Fundies keep Texas board of education seats!

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

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

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Incredible bigotry on Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog

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

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

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

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

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Urgent: Comments on new Texas science standards are now being accepted

Note: There is a new post-label group of articles about the Texas controversy.

The Texas Education Agency is now accepting comments on the proposed Texas science standards (Science TEKS, i.e., Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). The most important and controversial standards are the high school (9-12) science standards. The following message was broadcast by TEA assistant science director Irene Pickhardt:

Please note that our Science TEKS Review Committees will meet at the end of October and will have an opportunity to begin reviewing comments.

-- so time's a-wasting. The review of the Science TEKS will continue into next year, but we supporters of the "strengths and weaknesses" language are already behind the eight ball because the language has been omitted from the proposed high-school biology standards. If I had known that the committees would start reviewing comments so soon, I would have inquired sooner about how to send in comments. Comments in favor of restoring the "strengths and weaknesses" language to Section 3(A) of the high school biology standards -- as well as the high-school standards for other scientific fields where this language was dropped -- are especially badly needed.

Ignore the instructions on how to submit the high-school science PDF comment form. I tried to follow the instructions and they did not work. Per the instructions, I saved the comment form to my hard-drive ( I could save it only as a PDF file ), filled it in, and then tried to email the filled-in form as an attachment but could not -- I could email the comment form only as an empty form. Whoever prepared this PDF comment form obviously didn't know what (s)he was doing. The instructions say, "These forms have been posted for your convenience (haha). Feedback may be submitted in any format." I am just going to submit my comments in my default email format, an HTML format. However, I recommend that you try to submit the same information requested on the comment form.

Email the comments to curric@tea.state.tx.us

Here are my recommendations for the emails (these are not official instructions, but I am trying to follow the instructions given) --
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(1) Show -- in both the subject line (that top window showing the subject that will appear in the recipient's in-box) and at the top of the email contents -- the name of the committee (or course or science field) to which the email is addressed. Choose only one committee (or course or field) per email. The high-school science standards are divided up into the following fields: IPC (integrated physics and chemistry), Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Environmental Systems, Aquatic Science, Astronomy, Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design. As I pointed out, there are no overall or core standards, and the different standards for the individual fields have a lot of duplication and mutual contradictions & inconsistencies. I might not send comments to all the committees. A big problem is that standards for all of the scientific fields are different and so the comments may need to be individualized for each field -- maybe I will later post my individualized comments. I will definitely send comments to the biology, chemistry, and astronomy committees (I will thank the latter two committees for retaining the "strengths and weaknesses" language). BTW, the current high-school science standards have the same format as the proposed standards: divided up into individual disciplines with no core or overall standards.

(2) Show participant type: Teacher, Administrator, Parent, Student, University/College Staff, Business/Industry Representative, Community Member (Texas resident ?), and "Other." Might be a good idea to show the participant type on the subject line as well as at the top of the email contents.

(3) Since you won't be using the high-school comment form, you should note in both the subject line and the email contents that you are commenting on the high-school standards. So my subject line and top line of my email contents might look like the following: "High-school Science TEKS comments. Course: Biology. Participant type: Other"

(4) As shown on the high school comment form, comments are divided into three categories -- you should identify the categories of your comments:

i. -- Comments on the introduction for each course (section (b) on the proposed TEKS for each course). When commenting, I recommend identifying sections by number.

ii. -- Comments on Knowledge and Skills (KS) statements and Student Expectations (SE) (section (c) on the proposed TEKS for each course). It is not clear how the KS and SE statements are distinguished. It appears that the KS statements have just the heading numbers (e.g., KS(3)) and the SE statements have letters (e.g., SE(3A)). So the "strengths and weakness" language would either appear in the SE(3A) statement (chemistry and astronomy only) or not appear in the SE(3A) statement (the rest of the courses including biology). Anyway, when commenting on the "strengths and weaknesses" language, you won't really need to identify the section because the committee members will know exactly what you are talking about.

iii. -- General comments about the whole proposed high-school science TEKS. If you are really pressed for time, it is probably best to just make some general comments, as there are some general issues that apply to all of the different courses.

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A description of the proposed high-school Science TEKS is here and my proposed comments are here. I have added a new proposal: 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.
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Texas school board support for "strengths and weaknesses" language could weaken

A news article says,

In previous public discussions, seven of 15 board members appeared to support, on some level, the teaching of the weaknesses of evolution in science classrooms.

Six have been opposed, and two — Geraldine Miller, R-Dallas, and Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio — are considered swing votes.

Though the seven supporters of the "strengths and weaknesses" language have been portrayed as fundy-type creationist crackpots, to my knowledge none of them have called for removing evolution from the Texas biology standards. The dogmatic Darwinists who are trying to remove the sensible "strengths and weaknesses" language from the biology standards are the real crackpots.

This already precarious support for the "strengths and weaknesses" language is threatened with being weakened further by the possible results of upcoming board elections. Apparently there are two races in which supporters of the "weaknesses" language are being seriously challenged: District 14, Gail Lowe, and District 7, David Bradley. The balance on a science standards review panel is also threatened because each member of the panel was nominated by a pair of board of education members.

The Democratic challenger in District 14, Edra Fogle, appears to be a hopeless dyed-in-the-wool dogmatic Darwinist. Her campaign website even makes the straw-man comparison of the evolution controversy and the heliocentrism controversy:
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This year the question will be whether to teach creationism, otherwise called intelligent design, in high school biology. Serious scientists reject the belief, based on the fossil evidence—and on what we see every year about mutations, about bacteria and viruses adapting to new drugs, about one species of plants or one kind of fish driving out another. Everyone has a right to one’s religious beliefs, but these have no place in the curriculum. Our children will have to compete in an increasingly global market. American education is currently producing less satisfactory results than that in many foreign countries. We do not dare let our schools fall ever further behind by ill-equipping our students.

Do we want to be like those “scientists” of the Renaissance who rejected heliocentrism — the belief that the earth goes around the sun? What would our understanding of the universe be like if we still taught that the earth is fixed in place at the center of everything, and that the planets and stars revolve around it? Copernicus developed mathematical reasons refuting this belief in the early 1500’s, but was forced to recant. Over a century later Galileo was held under house arrest by the Inquisition for advocating Copernican theory, in spite of the evidence supplied by better telescopes. Not until well along into the 1700’s was the overwhelming evidence that the earth revolves around the sun accepted.

When in the hell are Darwinists going to get it through their thick skulls that not all criticisms of evolution are based on religion?

The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports that an independent is also running against Lowe.

A Houston Chronicle endorsement of the District 7 challenger, Laura Ewing, says,

One of the board members supporting the "strengths and weaknesses" provision is the vice chairman, David Bradley of Beaumont. Bradley, a Republican representing District 7, which includes parts of the Houston area, contends: "Evolution is not a fact. Evolution is a theory and, as such, cannot be proved. Students need to be able to jump to their own conclusions."

Ewing, by contrast, says she believes in creationism but thinks it is best discussed in personal religious practice rather than in the classroom. The Chronicle could not agree more.

However, nowhere does Ewing's campaign website say anything about her believing in creationism, nor does her website have any direct statement from her about the evolution controversy (her website does post copies of pro-Darwinist articles, but these are not in Ewing's own words). The closest her website comes to making her own statement -- in her own words -- about the evolution controversy is the following statement, from an op-ed published in the Beaumont Examiner:

Unfortunately, a group of so-called conservatives that has seized control of the board appear much more interested in furthering an ideological agenda than improving Texas schools. Far from conservative, these board members are fostering a radical attack on public education in this state. From tampering with science and reading textbooks to skirting or ignoring laws with which they disagree or find inconvenient, the group works full-time to undermine the very school system they are legally bound to support. (emphasis added)

The school board members can't "tamper" with textbooks -- only publishers can do that. However, publishers have sometimes rewritten textbooks to suit the wishes of the Texas board of education.

Also, as I have said many times, the issue here is not just "poof"-type creationism -- some scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms (or weaknesses) of evolution are so technically sophisticated that they can be properly taught only by qualified science teachers.

If Ewing really believes in creationism, that's good IMO -- that would probably make it easier to persuade her to support retention of the "strengths and weaknesses" language. If she will approach the "strengths and weaknesses" language with an open mind, that's good.

BTW, here is an op-ed by board chairman Don McLeroy, who supports the "strengths and weaknesses" language.
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Benchmarks for state science standards

Benchmarks:

(1) Students will know how people of the Middle Ages -- as well as some ancients -- knew that the earth is round.

(2) Students will know the origins of the myth that people of the Middle Ages believed that the earth is flat. Students will know that fabulist Washington Irving's fabricated biography of Columbus was a major source of this myth.

(3) Students will know that stupid, ignorant Darwinists have been spreading this myth in an effort to discredit criticisms of Darwinism.

Students will be tested on the above three benchmarks. Students will not receive a passing grade until they correctly answer questions about these benchmarks.

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Revised "strengths and weaknesses" language for Texas biology standards

As regular readers of this blog know, there is now a big controversy over whether or not to retain the "strengths and weaknesses" language in the new Texas biology standards. This language -- which has been in the Texas science standards for 20 years or more -- is,

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.

Teaching scientific and pseudoscientific weaknesses (or criticisms) of evolution theory serves the bona fide secular purposes of broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, helping students learn the material, and increasing student interest. For example, IMO the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not a valid criticism of evolution but analysis of the SLoT as a criticism of evolution would be a valuable learning experience for students. Also, some scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution are so technically sophisticated that they can be properly taught only by qualified science teachers -- this stuff is not just "poof"-type creationism. However, Darwinists advocate a scorched-earth policy of eliminating the "strengths and weaknesses" language just to prevent the fundies from using it as a loophole for introducing creationism or supernaturalism into science courses. Darwinists are trying to throw out the baby with the bathwater -- or burn down the house to roast the pig.
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I propose the following rewording of the "strengths and weaknesses" language: "scientific and pseudoscientific strengths and weaknesses." An alternative wording would be "scientific strengths and scientific and pseudoscientific weaknesses," for those who object to the idea of calling strengths "pseudoscientific." Those wordings leave open the possibility that some of the weaknesses -- and even some of the "strengths" -- may be pseudoscientific, but allow alleged weaknesses to be taught anyway for the reasons I stated above. However, creationism and supernaturalism could not satisfy the terms "scientific" or "pseudoscientific" because these things do not pretend to be scientific.
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Darwinists oppose balance on science standards committees

The Texas Board of Education has nominated 6 people for a panel to review the proposed new Texas state science standards. An article in the Dallas Morning News says, "The committee was chosen by 12 of the 15 members of the board of education, with each panel member receiving the support of two board members." The Texas Freedom Network website says,

AUSTIN - Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller today sharply criticized the inclusion of three strident evolution opponents, including two authors of an anti-evolution textbook, on a panel that will review proposed new science curriculum standards for Texas public schools. The inclusion of the two textbook authors raises serious questions about conflicts of interest and whether political agendas took priority over giving Texas students a 21st-century science education, Miller said.

“It’s simply stunning that any state board members would even consider appointing authors of an anti-evolution textbook to a panel of scientists,” she said. “Are they coming here to help write good science standards or to drum up a market for their lousy textbook?”

As the Discovery Institute points out, Darwinist panel nominees David Hillis and Gerald Skoog also have a "conflict of interest" because they are also authors of biology textbooks.

The TFN webpage continues,
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The textbook, Explore Evolution, is intended for secondary schools and colleges, according to its U.S. distributor, the anti-evolution Discovery Institute in Seattle. Because of that, the State Board of Education could consider it for the state’s approved list of science textbooks in 2011.

The two authors are Stephen Meyer, who is vice president of the Discovery Institute, and Ralph Seelke, a professor of the department of biology and earth sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. A third panel member, Charles Garner, is a professor of chemistry at Baylor University in Waco.

All three are supporters of the anti-evolution concept “intelligent design”/creationism and have signed the Discovery Institute’s “Dissent from Darwinism” statement. In addition to their textbook, Meyer and Seelke testified in 2005 against evolution in hearings called by religious conservatives who controlled the Kansas State Board of Education.

Texas state board members nominated all six panelists. The three other members of the review panel are Texas scientists with long, distinguished resumes:

David Hillis, professor of integrative biology and director of the Center of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at the University of Texas at Austin;

Ronald K. Wetherington, professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence;

Gerald Skoog, professor and dean emeritus of the College of Education at Texas Tech and co-director of the Center for Integration of Science Education and Research

The Darwinists are quick to accuse Meyer, Seelke, and Garner of bias while ignoring the biases of the other three nominees, Hillis, Wetherington, and Skoog. David Hillis was a speaker at a press conference of the 21st Century Science Coalition, which seeks to remove the ~ 20-year-old "strengths and weaknesses" language from the state science standards. Gerald Skoog has also been a pro-Darwinist activist and is a signer of the coalition's statement that opposes the "strengths and weaknesses" language. Ronald Wetherington opposed the holding of a "Darwin v. Design" conference at SMU last year (to his credit, Wetherington has not signed the 21st Century Science Coalition's statement opposing the "strengths and weaknesses" language -- yet). So none of the 6 nominees for the panel is neutral and the nominees are evenly divided between dogmatic Darwinists and Darwin doubters.

It was reported that 6 members (correction -- the correct figure is 7, out of a total of 15 members) of the Texas board of education support retaining the "strengths and weaknesses" language, so why should anyone be surprised that they selected panel nominees who support that position?

Darwin doubters are not asking for the moon -- mainly they are just asking for retention of the "strengths and weaknesses" language that has been in the standards for 20 years or more.

The TFN webpage says,

“Texas universities boast some of the leading scientists in the world,” Miller said. “It’s appalling that some state board members turned to out-of-state ideologues to decide whether Texas kids get a 21st-century science education.”

If Meyer and Seelke supported the TFN agenda, TFN would not object to their being from out-of-state.

News articles about the selection of the nominees for the panel are here and here.

Darwinists are opposed to any kind of balance on science standards committees. Why does every member of a state science-standards committee have to be a dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist? Why shouldn't the many people who are in favor of keeping the "strengths and weaknesses" language be represented on the standards committees? Also, the Darwinists really loused up the recently adopted Florida state science standards. The Florida science standards say that "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology." That's just plain wrong -- how can that be true when 13% of respondents in a recent national survey of science teachers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that an "excellent" biology course could exist that does not mention Darwin or evolution theory at all? And the Florida science standards say that "scientific theories" are by definition "well-supported" and "widely accepted." That's ridiculous -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories.

I called the Texas Education Agency yesterday and asked when they are going to post the online form for commenting about the proposed new science standards and they told me that they are working on it and did not give me a firm release date. The proposed standards were released nearly four weeks ago and time's a-wasting -- there is going to be some kind of preliminary hearing or decision in November (there will be further hearings and a final decision will be made some time next year).
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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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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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New Darwinist blog in Houston Chronicle

I don't think it is proper for mainstream media outlets to host one-sided blogs on controversial subjects, but the Houston Chronicle has a new Darwinist blog and another new blog on global warming, which is apparently also a one-sided blog. The website of the Texas Citizens for Science says,

NEW! 2008 July 28 - Texas Citizens for Science President Now Has a New Texas Evolution and Education Blog on the Houston Chronicle Website

Texas Citizens for Science President Dr. Steven Schafersman now has a new blog on the Houston Chronicle website named Evo.Sphere in which he will write columns about evolution and education in Texas. He shares this new blog with five University of Houston biology professors who will write about evolutionary science. The Chronicle has two other new science blogs named Atmo.Sphere that covers climate issues and Cosmo.Sphere that covers space science. These new blogs were initiated by Eric Berger, the Chronicle's science writer who has a blog named SciGuy.

The first five columns are now available.
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New Blog about Evolution and Education in Texas

Did Thomas Jefferson Believe in Intelligent Design Creationism?"

Let's Explore "Explore Evolution"

The Disjunctive Duality of Science Distinction

Evolving Toward a Compromise

Future columns will cover "strengths and weaknesses" language for science standards in TEKS Rule 3A; the false equation of "Darwinism" with eugenics, racism, Hitler, and the Holocaust; analysis of ICR's legal theory of "academic viewpoint discrimination" for their justification of an expected lawsuit against the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board; analysis of Chris Comer's legal theory of "illegal Texas Education Agency neutrality between evolution and Intelligent Design Creationism" as a justification for her lawsuit against the TEA; the E. coli bacteria multi-generational experiment, macromutations, historical contingency, and evolution; and the unjustifiable action of the Texas SBOE to refuse to write substantive and scholarly standards for the new Texas Bible course (which will continue to allow pseudoscience to be taught in various Bible courses).

The extreme one-sidedness of the blog is obvious from the description. I just hope that the Houston Chronicle strictly enforces a policy of no arbitrary censorship of blog visitors' comments. They are sure going to get a big piece of my mind if they do not.
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Washington Pest messes with biology texasbooks

Illustration by Doug Potter -- Austin Chronicle

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A Washington Post article titled "Evolving Towards a Compromise" says,

A proposal before the Texas Board of Education calls for including the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in the state's science curriculum. This initiative is understood by supporters and opponents to be a strategic effort to get around First Amendment restrictions on teaching religion in science class. The proposal is a new round in an old debate, and, if it fails, creationists will innovate once again, just as they have since the 1920s.

As Evolution News & Views has pointed out, the "strengths and weaknesses" idea is not new -- that language has been in the Texas state standards since the late 1980's. Ironically, though critics of Darwinism are not trying to add that language to the standards, the Darwinists are trying to remove it -- in testimony to the Texas House Public Education Committee, Texas Citizens for Science president Steven Schafersman said,
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We scientists are worried that the School Board wants to damage science standards during their upcoming revision. Several members of the SB, including Chairman McLeroy, have stated their intention to keep the unscientific language of "strengths and weaknesses" in the standards, so as to be able to force teachers and textbooks to include unscientific and bogus "weaknesses" of scientific information that the Board members consider to be "controversial," such as evolution, the origin of life, global warming, and the age of the Earth, rocks, and fossils.

The Washington Post article continues,

If they succeed, there could be national implications: Because of Texas's sizable school population, the state curriculum can influence national standards. Book publishers don't want to produce multiple versions of the same text for different states or regions, so ideas that work their way into Texas's curriculum often end up shaping content in classrooms elsewhere.

"Multiple versions"? Only two versions -- one for atheists and one for fundies -- would be required at most. And if we can have two different kinds of automobile emissions certifications -- federal and California -- we can certainly have two different kinds of textbooks. When biology textbooks discuss evolution in only one chapter, writing two different versions of the textbook is easy. Biology textbooks that are "laced" with Darwinism -- like the textbooks adopted by the Dover school board (former board member Bill Buckingham said that evolution was discussed in 12-15 places in the book) -- might require a lot of rewriting.

Steven Schafersman also said in his testimony,

Most states allow individual school districts to adopt textbooks and instructional materials. Few states--14 I believe--have a central adoption policy. Texas is by far the largest adoption state. All the other large states--California, New York, Illinois, etc.--allow school district choice of textbooks . . . . Christian fundamentalists and other zealots with a political or ideological agenda are attracted to the Texas SBOE like flies to a corpse, because the office gives them enormous power to promote their beliefs in the public school system of Texas and other states (primarily in the U.S. South) that adopt textbooks written for Texas.

There is no reason for other states to adopt the Texas textbooks if they don't like them. Even if other textbooks cost a little more, that's no problem because the cost differential would be a very small part of the cost of running public schools. I have nothing but contempt for tightwad taxpayers who would sell their souls to the devil to save a few pennies on their tax bills.

We presume that the Texas challenge will be found to violate the Constitution and that scientists will never accept the watering down of evolutionary concepts in the classroom.

It is not inevitable that teaching or mentioning scientific (or pseudoscientific to some) criticisms of evolution in public schools will always be struck down by the courts. There is no constitutional separation of bad science and state. The courts should rule that the evolution controversy is non-justiciable, just as the courts treated the global-warming controversy as non-justiciable in Massachusetts v. EPA. 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). Court rulings on scientific issues in the evolution controversy are like court rulings on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Intelligent design and previous creationist debates appear to center on where humans came from.

Intelligent Design is not the only scientific (or pseudoscientific to some) criticism of evolution -- there are also non-ID criticisms of evolution.

A less public yet similarly powerful motive of activists is their belief that the materialist underpinnings of evolutionary theory harm children's values.

That is not a less public motive -- that is an important part of the debate. Of course, the influence of Darwinism on morality has nothing to do with the scientific merits of Darwinism and is not a good reason to not teach Darwinism.

For example, the defender of fundamentalism in the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," Williams Jennings Bryan, was motivated by his conclusion that Darwinism taught "the law of the jungle" and had led to World War I by subverting the morality of the Germans.

I have seen no evidence that Bryan blamed Germany for the start of WW I, but he did believe that Darwinism undermines morality.

More recently, "the Wedge," an infamous leaked strategy document of intelligent design proponents, suggests that advocates are not as concerned about the truth of evolution as they are about the underlying values they think it teaches.

"The Wedge" issue is just a conspiracy theory and guilt-by-association.

To assuage the type of concern articulated by William Jennings Bryan, teachers could tell students that even though evolutionary science talks about the survival of the fittest organism, it is not a model for how humans should treat each other. . . . . they could explicitly note that just because mutations in organisms are random, it does not follow that human morality is random.

But would Darwinists find such teaching in the public schools to be acceptable? The Darwinists are already in a state of denial -- despite overwhelming evidence -- of Darwinism's influence on Nazism. For example, the Anti-Defamation League denounced the Darwin-to-Hitler themes of the "Expelled" movie and Coral Ridge Ministries' "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" TV program, saying that Hitler did not "need" Darwin.

In the final analysis, this so-called "compromise" is not a compromise at all -- it does not teach or even inform students about the scientific (pseudoscientific to some) criticisms of Darwinism.
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Discovery Institute hardly knows the half of it

The New York Times has a news article with the misleading title "Opponents of Evolution Adopting a New Strategy" and a related editorial with the title "The Cons of Creationism" (which should be titled "The Cons of Darwinism" -- the Darwinists are the ones who are conning us).

Robert Crowther said in Evolution News & Views,

Let's review. In 1998, the Texas Board of Education adopted the current set of science standards calling on students "to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information . . . .This is the language that the New York Times now insists is a new development!

John West said in Evolution News & Views,

As previously pointed out, the New York Times botched its recent story about the science standards debate in Texas, implying that support for covering the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution is supposedly a new strategy on the part of Darwin critics. The only problem is that the “strengths and weaknesses” language in the Texas Science Standards was adopted some 10 years ago in 1998, and so there is nothing new about it.

Then John West said in another article, titled "Message to New York Times Editorial Page: Hire a Fact-Checker,"

The Times apparently hasn’t been paying attention to Texas during the past decade, because (as we pointed out last week) the “strengths and weaknesses” language the Times’ editorialists so fear has been part of the Texas science standards since at least 1998! In short, the Texas State Board of Education isn’t considering whether to add “strengths and weaknesses” language; it’s the Darwinists who are trying to remove the language that has been in the Texas science standards for a decade.

You dummies, the New York Times news article itself says that the "strengths and weaknesses" language was added to the Texas science standards "in the late 1980's":

The “strengths and weaknesses” language was slipped into the curriculum standards in Texas to appease creationists when the State Board of Education first mandated the teaching of evolution in the late 1980s.

Steven Schafersman of the Texas Citizens for Science says that the "weaknesses" language in the Texas science standards may have been first adopted as early as the mid 1980's --

I was present at the very SBOE meeting in the mid to late 1980s (I have not had time to search long-stored records to find the correct date, but the experience is still vivid in my memory) when the "weaknesses" language was first adopted for a textbook proclamation that included biology texts.

So it looks like the Discovery Institute needs a fact checker, too.

Also, John West says in one of the articles,

As for whether “other states are likely to follow” Texas’s example: the Times’ editorial writers clearly haven’t been paying attention to what has been happening in those other states over the last decade. Six states already call for the critical analysis of evolution in their science standards—Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Alabama, and Missouri. Contrary to the Chicken Littles at the Times, the sky hasn’t fallen in any of them.

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Alabama has even had evolution-disclaimer textbook stickers of the kind banned in Selman v. Cobb County.

It is disgraceful for such a prominent reference as the New York Times to spread such misinformation. Who do they think they are, Wikipedia?
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Darwinists try to dogmatize Texas science standards

I decided to drop the "a" because some people found "Darwinistas" to be offensive. It is against my principles to disparage anyone on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, etc..

A NY Times article erroneously titled "Opponents of Evolution Adopting a New Strategy" says,

DALLAS — Opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts. Over the last decade, creationism has given rise to “creation science,” which became “intelligent design,” which in 2005 was banned from the public school curriculum in Pennsylvania by a federal judge.

The term "creation science" (sometimes called scientific creationism) appeared much longer ago than the last decade -- the term appears in the McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education district court decision of 1982 and the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court decision of 1987. Also, creationism did not directly give rise to "creation science" and intelligent design," because the latter two disciplines are based on scientific observations and reasoning and not on religious sources. Finally, the federal judge did not ban ID "from the public school curriculum in Pennsylvania" -- he only banned it from the Dover Area school district.

The article continues,

Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are “creationism” or “intelligent design” or even “creator.”

The words are “strengths and weaknesses.”

Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.

That's ridiculous -- it is like arguing that teaching evolution is an underhanded way of introducing atheism into public schools.

The NY Times article says,
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The “strengths and weaknesses” language was slipped into the curriculum standards in Texas to appease creationists when the State Board of Education first mandated the teaching of evolution in the late 1980s. It has had little effect because evolution skeptics have not had enough power on the education board to win the argument that textbooks do not adequately cover the weaknesses of evolution.

How can the words "strengths and weaknesses" be a "new strategy" (as claimed by the article's title) if the words have been in the Texas science standards since the late 1980's? It is certainly not new in Texas.

The NY Times article says,

“Serious students will not come to study in our universities if Texas is labeled scientifically backward,” said Dr. Dan Foster, former chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

There we go again with that tired old familiar "scaring them away, denying us opportunities, making us a laughingstock" bogeyman again.

The NY Times article says,

Although the state education board is free to set aside or modify their proposals, committee members will recommend that the “strengths and weaknesses” phrase be removed, said Kevin Fisher, a committee member who is against the teaching of creationism.

“When you consider evolution, there are certainly questions that have yet to be answered,” said Mr. Fisher, science coordinator for the Lewisville Independent School District in North Texas.

But, he added, “a question that has yet to be answered is certainly different from an alleged weakness.”

Mr. Fisher points to the flaws in Darwinian theory that are listed on an anti-evolution Web site, strengthsandweaknesses.org, which is run by Texans for Better Science Education.

“Many of them are decades old,” Mr. Fisher said of the flaws listed. “They’ve all been thoroughly refuted.”

The Darwinists are not willing to just maintain the status quo, but are seeking to roll back the protections of critics and criticism of Darwinism.

“[A] question that has yet to be answered is certainly different from an alleged weakness”? If the question could be answered, it wouldn’t be a weakness. Also, an unanswered question about evolution is a flaw in the theory, so how could alleged flaws in evolution have "all been thoroughly refuted" if unanswered questions about the theory exist?

Also, the Darwinists have a double standard. They say of unanswered questions about Darwinism, “we don’t know the answers now, but we are working on finding the answers and we may find them someday," but they say that no new questions or revisions of old questions are going to be found in the future.

Yes, I remember reading intelligent-design and irreducible-complexity arguments many decades ago, but a lot of the evidence is of recent origin. Recent discoveries have shown that cells are not just amorphous blobs of protoplasm as previously presumed but contain remarkably complex nanomachines (e.g., bacterial flagella), biochemical factories (e.g., the blood-clotting cascade), and data-processing systems (e.g., genetic codes).

The NY Times article has stirred a lot of interest and controversy and articles about it have been posted on Evolution News & Views, Panda's Thumb, Uncommon Descent, etc. (see sidebar for links).

It used to be that Cornelia Dean wrote the Darwinist hatchet jobs for the NY Times. Now it looks like the NY Times has a new hatchet man (or, should I say, hatchet woman or hatchet person?), the author of this article, Laura Beil.

The story was also covered by the San Antonio Express-News.

Also, the National Center for Science Education reported,

Steven Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science told NCSE, "What Bradley and his colleagues actually plan to do is damage evolution instruction by trying to get the new science standards to mention alleged but false 'weaknesses' of evolution, in order to weaken evolution content, confuse students and make them think science is less accurate and reliable than it really is about biological origins, and intimidate teachers to avoid or minimize the subject (as many of them do now in Texas)." With respect to Bradley's description of evolution as theory not fact, he added, "This banal canard is indulged in by every creationist who thinks he can get away with it. ... Evolution is a fact, if fact is defined as something for which so much reliable evidence exists that it would be irrational to deny it."

Wow -- so evolution is a fact. I guess that settles it, doesn't it?

Steven Schafersman wrote a long article about the controversy for Texas Citizens for Science.

A NY Times editorial says,

The Texas State Board of Education is again considering a science curriculum that teaches the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, setting an example that several other states are likely to follow. This is code for teaching creationism.

It has the advantage of sounding more balanced than teaching “intelligent design,” which the courts have consistently banned from science classrooms. It has the disadvantage of being nonsense.

"[W]hich the courts have consistently banned from science classrooms"? Only one judge ever ruled on intelligent design, Judge John E. Jones III in Kitzmiller v. Dover.

Darwinists’ paranoia towards all criticisms of Darwinism is stifling scientific inquiry. For example, the Florida Citizens for Science blog has banned me from discussing co-evolution there.

I discuss co-evolution in several articles in the "Non-ID criticisms of evolution" post-label group in this blog. This post label is also in the sidebar.
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Evolution and Fatheaded Ed Brayton. Again.

In a blog article titled Evolution and the Texas Board of Education. Again., Fatheaded Ed says,

The Texas State Board of Education may be the single most ridiculous legislative body in America. . . . they're about to take up the science standards yet again, which can only lead to absurdity. Just take a look at some of the quotes from school board members in this article.

Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, said that standard is clear and worth keeping.

"We want our children to be able to think and understand the strengths and weaknesses of any theory. Some ultra-radical groups have not evolved to the point where they realize that the 'theory of Evolution' is just that -- a theory," Mercer said.

I've got news for you, Mr. Mercer: every single explanation offered in every single scientific subject in Texas schools is "just a theory." . . . . A theory is not a wild assed guess and it's not a step on the way to something else . . . . Theory is the highest level of certainty granted to scientific explanations.

Wrong, Ed -- law is the highest level of certainty granted to scientific explanations. Here I am using the term "explanation" in a broad sense to include explanations of how as well as why. Also, there is no reason why a theory cannot be a step on the way to something else.

Fatheaded Ed continues,
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Once again I am left wondering why in the world we let people who have no expertise whatsoever in science determine the science curriculum in public schools. Doing so is positively irrational. We would not dream of electing a state licensing board for, say, medical schools and putting people on that board without any training in medicine. It is no less absurd to allow people with no background in science to decide what is taught in science classes.

Sheeeesh, Ed, the article said that Ken Mercer has a degree in biology from the University of Texas at Austin.

There once was a blogger named Ed,
who was known as a stupid fathead.
The stuff he did write,
on his blogging site,
was like a balloon filled with lead.

The story is also covered in an article in the NY Times.
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