Bigoted "Little Green Footballs" blog

A news article says,

The state’s top school board Wednesday approved procedures for residents who object to materials that challenge the teaching of evolution in public school science classes.

The rules, which were praised by evolution critics, stem from a law approved last year by the Legislature . . . .

. . . The statute allows science teachers to use supplemental materials, in addition to state-issued textbooks, to teach evolution and other topics.

“What’s left hanging are the procedures when a complaint is raised,” said Scott Norton, assistant state superintendent for student and school performance.

The department recommended that any complaints undergo an initial review by a three-member panel named by the agency, then go to the state board for a final decision.

But Dale Bayard, of Sulphur, chairman of the committee that tackled the issue, changed that and the committee went along.

Under Bayard’s change, two reviewers will be named by the department to review the science materials in question as well as one reviewer each named by the challenger, the school and the publisher.

The five-member panel will determine whether the materials:

Promote any religious doctrine, which is banned by the state law.

Are scientifically sound.

Are appropriate for the grade.

Bayard’s committee approved the complaint process without arguments.

Since other board members were there too, committee approval on Wednesday is tantamount to endorsement by the full state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which is expected today.

Under the rules approved Wednesday, people bothered by materials in a science classroom could file a complaint with the state Department of Education.

A hearing would then be set where each side could tell its story. Reviewers, who are supposed to be experts, can ask questions.

The five reviewers would file reports on whether the materials violate the rules. The department can also make a recommendation.

The state board would then make a final decision.

Sounds fair enough. All viewpoints would have a fair opportunity to be heard, and the state board would make the final decision. The criteria applied, e.g., the materials are scientifically sound and do not promote any religion, pass constitutional muster. However, the politically correct ultra-liberal "Little Green Footballs" blog completely mischaracterized these complaint rules [link]:

Louisiana Governor (and part time exorcist) Bobby Jindal’s stealth creationist bill is starting to bear rancid fruit, as the state’s top school board approves new rules intended to make it difficult for residents to challenge the teaching of creationism in science classes.

Pseudo-science promoted by ignorant religious fanatics takes another big step forward in Louisiana.

The complaint procedure makes it easier, not harder, to bring complaints. The hardline Darwinist roaders are opposed to any balance in evolution education.
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Badly flawed NCSE report on state standards for evolution education

IF HUMANS EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS, THEN WHY ARE THERE STILL MONKEYS?

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The infamous National Center for Science Education has released a badly flawed new report on state standards for evolution education. The report starts out by saying,

When it comes to state science standards and evolution, we at the National Center for Science Education sit up and take notice, for there is perhaps no other arena in which the religious controversy surrounding evolution plays out to such a detrimental degree as in the generation of poor science standards. . . .

In practice . . . the coverage of evolution in science standards can be less than adequate, not because the topic is scientifically controversial but because officials either have a specific religious agenda or don’t want to “ruffle creationist feathers” (Lerner 2000).

There we go again with that propaganda myth that the evolution controversy is entirely religious and not at all based on science. If fundies' scientific views were entirely based on religion, they would all believe in geocentrism because that is what the bible teaches.

The report says,
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Even if a good treatment of evolution in state science standards does not guarantee that evolution will be taught well, it provides a critical resource for teachers who want to teach evolution correctly. The clearest example is that a good treatment of evolution in the standards provides important support for biology teachers facing protests from creationist students, parents, and administrators who want creationism taught, or evolution not taught, in life science courses.

The big issue is not teaching creationism or not teaching evolution -- the big issue is balanced teaching of the scientific evidence for and against evolution. The majority of the public supports such balanced teaching.

A good treatment of evolution in state science standards can help to persuade administrators that the teaching of evolution is not a matter for political negotiations between parents and teachers with different interests but a clear educational necessity.

Students, parents, and citizens in general need to fight back against lousy Darwinist teachers and school administrators who try to use state science standards to beat us over the head. We need to be especially hard on teachers who constantly talk about evolution being the "foundation" of biology.

. . . in general, over the last two decades, creationists have reduced their advocacy of state-level legislation and policy that explicitly endorse creationist claims or attack evolution. Blanket bans on evolution and policies requiring “balanced treatment” of evolution and creationism have given way to more innocuous language, such as “teaching the controversy,” “critical analysis,” “strengths and weaknesses,” “academic freedom,” and “discussing the full range of scientific views” (Branch and Scott 2009).

The NCSE calls the above terms "creationist jargon" (another name for them commonly used by Darwinist propagandists: "creationist code words"). Evolution News & Views has an article about this.

As the foundation to the entire science of biology, evolutionary theory is vast and complex, resting on a variety of evidential bases from a number of scientific fields — all of which students are generally being introduced to for the first time in high school.

There we go again with that nonsense that evolution theory is "the foundation to the entire science of biology." How can that be true if 13% of science teachers in a recent national poll agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that an excellent biology course could exist that does not mention evolution or Darwin at all (even I don't agree with that statement)?

Students will not finish learning about it in detail until, at minimum, their later years of college, and they will not begin seriously analyzing it and synthesizing their knowledge until graduate school.

That's ridiculous -- many people do not go on to college and of those who do, probably most do not study biology there, and certainly most people do not eventually study biology in graduate school, so high school is most people's only opportunity to study evolution in a classroom setting.

Expecting high school biology students to be able to evaluate evolutionary theory is no more reasonable than expecting high school physics students to evaluate quantum field theory.

Not so -- quantum field theory might require a knowledge of mathematics beyond the level of high school students.

If students had the necessary knowledge and skills to make such judgments, there would be little reason for college science courses!

That's ridiculous.

This NCSE report rates the evolution education standards of each state. The rating system is completely arbitrary. There is a maximum possible 110 points -- I am ashamed to say that my home state of California is one of only two states that got perfect scores (the other state is New Jersey). Two states, Alabama and Louisiana, got 25 points knocked off for "disclaimers," though ironically one of the main purposes of disclaimers is to reduce opposition to the teaching of evolution (perversely, Kitzmiller v. Dover and Selman v. Cobb County struck down disclaimer statements that were adopted to reduce opposition to a newly adopted heavily pro-Darwinist textbook). Several states got up to 25 points knocked off for "creationist jargon" (examples of "creationist jargon" are above). The Florida state science standards were praised for misdefining "scientific theory" as being "well-supported and widely accepted" by definition; that's ridiculous -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. The Florida standards' ridiculous statement that "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" is not mentioned.
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Proposal for totalitarian national standards for education

A news article says,

It's been a long-held tradition in American public education that decisions about standards and curriculum are best left to state and local school systems, not the federal government. But that soon could change, amid mounting evidence that American students are falling behind their peers in other countries.

Leading education groups and government officials agreed at a congressional hearing April 29 that adopting common academic standards across all states might be the way to give U.S. students an advantage in an increasingly competitive and international marketplace.

Though American students' performance at any particular age or grade level tends to be mediocre, that is compensated for by the fact that Americans tend to have more years of education than people in other countries.

Having national standards would make it harder for the average individual citizen to influence education policy. Having national standards would make it much easier for high-powered lobbying organizations to uniformly impose their "politically correct" dogmas in such controversial areas of education as evolution and the holocaust. Highly centralized education standards are characteristic of totalitarian fascist and communist regimes -- look at the Hitler Youth, for example. We should be going the other way by abolishing state standards for education -- except perhaps for listing the kinds of courses to be taken (in fact, IMO there should be national standards for the kinds of courses to be taken) -- and going to local standards. It is fairly easy for average citizens to attend local meetings of school boards, but attending statewide -- let alone national -- hearings on standards of education is a big burden for most citizens.

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Allowing students to opt out of evolution

A news article about a legislative bill in Alberta says,

A controversial Alberta bill will enshrine into law the rights of parents to pull their children out of classes discussing the topics of evolution and homosexuality.

The new rules, which would require schools to notify parents in advance of "subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation," is buried in a bill that extends human rights to homosexuals.

IMO the idea of an opt-out policy for dogmatically-taught evolution education is good. The religious implications of evolution are now stronger than ever, with Darwinist cafeteria Christians bragging that they believe the gospel story but not the bible's creation story, even though both stories are supernatural. William Jennings Bryan said,

If those who teach Darwinism and evolution, as applied to man, insist that they are neither agnostics nor atheists, but are merely interpreting the Bible differently from orthodox Christians, what right have they to ask that their interpretation be taught at public expense?

Moreover, what right have they to insist that their interpretation be dogmatically taught to all students in the public schools?

The courts have not even allowed evolution-disclaimer statements. Such statements were struck down in three fairly recent cases -- Kitzmiller v. Dover, Selman v. Cobb County, and Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish.

If I were a student, I would opt out just to protest the dogmatic teaching of evolution. Also, IMO whether to opt out should be the student's decision, not the parents'. And students should have a right to object on scientific as well as religious grounds to the dogmatic teaching of evolution.

An evolution opt-out policy would require that evolution be concentrated and confined in just a few lectures at most and one small part of the textbook. Unfortunately, evolution is often sprinkled throughout some textbooks and some teachers' lectures. For example, Dover school board member Bill Buckingham complained that Miller & Levine's textbook "Biology" was "laced with Darwinism" [link] --

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.

Of course, under any reasonable opt-out policy, students who opt out would not be tested on evolution.

If the schools and the courts won't make reasonable accommodations for some students' sensibilities regarding evolution, then let those students opt out. And which is worse -- allowing evolution opt-outs or teaching both the scientific strengths and the scientific criticisms of evolution theory?
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Secretary of Education is dogmatic Darwinist

A news article says,

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday he wants to launch a "new era" of science education in the United States, one that encourages students to ask tough, challenging questions and brings more specially trained science and math teachers into the classroom.

Duncan told the National Science Teachers Association during a visit to New Orleans that President Barack Obama sees a need for inventors and engineers along with poets and scholars and "will not allow scientific research to be held hostage to a political agenda."

"Whether it's global warming, evolution or stem cell research, science will be honored. It will be respected and supported by this administration," he said.

Of the three items mentioned -- global warming, evolution, and stem cell research -- only with stem cell research is none of the dissent on scientific grounds and all of the dissent strictly on ideological grounds.

Anyway, evolution-education policies are decided at the state and local level, so I don't see how the US Dept. of Education is going to "honor" evolution.

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Creationists -- unlike Darwinists -- are unafraid of exposure to opposing views

Creationism Students Visit Smithsonian --
Each winter, Liberty University Biology Professor David DeWitt brings his Advanced Creation Studies class to the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.

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One of the biggest arguments raised against teaching -- or even mentioning -- criticisms of evolution theory in public schools is that such criticisms will "confuse" students and cause them to doubt evolution theory. The Darwinists are so phobic about any kind of criticism of evolution that they even pressured the Cincinnati Zoo into canceling a combo-ticket deal with the Creation Museum, even though teaching about evolution is not -- or should not be -- one of a zoo's primary missions! [1] [2] [3] However, it appears that creationists have no such fears of exposure to opposing views -- a Washington Post news article says,
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Every winter, David DeWitt takes his biology class to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, but for a purpose far different from that of other professors.

DeWitt brings his Advanced Creation Studies class (CRST 390, Origins) up from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., hoping to strengthen his students' belief in a biblical view of natural history, even in the lion's den of evolution.

His yearly visit to the Smithsonian is part of a wider movement by creationists to confront Darwinism in some of its most redoubtable secular strongholds. As scientists celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, his doubters are taking themselves on Genesis-based tours of natural history museums, aquariums, geologic sites and even dinosaur parks.

"There's nothing balanced here. It's completely, 100 percent evolution-based," said DeWitt, a professor of biology. "We come every year, because I don't hold anything back from the students."

. . . .Creationists have been popping up in enough mainstream institutions that one museum has produced a creation-vs.-evolution primer to help volunteer docents handle their sometimes-pointed questions. When the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, N.Y., published its guide, more than 50 museums called looking for a copy, according to director Warren Allmon.

The article is two pages long, so don't miss the second page.

Sleazy PZ Myers' take on the article says --

In this case, young ignoramuses from Liberty University are filed through the Smithsonian Institution to practice closing their minds, while a newspaper reporter echoes their rationalizations. I hate these exercises in bad journalism: there is absolutely no critical thinking going on here, either among the creationists or the reporter writing it up.

Well, Sleazy PZ, at least these creationists -- unlike Darwinists -- are not afraid of exposure to opposing views.
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Louisiana boycott is paper tiger; Darwinists bite hand that feeds them

I previously noted that two Darwinist societies have announced or threatened boycott action against Louisiana because of the new Louisiana "academic freedom" law which allows the state's public-school teachers to teach the scientific evidence both for and against the theory of evolution [1] [2]. Richard Satterlie, executive committee president of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, wrote a letter to the Louisiana governor stating that the SICB had chosen Utah instead of Louisiana as a convention site as a protest against the academic freedom law. Michael Egnor of the Discovery Institute responded to Satterlie's letter by noting that the SICB members -- by snubbing taxpayers who fund scientific research -- were biting the hand that feeds them. Sleazy PZ Myers and the Panda's Thumb blog responded to Egnor
[3] [4] [5]. The Darwinist scientists are playing with fire -- their contempt for the public's opinions about science could very well result in a backlash that would reduce public funding for scientific research, particularly research that promotes evolution theory. Darwinists have contempt for the public's opinions on scientific issues even where scientific expertise is not required, e.g., the question or whether to teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses (or criticisms) of evolution theory in public schools.
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Also, the whole idea of the boycott is a paper tiger, for the following reasons:

(1) The SICB's absence from Louisiana will hardly be noticed -- of the Society's past annual meetings since 1960, only three were held in Louisiana (New Orleans) -- in 1976, 1987, and 2004. The SICB might as well also announce that it will avoid states that failed to get an "A" grade in the Fordham Foundation's ratings of state evolution-education standards. The SICB letter was nothing more than a potshot at Louisiana.

(2) Darwinist organizations constitute a small fraction of all the organizations that have held national conventions in Louisiana.

(3) Some organizations might actually prefer Louisiana as a convention site because of the academic freedom law.
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Lawsuit-bait evolution-education laws needed

A number of so-called "academic freedom" bills -- which call for open discussion of scientific "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution theory in public school science classes -- have been recently introduced in several states. Examples are Iowa and Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi (evolution-disclaimer textbook sticker), Michigan, New Mexico, and Louisiana (already passed). The problem is that these "academic freedom" bills do not go far enough -- they are all "lawsuit proof"! What we need are "lawsuit bait" academic freedom laws that will invite lawsuits that will give opportunities to counter the infamous Kitzmiller v. Dover decision. For over three years now, Kitzmiller v. Dover, a decision by a single crackpot activist judge who said that the decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions, has been used to browbeat any legislature, school board, school, or schoolteacher that wants to introduce any kind of criticism of Darwinism into public school science classes. And Kitmiller was -- for various reasons -- a very bad test case. The tax expense issue is a red herring -- in a populous state, a million dollar suit against the government costs pennies per taxpayer. And it costs states money to not fight lawsuits -- there are all these government attorneys just sitting on their duffs needing some work to do.
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One good way of inviting a lawsuit would be to include the term "Intelligent Design" in the bill, because ID was what Judge Jones ruled against in Kitzmiller. "ID" was originally in the Florida bill but has been removed.

The goal of inviting lawsuits should be to have the courts declare the evolution controversy to be non-justiciable. Questions are non-justiciable when there is “a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards.” Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267, 277-78 (2004). IMO the Darwinists' dream of having the courts declare criticism of evolution to be unconstitutional is a pipe dream. Here are the Supreme Court's options if a court decision on the scientific merits of evolution or criticisms of evolution (e.g., intelligent design) is ever appealed to the Supreme Court:

(1) Deny certiorari -- i.e., refuse to review the decision.

(2) Declare the controversy to be non-justiciable. In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court essentially treated the global-warming controversy as non-justiciable, and there is no reason to believe that the court would not do the same with the evolution controversy.

Is the Supreme Court going to sit there and listen to several weeks of scientific testimony on the evolution controversy?

Another possibility is for Congress to strip the Supreme Court -- pursuant to Article III of the Constitution -- of of appellate jurisdiction over the evolution conroversy.

In South Dakota, there was an anti-abortion ballot measure that was actually intended to be lawsuit bait:

Lawmakers had hoped the ban would be challenged in court, provoking litigation that might eventually lead to a U.S. Supreme Court reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

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Committees' final proposal for new Texas science standards now available

Merry Christmas, everybody.

The drafting committees' final proposal for the new Texas high-school science standards has apparently been available for a few days and I was not aware of it. The following announcement on the Texas Education Agency's latest (December 19) update of the main webpage for the new science standards was ambiguous about the availability of the final draft (it says, "Documents that reflect changes from Draft 2 to the committee recommendations and that explain the reasons for the changes will be posted soon" ):

Science TEKS Review Committee Recommendations to the SBOE

The following documents are the science TEKS review committee recommendations for revisions to the science TEKS. Documents that reflect changes from Draft 2 to the committee recommendations and that explain the reasons for the changes will be posted soon.

Click on each item below to download a PDF.

Kindergarten – 5th grade science
6th-8th grade science
High School science

The controversy is over the High School science standards.

Unfortunately, the final proposal for the high-school standards has neither the "strengths and weaknesses" language, which was in the first drafts of the chemistry and astronomy standards, nor the "strengths and limitations" language, which was in the second drafts of the biology, chemistry, and physics standards. However, this final proposal does have the word "limitations" in the biology standards:

(3) Scientific processes. . . . . .The student is expected to:

- - - -

(D) evaluate models according to their limitations in representing biological objects or events

The addition of this "limitations" joker to the biology standards is especially significant because of the controversy over evolution theory. This "limitations" language in the final draft of the biology standards -- as well as the "strengths and limitations" language in the second draft of the biology standards -- blows a big hole in the Darwinists' theory that there is no controversy about evolution theory in the scientific community.

The paranoid Darwinists are “protesting too much” — as the saying goes — about words like “weaknesses” and “limitations.” Omitting those words would not prevent the adoption of textbooks that present weaknesses and/or limitations of evolution. The Darwinists are making a tempest in a teapot and a mountain out of a molehill.

As I said before, I recommended the term “strengths and criticisms.” “Criticisms” is a neutral, general term that covers limitations, real weaknesses, invalid criticisms (including pseudoscientific criticisms, which IMO should be studied by students as an educational exercise), criticisms of whole theories, and criticisms of imperfections in theories.

Another bad thing about the standards is that they redefine “scientific theories” as being “well-established and highly reliable explanations.” I have not seen “scientific theories” defined in this way in any standard dictionary. There are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. Also, the standards contain philosophies of science, which do not belong in state science standards.

Improper usages of the term "evolution" continue -- there is still talk of "geological evolution," "evolution of the universe," and "evolution of the Earth and planetary systems." The term "evolution" should not be applied to directionless changes (e.g., changes in continents) but should only be applied to developmental change (e.g., biological evolution) or changes that follow a pattern (e.g., stellar evolution).

I don't know why these recommendations are called "proposed recommendations" -- these are the committees' final recommendations. I also don't know why these recommendations are dated January 5, 2009.

These are only recommendations -- the state board of education does not have to accept them. The board can change the new standards at the January meeting by majority vote. It is believed that of the 15 members of the board, seven are in favor of the "strengths and weaknesses" language (and presumably would also support the "strengths and limitations" language and other similar language), six oppose the language, and two are undecided.

The main webpage for the proposed standards no longer has instructions for emailing comments on the standards but I presume that comments can still be sent to curric@tea.state.tx.us. Comments should probably also be emailed to the board of education at sboesupport@tea.state.tx.us. Instructions on how to participate in the board of education's January 21st oral hearing are here (you must register in advance -- beginning at 8:00 AM January 16 -- to testify). The Texas Freedom Network reported that board chairman Don McLeroy decided to limit the oral testimony period to four hours, which I think is really unfair, especially considering that a lot commenters spend a lot of time and/or money to attend the oral hearings. However, many of the commenters have turned the oral hearings into a public demonstration -- there is a lot of repetition of the same testimony, e.g., different commenters repeat over and over again the largely irrelevant point that many religious people see no conflict between evolution theory and religion.

Background information is in the two "Texas Controversy" post-label groups listed in the sidebar of the home page.

The Texas Freedom Network [1] and the National Center for Science Education [2] also have reports on the final drafts from the committees.
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