Demagogic Kansas governor associated state school board with hate group

A news article last year said,

Topeka — Calling her an “elitist” and a “big-government liberal,” the state school board’s chairman on Friday criticized Gov. Kathleen Sebelius over her proposal to strip the board of its power to set education policy.

Steve Abrams, an Arkansas City Republican who is part of the Kansas State Board of Education’s conservative majority, took the Democratic governor to task for suggesting that its adoption last year of science standards seen as anti-evolution had damaged Kansas’ economic development efforts.

Abrams also attacked Sebelius for saying that the state has to deal with negative publicity created by the board, just as it does with the anti-gay picketing of the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr. and his followers.

“The governor owes the Kansas State Board of Education as well as the citizens of the state of Kansas an apology,” Abrams said in a statement sent by e-mail to news organizations across the state. “Personal insults from this liberal governor are the only arguments she can make due to the lack of her own accomplishments.”

“I expect a big-government liberal like our governor to oppose conservative politics. But to infer that the State Board of Education is responsible for the lack of economic development in Kansas is laughable,” he added.

At the time I read the article, I was not aware how nasty Phelps's anti-gay group is -- now I know. Darwinist Gov. Sebelius's demagoguery is despicable.

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New documentary film about "the controversy"

The above cartoon is a rerun. It was very popular.

A Lawrence Journal-World article about a documentary film titled "Kansas v. Darwin" says,

In the beginning, God created controversy.

And filmmaker Jeff Tamblyn was there to cover it.

To clarify, this particular “beginning” took place in 2005 when three members of the Kansas State Board of Education — Steve Abrams, Kathy Martin and Connie Morris — conducted controversial hearings to debate where God belonged in the classroom. Specifically, in what ratio should evolution and intelligent design be implemented into the state’s school science standards?

That's pretty biased reporting. The question was not "where God belonged in the classroom," but was where criticism of Darwinism belonged in the classroom.

The article said,

. . . .“When we started the project and began to talk about it, the reception we got was chilly,” says Tamblyn, who directed, produced and co-wrote the enterprise.

“One of the first things that everybody asked us was, ‘Which side are you on?’ In fact, that may eventually become a tagline for the movie.”. . .

. . . . .More than 135 hours of footage later, Tamblyn started assembling the film with the help of co-writer/editor Mark von Schlemmer . . . .

. . . .“We thought we were done with the film a little over a year ago,” Tamblyn says. “We sent it out to some festivals like Toronto and Telluride, and it didn’t get in. But this prompted me to take another look at the story. I felt like we could make a better movie.”

The first editing revision turned out to be a metaphor for what sparked the initial controversy.

“We took out a lot of the science,” Tamblyn explains.

“There was a lot of stuff in there about cells and molecular biology. It was over people’s heads, and they were going to sleep. Instead, we really zeroed in on the politics and the politics of faith.”

Nearly a year and a half since the first festival edit floundered, “Kansas vs. Darwin” is making its official premiere Monday at the Kansas International Film Festival.

Well, when you "took out a lot of the science," you took out a lot of the core of the debate over whether weaknesses of Darwinism should be taught in the public schools. IMO that answers the question, "which side are you on"?

Although the religious side was in full force during the hearings, the Kansas Citizens for Science decided to stage a boycott. Their reasoning was that science is not something that can be determined in the courtroom.

This was not a "courtroom" -- it was a hearing of the Kansas Board of Education. And the purpose of the hearing was not to decide whether Darwinism is true or false, but was to determine whether weaknesses of Darwinism should be taught in public schools.

BTW, the "kangaroo court" excuse for the Darwinists' boycott of the Kansas BOE hearings just does not hold water. Why didn't the Darwinists boycott the Dover trial after learning that the judge was a conservative church-going Bush-appointed Republican?

There have been a number of other recent movie or TV productions about the controversy:

(1) "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus," a 2006 movie

(2) "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," a movie scheduled for release in 2008

(3) "Darwin's Deadly Legacy", a Darwin-to-Hitler TV production

(4) A PBS TV NOVA series reenactment of the Dover trial
.

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Darwinist reporter makes mountain out of molehill

NY Times reporter Cornelia "Corny" Dean, who has a bad reputation for flagrant pro-Darwinist bias in her news articles, said in a recent news article,
.

The officers of the National Association of State Boards of Education are reviewing their election procedures, after a nominee’s withdrawal left them with only one candidate for the office of president-elect: a member of the Kansas school board who supported its efforts against the teaching of evolution.

The candidate did not support "efforts against the teaching of evolution" -- the candidate supported efforts to teach both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution.

The review will not be completed before balloting ends next month. In a letter to board members, the officers said they had established a group to recommend changes for their consideration at their annual meeting in October.

How can new rules be retroactively applied to an election?

The Kansas candidate is Kenneth Willard, a Republican who voted with the conservative majority in 2005 when the school board changed the state’s science standards to allow inclusion of intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism.

Those science standards did not expressly call for inclusion of intelligent design in the science curriculum.

Voters replaced that majority, but Mr. Willard, an insurance executive from Hutchinson, retained his seat. If he becomes president-elect of the national group, he will take office as its president in January 2009.

When they learned Mr. Willard would be unopposed, some scientists and others urged state boards, each of which has one vote, to write in other candidates. But the association’s bylaws make no provision for write-in votes.

I was told that the proposed write-in candidate, an Ohio Board of Education member, is not eligible to be elected NASBE president because he has no experience serving on NASBE committees.

In a telephone interview, W. Bradley Bryant, the president of the association and parliamentarian of the Georgia state board, said he believed that Robert’s Rules of Order would advise treating a write-in “as a vote that was never cast.”

Sounds good to me.

Mr. Bryant, however, said the board had not made a decision.

In their letter to board members, the officers said they espoused diversity of views and tolerance as core values for their organization and for education. But Mr. Bryant said it would be a mistake to assume that meant that the group took a position on the teaching of creationism or related ideas in science classes.

Mr. Bryant, who would not say where he stood on the issue, said it had never arisen in his years on the national board.

If the NASBE has never or not lately taken a position on the teaching of creationism or related ideas in science classes, why should the NASBE start doing so just because of the election of Willard?

This whole thing would probably not even be in the news if it were not for the fanatic pro-Darwinism of Corny Dean. For the following reasons, I would not be alarmed even if I were a Darwinist:

(1) The NASBE does not have that much power or influence -- the state boards are independent of the NASBE;

(2) The NASBE president probably does not have that much power in the organization;

(3) It's a short-term position, and

(4) As I noted above, the NASBE has never or not lately taken a position on creationism or related ideas and I see no reason why the NASBE should take such a position just because of the election of Willard.
.

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Videos of Kansas U. "Difficult Dialogues" talk series

The Kansas University Hall Center for the Humanities has posted the videos from a fall talk series titled, "Difficult Dialogues at the Commons -- Knowledge: Faith and Reason," which concerns the controversy over evolution theory. The series consisted of lectures by Ken Miller, Judge John E. Jones III, Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Scott, Os Guinness, and Michael Behe, plus a panel discussion.

If you have a slow dial-up connection, the videos may be frequently interrupted for buffering, depending on the video player that is used. Fortunately, the video image is not continuous motion but consists of sequential still pictures, reducing the amount of buffering required. An alternative is just to wait for the video to load and then replay it.

I was of course most interested in the video of Judge Jones' lecture. Despite the fact that it is now Judge Jones' policy to not talk publicly about the specifics of the Kitzmiller case, the second of two speakers who introduced him made long quotations of the specifics in the Kitzmiller opinion, including quotations of Jones' hallmark expressions "traipse" and "breathtaking inanity."

One of Jones' major themes in his talks is that the Constitution, laws, court rules, and court precedents compelled him to rule the way he did. However, he had much more flexibility than he has admitted and some of his rulings were arguably actually contrary to precedents and court rules. For example, for any of the following reasons, he could have avoided ruling on the scientific merits of intelligent design and irreducible complexity:

(1) He already had an airtight case against the Dover school board members because of their blatant religious motivations.

(2) In accordance with the Supreme Court precedent of Edwards v. Aguillard, he could have refused to hear expert witness testimony on the grounds that none of the proposed expert witnesses had participated in the enactment of the school board's ID policy and so their testimony could not have illuminated the board members' motives.

(3) Courts generally have neither the competence nor the authority to rule on scientific questions and here there was no necessity for ruling on scientific questions such as often occurs in, say, product liability and environmental cases. At most, his sole task was to determine whether the Dover evolution-disclaimer statement constituted a government endorsement of religion. There is no constitutional separation of bogus science and state.

(4) Even if the Dover evolution-disclaimer statement constituted a government endorsement of religion, the statement could still be excused on the grounds that it would reduce offense to students and others who for various reasons reject or question evolution theory.

(5) He could have required that the statement be modified instead of scrapped entirely -- for example, he could have required removal of the words "intelligent design" because they imply the existence of a designer.

Also, many of his most controversial statements -- e.g., his "breathtaking inanity" statement and his claim that he is not an "activist judge" -- were certainly not required.

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Darwinist Richard Dawkins' speech at Kansas Univ.

A Lawrence Journal-World news report on Richard Dawkins' recent speech at KU said,

“I know you here are in the front-line trench against powerful forces of darkness,” Dawkins told a more-than-full audience at Kansas University’s Lied Center Monday night. “I salute the science teachers of Kansas. Fight the good fight.”

The good fight, Dawkins said, was one in favor of the science of evolution rather than the “rotten logic” of intelligent design and creationism, he said.

Wow -- "powerful forces of darkness." And the Darwinists condemn the fundies for pushing those Darwin-to-Hitler theories!

And "rotten logic" of intelligent design and creationism? There is "good" logic and "bad" logic, that sort of thing, but "rotten" logic? Dawkins is really getting desperate.

BTW, the LJW report falsely identifies Dawkins as a physicist -- he is an evolutionary biologist.

“I.D. is granted immunity from the rigorous standards of science,” he said.

Wrong. ID, unlike Darwinism, makes no claims beyond what can be demonstrated by science.

Those gaps in theories are what scientists fill with research, with their lives’ work. It’s also what creationists and intelligent design proponents fill with a divine being.

“If you don’t understand something, forget it,” Dawkins said. “Just say God did it. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away.”

ID and other scientific criticisms of evolution theory actually spur scientific research by forcing scientists to confront weaknesses in the theory. For example, research to determine possible evolutionary pathways for irreducibly complex systems is really ID research or ID-inspired research. Suppression of scientific criticism of evolution theory is anti-science and anti-intellectual.

The Red State Rabble reported,

Early on in his talk, Dawkins cited British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle as saying that the probability of producing life from evolutionary processes was about same as finding that a fully operational Boeing 747 jumbo jet had been assembled by a tornado passing through a junkyard.

Turning that argument back on itself, Dawkins observed that any designer must be at least as complex as the objects designed.

"God," Dawkins said to loud applause, "is the ultimate 747."

An atheist saying, "god is the ultimate 747"? That is strange.

One blogger reported that infamous KU Prof. Paul Mirecki was in attendance. Mirecki wrote on a semi-public Internet forum that his new course describing ID and creationism as "mythologies" would be a "nice slap in the big fat face of the fundies." Mirecki's misadventures are described in several articles in the "Evolution in Kansas" series of Lawrence Journal-World.

Dawkins' speech at KU is also discussed here, here, and here.

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"Creationist" Kansas school board scapegoated for alleged damage to state economy

A Lawrence Journal-World news article reported,

Topeka — Calling her an “elitist” and a “big-government liberal,” the state school board’s chairman on Friday criticized Gov. Kathleen Sebelius over her proposal to strip the board of its power to set education policy.

Steve Abrams, an Arkansas City Republican who is part of the Kansas State Board of Education’s conservative majority, took the Democratic governor to task for suggesting that its adoption last year of science standards seen as anti-evolution had damaged Kansas’ economic development efforts . . . . .

"I expect a big-government liberal like our governor to oppose conservative politics. But to infer that the State Board of Education is responsible for the lack of economic development in Kansas is laughable,” he [said].

That's like blaming the demise of Southern California's aerospace industry on the University of California's rejection of Christian-school biology courses that use particular "creationist" biology textbooks.

The last I heard, the high-tech aviation industry in the Kansas city of Wichita, the "Detroit of the general aviation industry," was doing fairly well.

Maybe Gov. Sebelius thinks that businesses' choices of states for locations should be based on the Fordham Institute's map of evolution education ratings. Most of the "failed" and "marginal" states on this map are in the "Bible Belt" and the Midwest, but Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin are among the "failed" states and there was a lot of publicity about the controversy over Ohio's proposed lesson plan for a critical analysis of evolution.

Gov. Sebelius criticized the state rather than the state's detractors. I don't think that she is going to get many votes that way.

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Report on Judge Jones' speech at KU

I previously announced that Judge John E. "I am not a lousy judge" Jones III was going to speak about the principle of "judicial independence" at Kansas University on September 26. This is the same topic as his speech to the Anti-Defamation League a few months ago. Of course, he is still exploiting this principle as a smokescreen for the purpose of trying to avoid legitimate criticisms of his decisions.

Judge Jones' KU speech was discussed on the Red State Rabble blog. His ADL speech gave only one example of an alleged challenge to the principle of judicial independence -- Phyllis Shafly's statement that his ruling "stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance" -- but the KU speech added some other examples as well. The Red State Rabble noted:

After he issued his ruling, Jones noted, he was called a "fascist judge" by television pundit Bill O'Reilly. Evangelist Pat Robertson told the citizens of Dover, who voted out the pro-ID majority on the school board, not to turn to God, "you just rejected him from your city."

Right wing activist Phyllis Schlafly wrote that Jones' ruling "stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance.”

Jones quoted a comment published on William Dembski's pro-ID Uncommon Descent blog as summing up this line of thinking on the role of judges and the courts:

This is all about Judge Jones. If it were about the merits of the case we know
we’d win. It’s about politics… Judge John E. Jones… is a good old boy brought up through the conservative ranks… appointed by GW hisself… Unless Judge Jones wants to cut his career off at the knees he isn’t going to rule against the wishes of his political allies.

I think that Jones does not realize or pretends not to realize that a lot of the invective is just the result of people thinking that he was unfair.

Jones also repeated his view about the meaning -- or what some might consider to be a lack of meaning -- of the term "activist judge":

Jones said that after the ruling pundits called him an "activist judge, a label now applied to any judge with whose decision we disagree."

I think that Judge Jones' above statement really signifies that the term "activist judge" is now becoming more consistent with the general meaning of the term "activist" as being a person with an agenda who will stop at nothing in pursuit of that agenda. The Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines "activism" as a "doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue." Different factions trying to hijack the term "activist judge" for their own exclusive use have variously defined the term as meaning a judge who is a liberal, or a conservative, or a broad constructionist, or an originalist, or what have you.

The Lawrence Journal-World noted that Jones also took swipes at the general public:

“People do not really understand how the courts work in the United States,” he told the audience Tuesday.

After the decision, conservative pundits vilified him, he said, calling him “fascist” and predicting natural disasters.

For a week, federal marshals protected him from a constant barrage of death threats, he said. It’s happened to other federal judges in high-profile cases.

The problem stems from what Jones called “a creeping civic stupidity,” where the public, for whatever reason, thinks judges should bow to what politicians say or polls show.

No, Jones, the stupidity is yours, and it is not "creeping" -- see
Judge Jones, March of Slimes "activist judge" poster boy

The Thoughts from Kansas blog said -

-Jones set as a precondition of his visit that he wouldn't discuss the contents of his ruling nor the process of the trial. His ruling is comprehensive, and he clearly doesn't think there's much to add.

Well, just because there wasn't much to add doesn't mean that there wasn't much to debate, but given the short amount of time available for the speech and dialogue, it was probably necessary to set some priorities.

Thoughts from Kansas also briefly discussed the dialogue session held on the day after the speech:

In the speech and his question and answer period, Jones steered clear of commenting on any ongoing or future controversies. That was frustrating, but he did let down his hair once or twice. An audience member asked whether Casey Luskin's criticisms on behalf of the Discovery Institute had any validity. His answer was simply "no."

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Nice slaps in the big fat faces of Prof. Paul Mirecki and Judge Jones

Kansas University Prof. Paul Mirecki thought he was being innovative in November 2005 when he proposed a new for-credit course titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” but about 100 colleges and universities in the USA and around the world are now teaching courses that include these subjects, and without the disparaging course title. Many of these colleges and universities are American public institutions. For comments about these courses, see this article on Uncommon Descent.

After exposure of his Internet post that said that the new course would be a "nice slap in the big fat face of the fundies" created a furor, Mirecki was forced to cancel the course and resign as chairman of the religious studies department. For related stories, see the Lawrence Journal-World's "Evolution in Kansas" series.

In Kitzmiller v. Dover, Judge Jones was able to stop the mention of ID in the Dover Area school district, but he has not been able to stop the teaching of ID in public colleges and universities.

Also, IMO, to counter the overemphasis on intelligent design, courses specifically including non-ID criticisms of evolution -- e.g., criticisms concerning co-evolution and the propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction -- should be offered.

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Judge Jones to speak at Kansas University

A Lawrence Journal-World article about a speech that Darwinist Kenneth Miller gave on Friday at Kansas University said,

The lecture was the first in the “Difficult Dialogues” series on “Knowledge: Faith & Reason,” presented by the Hall Center and the Biodiversity Institute.

Federal Judge John E. Jones III, who ruled in favor of the Dover plaintiffs, will speak Sept. 26.

The article noted that Miller also had a session of answering questions from the public on Saturday. I hope that Judge Jones also has such a session and that people in the audience will know the right embarrassing questions to ask him. I don't even know why Jones would risk participating in such a session.

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Merry-go-round to hell

On the Uncommon Descent blog, William Dembski said,

Since 1999, Kansas has now swung four times on the question of science standards and whether evolutionary theory should be properly scrutinized or swallowed whole. Below is the latest. This war will not be decided by courts, legislators, or school boards, but by young people as they wake up to the fact that dogmatic Darwinists have been systematically indoctrinating and disenfranchising them. Just as the counterculture of the 60s overturned the status quo, so a new counterculture, with high school, college, and university students taking the lead, will overturn the Darwinian status quo.

Evolution Opponents Lose in Kansas Primary
By John Hanna
Associated Press
posted: 02 August 2006

Control of the school board has slipped into, out of and back into conservative Republicans’ hands since 1998, resulting in anti-evolution standards in 1999, evolution-friendly ones in 2001 and anti-evolution ones again last year.

He's right. For years, critics of Darwinism have been banging their heads against a wall in a futile effort to get legislators, school boards, and the courts to allow even the slightest criticism of Darwinism in public-school science classrooms. It is time to get off this merry-go-round to hell and target the students themselves directly. Legislators, school board members, and judges are soon going to find themselves irrelevant.

There has also been see-sawing in Ohio. After the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision was released on December 20, the Ohio Board of Education held an "emergency" vote in January on whether to keep the evolution lesson plan that included critical analysis of evolution (the only "emergency" was that the board wanted to avoid hearing public comments before voting), and voted to keep it. Then in February the Ohio BOE held another "emergency" vote on the plan and voted to delete it but invited a replacement. Now the board is considering another science standard calling for critical analysis of evolution. See http://science2.marion.ohio-state.edu/ohioscience/

The courts have also been giving the runaround. In an oral hearing on the Selman v. Cobb County textbook sticker case at an appeals court in December 2005, the judges noted that important evidence was missing but also appeared to be leaning toward reversal because of reasons that had nothing to do with the missing evidence. However, after five months of stalling, the appeals court remanded the case to the district court because of the missing evidence, a huge 16 months after the district court decision was released.

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The Kansas elections

According to news reports, the wins by pro-censorship candidates in the Kansas Board of Education primary elections yesterday will likely cause a shift from a 6-4 anti-censorship majority to a 6-4 pro-censorship majority after the general elections in November. News and comments about the election are here, here, and on Panda's Thumb and Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

I am wondering if the losing anti-censorship candidates can run as independents or write-in candidates in the general elections in November. If they do, they could win at least a plurality because the pro-censorship vote would be split between the other two candidates.

Other states should make their own independent decisions about the evolution controversy and not take a "monkey see, monkey do" attitude towards what Kansas does on the issue.

I am still wondering why we have not heard more from those who are most affected -- the public-school students themselves. If I were a public-school student, I would certainly want to learn the weaknesses as well as the strengths of Darwinism.

One of the above news articles reported, "Late-night comedians have been making cracks about Kansas, portraying it as backward and ignorant. Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show' broadcast a four-part series titled, 'Evolution Schmevolution.'" Maybe next they could tell some jokes about Judge Jones -- they could start with (1) his asinine remarks about the "true religion" of the founding fathers and (2) his intention to see the historically inaccurate and highly prejudicial movie "Inherit the Wind" to show him the "historical context" of the 1925 Scopes trial. A skit about his "true religion" remarks could go like this: Judge Jones, played by a comedian, could say that his "true religion" remarks were not meant to single out Christianity for disrespect and that he could have said the same things about, say, mosques and korans, and then he gets a pie in the face or something like that. LOL Pokes fun at Jones and jihadists at the same time. As JAD would say, I love it so.

That fatheaded blogger Ed Brayton, who routinely censors comments and commenters that disagree with him, said of the defeats of anti-censorship candidates in the Kansas elections, "The DI will put out a statement declaring it no big deal, even though they thought it was a big enough deal to pump an enormous amount of money into the campaign to put commercials on the air and take a dog and pony show in favor of the pro-ID standards and candidates all over the state." Campaigning does not necessarily mean that one cannot afford to lose. What a moron.

Also, there is this false notion that Kansas is a "clodhopper" state and so if anti-censorship candidates cannot win in Kansas, then they cannot win anywhere. The truth is that Kansas has a high proportion of highly educated, highly skilled workers. Wichita, the largest city in Kansas, is an important center of the aviation industry and has been nicknamed the "Air Capital" and "the Detroit of the general aviation industry." Meanwhile, California has lost most of its aerospace industry and the biggest businesses in the state are now agriculture, services, and tourism. From the 1930's through the 1950's, most of the world's airliners were produced in Southern California -- today, none are.

We anti-censorship people still have a lot going for us:

(1) The majority of the public believes that the weaknesses as well as the strengths of Darwinism should be taught in the public schools.

(2) There is a good chance that the Selman v. Cobb County decision which banned evolution-disclaimer textbook stickers will be reversed.

(3) The Ohio Board of Education is now considering a new recommended science standard calling for critical analysis of evolution.

(4) HR 2679, Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA), the House bill that would ban attorney fee awards to winning plaintiffs in establishment clause cases, has been gaining support and there is now a companion Senate bill, S 3696. I think that a cap on attorney fee awards in both establishment clause and free exercise clause cases is a much better idea and would be much more likely to pass.

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Kansas elections are a tempest in a teapot

The Kansas primary elections for the state board of education are being nationally watched with the interest normally reserved for presidential elections -- see here and here. Even the early returns are being watched. And good grief, these Kansas elections are just the primary -- not the final -- elections for the board of education!

Anyone who thinks that the futures of Darwinism and challenges to Darwinism depend on the outcome of these elections is living in a dream world.

Also, I am wondering why we have not heard more from those who are most affected by this controversy, the public-school students themselves. I know that if I were a public-school student, I would want to be taught both the weaknesses and strengths of Darwinism so that I could understand what the fuss is all about.

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New York Times article on Kansas Board of Education election

A New York Times article on today's Board of Education election in Kansas said,

The Kansas election is being watched closely by both sides in the national debate over the teaching of evolution. In the past several years, pitched battles have been waged between the scientific establishment and proponents of what is called intelligent design, which holds that nature alone cannot explain life’s origin and complexity.

Last February, the Ohio Board of Education reversed its 2002 mandate requiring 10th-grade biology classes to critically analyze evolution. The action followed a federal judge’s ruling that teaching intelligent design in the public schools of Dover, Pa., was unconstitutional.

A defeat for the conservative majority in Kansas on Tuesday could be further evidence of the fading fortunes of the intelligent design movement, while a victory would preserve an important stronghold in Kansas.

Too much importance is attached to these little "defeats" and "victories":

(1) The Dover ruling against ID was by a single activist district-court judge. Also, the Selman v. Cobb County evolution-disclaimer textbook sticker case is still up in the air -- appeals court judges, after indicating that they were leaning towards reversing the district court's ban on the stickers, remanded the case because of missing evidence. Furthermore, the Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish decision banning an evolution-disclaimer policy came close to being reversed.

(2) The election defeat of the pro-ID Dover Area school board members was narrow and was partly attributed to voter concern about the big potential legal bill of the lawsuit.

(3) The Ohio Board of Education dropped the original evolution lesson plan but asked for a rewrite of the science standards, and the new recommended science standards call for critical analysis of evolution.

(4) The Darwinists have been huffing and puffing about how they are going to sue Kansas and Ohio, but if the Darwinists had any case at all they would have sued those states a long time ago.

Unless the supporters of the current Kansas science standards are overwhelmingly defeated in today's election, which is unlikely, the "teach the controversy" movement is going to remain strong.

One of the problems with state education standards is that teachers are likely to just follow the textbooks, and I presume that right now standard biology texts have little or no discussion of the weaknesses of evolution theory. Maybe the public schools could teach the controversy by using expurgated versions of biology texts written for Christian schools

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Kansas University lecture series on nonexistent controversy

A news article announcing a Kansas University lecture series on the nonexistent evolution controversy said,

KU this fall will kick off “Knowledge: Faith & Reason,” a lecture series featuring some of the key players in the evolution and intelligent design debate.

So far, the list of guests is one-sided, according to one critic, because there is only one clear intelligent design proponent.

The series will include lectures from Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biology professor who testified against intelligent design in last year’s Dover, Pa., trial, and John E. Jones III, the judge in the Dover case who in his ruling issued a pointed criticism of the intelligent design movement.

The series also will feature Os Guinness, theologian; Richard Dawkins, Oxford University evolutionary biologist and author; and Eugenie Scott, head of the National Center for Science Education.

The only apparent speaker who supports intelligent design is Michael Behe, a professor and author who testified in the Dover trial.

It should be interesting to hear what ol' Judge Jones has to say -- he never fails to put his foot in his mouth. Hopefully he will have a Q&A session with audience members who know the right embarrassing questions to ask him.

Of course, it is disappointing that so far there is only one anti-Darwinist representative in the lecture series , and even more disappointing that he is Michael Behe. In the Dover trial, Behe showed himself to be a poor spokesperson for anti-Darwinism -- for example, he said that ID is like astrology. However, he did make a good written rebuttal to the Dover opinion.

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Bleeding Kansas Redux II

UPDATE: Casey Luskin has added another reply to John Rennie.

Take down your map, sir, and you will find that the Territory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middle spot of North America, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east, and the Pacific on the west; from the frozen waters of Hudson's Bay on the north, and the tepid Gulf Stream on the south, constituting the precise territorial centre of the whole vast continent. To such advantages of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a healthgiving climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American institutions......Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a crime has been committed, which is without example in the records of the past ..... But the wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. ........ But this enormity, vast beyond comparison, swells to dimensions of wickedness which the imagination toils in vain to grasp, when it is understood that for this purpose are hazarded the horrors of intestine feud not only in this distant Territory, but everywhere throughout the country. Already the muster has begun. The strife is no longer local, but national. -- from "Crime Against Kansas" speech by Senator Charles Sumner, 1856

It almost sounds like Senator Sumner was talking about the current controversy over the new Kansas state evolution education standards. With the Aug. 1 election for the Kansas Board of Education just a few days away (See Bleeding Kansas Redux ), the campaigns are really heating up. On one side there is Kansas Citizens for Science and on the other side is Stand Up for Science -- Stand Up for Kansas. LOL

Casey Luskin, a fellow of the Discovery Institute, and John Rennie, chief editor of Scientific American magazine, are now engaged in an Internet debate over the new Kansas evolution education standards. In his Kitzmiller v. Dover opinion, Judge Jones held that ID proponents were guilty of what he called a "contrived dualism":

The court in McLean stated that creation science rested on a "contrived dualism" that recognized only two possible explanations for life, the scientific theory of evolution and biblical creationism, treated the two as mutually exclusive such that "one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution," and accordingly viewed any critiques of evolution as evidence that necessarily supported biblical creationism (pages 21-22) . . . . . . . the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's (page 64) . . . . .Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design, a point conceded by defense expert Professor Minnich(page 72)

Rennie argues,

Casey returns to his point that the standards don't mention I.D., and he tries to make the point that references to "irreducible complexity" are really criticisms of evolution, not positive arguments for I.D.

(quoting Casey)Thus the KSS make it clear that irreducible complexity is framed only as a challenge to evolution and not as an argument for intelligent design.

Yes, but as I noted above, this doesn't prove much because the I.D. movement doesn't have the intellectual honesty or sincerity to posit an actual theory of intelligent design. The I.D. movement counts itself as winning any time it can simply cast doubt on evolutionary arguments, because as I.D. writers have often suggested, the only alternative to evolution must be some kind of design.(emphasis added)

If -- as Rennie alleges -- the ID writers have often suggested this "contrived dualism," is that any justification for his acceptance of it?

The Luskin-Rennie debate is discussed here on Panda's Thumb.

Also, a news article titled "Group plans road trip to promote science standards" said,

TOPEKA - A group defending the state's new science testing standards for public schools plans a road show next week through Kansas just days before state school board elections.

A leader of the Intelligent Design Network says the speaking tour has nothing to do with efforts to promote re-election of neo-conservative school board members friendly to their cause.

"Our goal is to make sure the public is properly informed on that issue," said John Calvert, managing director of the Intelligent Design Network at Lake Quivira.

However, considering the timing of the speaking tour, it seems that the tour has a lot to do with the imminent election.

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There is no constitutional separation of bogus science and state.

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Bleeding Kansas Redux

For the second time in its history, Kansas has become a site for a proxy war between warring factions across the nation. The reason this time is that half the members of the Kansas Board of Education that passed the "teach the controversy" evolution education standards are up for re-election on August 1, and many out-of-state forces are trying to influence the election. Information and commentary are here, here, and here.

Darwinists know that the Kansas Board of Education did not do anything that could be considered unconstitutional -- otherwise, the Darwinists would have sued the Kansas BOE a long time ago. Opinion polls show that the majority of the public wants both the weaknesses and the strengths of evolution theory to be taught, so there is a good chance that some other state(s) will pass a "teach the contoversy" science education standard. So why the fuss?

The Darwinists have been moaning that states that have adopted a "teach the controversy" standard -- e.g., Kansas and Ohio -- have added disclaimers repudiating any intention to add intelligent design to the curriculum. Also, the Darwinists have been insisting that all criticisms of Darwinism are parts of ID. One of the big reasons for this emphasis on ID is that ID and one of its components, irreducible complexity, were the only criticisms that Judge Jones trashed by name in his Dover opinion. A lot of the criticisms of Darwinism are not ID, but ID is such an important criticism of Darwinism that it seems that any "teach the controversy" program would eventually get into ID.

Darwinism must be pretty badly flawed if the Darwinists go to such great lengths to suppress criticism of it.

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