Op-ed says Texas school board should not kowtow to Darwinist biologists

An Austin-American Statesman op-ed titled "Don't automatically defer to biologists when it comes to curriculum" says,

. . . . biologists still . . . . have not established a persuasive educational argument as to why religion should be banned from discussions of science . . . .

. . . . Many questions remain unanswered by the biologists who seem most interested in trying to control curriculum. Why do biologists assume they are experts in curriculum when they are not? Why are biologists afraid to broach the exciting intellectual problems surrounding the relationship between faith and science? Why not discuss the history of biology as a discipline and how the field's approach to this problem has evolved over time? Why not discuss with students why biologists tend to operate within a naturalistic framework, including the benefits and limitations of the framework?

Establishment clause considerations aside, IMO religion should not be an official part of public-school science curricula -- with the exception of evolution disclaimer statements -- because (1) some teachers and students might feel uncomfortable dealing with religion in a science class and (2) teaching religion in a science class could degenerate into sectarian proselytization. However, the issue here is not just science v. religion, because some scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms (or weaknesses) of evolution are not religious at all. Teaching scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution serves the bona fide secular purposes of broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, helping students learn the material, and increasing student interest. Also, some scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution -- e.g., criticisms concerning (1) the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and (2) the genetics of propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction -- are so technically sophisticated that they can be properly taught only by qualified science teachers and should not be taught by laypeople, e.g, typical parents and typical non-science schoolteachers. This stuff is not just "poof"-type creationism.

The op-ed says,

Until these questions are addressed persuasively by biologists, state leaders need to look to a broad range of university specialists to find the leadership necessary to provide a well-rounded, liberating education to all Texas students.

On one point I certainly agree with the op-ed: the Texas board of education should not kowtow to dogmatic Darwinist scientists, who have their own ax to grind. And as I remember, the last time a government deferred to Darwinist scientists' opinions as to what is best for society was when the Nazis put people in concentration camps, gas chambers, and crematorium ovens.
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Lawsuit against UC evolution website dismissed by appeals court

Cartoon in challenged UC-Berkeley evolution website.






The 9th Circuit court of appeals has dismissed an establishment clause lawsuit -- Caldwell v. Caldwell -- against a UC-Berkeley evolution website called "Understanding Evolution." The National Center for Science Education has the story. I have previously written about the case [1] [2] [3] . The appeals court's opinion is here.
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Oddly, though the district court dismissed the case partly on the basis of an alleged lack of taxpayer standing, the taxpayer standing issue was ignored in the appeals court decision. The appeals court opinion said (page 6), "The district court held that Caldwell failed to make out taxpayer standing with respect to both the federal and state parties, an issue that is not appealed." Sheeesh, how could that issue not be appealed if that issue was part of the basis for the dismissal by the district court?

Basically, the appeals court's dismissal was based on a decision that the violation of plaintiff Caldwell's imaginary "right to not be offended" was not strong enough to be considered to be an "injury-in-fact" strong enough to justify granting standing to sue. Of course, the "right to not be offended" is not in the Constitution -- it is a right that has been invented by the courts. The problem is not that the courts have invented this right -- the problem is that this right is granted by the courts in a discriminatory fashion. The courts have decided that in some cases, violation of this "right to not be offended" is a sufficient "injury-in-fact," and in other cases a violation of this right is not a sufficient injury-in-fact. The distinctions between these two kinds of cases are completely arbitrary and subjective. For example, in the evolution disclaimer cases of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Selman v. Cobb County, the courts arbitrarily decided that violation of the plaintiffs' "right to not be offended" was a strong enough "injury-in-fact" to justify granting standing to sue.

The courts have also made a mess of the taxpayer standing issue. One reason why taxpayer standing should not be an issue in establishment clause cases is that some establishment clause cases involve tax funds while others do not -- for example, some religious symbols on public property are tax-funded and some are privately-funded.

There is a general rule against taxpayer standing but the Supreme Court arbitrarily decided in Flast v. Cohen to grant taxpayer standing for establishment clause lawsuits. The Supreme Court got even more arbitrary when it decided in Hein v. Freedom of Religion Foundation that there would be taxpayer standing in cases involving Congressional allocations of tax funds but not in cases involving executive-branch allocations of tax funds. For discussions of Flast and Hein on this blog, see -- [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10].
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Science educators should not define basic scientific terms

IMO science educators should avoid trying to define basic scientific terms like "theory" and "science," particularly in state science standards. These efforts to define these terms only increase confusion and misunderstandings. One of the problems is that these definitions are often written by people who have an ax to grind -- e.g., promoting evolution by calling it a "scientific theory" and then defining "scientific theory" as being very strong. The definitions of basic scientific terms should be left to standard dictionaries.

In an editorial titled "Why the philosophy of science matters" in the October issue of The Scientist magazine (you will need to register to see the complete articles), Richard Gallagher wrote,

You might expect that newly minted science graduates -- who presumably think of themselves as scientists, and who I'd thought of as scientists -- would have a well-developed sense of what science is. So it's pretty shocking to discover that a large proportion of them don't have a clue. At least that's the case in the UK, going on the evidence of our Opinion author James Williams ("What Makes Science 'Science'?"). He found that a sizeable proportion of science graduates entering teacher training couldn't define what is a scientific fact, law or hypothesis. One young innocent, for instance, defined scientific theory as "an idea about something, not necessarily true." If that isn't playing into the hands of creationists, then I don't know what is!

The opinion article by James Williams says,
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As a science educator, I train science graduates to become science teachers. Over the past two years I've surveyed their understanding of key terminology and my findings reveal a serious problem. Graduates, from a range of science disciplines and from a variety of universities in Britain and around the world, have a poor grasp of the meaning of simple terms and are unable to provide appropriate definitions of key scientific terminology. So how can these hopeful young trainees possibly teach science to children so that they become scientifically literate? How will school-kids learn to distinguish the questions and problems that science can answer from those that science cannot and, more importantly, the difference between science and pseudoscience? Here are some of the data from the 74 graduates that I've surveyed to date:

• 76% equated a fact with 'truth' and 'proven'

• 23% defined a theory as 'unproven ideas' with less than half (47%) recognizing a theory as a well evidenced exposition of a natural phenomenon

• 34% defined a law as a rule not to be broken, and forty-one percent defined it as an idea that science fully supports.

• Definitions of 'hypothesis' were the most consistent, with 61% recognizing the predictive, testable nature of hypotheses.

The recently-adopted Florida science standards say that students should --

-- Recognize and explain that a scientific theory is a well-supported and widely accepted explanation of nature and is not simply a claim posed by an individual. Thus, the use of the term theory in science is very different than how it is used in everyday life.

Saying that a "scientific theory" is by definition "well-supported and widely accepted" is just plain wrong -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. I presume this definition was added to the standards because the name "scientific theory" was added to evolution in the standards. And the Florida science standards not only give a bad definition of "scientific theory" but say that students are expected to "recognize and explain" this definition.

Darwinist ideologue Steven Schafersman, self-styled president of the Texas Citizens for Science, said of the proposed Texas grades 9-12 science standards,

National Academy of Sciences on Scientific Explanations

Another issue was the language about observational evidence and the nature and testability of scientific explanations that some disciplines added to the introductions of their revised standards. The language is from the National Academy of Sciences' new book Science, Evolution, and Creationism, p. 10. One version of the language is as follows:

Scientific explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena, and must be capable of testing by multiple independent researchers. If scientific explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of testing those explanations. Unless a proposed scientific explanation is framed in a way that some observational evidence could potentially refute it, that explanation cannot be subject to scientific testing.

I am certainly in favor of this addition to the various disciplines' TEKS. However, I notice that several science disciplines did not add this excellent language at all: IPC, Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy. In fact, it appears that only Biology, Aquatic Science, and Earth and Space Science added the NAS language, each with different wording, and Environmental Systems added a similar paragraph that does not use the NAS language. I can't account for the discrepancies, but I will recommend that each discipline adopt a uniform version of this excellent language that separates science from pseudoscience. Obviously, the pseudoscience that the NAS language addresses so well is Intelligent Design Creationism.

The above NAS paragraph was added verbatim (page 35) to the proposed Earth and Space Science standards, which is not surprising considering that Steven Schafersman was on the Earth and Space standards-drafting committee. To see the versions of this NAS language that are used in other disciplines, search for the word "explanation" (the search function is the binoculars icon in the top border of the PDF file).

IMO the above NAS statement is a philosophy of science and therefore should not be added in any form to state science standards. And this NAS statement could backfire on Schafersman because a lot of evolution theory would not qualify as science under the testability and falsifiability criteria of the statement.

In the final analysis, it really doesn't matter how these scientific terms -- e.g., theory, hypothesis, law, and fact -- are defined, because even if we agree on the definitions, we are going to disagree over the attachment of these terms to different ideas. For example, some people consider evolution to be a fact and others consider it to be just a hypothesis if even that much.
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Darwinist scientists' petition opposes "weaknesses" language

An online petition posted by a group named "21st Century Science Coalition" says,

Scientists for a Responsible Curriculum in Texas Public Schools

A strong science curriculum is an essential part of a 21st-century education and should be based on established peer-reviewed empirical research. In 2008-09 the State Board of Education is revising the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum standards for the sciences.
Scientifically sound curriculum standards must:

acknowledge that instruction on evolution is vital to understanding all the biological sciences;

There we go again with that "central to biology" claptrap. How in the hell can evolution be central to biology when 13% of science teachers in a national survey agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that an "excellent" biology course could exist that does not even mention Darwin or evolution theory at all (and probably a higher percentage would agree or strongly agree with the statement that evolution is not central to biology) ?

make clear that evolution is an easily observable phenomenon that has been documented beyond any reasonable doubt;

Macroevolution has never been observed.
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be based on the latest, peer-reviewed scholarship;

Darwinists go running to the courts to charge that criticisms of Darwinism have not been published in peer-reviewed journals. The irony here is that there is a big dirty little secret that most law journals are not peer-reviewed or even faculty-reviewed but are just student-reviewed! And these law journals are not just educational exercises for the law students -- for example, the Harvard Law Review alone was cited 4410 times in federal court opinions alone in the decade 1970-79 alone! How many times have we read that some judge or politician was a student editor of a law review and thought nothing of it? The lousy judges should clean up their own house before pointing fingers at scientific ideas that have not been published in peer-reviewed journals.

Judge Jones once said that peer review
is needed to show that something's true.
But that's just it,
he's full of shit,
his Dover ruling's not peer-reviewed too.

encourage valid critical thinking and scientific reasoning by leaving out all references to “strengths and weaknesses,” which politicians have used to introduce supernatural explanations into science courses;

Here "valid critical thinking" means being spoonfed Darwinist dogma. I can't believe that so many scientists would sign a statement asking that "strengths and weaknesses" language regarding the teaching of scientific theories be omitted from a state's science standards. And what is evolution theory worth if it can't stand up to scrutiny?

and recognize that all students are best served when matters of faith are left to families and houses of worship.

Some scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms (or weaknesses) of evolution theory -- e.g., criticisms concerning (1) the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and (2) the propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction -- are technically very sophisticated and should be taught only by qualified science teachers.

I was thinking of starting my own online petition in support of the "strengths and weaknesses" language and maybe my other recommendations for the Texas science standards, but then I realized that most online petitions are just a dime a dozen, so why bother -- IMO what counts are the individual comments submitted to the state board of education. Speaking of those comments: about ten working days after posting the proposed science standards, the Texas Education Agency has still not provided a form for submitting comments -- preliminary board hearings on the proposed science standards may be held as early as November and time's a-wasting. An email I got from the Texas Education Agency a few days ago said,

Dear Science Educators,
The first draft of the proposed revisions to the K-12 Science TEKS were posted on September 22nd. This includes the two new courses, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering.

You can access the draft by going to http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/scienceTEKS.html

A feedback form will be made available soon at this web address.

I don't know why the email was addressed to "science educators" -- not everyone on the mailing list is a science educator.

Those who want the "strengths and weaknesses" language -- which has been in the Texas science standards for 20 years or more -- to be included in the final biology standards face an uphill battle:

(1) The language has been omitted from the proposed biology standards. However, it is very fortunate that the language was included in the proposed chemistry and astronomy standards -- the chemistry and astronomy committees did not cave in to pressure to omit the language.

(2) It has been reported that the school board is now closely divided on whether to retain the "strengths and weaknesses" language: 7 in favor, 6 opposed, and two undecided. A final board decision on the state science standards is slated for March 2009 but some of the supporters could be lost before then -- the terms of several members expire on Jan. 1, 2009 and some supporters could be voted out or retire from the board. Unfortunately, 4 members are promoting a bible-study course that some people consider to be unconstitutional and I presume that all 4 of these members are in the group of 7 that supports the "strengths and weaknesses" language. As expected, the Darwinists are exploiting this support for the bible studies course to try to discredit board members' support for the "strengths and weaknesses" language.

(3) Though I presume the "weaknesses" language has the most public support, the Darwinists are better organized than their opponents. Their connections in university faculties, schoolteacher associations, and scientific organizations have enabled them to respond quickly, as is evidenced by the quick gathering of hundreds of signatures on the petition. Also, unfortunately some of the organizations that support the "weaknesses" language are fundy-oriented.

Related posts:

The state of evolution education in the USA and an agenda for sane evolution education

Why should scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution be taught by parents and pastors who have no expertise in biology?

Proposed Texas science standards released

Summary of criticisms of proposed Texas science standards

Promoting "teaching the controversy"

Bibliography bluffing again -- this time in Texas
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Bibliography bluffing again -- this time in Texas

"You thump your bible and I'll thump mine" (not an actual quote)

Dan Bolnick, an assistant professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas, spoke Tuesday on behalf of the 21st Century Science Coalition and the scientific theory of evolution. Picture courtesy of Larry Kolvoord, Austin American-Statesman

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A news article in the Austin American-Statesman said,

By Laura Heinauer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Armed with stacks of scientific journals, a group that says it represents more than 800 Texas scientists is challenging the idea that discussion of the weaknesses of evolutionary theory belongs in science classrooms.

The group of professors held a news conference Tuesday in the lobby of the Texas Education Agency in Austin and said that they would be watching while a state board rewrites the state public school science curriculum next year.

"Not a single one (of the articles in these journals) gives us reason to believe evolution did not occur," said Dan Bolnick, an assistant professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas, pointing to stacks of the scientific journal Evolution. "So where are the weaknesses? Simple: They don't exist. They are not based on scientific research or data and have been refuted countless times."

Last week, the state released an early committee recommendation for the new science curriculum that would excise ideas "based upon purported forces outside of nature" from what Texas students are taught in biology classes. . . . .

. . . .Organizers of the 21st Century Science Coalition said the group formed about two weeks ago and blossomed in membership in response to comments by State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, who opposes a committee proposal to remove the requirement that the "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories be taught in biology classes.

This presentation of a stack of documents is just bibliography bluffing -- like what they pulled on Michael Behe at the Dover trial.

Scientists' lack of candor about weaknesses of Darwinism will ultimately do more harm to the reputation of science than scientists' admission of those weaknesses possibly could.

The "strengths and weaknesses" language that has been in the Texas science standards for 20 years or more is missing from the proposed biology standards but fortunately was included in the proposed astronomy and chemistry standards. [1]. Also, 7 of the 15 members of the Texas board of education -- including chairman Don McLeroy -- have indicated support for the "strengths and weaknesses" language, 6 are opposed to the language, and 2 are considered to be swing votes. [2].

This is shaping up to be even bigger than the recent battle over the new Florida standards, which was a dilly.

Unfortunately, four members of the board have been pushing a bible study course which some people consider to be unconstitutional. I don't know if all four of these members belong to the group of seven known supporters of the "strengths and weaknesses" language, but they probably are. It is likely that the Darwinists will use this promotion of a bible studies course to try to discredit these four members. Also, the terms of 3 of these 4 members expire Jan. 1, 2009, before the decision on the new science standards, and may lose their seats because of this promotion of a bible studies course. Very stupid.

The Evolution News & Views website [3] [4] and the National Center for Science Education website [5] [6] have more information and links about the situation in Texas.
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Promoting "teaching the controversy"

This post is mostly a summary of ideas that I have already discussed on this blog. [1] [2].

Some of the links below are to post-label groups of articles on this blog.

Scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms (or weaknesses) of evolution theory:

(1) Teaching scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution serves the bona fide secular purposes of broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, and increasing student interest. If students are mature enough to learn evolution theory, then they are mature enough to learn criticisms of the theory. Censoring these criticisms is anti-intellectual.

(2) Some of these criticisms are too sophisticated to be taught by laypeople, e.g., typical parents, Sunday school teachers, and non-science public school teachers. You have to know what you are doing when teaching such things as (1) the propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction and (2) the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (even biology teachers are often not expert about this -- this is more in the realm of physicists and mechanical engineers).

(3) Point out that Intelligent Design is not the only (pseudo)scientific criticism of evolution. This blog has some non-ID criticisms of evolution, especially co-evolution, and there are others.

(3) Point out that Intelligent Design and other (pseudo)scientific criticisms of religion are based on scientific observations and scientific reasoning and thus are different from creationism, which is based on religious sources.

(4) Point out that even if the criticisms of evolution theory are wrong, they serve the important function of forcing scientists to confront weaknesses in the theory.

(5) Students may be told that some criticisms of evolution are not widely accepted in the scientific community.

Teaching evolution theory:
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(1) Teach the difference between microevolution and macroevolution.

(2) Teach that evolution is part fact and part theory. Microevolution is fact. Unless the evidence is deceiving us, the earth is old and changes through time and some common descent are facts. However, evidence that evolution was driven solely by natural selection and what we know as natural genetic variation is poor.

(3) Teach that knowing evolution theory is useful even if the theory is wholly or partly untrue. Much of biological literature uses the terms and concepts of evolution theory. Evolution theory is the basis of cladistic taxonomy, which is popular today, especially in paleontology. Too often students are told that they need to learn evolution because it is true -- they should be told that they should learn evolution whether it is true or not.

(4) Avoid teaching about the religious, social, philosophical, moral, etc. implications of evolution theory. These subjects are too sensitive to be taught in science class.

(5) Don't teach the idea that evolution is central to biology or similar nonsense.

(6) Don't spend excessive time on evolution. I don't know how much time should be spent on the subject, but a recent national survey of teachers shows that about 38% of respondents spend 11-20 hours or more on "general evolutionary processes," and that much time is clearly excessive. Many of these teachers spend additional time on human evolution.

(7) Try to teach it just once and then forget about it. Try to avoid repeatedly sticking Darwin in students' faces unnecessarily. Textbooks should confine evolution to one chapter.

For the courts:

(1) Declare evolution disclaimer statements to be constitutional.

(2) Declare that scientific issues in the evolution controversy are non-justiciable. Get out of the business of trying to micro-manage evolution education.

(3) Recognize that there is no constitutional principle of separation of pseudoscience and state. Don't allow people to misuse the establishment clause for attacking (pseudo)scientific ideas that they don't like.

(4) Rule that when a university denies accreditation to any course in a private high school because the sole or main textbook has a special viewpoint or narrow focus (e.g., the fundy-oriented biology texts in ACSI v. Stearns), then that university must deny accreditation to all courses in that subject that use sole or main textbooks that have a special viewpoint or narrow focus. Otherwise the courts are going to be turned into textbook accreditation agencies.

(5) Overturn Blum v. Stenson, which ruled that attorney fee awards in civil rights cases may not be reduced on the grounds that legal representation was by a non-profit organization (the ruling presumably also applies to any pro bono representation). The ruling was based on a misinterpretation of a Senate report, which only said that the attorney fee awards should not be reduced on the grounds that the claims are non-pecuniary and said nothing about non-profit or pro bono representation. Only court decisions cited by the report discussed non-profit and pro bono representation (no, Kevin, you pettifogging troll, citation of a court opinion does not mean automatic endorsement of the entire contents of the opinion, nor are readers of the Senate report responsible for reading the cited court opinions, you stupid dunghill, and furthermore the Senate report doesn't even tell readers that they need to read the court opinions for more information, you beetlebrained crackpot).

(6) Recognize that excessive time spent on monkey trials results in short shrift or no shrift for other cases.

For state science standards:

(1) Avoid trying to define or redefine terms like "scientific theory" -- this will only lead to confusion and misunderstandings.

(2) Avoid stating philosophies of science, e.g., stating that science is by definition testable and falsifiable. By that definition, a lot of evolution theory would not be scientific.

For Congress:

Put a maximum cap on attorney fee awards to plaintiffs in establishment clause cases. The threat of exorbitant attorney fee awards to plaintiffs -- e.g., the $1 million award in Kitzmiller v. Dover -- discourages legislatures and school boards from doing things that the courts might find to be constitutional. Even a very generous cap would be an enormous improvement over the present situation. For balance, also cap attorney fee awards in free-exercise clause cases.

For students:

In the debate over teaching the controversy, we have heard the least from those who are most affected -- the students themselves. Students should be encouraged to support teaching the controversy.

Well, have I left anything out? I hope not.

Also, a recent national survey of public school science teachers showed that 25% of respondents teach creationism or intelligent design, so the question is not only whether to teach these subjects but also how to teach them. Darwinists who bury their heads in the sand and pretend that these subjects are not being taught in public schools will miss an opportunity to influence how these subjects are taught. A report on the survey said,

Creationism in the classroom: We also asked teachers whether they spent classroom time on creationism or intelligent design. We found that 25% of teachers indicated that they devoted at least one or two classroom hours to creationism or intelligent design (see Table 1). However, these numbers can be misleading because while some teachers may cover creationism to expose students to an alternative to evolutionary theory, others may bring up creationism in order to criticize it or in response to student inquiries. Questions that simply ask about time devoted to creationism, therefore, will overstate support for creationism or intelligent design by counting both those who teach creationism as a serious subject and those holding it up for criticism or ridicule. We asked a series of supplemental questions that provided some additional insight into the character of creationism in the classroom. Of the 25% of teachers who devoted time to creationism or intelligent design, nearly half agreed or strongly agreed that they teach creationism as a “valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species.” Nearly the same number agreed or strongly agreed that when they teach creationism or intelligent design they emphasize that “many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian Theory” (see Table S3).

On the other hand, many teachers devoted time to creationism either to emphasize that religious theories have no place in the science classroom or to challenge the legitimacy of these alternatives. Of those who spent time on the subject, 32% agreed or strongly agreed that when they teach creationism they emphasize that almost all scientists reject it as a valid account of the origin of species, and 40% agreed or strongly agreed that when they teach creationism they acknowledge it as a valid religious perspective, but one that is inappropriate for a science class.

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Candidates' views on teaching the controversy

An article in Nature magazine said,

Barack Obama accepted Nature's invitation to answer 18 science-related questions in writing; John McCain's campaign declined . . . . . . . Wherever possible, Nature has noted what McCain has said at other times on these topics.

Here are the answers on a question about evolution education:

Do you believe that evolution by means of natural selection is a sufficient explanation for the variety and complexity of life on Earth? Should intelligent design, or some derivative thereof, be taught in science class in public schools?

Obama: I believe in evolution, and I support the strong consensus of the scientific community that evolution is scientifically validated. I do not believe it is helpful to our students to cloud discussions of science with non-scientific theories like intelligent design that are not subject to experimental scrutiny.

McCain said last year, in a Republican primary debate: "I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also." In 2005, he told the Arizona Daily Star that he thought "all points of view" should be available to students studying the origins of humanity. But the next year a Colorado paper reported him saying that such viewpoints should not be taught in science class.

It looks like John McCain has been very wishy-washy about the issue.
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It is generally well known that GOP V-P candidate Sarah Palin is in favor of teaching the controversy. Dem V-P candidate Sen. Biden has a mixed record on the issue -- one source said,

Evolution/Intelligent Design:
On an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Biden criticized teaching intelligent design in schools saying, "This is reversible, man. This is reversible. We don't have to go down this road. I refuse to believe the majority of people believe this malarkey!”

On the other hand, the Discovery Institute pointed out that Biden voted in favor of the "teach the controversy" Santorum Amendment in 2001.
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Summary of criticisms of proposed Texas science standards

My original post about these standards was long-winded and had no summary of my criticisms. I am commenting here only about the high school standards.

A website for receiving comments about the proposed standards has not been posted yet.

(1) Create a core set of science standards that applies to all disciplines. Each discipline -- e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics -- now has a complete set of independent standards and there is no core set of standards. So, e.g., three of the disciplines define or discuss "theory" and others do not, two of the disciplines have the "strengths and weaknesses" language and others do not.

(2) Retain Rule 3A's "strengths and weaknesses" language, which has been in the standards for 20 years or more:

(A) The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information.

This language is unfortunately missing in the proposed biology standards. Scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of prevailing theories should be taught by science teachers, not by unqualified parents, Sunday school teachers, etc.. Also, teaching weaknesses of prevailing scientific theories broadens students' education, encourages critical thinking, and increases student interest.

(3) Remove definitions and discussions of the term "scientific theory." These non-standard definitions are going to create chaos because textbooks tend to be tailored to suit Texas and hence are likely to adopt these definitions. The definition of "scientific theory" should be left to standard dictionaries.

(4) All philosophy of science and attempts to define the meaning of the word "science" should be removed. This stuff is too subjective, arbitrary and contentious to be included in state science standards.

(5) Correct inappropriate uses of the word "evolution." The word "evolution" generally connotes "development" or a pattern of "progression." The word should not be used to describe random and directionless change. So the expressions "biological evolution" and "stellar evolution" are OK, but "evolution of continents" is not.

(6) I see nothing wrong with directly mentioning human evolution in the standards, even though the science standards of only about 5 states currently directly mention it. Human evolution is not now in the proposed standards.

(7) The proposed standards do not have that outrageous cockamamie idea that evolution is central to biology, but I am going to speak out against this idea anyway in case someone tries to insert it.

(8) New item added 10/23/08 -- Reword the "strengths and weaknesses" language to say "scientific strengths and scientific and pseudoscientific weaknesses," which should exclude creationism and supernaturalism because those things do not pretend to be scientific.

IMO there should just be national standards and no state standards (only Iowa does not have any state science standards of its own) -- but that is a another matter.

General principles:

(1) There is no constitutional principle of separation of pseudoscience and state.

(2) The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If flat-earthers, geocentrists, etc. ever get enough political clout to have their ideas seriously considered for inclusion in science curricula, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

The National Center for Science Education has an article -- with links to other websites -- about these proposed standards.

I have been commenting extensively on a Houston Chronicle Evo.Sphere blog article about the proposed standards.

I decided to make the first use of my "No trolls" (or "Please don't feed the trolls") symbol.

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Proposed Texas science standards released

The long-awaited proposed Texas science standards (the science standards of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills -- or TEKS for short) have been released. These standards are especially controversial because of the following reasons:

(1) -- There is a large number of Darwin-doubters on the Texas School Board, including the board's chairperson, Don McLeroy.

(2) -- the ouster of the Texas Education Agency's science director Christine Comer, at least partly for violating the TEA's policy of neutrality by misusing her TEA email address to forward an announcement of a lecture about a conspiracy theory that critics of evolution are conspiring to take over the USA. She is now suing the TEA over her ouster. She has her own post label in the sidebar.

(3) -- efforts by Darwinists -- notably Steven Schafersman and his Texas Citizens for Science -- to remove language about teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. This language has been in the state standards for around 20 years or more.

(4) -- a map chart prepared by the National Center for Science Education and the Fordham Foundation (no connection to Fordham University) shows Texas as being only one of only eight states -- mostly in the Bible Belt -- that now has state science standards that only mention evolution "briefly, unclearly." The map chart shows the current science standards of all the other states (not counting Iowa, which does not have its own science standards) as treating biological evolution "straightforwardly and/or thoroughly." The proposed new Texas standards would move Texas into the category of states in the map chart that treat evolution "straightforwardly and/or thoroughly."

(5) -- Texas is one of the biggest single buyers of textbooks. In most states, textbooks are selected on a school-by-school or district-by-district basis, but textbooks are purchased on a statewide basis in Texas. Also, Texas has a lot of national influence on textbooks' contents because many states and school boards adopt Texas's selections. The new state science standards could influence the contents of future Texas textbooks.

I don't know of any Internet address for receiving comments about the proposed science standards -- an address will probably be established in the future.

The standards are divided up into three separate parts: high school, 6th-8th grade, and K-5th grade. I will comment only on the first two.
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High school standards:

(1) The high school standards are divided up into disciplines, e.g. , biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy. There are no overall standards covering all the disciplines -- this causes problems, as I discuss later. To add to the confusion, there are separate standards for chemistry, physics, and "integrated physics and chemistry."

(2) The word "evolution" appears 9 times in the high school standards, but only 6 of those appearances are wholly or partly in connection with biology (to see the appearances of a term in a PDF file, click on the binoculars icon in the top border). IMO the standards inappropriately use the term "evolution" in several non-biological contexts, e.g., evolution of the universe, evolution and properties of the integrated Earth and planetary systems, evolution of Earth's atmosphere over time, and geological evolution. I presume that the Earth and Space Science panel, which the fanatic pro-evolutionist Steven Schafersman of the Texas Citizens for Science was on, wrote these phrases that use the term "evolution." I decided to look up the definitions of "evolution" in the Merriam Webster online dictionary (I previously looked up the word "evolve" and the definitions were not very helpful). One definition of evolution is:

"a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state"

This is the usage associated with biology and IMO is the usage that most people are most familiar with. BTW, biological evolution does not always result in an increase in complexity -- for example, blind salamanders and fish are believed to have evolved from sighted salamanders and fish -- but the overall trend of evolution has been an increase in complexity and a change towards a higher or better state.

The M-W online dictionary also gives the following definition:

"a process in which the whole universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena"

The life of a star can be considered to be a "progression" of stages -- in fact, this is called "stellar evolution." I think that where changes follow a pattern of progression, the changes may properly be called "evolution." However, where the changes are just random and directionless, like the changes in continents, then IMO those changes are not properly called evolution. No one would ever speak of the "evolution of continents." So IMO instead of using only the term "evolution" to describe non-biological changes, IMO it is sometimes appropriate to use the terms "changes" or "evolution or changes."

(3) The "strengths and weaknesses" language -- which has been in the old standards for 20 years or more -- appears twice in the proposed new standards, but only in the standards for chemistry and astronomy (as noted, the standards are divided up into different disciplines). The language does not appear in the proposed biology standards.

(4) Though "evolution" (or "evolutionary") appears 9 times in the standards, 6 times wholly or partly in regard to biology, it is called a "theory" in only one place in the standards: "The student knows evolutionary theory is an explanation for the diversity of life"(page 9). In Florida, there was a big fight over whether to call evolution a "theory" in the state standards -- in a compromise, the word "theory" was added to evolution and other theories as well. What is not well known is that the Florida standards also redefined "scientific theory" as being a "well-supported" and "widely accepted" explanation. That is just not true -- there are "strong" theories and "weak" theories.

(5) Definition of the term "theory": The scientific meaning of the term is discussed in the biology, chemistry and physics standards. To search for the definitions, you must search for the plural word "theories" -- you will not find the definitions by searching for the singular "theory." Most of these definitions are not as bad as the Florida state standards' definition, which flatly defines "scientific theory" as being a "well-supported" and "widely accepted" explanation -- with no exceptions.

(6) -- fortunately, these proposed standards -- unlike the recently adopted Florida standards -- have no statement about evolution being central to biology or a similar statement. More about this below.

(7) There is a lot of repetition, redundancy, and inconsistency between the standards for the different disciplines. This creates confusion and misunderstanding -- for example, one could be reading a standard for an individual discipline and falsely assume that that standard applies to all of the science standards. I have already pointed out that the standards for the different disciplines have been inconsistent in retaining the "strengths and weaknesses" language. Is this a sneaky way of trying to hide the fact that the "strengths and weaknesses" language has been dropped from the biology standards? Lousy trolls are now going to quibble that no one would be dumb enough to think that a standard listed under a particular discipline would apply to the whole science standards. Well, if people were not that dumb, there would not be those big fat "Wrong Way" signs on the exits to freeways. If people were not that dumb, there would not be that "This is not the road to Fresno" sign in Kings Canyon National Park. Duh. And all these inconsistent standards are just a tower of babble (sic) that is virtually impossible to deal with. There should be at most just one definition of "scientific theory" (IMO definitions of that term should be left to dictionaries), one statement about "strengths and weaknesses," etc.. IMO these high school standards should just be scrapped entirely and new standards should be written by starting from a clean slate.

Grades 6-8 Standards:

The words evolution, evolve, evolved, and evolving do not appear. "Natural selection" appears twice. Co-evolution is mentioned: "describe the characteristics of two species that may adapt to one another through generations such as humming birds (sic) and tubular flowers or the Yucca moth and Yucca plant" (page 14). Other statements in the standards are related to evolution.

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I propose the following realistic goals for state science standards --

(1) -- keep out or remove statements about evolution being central to biology or unifying biology, that kind of thing. Fortunately, the proposed Texas science standards has no such statement. Unfortunately, the Florida state science standards that were recently adopted has the statement, "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology," and the controversy over that statement was overshadowed by the controversy over the finally-adopted proposal to call evolution a "theory." How could evolution be central to biology when 13% of respondents in a 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 at all (and presumably a larger percentage would agree or strongly agree with the statement that evolution is not central to biology)? What percentage of science teachers would agree with, say, a statement that an "excellent" physics course could exist that does not mention Newton's Laws of Motion? Some people's brains have been parasitized by that stupid 1973 paper titled "Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution" written by Theodosius Dobzhansky.

(2) -- add or keep language about teaching the teaching both the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories.

(3) -- discredit the National Center for Science Education and the Fordham Foundation/Institute as evaluators of evolution education standards. The NCSE is of course dedicated to the dogmatic teaching of evolution. Paul R. Gross, the principal author of the Fordham Foundation report, is a co-author -- with Barbara Forrest -- of "Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse -- The Wedge of Intelligent Design," which is an absurd book about a conspiracy theory that critics of evolution are a bunch of fundies who are conspiring to take over the country. Gross Gross (sic) also threatened to drop Ohio's overall science grade from a B to an F because of the state's lesson plan for a critical analysis of evolution (letter posted Jan. 21, 2006 on the website of Ohio Citizens for Science). Let's get the foxes out of the henhouse.

(4) -- oppose attempts to redefine "theory" or "scientific theory" in the standards. The new Florida state science standards define "scientific theory" as being a "well-supported" and "wide accepted" explanation. That simply isn't true -- there are "strong" scientific theories and "weak" scientific theories. These attempts to redefine words tend to create a tower of babble (sic) where people cannot understand each other. It is OK for things like laws to give special definitions of words because everyone realizes that those definitions are for one-time use only (sort of like the term pro hac vice, "for this time only," meaning allowing an out-of-state attorney to participate in just a particular court case when the attorney is not licensed in the state).

My post The state of evolution education in the USA and an agenda for sane evolution education has more recommendations for evolution education.
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Darwinist poor-mouthing about evolution education

Darwinists are always portraying themselves as the underdogs in science education whereas the opposite is true -- they are actually in the driver's seat and have a near monopoly on evolution education in the public schools.

In an abstract of an article in the Integrative & Comparative Biology journal, Kevin Padian says,

Although contemporary high school and college textbooks of biology generally cover the principles and data of microevolution (genetic and populational change) and speciation rather well, coverage of what is known of the major changes in evolution (macroevolution), and how the evidence is understood is generally poor to nonexistent.

Padian was a plaintiffs' expert witness at the Dover trial and handed out "Friend of Darwin" certificates at a reunion of the Dover plaintiffs team [1][2]

Steven Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, says (see comment of 9/7/2008 1:51 PM CDT ) --
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. . . in our country's public schools, especially in Texas, evolution is being marginalized and avoided . . .

The reality appears to be quite a bit different.

Dover defendant Bill Buckingham said in an interview for a PBS NOVA program about the Dover trial,

In looking at the biology book the teachers wanted, I noticed that it was laced with Darwinism. I think I listed somewhere between 12 and 15 instances where it talked about Darwin's theory of evolution. It wasn't on every page of the book, but, like, every couple of chapters, there was Darwin, in your face again. And it was to the exclusion of any other theory.

An author of that biology textbook, fanatic Darwinist Ken Miller, testified at the Dover trial that versions of the book are used by about 35 percent of the high school students in the USA:

Q. Is this a textbook that's used in the Dover Area School District, to your knowledge?

A. My understanding, sir, is that it is.

Q. And is it used anywhere else besides Dover?

A. It is used in each and every one of the 50 states of the United States and several foreign countries.

Q. Do you know how many high schools use your biology book?

A. I can't give you a number in terms of the number of schools, but I have been told by my publisher that about 35 percent of the high school students in the United States use one or another of the various textbooks we've been discussing.

Also, this post shows that evolution gets a tremendous amount of attention in US public school science courses.
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Top UK educator opposes hard-sell teaching of evolution

WOULD YOU BUY A USED SCIENTIFIC THEORY FROM THIS MAN?

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Update #2: Prof. Reiss resigns from position of Royal Society's director of education.

Update: Prof. Reiss's proposal divides the Royal Society -- two Nobel laureates, other senior fellows call for his removal as education director.

The repercussions of Darwin's theory are finally coming home to roost in Darwin's home country. A news article says,

Creationism and intelligent design should be taught in school science lessons, according to a leading expert in science education.

The Rev Prof Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society, said that excluding alternatives to scientific explanations for the origin of life and the universe from science lessons was counterproductive and would alienate some children from science altogether.
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He said that around one in 10 children comes from a family with creationist beliefs. "My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science," he said . . . .

. . . . Reiss said he used to be an "evangelist" for evolution in the classroom, but that the approach had backfired. "I realised that simply banging on about evolution and natural selection didn't lead some pupils to change their minds at all. Now I would be more content simply for them to understand it as one way of understanding the universe," he said.

Reiss, who is an ordained Church of England minister, told the British Association Festival of Science in Liverpool that science teachers should not see creationism as a "misconception" but as an alternative "world view". He added that he was not advocating devoting the same time to teaching creationism or intelligent design as to evolution.

There are also those who have non-religious reasons for opposing hard-sell teaching of evolution.

We all know what hard-sell teaching of evolution is like: dogmatic teaching of evolution, constantly in-your-face, no-ifs-ands-buts-or-maybes, the evolution-is-central-to-biology nonsense, no weaknesses, no evolution disclaimer statements, brainwashing, spoon-feeding, no critical thinking allowed, the-only-criticisms-of-evolution-are-unconstitutional-creationist-criticisms, no compromises, if-you-don't-like-it-you-can-go-to-hell, those kinds of things. And it is an unfortunate coincidence in the USA that Darwinists can misuse the Constitution's establishment clause to attack the teaching of scientific (pseudoscientific to them) ideas that they don't like, and I doubt that Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders would approve of such misuse. There is no constitutional principle of separation of pseudoscience and state, and it is this misuse of the establishment clause that has enabled the Darwinist tail to wag the dog.

A recent national survey of science teachers in the USA showed that approximately 25% of respondents spend some time teaching creationism or intelligent design, but many or most of them teach those things just for the purpose of disparaging them.

Why can't evolution just be taught as a sort of imaginary or hokey idea that may be wholly or partly untrue but is nonetheless useful in organizing and conceptualizing biology? As an engineer, I know that engineers are comfortable using analysis methods that are not intuitively correct or accurate, e.g.: (1) the use of complex-plane vectors in the analysis of AC circuits and (2) using rotating-cylinder aerodynamics to analyze fixed-wing airfoil aerodynamics by means of the Joukowski transformation of conformal mapping.

Suggested further reading:

An op-ed written by Prof. Reiss.

A good overview of UK evolution education in the international context.

The Discovery Institute's take on the UK controversy.
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Why should scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution be taught by parents and pastors who have no expertise in biology?

I am surprised that no one (at least not to my knowledge) has asked that question before.

Johnny: Please teach us about Intelligent Design.

Teacher: I can't do that -- Judge Jones said that it is unconstitutional to teach ID in the public schools. Just ask your parents or your pastor about it.

Johnny: But they don't know anything about biology.

Teacher: That's OK -- ID is just pseudoscience anyway.

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Evolution education abroad is not what it is cracked up to be

Darwinists in the USA are propagandizing a myth that students in foreign countries are getting thorough educations in evolution and are therefore leaving American students behind in the dust. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A previous article in this blog exploded the myth that American students are not getting a lot of evolution education.

An article about evolution education in Canada said,

In all but one provincial science curriculum, evolution is relegated to a single unit in a Grade 11 or 12 elective course taken by a sliver of each graduating class. It would not be a stretch to say the majority of Canadian high school students graduate without ever encountering Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Only Quebec, which rolled out a new curriculum in 2004, includes evolution among key concepts in elementary school science classes and mandates a full unit of evolution in a compulsory Grade 7-8 science class. . . . .

Though Canadians have never pitted evolution against creationism in a court of law, we are squeamish about advancing evolution as part of the national education agenda. We look south of the border and want no part of the extremism that a confrontation over evolution inevitably generates.

“The whole discussion has been so tremendously skewed by a whole lot of raving idiots,” says Rev. Paul Fayter, a United Church minister and professor of science and religion at York University in Toronto, who advocates thinking “non-dogmatically” about origins. He’s as comfortable with a copy of the Bible as he is with Darwin’s The Origin of Species.

So is Denis Lamoureux, a devout evangelical Christian and confirmed evolutionist who teaches science and religion at St. Joseph’s College in the University of Alberta. “So how are we going to teach biology?” he asks. “Teach the science as metaphysically free as possible. In other words, keep God out of it, keep the atheistic world view out of it.”

I wholeheartedly agree. When I first became interested in the evolution controversy, I wanted to keep religion out of the discussion, but the Darwinists insisted on making religion an issue.

Also, the article describes how McGill University professor Brian Alters, who was a plaintiffs' expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, got his comeuppance:
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Returning from Dover, Penn., in December 2005, Brian Alters must have felt vindicated. As an expert witness in a widely publicized court case, Alters, a professor of evolution education at McGill University, helped persuade a judge that intelligent design (ID) — the idea that the complexity of certain natural phenomena is proof of a supernatural designer — was not a scientific theory, but “a religious view, a mere relabelling of creationism,” and that it had no place in Dover’s science classrooms . . . . .

Little did Alters know he would return to McGill’s Evolution Education Research Centre to find himself embroiled in a similar dispute. This time, the opposition was not a school board but a federal agency, the second-biggest grant-making institution in Canada, which declined funding for the evolution centre’s proposed study aimed at discovering what inroads ID had made in Canadian schools.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council said the review committee couldn’t find “adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent design theory, was correct.”

LOL. Serves him right, the jerk. What goes around, comes around.

Also, the article says,

In the past decade, a sophisticated and well-funded attack on science curricula induced school boards in at least eight U.S. states to roll back the teaching of evolutionary biology.

On the contrary, this map chart shows that several states added or strengthened coverage of evolution in their science standards in the period 2000-2008 and that no states weakened or eliminated such coverage in that period. The map also shows that in 2008 the science standards of the overwhelming majority of states "treat evolution straightforwardly and/or thoroughly" and that no state science standards do not mention biological evolution at all (Iowa does not count because it does not have its own science standards) -- science standards in the remainder, eight states that are all in the Bible Belt except Illinois, mention biological evolution "briefly, unclearly." It is noteworthy that the sources for this map chart are the National Center for Science Education and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, two organizations which would be expected to be extremely stingy about giving state science standards credit for treating biological evolution "straightforwardly and/or thoroughly." Efforts to add critical analysis of evolution are often misinterpreted as efforts to reduce or eliminate the teaching of evolution.

Articles about evolution education in other foreign countries are listed under the "Evolution controversy abroad" and "Evolution controversy abroad (new #1)" post labels (these post labels are also listed in the sidebar).
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The state of evolution education in the USA and an agenda for sane evolution education

Click on image to enlarge

Map chart is from New York Times. Iowa, which appears to be the last holdout against mentioning evolution, has no state science standards of its own. Note that between 2000 and 2008 some states actually removed or weakened mention of human evolution.

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Click on image to enlarge

Table 1. Hours that percentages of teachers spend on different topics. From "Evolution and Creationism in America's Classrooms: A National Portrait" by Michael B. Berkman, Julianna Sandell Pacheco, Eric Plutzer

A discussion accompanying the above table says,

Overall, teachers devoted an average of 13.7 hours to general evolutionary processes (including human evolution), with 59% allocating between three and 15 hours of class time (see Table S1). Only 2% excluded evolution entirely. But significantly fewer teachers covered human evolution, which is not included as an NSES benchmark. Of teachers surveyed, 17% did not cover human evolution at all in their biology class, while a majority of teachers (60%) spent between one and five hours of class time on it. (continued below the fold)
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Those teachers who stressed evolution by making it the unifying theme of their course spent more time on it. Overall, only 23% strongly agreed that evolution served as the unifying theme for their biology or life sciences courses (Table S2); these teachers devoted 18.5 hours to evolution, 50% more class time than other teachers. When we asked whether an excellent biology course could exist without mentioning Darwin or evolutionary theory at all, 13% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that such a course could exist.

Creationism in the classroom: We also asked teachers whether they spent classroom time on creationism or intelligent design. We found that 25% of teachers indicated that they devoted at least one or two classroom hours to creationism or intelligent design (see Table 1). However, these numbers can be misleading because while some teachers may cover creationism to expose students to an alternative to evolutionary theory, others may bring up creationism in order to criticize it or in response to student inquiries. Questions that simply ask about time devoted to creationism, therefore, will overstate support for creationism or intelligent design by counting both those who teach creationism as a serious subject and those holding it up for criticism or ridicule. We asked a series of supplemental questions that provided some additional insight into the character of creationism in the classroom. Of the 25% of teachers who devoted time to creationism or intelligent design, nearly half agreed or strongly agreed that they teach creationism as a “valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species.” Nearly the same number agreed or strongly agreed that when they teach creationism or intelligent design they emphasize that “many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian Theory” (see Table S3).

On the other hand, many teachers devoted time to creationism either to emphasize that religious theories have no place in the science classroom or to challenge the legitimacy of these alternatives. Of those who spent time on the subject, 32% agreed or strongly agreed that when they teach creationism they emphasize that almost all scientists reject it as a valid account of the origin of species, and 40% agreed or strongly agreed that when they teach creationism they acknowledge it as a valid religious perspective, but one that is inappropriate for a science class.

There is a lot more information in the article.

I find the above chart and table to be disturbing. The above chart of the USA shows that most state science standards "treat evolution straightforwardly and/or thoroughly," which IMO is not bad in itself, but the table shows that many teachers appear to spend excessive time teaching evolution and that too few teachers teach opposition to evolution, and many of those few who do teach opposition to evolution just disparage that opposition. The table shows that a horrendous figure of 38% of teachers spend more than 10 hours on evolution, but maybe this figure is not so bad if a lot of that time is spent on related subjects, e.g., genetics and population dynamics. Also, it looks like the time spent on "human evolution" is in addition to the time spent on "general evolutionary processes," which makes the situation even worse. Despite the widespread belief that a lot of teachers avoid evolution completely because of personal beliefs and/or to avoid antagonizing students, parents, and others, the table shows that only 2% of the surveyed teachers do not teach evolution at all. Some teachers would not teach evolution if government policy did not require it -- in Peloza v. Capistrano Unified School District, the courts rejected a public-school teacher's claim that he should not be required to teach evolution because teaching it was against his religious beliefs. I am pleased that only 23% of the teachers in the survey strongly agreed that evolution served as the unifying theme for their biology or life sciences courses. As for the teachers teaching creationism and/or ID, it is commonly believed that teaching creationism in the public schools is illegal and some people even falsely believe (per Kitzmiller v. Dover) that it is illegal to teach ID, but court rulings against teaching those things might be considered to apply only to government policies and not to the actions of individual teachers.

I don't even remember studying evolution at all in my high school biology courses in the early 1960's. I don't think that the neglect of evolution in my biology courses was due to any hostility towards evolution -- I think that evolution was something that most of the students just took for granted -- IMO it was just that evolution was not considered to be all that important. Today, learning evolution is more important because it is the basis of cladistic taxonomy, which has become important in just the last few decades.

Unfortunately, those of us who favor sanity in evolution education don't seem to have an agenda of goals for reforming evolution education. Here is a proposed agenda for such reform:
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(1) Legalize evolution disclaimer statements. This is a strong possibility because two federal court decisions against evolution disclaimers, Selman v. Cobb County and Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish, came close to being overturned. The infamous Kitzmiller v. Dover decision of insane Judge "Jackass" Jones is out of the picture. Evolution disclaimer statements should be considered to be constitutional unless they say something like, "if your textbook contradicts the word of god, the textbook is always wrong," or if the teacher gets out a bible and starts pounding it and prays for forgiveness for the sin of teaching the blasphemous theory of evolution.

(2) Get rid of that outrageous "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" (Florida science standards) statement and similar statements, whether in government science standards or in biology textbooks. Saying that evolution is central to biology just because evolution was supposedly the means by which species originated is like saying that design and manufacturing are central to engineering because they are the means of creating engineered objects. Design was just a small part of my undergraduate mechanical engineering program (it was just a senior design project) and there was no manufacturing course at all! Most of the engineering courses consisted of engineering analysis. As I noted, I am pleased that only 23% of the teachers in the survey strongly agreed that evolution served as the unifying theme for their biology or life sciences courses. That stupid 1973 paper by Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution," has parasitized the brains of the Darwinists.

(3) The courts should get the hell out of the business of micro-managing evolution education and stay out. This means you too, Judge "Jackass" Jones (Kitzmiller v. Dover) and Judge "Blooper" Cooper (Selman v. Cobb County). Except for outright religious creationism, issues in evolution education should be declared to be non-justiciable.

(4) Reject textbooks that don't confine evolution to a single chapter but that keep it constantly in students' faces. Avoid biology textbooks such as the one by Ken Miller and Joe Levine, which Kitzmiller v. Dover defendant Bill Buckingham described as being "laced with Darwinism" because he counted Darwinism appearing in 12-15 places in the book.

(5) Maybe reduce the amount of time that teachers spend on evolution education. The above table suggests that many teachers devote an excessive amount of time to evolution (as I said, some of the time may be spent on related subjects, e.g., genetics and population dynamics). Never having studied evolution in school, I don't know from personal experience how long it should take to cover the subject, but I do know that Kevin Padian must have covered the subject adequately in just one day in courtroom testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover, with time to spare because he also spent a lot of time criticizing creationism and ID, particularly ID. It should not take very long to teach students what they need to know about evolution. Students who want to learn more about evolution can study it in college.

(6) IMO science teachers should not lecture about or discuss evolution theory's impacts or implications concerning religion, philosophy, ethics, etc.. See this article. IMO these subjects are too sensitive and contentious to be discussed in science classes.

(7) Make the weaknesses of evolution theory a part of the official curriculum. This is a longshot goal because it is bound to be resisted by claims that it is an attempt to introduce religion into the curriculum. The above table shows that a significant minority of teachers already teach opposition to evolution, though not necessarily in a positive way.
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Darwinists' obsession with "Of Pandas and People"

"Of Pandas and People" is the Intelligent Design book that was central to the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. The court focused on the book even though the case was supposed to be about ID and not about a particular book about ID -- the only thing that was special about the book was that it happened to be the ID book that was selected by the Dover school board. Though there are many other books that discuss and promote ID, the Darwinists are -- more than 2½ years after release of the Kitzmiller decision -- still obsessed with "Of Pandas and People." To the Darwinists, this book is the ID movement's equivalent of the bible, the koran, the torah, and Chairman Mao's red book.

Panda's Thumb has a new article titled "Padian’s Takedown of 'Of Pandas and People,'" with a link to Kevin Padian's expert oral testimony and visual slides presented at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. If the Darwinists' case against ID is so heavily dependent on attacking just a single book, then their case must be very weak indeed.

Ironically, after fighting so hard to keep even the mere mention of ID out of public school science courses, the hypocritical Darwinists may now be trying to introduce ID into public school science courses just for the purpose of attacking it. A comment on the Panda's Thumb article said,

Calyptephile | August 24, 2008 8:05 PM |
I teach high school biology and I will be using some of these slides this fall. A huge “thank you” to Kevin Padian and Nick Matzke for sharing such tremendously useful diagrams for teachers like me to use in the continuing struggle to get students to realize that transitional fossils really do exist! The more these kinds of tools are put into high school teachers’ hands, the better.

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Judge Jones dodged question of whether ID fosters "critical thinking"

Judge "Jackass" Jones' infamous Kitzmiller v. Dover decision is a dubious "gift" that keeps on giving -- over 2½ years after the release of the decision, I am still finding more flaws in it.

My point in this post is that the Kitzmiller opinion never answered the question of whether or not Intelligent Design fosters "critical thinking," and the answer to that question is crucial in determining whether or not the Dover school board's ID policy passes the "purpose prong" of the Lemon test.

A paragraph in the Dover opinion says (pages 88-89),

After this searching and careful review of ID as espoused by its proponents, as elaborated upon in submissions to the Court, and as scrutinized over a six week trial, we find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science. Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents', as well as Defendants' argument that to introduce ID to students will encourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum. Moreover, ID's backers have sought to a void the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID. (pages 88-89)

I quoted the entire paragraph to show the contexts of the individual statements that I am next going to analyze:

Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents', as well as Defendants' argument that to introduce ID to students will encourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum.

The expression "accepting for the sake of argument" normally means that a position about something has been stated and an exception to that position is being made "for the sake of argument" -- but Judge Jones did not previously state any position on whether ID encourages critical thinking, so his statement "for the sake of argument" makes an exception to a position that does not exist. And Judge Jones does not support his statement that ID would have utterly no place in a science curriculum even if it does encourage critical thinking. He is essentially saying that encouraging critical thinking has no place in a science curriculum. Simply put, Judge "Jackass" Jones is an anti-intellectual pseudo-intellectual who is opposed to encouraging critical thinking in our public schools.

Next:
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Moreover, ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID. (emphasis added)

It is not clear whether Judge Jones is here trying to support his preceding statement that ID "has utterly no place in the science curriculum" -- the word "moreover" implies that he is starting a new topic. He still does not express any opinion here as to whether ID encourages critical thought -- he only says that encouraging critical thought is not the "goal" of the IDM (ID movement), just as Zachary Blount said that evolution of citrate-eating E. coli bacteria was "not a goal" of the long-term evolution experiment (but saying that Cit+ evolution was "not a goal" does not mean that it was not possible). BTW, if a mere one-minute evolution disclaimer statement in public-school science classes threatens to "foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID," then evolution theory must be a pretty weak theory indeed.

The Kitzmiller opinion says much later on pages 130-131,

Although as noted Defendants have consistently asserted that the ID Policy was enacted for the secular purposes of improving science education and encouraging students to exercise critical thinking skills, the Board took none of the steps that school officials would take if these stated goals had truly been their objective. The Board consulted no scientific materials. The Board contacted no scientists or scientific organizations. The Board failed to consider the views of the District's science teachers. (pages 130-131)

Jones' above statement again says nothing about whether or not ID actually encourages critical thinking skills. And if a purpose of ID is to encourage critical thinking skills, it does not matter whether ID is scientifically valid or not. Also, Jones' above statement does not support his previous statement (pages 88-89), "Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents', as well as Defendants' argument that to introduce ID to students will encourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum." Also, another decision on an evolution disclaimer, Selman v. Cobb County, said that the school board's failure to seek out expert opinion was excusable because criticism of evolution was not actually taught:

Relying heavily upon McLean v. Arkansas Bd. of Educ., 529 F.Supp. 1255 (E.D.Ark.1982), a case in which a balanced treatment statute was held unconstitutional, Plaintiffs also assert that the Court should infer a purpose to advance religion by the School Board's failure to seek out expert opinion from scientists before adopting the Sticker. McLean, however, is distinguishable from the instant case because McLean involved a statute requiring the teaching of creation science, which was a substantial change to the curriculum. In this case on the other hand, the Sticker only speaks generally about evolution and does not change the curriculum. While the School Board may have acted more prudently by consulting educators and scientists to determine whether evolution should properly be referenced as a theory, fact, or combination thereof, and to get expert opinion regarding what impact, if any, the Sticker might have on the teaching of evolution, the School Board's failure to do so does not prove that the School Board sought to advance religion. (emphasis added)

Finally, it would help if Jones' statements about the "critical thinking" issue were in one place rather than being unnecessarily separated -- one important discussion about the issue is on pages 88-89 and another is on pages 130-131.

Anyway, the fact is that Judge Jones never states any position on whether or not ID encourages "critical thinking." But it would be difficult for him to argue that ID does not encourage "critical thinking," considering that he spent several days hearing expert testimony on the question of whether ID is science.

The question of whether ID encourages critical thinking -- a question that Judge Jones weaseled out of answering -- is crucial in the "purpose prong" analysis of the Lemon test, because even something that is partly religious in nature can pass the purpose prong if there is a secular purpose that is not a sham, and encouraging critical thinking is such a purpose. Selman v. Cobb County, which was about an evolution-disclaimer textbook sticker, says (page 21),

"The purpose prong of the Lemon test asks whether government's actual purpose is to endorse or disapprove of religion." Lynch, 465 U.S. at 690 (O'Connor, J., concurring). To survive this Establishment Clause challenge, the Sticker in dispute must have a "clearly secular purpose." Wallace, 472 U.S. at 56, Bown v. Gwinnett County Sch. Dist., 112 F.3d 1464, 1469 (11th Cir.1997). However, the purpose of the Sticker "need not be exclusively secular." Bown, 112 F.3d at 1469 (citing Lynch, 465 U.S. at 681 n. 6). The Sticker runs afoul of the Establishment Clause only if it is "entirely motivated by a purpose to advance religion." Wallace, 472 U.S. at 56, King, 221 F.3d at 1278, Bown, 112 F.3d at 1469. Thus, it logically follows that a state-sponsored message may satisfy this first prong "even if it is motivated in part by a religious purpose." Adler, 206 F.3d at 1084 (quoting Wallace, 472 U.S. at 56)). However, the religious purpose must not be preeminent. Stone, 449 U.S at 41.

The court should defer to a state's articulation of a secular purpose, so long as the statement is sincere and not a sham. Edwards, 482 US. at 586-87. (emphasis added)

As for the statement, "the religious purpose must not be preeminent," I assert that incidental religious connotations, which basically just involve a "right" to not be offended (though this "right" is implicit in the establishment clause, so I cannot say that this "right" does not exist here), should not be permitted to override the importance of encouraging critical thinking in students.

Selman v. Cobb County was settled out of court after being vacated and remanded by the appeals court and is therefore not a legal precedent, but it nonetheless contains a lot of useful information and ideas.

The judge in Selman ruled that the evolution disclaimer in question in that case fostered "critical thinking" (pages 24-25):

Fostering critical thinking is a clearly secular purpose for the Sticker, which the Court finds is not a sham. First, it is important to note that prior to the adoption of the new textbooks and Sticker and the revision of the related policy and regulation, many students in Cobb County were not being taught evolution or the origin of the human species in school. Further, the School Board was aware that a large population of Cobb County citizens maintained beliefs that would potentially conflict with the teaching of evolution. Against this backdrop, the Sticker appear to have the purpose of furthering critical thinking because it tells students to approach the material on evolution with an open mind, to study it carefully, and to give it critical consideration. The other language on the Sticker, which states that evolution is a theory and not a fact, somewhat undermines the goal of critical thinking by predetermining that students should think of evolution as a theory when many in the scientific community would argue that evolution is factual in some respects. However, the testimony of the School Board members persuades the Court that the School Board did not seek to disclaim evolution by encouraging students to consider it critically. Rather, the School Board sought to encourage students to analyze the material on evolution themselves and make their own decision regarding its merit. (pages 24-25) (emphasis added)

BTW, I disagree with the statement in bold. If only part of evolution is a theory, then evolution as a whole is a theory, and if evolution were entirely factual, telling the students that it is a theory would just be lying to them, not undermining critical thinking.

Though Selman is mentioned 15 times in Kitzmiller, Judge Jones did not explain why Kitzmiller differed markedly from Selman on some important issues.

Html versions of Kitzmiller and Selman are here and here, respectively. The html versions are more readable -- less scrolling is required -- but don't have page numbers like the pdf versions do (some html opinions have page numbers, but these do not).

Fostering critical thinking in school is not just a matter of developing critical thinking skills -- opportunities for critical thinking stimulate student interest and help students learn and retain the material by using what they have learned.
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