Mickey mouse new survey course in Texas science standards

This has got to be the living end -- Fatheaded Ed Brayton said on his blog, "My friend Steve Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science . . . ."

Ed's article concerns a new mickey mouse elective survey course -- Earth and Space Science -- in the proposed new Texas high school science standards. The course description is full of pseudoscientific jargon and breathtakingly inane philosophies of science. Most of the material is covered in the new 6th-8th grade Texas science standards and/or in the high-school standards for other courses. Stupid Steven Schafersman was on the standards-drafting committee for the course -- here is his description of the course:
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Our new Texas ESS course is innovative and pathbreaking, and I seriously believe it will serve as a national model for ES and ESS courses in the future. The standards we wrote compare favorably to the new ES Literacy Initiative standards; we anticipated many important topics and concerns. The course standards are composed of three traditional themes and three very non-traditional strands. The three themes (or topical sections) are Earth in Space and Time, Solid Earth, and Fluid Earth. The first contains the most important information about cosmology and planetary astronomy in addition to traditional historical geological topics. It emphasizes geological time, stellar system and planet formation, the origin of the Earth's atmosphere and ocean, and fossil life. The second deals with plate tectonics, internal heat transfer, Earth structure, continent formation, geophysics, mountain building, volcanism, erosion and mass wasting, mineral resources, fossil fuels, etc. The third section discusses the movement of heat and fluids in Earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere, sea-level changes, the origin of life as a result of chemical processes and geochemical cycles, solar radiation, various chemical cycles, groundwater, and climate.

The innovative part of the course are the three strands: systems, energy, and relevance. We tried to incorporate these strands in every student expectation and at least in every knowledge and skill requirement. The course uses a system concept which shows the interactions among Earth's subsystems and can be modeled. Energy formation, movement, transfer, and effect as Earth process driving forces are emphasized throughout. Finally, every topic required was judged for its relevance to student lives. If a topic was not very relevant, it was omitted. Believe it or not, we actually left out about a third of traditional physical and historical geological topics, almost all of meteorology, much of non-planetary astronomy, and much of physical and biological oceanography. Some critics said the course was too long, but actually it could have been twice as long if we left in all the traditional topics. Also, our standards are longer than other high school courses because we were more specific in listing topics rather than lumping many of them under simple headings. We decided to create a course that looked at fewer topics in depth rather than many topics superficially. Left out are rocks and minerals, desert processes, most erosion and weathering processes, different types of volcanic and plutonic bodies, a detailed survey of the geologic periods, almost everything dealing with weather, all discussion about galaxies and types of stars, and large parts of oceanography. Instead, we included a great deal about climate and climate change, Earth's geologic hazards, energy resources, geophysics, geologic time, origin of planets, the Moon, smaller planetary bodies, the history and chemistry of Earth's water and elements in the oceans and atmosphere, stratigraphy, sedimentary basins, fossil fuels, and the origin and evolution of ancient life. We wanted to keep as many relevant, exciting, and thought-provoking topics as possible to attract and interest students, and we left out much about topics that some students find to be uninteresting. We also emphasized the use of space imagery and modern instruments such as GPS, personal computers, and the Internet.

I think this course will be something special: a course that many students will want to take as an elective (since the former Texas Earth Science Task Force couldn't get an ES course accepted as required credit). Many students will want to take this course in their senior year, and even students going on in science who are taking an AP course their senior year may want to take ESS as a fifth science course in high school, simply because it will be exciting and relevant. This is a course I think Texas Earth scientists can be proud of, especially geologists (meteorologists probably won't like it, but climatologists will love it!).

Now Schafersman is complaining that two "young-earth creationists" on the ten-person ESS committee sent secret minority reports to the state board of education. IMO the best thing that could happen to the ESS standards would be to have "strengths and weaknesses" -- or better yet, "strengths and criticisms" -- language added to it.
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Reminder: The Great Texas 3-Man Tag-Team Death Match is coming on Jan. 21

"The Mad Scientists" tag-team





The match has also been called the "Great Texas Kangaroo Smackdown" by "Stupid Steven" Schafersman.

And the announcer says,

In this corner we have "The Mad Scientists" tag-team - - - - - - and in this corner we have "The Fabulous Fundies" tag-team.

Information about the hearing -- including information on how to register to speak -- is here. If you have just a dial-up connection instead of broadband and want to listen to the testimony, you should listen to the live broadcast because you may not be able to listen continuously to the archived audio files.

BTW, I was surprised to learn that the Texas death match really did originate in Texas, according to this source. Previously I thought that they just gave it the name "Texas" because Texas has been regarded as the land of showdowns ever since the Alamo.

The big issue is going to be whether to retain the phrase "strengths and weaknesses" that has been in the Texas science standards for about 20 years (or maybe whether to replace it with the phrase "strengths and limitations"). There is no reason to defer to scientists' opinions about that issue -- that is not an issue that requires any scientific expertise.

Again, here is a summary of my positions on the "strengths and weaknesses" issue:
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I have proposed changing the phrase "strengths and weaknesses" to "strengths and criticisms." "Criticisms" is a general, neutral term covering limitations, real weaknesses, invalid criticisms, criticisms of whole theories, and criticisms of imperfections in theories. IMO the term "weaknesses" is bad because invalid criticisms are not real weaknesses.

Teaching criticisms of evolution -- even pseudoscientific criticisms -- serves the following purposes: broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, increasing student interest, helping students learn the material, helping to prevent or correct misconceptions, and helping to assure that technically sophisticated criticisms of evolution are taught be qualified science teachers.

Omitting the terms "weaknesses," "limitations," "criticisms," and similar terms would not positively prevent the selection of textbooks containing criticisms of evolution.
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Incredible Darwinist bigotry

Darwinist demonstraton at the Nov. 19 oral hearings on the new Texas science standards

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This example of Darwinist bigotry is just so bad that I decided to post an article about it here. A public commenter's speech at the November 19 Texas board of education oral hearing for the new Texas science standards said,

Despite what the creationist members of the Board say - Ms Lowe, Ms Leo, Ms Cargill, Ms Dunbar, Mr Mercer, Dr McLeroy and others - everybody in the nation knows that this is absolutely a religious battle, that your dislike of evolution and naturalism and any changes to the TEKs that are supported by the Discovery Institute are religiously motivated. Kitzmiller vs Dover clearly showed that ID and these issues are religious in nature.

"Everybody in the nation knows"? As the Marlboro Filters Man ads used to say, "almost everybody."

The commenter continued,
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For you to sit there and tell everyone it is not smacks of arrogance and deliberate willful deception. In other words, lying. I know who the Father of Lies...

At which point Chairman McLeroy interrupts me to say, flustered, "We don't say that word here. You can't say that word."

I look at him, confused.

"Lies. You can't say lies."

"I can't say the words lies?" I ask, incredulous.

So I continue, not finishing the sentence that I was going to say, which was "I know who the Father of Lies is, and it's not Jesus and it's not God."

McLeroy's interruption was understandable. Accusing the board members of lying was slanderous -- the accusation was based on nothing more than an opinion of a single judge and a ridiculous presumption of what "everybody in the nation knows."

I then continue on with my asking them why they are willing to play dice with our taxpayer money to risk a lawsuit, and why they're willing to play dice with our children's future, and kept to the rest of the testimony I'd written - but because of the time McLeroy took away from me by interrupting me I was not able to read my closing few sentences.

Last I will say that McLeroy made a demand that nobody clap, hoot, holler, or talk during people's testimony because he and the Board members wanted to be able to listen to those who spoke and it was a show of respect for those who took the time to come and testify. And for the most part this was respected by the audience. However I was not shown the same courtesy by the Board! (emphasis in original) During my testimony, Terri Leo repeatedly laughed and talked over her shoulder to someone (I think he was a creationist/ID person giving her questions and comments about the testimonies). The laughter and talking by the Board was loud enough to be picked up on the live feed that was streamed from the TEA website because someone emailed me commenting on it.

One other thing someone from the audience told me, when I named the creationist members of the Board, I heard laughter from them. What may have caused that is that apparently Mr Bradley, who I didn't name, waved his hands up in the air like "What about me? You forgot me!" and Dr McLeroy shot him a proud look. And they claim they are not religious? Can you be proud of being a "creationist" without it being religious? Ah, the irony....Or should I say hypocrisy?

The speaker has no sense of humor -- Bradley and McLeroy could have just been joking (though both are in fact creationists).

While everyone wants to be polite, and I also was polite though firm in my assessment, I think it is essential to call a spade a spade.

Calling the board members liars because of a legitimate difference of opinion is being polite?

The rest of the testimony -- which is full of more bigotry -- is here. The testimony said,

Evolution does not threaten religious belief – including Christianity - except if you read Genesis absolutely literally, which most denominations do not. The Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist and Catholic Churches formally accept an evolving Creation.

People should not be told what their religious beliefs are supposed to be -- religious beliefs are a personal thing. And large numbers of Moslems, orthodox Jews, and fundy Christians do not believe that evolution theory is compatible with religion.

Needless to say, this speaker is regarded as a heroine by the Darwinists.
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Houston Chronicle censors an Evo.Sphere blog post by Schafersman

An Evo.Sphere blog post by "Stupid Steven" Schafersman says,

Young Earth Creationist Attack on the New Texas Earth and Space Science Course

This column was removed from this blog by a Houston Chronicle editor. I don't know why and am waiting for an explanation. I believe someone I named in the column complained, and I'm pretty sure I know who it is, since he has done this before.

Since I'm not going to re-post the report here, here's where you can read it off site:

http://www.texscience.org/reports/ess-response-yec-2009jan15.htm

Steven Schafersman

When I complained to the Houston Chronicle staff about Stupid Steven's arbitrary censorship of my comments submitted to his posts on the Evo.Sphere blog, they told me that they were not going to do anything because Evo.Sphere is an "independent" blog. But how in the hell can Evo.Sphere be an independent blog if a Houston Chronicle staffer can censor posts on it?
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The claim that Evo.Sphere is an independent blog was of course phony from the beginning. It has the Houston Chronicle's name on it and Houston Chronicle staffer Eric Berger set up the blog, advertised it, invited Schafersman to blog on it, made the decision to moderate comments, and has checked the blog for comments awaiting approval.

Also, as for Schafersman's statement, "I believe someone I named in the column complained, and I'm pretty sure I know who it is, since he has done this before," I think it is pretty obvious who he is referring to -- Texas state board of education member David Bradley. The report mentions four people: two members of the Earth and Space Science standards-drafting committee and two members of the SBOE, Terri Leo and David Bradley. I doubt that the two ESS committee members have the clout to get the Houston Chronicle to censor an Evo.Sphere post and Terri Leo is not a "he," so that just leaves David Bradley.
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Correction of error in Texas science standards' L-word history

I erroneously assumed that the biology standards-drafting committee added the word "limitations" to the "knowledge and skills" (KS) rule 3D when the committee dropped the phrase "strengths and limitations" that was in KS rule 3A of the second draft [1] [2] -- however, the word "limitations" was actually already in KS rule 3D in the 1st and 2nd drafts. Here is the history as told by Steven Schafersman:

Now we come to the last biology problem, one that I failed to notice before. As readers remember, Biology's original 1997 TEKS had the very unscientific and misleading scientific processes "strengths and weaknesses" standard 3A, Draft 1 of September 2008 had the new and good standard 3A, Draft 2 of November 2008 substituted the educationally poor and unscientific "analyze and evaluate strengths and limitations of scientific explanations including those based on accepted scientific data," and Draft 3 of January 2009, the Proposed Recommendations, correctly returned to the good standard 3A. What I had overlooked is that all three of the drafts had standard 3D: "evaluate models according to their limitations in representing biological objects or events." Furthermore, this Knowledge and Skill scientific process standard was in the original 1997 Biology TEKS as standard 3E: "evaluate models according to their adequacy in representing biological objects or events." No doubt anti-evolutionists did a search, as I did, for the word "limitations" and found this. At least two blogs claimed that biology standard 3D was new and simply transferred the word "limitations" to another process skill standard when biology went back to the good 3A. In fact, this is a very old standard and the original word "adequacy" was changed to "limitations" during the very first biology panel revision meeting.

So why wasn't "limitations" dropped from biology KS Rule 3D when "strengths and limitations" was dropped from biology KS Rule 3A? An oversight, maybe? The Darwinists are now faced with a dilemma -- they cannot at the same time ask that (1) the committees' final drafts be adopted unchanged and (2) that the word "limitations" be removed from biology KS Rule 3D.

The committees' three drafts of the proposed high school science standards are available here. The 1st draft is here, the 2nd draft is here, and the final draft is here.

"Limitations" appears in the introductions of the first and second drafts of all eight science subjects, in paragraphs like the following:

Investigations are used to learn about the natural world. Students should understand that certain types of questions can be answered by investigations, and that methods, models, and conclusions built from these investigations change as new observations are made. Models of objects and events are tools for understanding the natural world and can show how systems work. They have limitations and based on new discoveries are constantly being modified to more closely reflect the natural world.

Duh. Does all that breathtakingly inane verbiage really need saying?

The word "limitations" appears in only one place -- biology KS rule 3D -- in the committees' final drafts.

Anyway, the Darwinists did not make a stink about the word "limitations" until the phrase "strengths and limitations" appeared in KS Rule 3A of the 2nd drafts of the standards for three of the eight science subjects.
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How to register to testify at Jan. 21 hearing on Texas science standards

I am on the email list of the science department of the Texas Education Agency and I received the following information in an email. The email does not mention the limit of four hours on the public comment period. Also, six expert reviewers have been invited to testify and their testimony of course will take a fairly large amount of time.

Background info is in the two "Texas Controversy" post label groups in the sidebar of the homepage.

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PROCESS FOR REGISTRATION FOR THE PUBLIC HEARING on SCIENCE TEKS

State Board of Education

Committee of the Full Board

Item #1

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

8:30 AM – 12:30 PM in Room 1-104 , Texas Education Agency, 1701 North Congress, Austin, TX

Registration

Registration for the SCIENCE PUBLIC HEARING for proposed TEKS revisions will be held during business hours (8-5) on Friday, January 16 and Tuesday, January 20 (no registration on Monday, January 19 due to MLK holiday).

People who wish to testify may sign up by calling (512) 463-9581, the main curriculum number, on Friday, January 16 and Tuesday, January 20, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (January 19 is a holiday) or by FAXing their completed registration form to fax: 512-475-3667.

The link for the Registration Form is http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/forms/registration_testimony.html

The registrants shall provide thirty-five (35) copies of their testimony for distribution to board and staff.

Parking is available for a fee at the meters around the building, the state visitor’s lot, or the Bullock Museum.

To find your SBOE representative, you can go to http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/members.html

The proposed recommendations to the Science TEKS are available for review at http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/teks/scienceTEKS.html

Thank you ---

Irene Pickhardt

Assistant Director of Science

Texas Education Agency

1701 North Congress

Austin Texas 78701

Irene.Pickhardt@tea.state.tx.us

512/463-9566
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Six expert reviewers invited to testify Jan. 21 on Texas science standards

The Discovery Institutie reports that the six experts who were appointed by the Texas State Board of Education to write expert reviews of the proposed Texas science standards have now been invited to testify at the Jan. 21 oral hearing on the standards-drafting committees' final proposal for the standards. IMO this invitation is a strong indication that the SBOE wants to revise the committees' final draft. The current situation is described here.

The Texas Freedom Network reported that the board plans to restrict the general public's oral comment period to four hours. IMO that is a bad idea -- it may unfairly prevent some people form testifying and it will discourage people from coming to the hearing to testify.

Links to live broadcasts of the hearings are posted here and links to audio archives of the hearings are posted here. If you have a dial-up connection and want to listen to the Jan. 21 hearing, you should listen to the live broadcast because I found that with my slow dial-up connection I could not listen continuously to the archived audio files.

"Stupid Steven" Schafersman calls this expert oral testimony "The Great Texas Kangaroo Smackdown." As usual, Schafersman is making wild unsupported accusations --
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The Great Texas Kangaroo Smackdown was designed by the seven radical, religious-right Creationists on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).

Schafersman has provided no evidence that all seven of the board's supporters of the "strengths and weaknesses" language are "radical, religious-right Creationists" or that they "designed" the "Great Texas Kangaroo Smackdown."

The Great Texas Kangaroo Smackdown is the love child of the seventh radical right SBOE member and chairman, Don McLeroy, illicitly conceived by mental coupling with "his friends" in the Discovery Institute. Only McLeroy has the power to invite the six experts to attend a SBOE hearing to give testimony and answer questions from the other State Board members, but this idea was not his alone. He was coached by his Discovery friends to set up this misleading debate, since it is designed to fit perfectly with the Discovery Instiltute marketing campaign to spread fear and doubt about evolution, thus promoting the currently-popular alternative that the DI markets, Intelligent Design Creationism.

Schafersman provided no evidence to support his allegations in the preceding paragraph.

More information is in the articles in the two "Texas Controversy" post-label groups in the sidebar of the homepage.
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Darwinists ignore L-word in proposed Texas science standards

Background --

The "strengths and weaknesses" language has been in the Texas science standards continuously since the 1980's. The language was added to the Texas textbook proclamations in the 1980's (I was told that the textbook proclamations were the de facto state standards back then) and added to the state science standards around 1997-98. "Strengths and weaknesses" was in the first drafts of the proposed new chemistry and astronomy standards and "strengths and limitations" was in the second drafts of the biology, chemistry, and physics standards but just the word "limitations" was retained in only the proposed final draft of the biology standards (there were eight science committees and one engineering & design committee, which doesn't count here).

A news article says,

. . . . with the "weaknesses" requirement removed and a new definition for science, the new plan makes it clear that supernatural explanations like creationism and intelligent design have no place in public classrooms, said Dan Quinn with the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based nonprofit group that opposes religious influence on public education . . . . .

Educators removed the "weaknesses" phrase in their first draft of the science curriculum.

That is not exactly true. There were eight science committees and two of them -- chemistry and astronomy -- retained the "strengths and weaknesses" language in the first drafts.
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After a public hearing that attracted more than 200 speakers, the phrase was back in the second draft, but "weaknesses" was changed to "limitations."

About 90 -- not 200 -- people signed up to speak at the hearing.

As noted above, "strengths and weaknesses" was in the first drafts of the chemistry and astronomy standards and "strengths and limitations" was in the second drafts of the biology, chemistry, and physics standards. The Darwinists objected to the "strengths and limitations" language as well as the "strengths and weaknesses" language.

The second draft was published before -- not after -- the hearing, but so soon before the hearing that apparently some of the speakers were not aware of the change.

The third and final draft says students should be able to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations. There is also a new requirement that students should be able "to evaluate models according to their limitations in representing biological objects or events," but it would take a mind-boggling leap for anyone to interpret that as applying to evolution, Quinn said, particularly when viewed through the plan’s new definition of science.

Why is the word "limitations" OK by itself if the phrase "strengths and limitations" is not OK? And why would it take a "mind-boggling leap" for anyone to interpret "limitations" as applying to evolution? Evolution is one of the most obvious applications of the term "limitations." The Darwinists are taking a pollyannish view of the retention of the term "limitations" so that they can declare victory. Anyway, omitting all terms like "weaknesses," "limitations," and "criticisms" would not prevent the Texas board of education from selecting textbooks containing criticisms of evolution (Texas is unusual in that the state selects and purchases textbooks for the entire state).

The old definition — which included phrases like "a way of learning about nature" and "may not answer all questions" — has been replaced with a definition from the National Academy of Sciences. It states that science involves using evidence to form explanations and make predictions that can be measured and tested. It also warns that questions on subjects that cannot be scientifically tested do not belong in science.

Well, then maybe the large part of evolution theory that cannot be scientifically tested does not belong in science.

In the end, the wording in the final draft may not matter because the board is not required to use it. In May, the board threw out a teacher-suggested language arts curriculum in favor of another that some board members have said they had only an hour to read before voting on it.

The state board will hold a second public hearing Jan. 21 and is scheduled to take a final vote on the new science standards in March.

As I said many times before, I proposed that the phrase "strengths and weaknesses" be replaced by "strengths and criticisms." "Criticisms" is a neutral, general term that covers limitations, real weaknesses, invalid criticisms (including pseudoscientific criticisms), criticisms of whole theories, and criticisms of imperfections in theories.

A related article is here.
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Harun Yahya says "Stupid Steven" Schafersman will go to hell

In an article titled "My Comments to the Texas Education Agency About the Proposed Revised Science Standards," "Stupid Steven" Schafersman wrote on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog,

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

No, it is not "necessary that students learn the scientific explanation for human origins," nor is it "impermissible to [allegedly] keep maintaining the pretense that humans are qualitatively different from other animals." Stupid Steven's ideological preferences have nothing to do with what is "necessary" and what is "impermissible." Stupid Steven accuses the fundies of trying to inject their ideologies into science classes, but here he is trying to do the same thing. I am not against teaching about human evolution, but Stupid Steven's above reason for teaching it is the dumbest I have ever seen.

Harun Yahya wrote (all emphasis is in original),
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Unbelieving evolutionists spend their whole lives denying (surely Allah is beyond that) Allah’s existence. They have made defending this heretical ideology the main purpose of their lives. There is no doubt that their reward for this in Allah’s presence will be very terrible. But every lie they tell and every unscientific scenario they produce to turn people from belief in Allah will confront them in Hell as the dark world of the evolutionary myths in their own minds. Unbelieving evolutionists will encounter the same horrendous moral conceptions in Hell that they have in their minds now. Unless Allah wills otherwise, deniers will suffer an eternal life full of torment. (Allah knows the truth.) . . . .

. . . . One of the distinguishing features of evolutionist propaganda is that it is made up of stories based on evolutionists’ own imaginations. A scientist telling the story generally sets up evolutionary scenarios with his own personal conceptions and by misinterpreting scientific findings through having adopted evolution as a dogma. That scientist will then seek to impose that scenario on people, suggesting it is a thesis based on sound scientific evidence. In fact, what evolutionists do is to portray wild pigs’ teeth as human teeth or else produce hoax skulls by putting bones belonging to different life forms together. Devoid of any evidence with which to prove their theories, Darwinists have no problem with adding a great many imaginary elements to their tales. The fact is, however, that this is an unscientific propaganda technique based on preconception alone.

1- What Do Unbelieving Evolutionists Maintain?

They Claim Human Beings, That Allah Created with Such Superior Features, Are Descended from Apes

Evolutionists claim that human beings, entities possessed of consciousness and free will and able to think, reason, and make decisions and judgments, are descended from apes, which in terms of consciousness, are no different from horses or mice.

What Will Happen in Hell?

Those Who Deny Allah’s Creation (Surely Allah is beyond that) Will Be Made Despicable Apes in This World and the Hereafter
“We said to them, ‘BE APES, DESPISED, CAST OUT.’” (Surat al-Baqara, 65). . . . . .

3- What Do Unbelieving Evolutionists Maintain?

They Claim That They Are Descended “from So-Called Intermediate Forms That Were Unable to Speak, See or Hear”

According to what evolutionists claim, there should have been many life forms that reflected the transition between two species and that bore the features of both. For example, before fish moved onto dry land and turned into reptiles a great many half-lunged and half-gilled, or half-legged and half finned life forms must have existed. Or until apes finally turned into human beings many half-human and half-ape life forms must have existed over many millions of years. Evolutionists call these fictitious entities they believe once existed “intermediate forms.” According to their scenario, during the time of this intermediary transition, a major stage in the so-called evolutionary process, there must have been many life forms with deficient or missing organs between two different species, for which reason there must have been creatures that could not see or hear. The fact is, however, that no evidence for one single intermediate form has been found in any of the millions of fossil specimens that have been extracted from the different strata of the Earth.

What Will Happen in Hell?

Allah Will Assemble the Unbelievers as Entities “Unable to See, Hear or Speak,” Just Like They Wanted

"But if anyone turns away from My reminder, his life will be a dark and narrow one and on the Day of Rising WE WILL GATHER HIM BLIND.” (Surah Ta-Ha, 124)

“...SO WE PUT OUT THEIR EYES: ‘Taste My punishment and warnings!’” (Surat al-Qamar, 37)

“…WE WILL GATHER THEM on the Day of Resurrection, flat on their faces, BLIND, DUMB AND DEAF. Their shelter will be Hell. Whenever the Blaze dies down, We will increase it for them.” (Sura al-Isra’, 97)

And so forth. LOL

AMEN

Harun Yahya is as zany as the Creation Science Association For Mid-America.
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Committees' final proposal for new Texas science standards now available

Merry Christmas, everybody.

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

Science TEKS Review Committee Recommendations to the SBOE

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

Click on each item below to download a PDF.

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

The controversy is over the High School science standards.

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

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

- - - -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As I have previously noted, "Stupid Steven" Schafersman is a member of the Earth and Space Sciences standards-drafting committee of the Texas Education Agency, president of the Texas Citizens for Science, a blogger on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog, and a habitual liar. He recently wrote on the Evo.Sphere blog,

Not one of the SBOE members has any real scientific knowledge, although several of the radical religious right members think they know quite a bit about science.

What does Stupid Steven consider to be "real scientific knowledge"? Here is biographical information about four of the seven "radical religious right" Texas board of education members:

Ken Mercer --

He earned a bachelor’s in biology from The University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Business Administration from UT-San Antonio.

Barbara Cargill --

. . . she taught biology in the Garland and Hurst-Euless-Bedford school districts between 1982 and 1991.

Cynthia Dunbar --

Cynthia Noland Dunbar currently teaches anatomy & physiology to high school juniors and seniors.

Dunbar obtained her undergraduate degree in biology and psychology from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Gail Lowe --

Lowe attended the University of Alabama. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University in 1978. (the field of science is not specified)

Also, board chairman Don McLeroy, who is also a member of the seven, has a degree in electrical engineering. Engineering students generally take little or no college biology but they do take a lot of the physical sciences and mathematics. A lot of engineering itself consists of the physical sciences.

Also, for at least the third time, Schafersman ignored the ~10-year period that the "strengths and weaknesses" language was in the Texas textbook proclamations. Describing the recommendations he gave to the standards-drafting committees, he said,
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Except for the bracketed examples of scientific explanations and the extra section for biology KS 7, the evolution section, each discipline got the same analysis and request about TEKS C3A, the controversial scientific method rule that has been "strengths and weaknesses" since 1998.

The "strengths and weaknesses" language was added to the textbook proclamations, which Schafersman called the "de facto" science standards, in the 1980's.

Also, Schafersman has been arbitrarily censoring all of my comments submitted to his posts on the Evo.Sphere blog, not just censoring them on a case-by-case basis. I complained about this to the Houston Chronicle staff, but they falsely claim that Evo.Sphere is an independent blog. On the contrary, the blog has the Houston Chronicle name on it and Houston Chronicle staffer Eric Berger set up the blog, invited Schafersman to be a blogger on it, made the decision to turn on comment moderation, and checks the blog for comments awaiting approval. I am now filing a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency. Although Schafersman is not a permanent full-time employee of the TEA, he is a member of a TEA standards-drafting committee and in that sense he represents the TEA. I am asking that Schafersman be barred from official positions in the TEA unless the Houston Chronicle prevents him from censoring comments without the approval of an unbiased Houston Chronicle staff member.
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Committees to decide final proposals for Texas science standards on Dec. 4-6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(8) The survey's sponsor, the Texas Freedom Network, is a Darwinist outfit that strongly opposes the "weaknesses" and "limitations" language. Though this fact alone is not sufficient to disqualify the survey, it is a negative factor when viewed in combination with other factors.
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01-21-09 oral hearing on Texas science standards limited to 4 hours

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Texas Freedom Network article says,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By way of review:

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

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

Many of the commenters at the hearing spoke only about religion -- that of course is just a straw-man issue.
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Biased reports of a biased survey of Texas college biologists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The report highlights five key findings from the survey:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The full report of the survey continues,

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

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

The full report continues,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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First revision of proposed Texas science standards finally posted

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For example, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary's definition of the scientific meaning of the word "theory" is: "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena." My printed dictionary, "Webster's New World Dictionary: Third College Edition," gives the following definition of the scientific meaning of "theory": "a formulation of apparent relationships or underlying principles of certain observed phenomena which has been verified to some degree." There is no talk about scientific theories being "well-established and highly reliable," being "capable of being tested by multiple, independent researchers," etc..
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First revision of Texas science standards not posted yet

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

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Update on proposed Texas science stardards

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

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

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

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

(5) Don't misapply the term "evolution" to directionless changes that do not represent development or patterns of progression. So "stellar evolution" is OK but "evolution of the atmosphere" and "evolution of the geosphere" are not.
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Important update about proposed Texas science standards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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