generation academic standards by the end of 2011. And that apparently includes another set of science standards, because the BOE adopted the latest standards a few months before the bill passed and was signed into law by Gov. Charlie Crist.
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The Department of Education recently asked an attorney with the Legislature's joint Administrative Procedures Committee for his opinion. And the lawyer, Brian Moore, said the law seems to be clear. "I think they have to adopt everything again," he told the Gradebook this morning.

Does that mean the DOE has to undertake another full-blown, monthslong review of the standards? That's not clear. But SB 1908 says the education commission must submit proposed Next Generation standards to teachers, experts and others for "review and comment." Then they go to the governor, the Senate president and the House speaker at least 21 days before the BOE considers adoption.

If the Florida science standards need to be revisited before the end of 2011, that's good. The following errors need to be eliminated -- these errors were completely overshadowed by the controversy over whether to call evolution a "scientific theory":

(1) -- the statement that evolution is the "fundamental concept underlying all of biology." How can that be true when 13% of respondents in a recent national survey of science teachers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that an "excellent" biology course could exist that does not mention Darwin or evolution theory at all? Why can't these Darwinist crackpots recognize that there are some areas of biology where evolution is irrelevant?

(2) -- defining "scientific theories" as being "well-supported" and "widely accepted" by definition. For one thing, that definition is incorrect -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. Also, state science standards should not define terms -- defining terms should be left to standard dictionaries. Giving non-standard definitions of terms creates confusion.
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Fundies keep Texas board of education seats!

Hallelujah! As I pointed out, there were two critical races in which Texas board of education members who support keeping the "strengths and weaknesses" language were seriously challenged in the elections, and both members kept their seats! These races were very important because support for the "strengths and weaknesses" language is very precarious on the 15 member board of education: 7 support the language, 6 are opposed, and 2 are undecided. These election victories also help assure that the balance of 3 Darwin dogmatists and 3 Darwin doubters on a science standards review panel appointed by the board will be maintained. The election results are here and here. Also, these election results may help persuade the board's two swing voters to support the "strengths and weaknesses" language. Another thing in favor of this language is that both the chemistry and astronomy standards-drafting committees decided to retain it.

The Darwinists are fond of bragging about how the Dover school board members who supported the ID policy were voted off the board. But one of the factors in that election was taxpayer concern about the potential costs of the lawsuit.

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Thoughts of Chairman Adolf

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Incredible bigotry on Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog

Crackpot Darwinist Steven Schafersman, a blogger on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog who is president of Texas Citizens for Science and a member of the committee that drafted the new Texas Earth and Space Science standards, posted an Evo.Sphere blog article that compares Texas board of education chairman Don McLeroy to Stalin and compares Chris Comer -- the former science director of the Texas Education Agency who was ousted for various infractions, including violation of the TEA's policy of neutrality regarding the public hearings on the proposed new Texas science standards -- to a Russian scientist who was sent to the Gulag for disagreeing with Lysenkoism.

As I pointed out, another Evo.Sphere blogger, Dan Graur, is also a bigot -- he wrote,

Sarah Palin would probably approve of Mengele’s methodology; after all Darwinian evolution did not serve as a guiding principle in his studies, nor were federal Dollars (or Reichsmarks) spent on fruit flies.

And to think that these folks complain about the Darwin-to-Hitler stuff.

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Was Palin misled by tightwad-taxpayer group?

A news article said,

In a speech about her running mate John McCain's policies on children with disabilities, Palin condemned so-called earmarks, congressional mandates to spend money on specific projects. "You’ve heard about some of these pet projects, they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good," Palin said. "Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not." . . . .

. . . .. Palin's example came from the Web site of Citizens Against Government Waste, a private group claiming to fight government mismanagement that awarded Representative Mike Thompson (D-CA) a "French Kiss Off Award" in April for obtaining $211,509 for research on the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae). As some bloggers were quick to point out, recent results from studies on other fruit fly species may help scientists understand autism, a disease Palin mentioned in her speech because her nephew has it. But the Thompson earmark is for the European Biological Control Laboratory (EBCL), administered by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), which studies ways to control invasive species in the United States by using their natural enemies. . . .. .In lab tests, one parasitic wasp from southern Africa called Psyttalia lounsburyi appeared able to control populations efficiently and to attack only the olive fruit fly. It has recently been introduced in several areas in California and has brought down fly numbers by as much as 96% . . .

"As some bloggers were quick to point out"? Virtually every Darwinist blogger on the planet from Fatheaded Ed Brayton to Sleazy PZ Myers has jumped all over Sarah Palin because of her above statement.

So the research funding was not especially huge ($211,509), it went for an important cause, and it yielded excellent results (of course, it could be argued that the research should have been funded by one of the main beneficiaries, the olive industry, but that is another matter). Palin's poor example of "wasteful" research funding was probably the fault of the tightwad-taxpayer group, not her. However, while I recognize the importance of having priorities in research funding, IMO just expanding knowledge is a worthy goal of research funding even when there are no practical benefits.

Anyway, the Darwinists have blown this whole thing way out of proportion.

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Stupid Steve's comments on proposed Texas science standards

I have previous posts about Stupid Steven Schafersman, one of the zaniest crackpot Darwinists to come down the pike [1] [2] [3]. He is president of the Texas Citizens for Science and a blogger on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog. In an Evo.Sphere blog article titled "My Comments to the Texas Education Agency About the Proposed Revised Science Standards," he said,

To Biology:

KS(7) I request that you change "The student knows evolutionary theory is an explanation for the diversity of life" to "...evolution is an explanation...." or "...biological evolution is an explanation...." No where else in your standards do you use the term "theory," not for cell theory, genetic theory, ecological theory, developmental theory, etc. Your wording suggests that evolution is a theory in the popular sense while other biological knowledge is more reliable. As you must be aware, science opponents constantly misrepresent the term "theory" and claim that it means its content is less reliable and accurate than it really is. I strongly suggest you avoid the term "theory" completely, or at the very least preface it with the word "scientific," such as "...the scientific theory of evolution is an explanation...." Also, if you insist on using the term "theory," you should define it correctly.

Definition of "process server": Someone who serves process on a state board of education in a lawsuit charging that state science standards call evolution a "theory" without noting that the scientific meaning of the word "theory" is different from the everyday meaning of the word.

Stupid Steve then outdoes himself:
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KS(7) Please add "SE(F) identify several primate and hominid fossils, their relationship to modern humans, and features that humans have obtained through evolution from them such as stereo vision, long limbs, fingernails rather than claws, a vestigial vermiform appendix, bipedal locomotion, and a larger brain." In the 21st Century, it is necessary that students learn the scientific explanation for human origins, and it is impermissible to keep maintaining the pretense that humans are qualitatively different from other animals (we are quantitatively different, of course, in several respects). If you really wanted to make sure evolution is presented comprehensively, you could require that students know the features that humans inherited from fish (see Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish). (emphasis added)

And this hypocrite complains that the fundies are trying to indoctrinate public-school students with philosophical or religious beliefs.

What is especially sad is that this jerk is a member of the committee that drafted the Texas Earth and Space Science standards.

Another Evo.Sphere blogger posted this gem:

Sarah Palin would probably approve of Mengele’s methodology; after all Darwinian evolution did not serve as a guiding principle in his studies, nor were federal Dollars (or Reichsmarks) spent on fruit flies.

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Darwinists sensationalize case of fundy teacher

A blogger on Panda's Thumb, Richard B. Hoppe, is showing an inordinate fascination with the termination hearing of an Ohio teacher, John Freshwater, who has been charged with using an electrical device to burn a cross onto a student's arm. Hoppe has been attending the multi-day hearing and so far has posted four long articles about the case on Panda's Thumb [1] [2] [3] [4].

Why is Hoppe giving this case an inordinate amount of attention? IMO the reason is that he wants to make Freshwater into a stereotype of science teachers who doubt Darwinism.

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