evolution — “I spent ages on that.”

I don’t have any comment on this;

it’s just too good to not share.

Teaching evolutionary life science in Florida (NYTimes)

Daron Dean for The New York Times | STUDENTS Allie Farris, left, and Bryce Haas with their teacher David Campbell in sophomore biology class at Ridgeview High School in Orange Park, Fla.

Amy Harom has a great piece in the August 23, 2008 New York Times on a Florida teacher engaged in teaching evolutionary life science to a high school class that includes religiously committed skeptical students. The article is unusual in looking at the issues as matters of curriculum, requiring knowledgeable responses by educators, and not just philosophical, legal, or even scientific matters. [For people interested in this as curriculum matter, it really is worth reading the article itself, and not just this blog post about it. Articles at nytimes.com are available for free, for at least a week, I think, although it does require a free on-time registration. After a week or so, articles may be archived and then available only for a fee.]

Note the precision of this language, in both the article and in the new Florida standards:

In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.

More precise reference to “life science” denotes the naturalistic life science disciplines, as they are actually practiced, and not some kind of global “Science” such as the ID folks want to argue over with the lawyers and philosophers. The alternative is not some kind of dissenting views or versions of “Science” but, precisely, “religious versions of natural history.”

ID debate: Meyer & Gilder versus Shermer & Bailey

A debate that was held Saturday July 12 at FreedomFest 08 in Las Vegas will be aired on BookTV (CSpan-2) on Sunday August 24 from about 6:15 am to 7:30 am EDT. The program is described here at booktv.org. The page title says: “Debate on Intelligent Design with George Gilder, Stephen Meyer, Michael Shermer, and Christopher Hitchens,” but the description has Ronald Bailey of Reason Magazine instead of Hitchens. Bailey was listed on the FreedomFest schedule, with Hitchens scheduled for other sessions. [Added Aug. 24: It was Bailey, not Hitchens, who took part. This is pure speculation on my part, but I would guess that Hitchens was originally invited and accepted, but then urged the organizers to find somebody else who is more qualified to debate the topic than Hitchens would ever claim himself to be.]

The title in the FreedomFest program is: “Is There Scientific Evidence for Intelligent Design in Nature?”

Program links on c-spanarchives.org:

• http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=567137388
• http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=280528-1

DI’s legal eagles & the “Academic Freedom” legislation

Commenting on an earlier post, Ed Darrell writes:

It seems quite clear that whoever drafted the law has very little experience in drafting laws, and less experience in trying to carry out such laws.

From a press release by the Louisiana Coalition for Science, we learn that

DI senior fellow and legal advisor, Gonzaga University law professor David K. DeWolf (torts and consumer law,not constitutional law), has reveal[ed] that he helped craft SB 733 in accordance with DI’s model academic freedom act. DI coordinated the introduction of such legislation, in various forms, in six states this year, including Louisiana.

DeWolf is lead author, along with John West, Casey Luskin, and Jonathan Witt, of Traipsing into evolution: intelligent design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision. That book includes a reprinting of their “Brief of Amici Curiae Biologists and Other Scientists in Support of Defendants” for the Dover trial. I’ll be having some fun with that brief in an academic article that I’ll be writing soon.

As for Luskin, see http://lasciencecoalition.org/2008/07/13/creationists-wink-nudge/ for the story of how he got off message and spilled the beans on what this legislation is really all about, forcing John West to attempt damage control.

Louisiana anti-science law: 3 questions, 1 suggestion

The Sensuous Curmudgeon has been providing yoeman service keeping us all posted on developments in Louisiana with the immanent implementation of Louisiana’s new “science education” law. From him we learn, for example, about the scheduled meeting Tuesday, August 19, of the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

I have a suggestion (below) for something that BESE should do at that meeting. First, though, I want to address three questions on which it seems to me there may be widespread misimpressions concerning the new law:

1. Does the new Louisiana law make it permissible to bring “supplemental materials” into science classrooms challenging the theory of evolution?;
2. Is there really no telling what kinds of texts may be used for challenging evolution under this new law?; and
3. Does the law permit, or prohibit, the teaching of religion in public school science classes?

In considering each of these questions, I will be referring to the pro-Intelligent Design|creationist Discovery Institute (DI), which has been a driving force behind the Louisiana statute in particular, and the wider campaign promoting laws like this across the nation.

1. Does the new Louisiana law make it permissible to bring “supplemental materials” into science classrooms challenging the theory of evolution?

Everybody is saying that the law does that; but I don’t see that in the text. The law says that

A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board unless otherwise prohibited by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Before this law, were Louisiana teachers not allowed to use supplementary materials? Unless I’m missing something (which of course I could be, but during eight years of teaching graduate courses to Louisiana teachers at LSU over a dozen years ago, I never heard of any rule against teachers using supplementary materials), the only possibly new change effected by this clause is the explicit role of BESE in prohibiting the use of inappropriate materials.

The law requires the BESE Board to assist school districts, upon request, to

allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

So, BESE “shall” allow and assist. The explicit mandate to “allow” is new, as is the mandate to “assist.” But what assistance are they mandated to give? Until now, I thought the mandate included a mandate for BESE to approve and authorize the use of specific supplemtary materials. Reading more closely, as I write this post, I discover — to my amazement — that the statute actually does not give this mandate to the Board.

Here’s the Bill’s preamble, and then the beginning of the statutory text:

AN ACT

To enact R.S. 17:285.1, relative to curriculum and instruction; to provide relative to the teaching of scientific subjects in public elementary and secondary schools; to promote students’ critical thinking skills and open discussion of scientific theories; to provide relative to support and guidance for teachers; to provide relative to textbooks and instructional materials; to provide for rules and regulations; to provide for effectiveness; and to provide for related matters.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of Louisiana:

Section 1. R.S. 17:285.1 is hereby enacted to read as follows:

…

So the language “to provide relative to textbooks and instructional materials” (whatever that means) is only in the Preamble, not in the text that is now written into the State Statutes as Section 1. R.S. 17:285.1.

In fact, the language in the effective statutory part of the Bill empowers BESE to prohibit inappropriate materials, but does not actually mandate that they approve any supplemental texts — although they are mandated “to assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment … that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied …”

It seems to me that discussions of the law have involved misplaced emphasis on approval of materials by the BESE Board. The law actually says nothing about texts and materials being approved by the BESE Board — in fact, it speaks only of materials being prohibited by BESE.

Schools and science teachers are free to bring in other texts and materials to supplement the approved primary texts, and thereby to enhance the science curriculum. But this, per se, is not something newly permitted by this new legislation. The legislation requires BESE to provide help, when they are asked for it; but schools and teachers who know what they want to use, without feeling any need to ask for help from BESE, might well feel that this law gives them a green light to use things that they have or know about, without feeling any need for further assistance, approval, or permission.

In other words, those who want to teach against evolutionary science might feel authorized to do so by this new law — and those who would defend science education might feel inhibited from standing in the way — but not by virtue of the law’s legal effect or operation, but rather as the rhetorical, ideological, and political effects of the legislation.

2. Is there really no telling what kinds of texts may be used for challenging evolution under this new law?

In a post titled Louisiana Teachers: Here’s Your “Supplemental Material”, The Curmudgeon points to one crackpot example of the kind of thing that people might want to bring into Louisiana schools (also featured here on Curricublog.) More seriously, in a different post, The Curmudgeon writes:

IN DUE COURSE there will be a furious round of litigation in Louisiana resulting from their new Louisiana Science Education Act, which authorizes teachers to use unspecified “supplementary materials” for teaching evolution in state-run science classes.

Where will the Louisiana schools get such materials? The website of the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids) is already promoting various creationist books — excuse us, we mean Intelligent Design books — for befuddling the young minds of Louisiana.

Curmudgeon’s post (Discovery Institute: Their Recommended Reading List) includes examples from the DI site, proclaiming “So here they are, the recommended (or at least promoted) reading list of the Discovery Institute. Louisiana teachers, your legislature has given you the green light. Step right up and take your pick.”

There’s been a lot of speculation about what will be used, or promoted, as “suppplemental materials”; but much of it overlooks the text developed by DI for just this purpose. While DI was engineering legislative campaigns across the states, they were developing a text called Exploring Evolution, which was tailor-made (one might say, “intelligently designed” to fit just this new niche) for this new legal/political environment.

Explore Evolution purports to be a book totally devoted to a critical, evidence-based exploration of “the arguments for and against Neo-Darwinism,” without any mention of any kind of an alternative, be it creationism, “Intelligent Design,” or any other. In fact, although “flagellum” and “irreducible complexity” appear in the index and glossary, there are no entries for creation, design, or ID. This book was created to fit precisely the use described in the legislation, without any reference to religion, or to any possibly contaminated alternative to the “Neo-Darwinist” theory that it purports to assist students in putting to the test (for the purpose, of course, of promoting the development of their criticial thinking skills — see ‘Out of the Mouths of Creationists: “The LA Science Education Act Promotes Critical Thinking” (Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge)’).

So, while there might be other proposed supplements swirling around in this environment, we can and do know exactly what will be pushed by the instigators of the movement. Fortunately, I have heard from a trustworthy source that the folks allied through NCSE are preparing very thorough critiques of Exploring Evolution.

3. Does the law permit, or prohibit, the teaching of religion in public school science classes?

When the law was passed, Americans United for Separation of Church and State [AU] reported in a press release that

The Louisiana House of Representatives today approved a measure that opens the door to teaching creationism in public schools, an action that is likely to spark litigation, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

In a post titled “Americans United Misrepresents the Facts about Louisiana Science Education Bill” John West at DI quoted the first part (”The Louisiana House of Representatives today approved a measure that opens the door to teaching creationism in public schools”), and responded:

Well, no, it didn’t. The proposed Louisiana law expressly states in Section 1C that it “shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.” Americans United conveniently neglects to mention that section of the bill. If any school districts or teachers try to use the bill to promote creationism or other religious views, they will be violating the law itself. Any supplemental textbooks adopted under the law would have to abide by this prohibition in Section 1C. In addition, any inappropriate supplemental textbooks or instructional materials could be vetoed under the law by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. (West’s emphasis)

So, which is it? What AU says is true, as a matter of practical politics, if not as a technical matter of law. As a matter of fact, though, when John West says Section 1C is a “prohibition” against using the law to promote creationism or other religious views, and that such promotion would be “be violating the law itself,” he’s saying things that flat out are not true.

Sure enough, those words are in the law (although I don’t know where his “1C” reference comes from. It’s Section D in the Louisiana law, and Section 7 in the DI Master Copy that the various state bills are copied from; maybe he’s looking at a draft from one of the other states where this is being copied).

Those words might be there (as dictated in DI’s own draft model of the legislation), but they are by no means a “prohibition” against promoting religion in the classroom. What they try to prohibit is judicial construction of the law as one that promotes religious doctrine or discrimination. It’s like saying “this law is not to be construed as doing anything that’s unconstitutional.” That wouldn’t stop a court from examining the law’s constitutionality — although that’s just what the language is meant to do. (Unfortunately, we shouldn’t be too sure about this: This kind of explicit declaration by the legislature was enough to satisfy Justices Scalia and Thomas in Louisiana’s “Balanced Treatment” case — see Scalia’s dissent in Edwards v. Aguillard. Who knows where Roberts and Alito will come out on Establishment Clause analysis?)

Besides being an injunction addressed to judges — directing them not to construe the law as doing something that’s unconstitutional — it is also an advisory to school people and others, warning them that they should not invoke the law as legislation that condones unconstitutional state sponsorship of religion. One thing that it is not, is a prohibition of religious teaching. Promotion of religion by the public schools is already prohibited by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This law adds nothing to that prohibition. If a teacher, school, or public school district adopts a policy of promoting creationism, there is nothing in this law that they’d be violating. The quoted language only tells them that this law cannot be used in their defense. The law does not prohibit the promotion of religion; it only tries to preclude anyone from construing the law as a law that promotes religious doctrine.

Taking stock, and my suggestion for BESE

Taking stock of the situation: To summarize where things now stand, in light of everything above:

The law is by no means so benign as its promoters pretend. It will unleash all manner of chaotic mischief. On the other hand, there is a method to this madness, making it predictable that the perpetrators’ strategy will be to insinuate Exploring Evolution into the state’s (and then other states’) public schools.

BESE and the school districts cannot comply with the statute, which commands that

The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and each city, parish, or other local public school board shall adopt and promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this Section prior to the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year.

There are legal requirements (public notice, etc.) for adopting administrative rules for implementing legislation that make it impossible for that to be done by every state and district school board before the new school year begins.

So what can BESE do?

My suggestion is that BESE, at it’s meeting Tuesday, should move to request an opinion from the State Attorney General. They should ask him for an opion advising them, the district Boards of Education, and individual school principals, as to who will be responsible for the costs of defending against litigation for unconstitutional state promotion of religion in the use of supplemental materials. Presumably, if there’s a suit brought directly against BESE itself because of the substance of a text they have approved, then they would be defended by the AG’s office, on behalf of the state (like when the AG hired Wendell Bird as as special assistant for defending the state’s “Balanced Treatment” law). But will the AG commit his office to defending every district, every school, and every teacher whose use of “supplemental materials” is challenged for violation of the First Amendment?

There could be cases where BESE is not named as a defendent, where a teacher, school, or district uses materials that have not been approved by BESE. There could also be cases where BESE has approved something and is still not named as a defendant, because use of the approved materials themselves would not per se violate the Constitution, but where the First Amendment is being violated by what teachers are doing when they bring in the materials.

Such a request could put the Attorney General in a tough spot, which he might deal (or not deal) with by simply not responding to the request. Even without an opinion from the AG, however, just the request from BESE by itself could alert the district boards and principals that this law does not mean that the new law provides state protection for anything they bring into their classrooms for teaching against evolutionary biology.

Much of the public discussion has assumed that what will happen as a result of this law depends on BESE’s decisions to approve or not to approve specific texts and materials. From my observations above, that seems unlikely. More likely is a chaos in which individual boards, schools, and classroom teachers feel that the law will now provide support for anything they do in opposing evolution, so long as it is not explicitly religious, and so long as it has not been specifically prohibited by the State or District Board. I think a public request from BESE for an opinion from the AG could raise awareness that the law provides no such protection; and the request could thereby make it more likely that districts, schools, and teachers will not strike out on their own without BESE approval specifically for the “supplemental materials” and instruction that they’re bringing into classes.

The fight against use of Exploring Evolution will still need to be waged, but hopefully just once, and at the BESE level.

TX Ed Agency defense in evolution case

The Texas Education Agency [TEA] has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Chris Comer, who lost her job as the TEA’s top science education specialist after forwarding an email announcement of a talk by Barbara Forrest. ‘a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University, a co-author of “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse” and an expert witness in the landmark 2005 case that ruled against the teaching of intelligent design in the Dover, Pa., schools’ (NYT)

In its motion, the TEA argues that

The central claim in this lawsuit arises from a fundamental misconception of the relationship between the Texas Education Agency … and the State Board of Education [SBOE]. The plaintiff’s pleadings … imply that TEA and the Board are jointly responsible for developing the curriculum that will be used for teaching academic subjects in Texas public schools. (p. 4)

The TEA is arguing that its responsibility is to implement policies dictated by the SBOE, not only for science education, but also on other controversial curriculum questions, including:

• Whether schools should teach “whole language” or “phonics” in English Language Arts;
• Whether schools should have grammar as a separate section of the English curriculum or embedded in the overall curriculum;
• How schools should present the treatment of minorities in U.S. or Texas history;
• Whether schools should have required reading lists in English or other subjects (and if so what books should be included on them);
• Whether schools should emphasize scientific processes or content.
• Whether schools should require laboratory instruction in science courses;
• How schools should integrate the Spanish-language grammar or decoding skills into English TEKS for students with limited English proficiency (LEP);
• Whether to include instruction on contraceptives along with abstinence, in the presentation of human sexuality in health education. (pp. 7-8)

Although the case might be decided on other grounds, the TEA motion raises with exceptional clarity a general question that is ubiquitous in curriculum controversies — the question of whether (or, to avoid the binary yes/no: in what ways, and to what extent) curriculum questions such as these are fundamentally political questions, best decided as political outcomes, or are questions that are fundamentally of a nature that they must be answered on the basis of principles that are other than political.

Texas SBOE chairman McLeroy’s position is quite clear and explicit. He sees these as politically controversial matters that, in a democracy, are to be decided as politically-determined policy, by those who have been elected to do so by the citizens.

The ramifications of this general position range fare beyond the evolution controversy, as we see in the TEA motion’s bulleted list, and as observed by Scott Gold in the LA Times (2004):

Conservatives’ efforts over the years to edit textbooks are legendary here [in Texas]. In a nod to those who believe God created the Earth 6,000 years ago, a sentence saying the ice age took place “millions of years ago” was changed to “in the distant past.” Descriptions of environmentalism have been attacked as antithetical to free-enterprise ideals; a passage describing the cruelty of slavery was derided as “overkill.”

The view that experts should be the deciders is by no means shared by everyone.

#1 Genesis expert offers help for Louisiana science education

Following passage of Louisiana’s “Science Education Act,” “the leading expert on the book of Genesis” has posted a letter that he has sent to Louisiana offering his help in preparing science teachers there.

First, as the letter-writer introduces himself:

Hello. My name is Herman Cummings. I am the leading expert on the book of Genesis. There is no “close second”.

I expect there are some scholars in Jerusalm and elsewhere who need instruction from this guy.

Right away, it looks like a spoof. Then there is this:

With the freedom to entertain alternatives to evolution, it is a given that the text of Genesis will be discussed.

So you think this must be something written by some anti-creationist, out to expose the fraudulent pretenses of the Louisiana law. It turns out, though, that this guy seems to be in earnest.

As he informs Louisiana:

I teach a 6-hr class for science teachers which gives them an overview of the first three chapters of Genesis, as it pertains to the appearance, and extinction, of life forms during the geologic history of Earth. . . .

After taking this course, the teachers can correctly answer the questions that students would have about the apparent differences between what science has discovered, and what was previously erroneously perceived to be written in the Bible. Thus, the students would be given a balanced education in science, without solely being taught the dogma of atheism.

 He also gives this assurance, suggesting the high cost of not taking advantage of his offer to help:

Also, by providing my class to your teachers, I also give protection against lawsuits which the ACLU is certainly anxious to file. I contacted the Dover Area school district in Pennsylvania, but they ignored me, and they lost both their jobs and the court case. I contacted both the Cobb County Board members and their law firm in Georgia, in 2004, and they both ignored me, and they lost their district case. I know how to defeat the ACLU in open court in such cases, to the point that they would be discouraged from filing such lawsuits again. But I would have to be invited to work with the defense.

Good luck with that!

As goofy as this guy might sound, I’m afraid his letter might reflect a more realistic view of what to expect in Louisiana classrooms than all the DI protestations that this is only about science, and has nothing at all to do with creationism — much less Book of Genesis.

U.C. wins ACSI case

In a decision dated August 8, 2008, a federal district court in California has thrown out a lawsuit brought by the Association of Christian Schools International against the University of California, in which the ACSI argued that the University’s refusal to approve some of the Christian schools’ courses violated First Amendment guarantees to freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

“Behold: the atheist’s nightmare” (a banana) [ video ]

Before I say anything about it, just watch this video first:

principal apologizes for school’s Excellent test results

from The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer:

Students pass state test, but at what cost to their education?

by Regina Brett

Tuesday July 22, 2008, 3:10 PM

The school report cards came out in June.

Rocky River Middle School passed the 2008 Ohio Achievement Tests, earned an Excellent rating from the state and met the requirements for Annual Yearly Progress.

For all of those accomplishments, Principal David Root has only one thing to say to the students, staff and citizens of Rocky River:

He’s sorry.

Root wants to issue an apology. He sent it to me typed out in two pages, single spaced.

Click here to read (at cleveland.com) all the things that he’s apologizing for — all the educationally unsound trade-offs that were made for the sake of achieving those test scores.

Momentous TX education hearing

A truly momentous and impressive public hearing by the Texas House Public Education Committee has just wrapped up in Austin (July 16, 2008).

I did not hear all of it. I heard State Board chairman McLeroy’s presentation and some of the questioning. Hours later I heard the witness before Steven Schafersman (Texas Citizens for Science) through to the last witness (who more than made up in passion and conviction for what he may have lacked in lucidity).

I don’t know the composition of the committee. They don’t have party labels on their website. But after the last witness, one committee member stepped in before adjournment with a strong statement on the need for legislative action. The chair said the committee would take action — he said he’d been getting notes from both ends of the table throughout the proceedings. He said he did not know what they’d do, and maybe nothing could be done before January; but that action would be taken.

The witnesses I heard were overwhelmingly and consistently impressive, and they had the effect of reinforcing each other without being repetitive. Through them there was also represented massive work and commitment by educators throughout Texas, as well as a high level of concern from parents.

After the Board’s travesty with the English, Language Arts, and Reading (ELAR) standards, many saw that process and outcome as a bad omen for the upcoming revision of the science standards. I read this differently. After the ELAR travesty, I wrote:

This action shows that the Right-Wing school board majority is not above doing anything they can — without regard for either fairness or for competence — to get whatever outcomes they’re committed to. That’s unfortunate for the English and literacy education of Texas students.

As for science, however, I think this incident means that those supporting science education will be prepared to preempt or counter tactics and strategies that they might otherwise have thought to be beyond the capacity for malfeasance of even this board majority.

I think the broad, deep, and powerful showing by educators from many fields (including, but not only science education) in these hearings shows that people got the message from the ELAR action, and will be prepared to defend and promote real science education in the coming year.

The hearing ran for 5½ hours. The archived video (RealPlayer) is linked here.

TX House Committe testimony by Texas Citizens for Science

Testimony by Steven D. Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, is now posted at the TCS website. Here’s an overview of their recoomendations:

I urge you to take even more powers away from the SBOE. Specifically, I urge you to revise the law so that textbooks in Texas are adopted by each individual school district, as they are in most states and all other large states such as California, New York, and Illinois, rather than by a central state authority that uses its powers to abuse the process. I also urge you to change the law so that state science standards are written and adopted only by qualified professionals, such as by our state’s university professors and science curriculum experts, as is the case in California and other states. We desperately need these reforms to halt the continuing demeaning process that goes on every year in Austin, in which scientists, science professors, and science teachers must travel to Austin to fight the SBOE for good science standards and textbooks. This sideshow shouldn’t be happening in Texas or any state. In most states, the State Boards of Education want good science standards, textbooks, and instruction, and they listen to and cooperate with science professionals to ensure that their states have these. Also in Texas, the same sorry story applies to other academic disciplines, such as English, math, health education, history, government, economics, and Bible studies, not just science. When will Texas be free of this constant embarrassing and destructive behavior?

.

Wed 7/16 program in Austin on protecting science education

Here’s a press release for a public program on the UT campus in Austin, Texas this coming Wednesday titled ‘Science Education in Texas: Keeping It Religion-free’

From a curriculum standpoint, I think that’s a mistaken emphasis. The point should be to preserve the integrity and authenticity of science curriculum. The courts can act to stop unconstitutional presentation of religion in the public schools, but the primary curriculum reason for fighting against the interjection of things like “Intelligent Design,” etc., is not because those things are religion, but because they are not science.

Here is the press release:

teaching evolution controversy debate on CNN

Here’s a five-minute debate:

I don’t have time to comment now, so I’ll just post the clip for now.

Texas Supreme Court immunizes exorcism

I hesitated before posting this, since it’s almost off-topic for this blog on curriculum.

click for Jindal article at the New Oxford Review

Regrettably, however, exorcism is not so irrelevant to public education as we might hope, given the signing of the anti-science education law by the Louisiana Governor Jindal who also, by the way, has written a published article retelling his participation in an exorcism.

Here’s the news: On June 27, 2008 the Supreme Court of Texas, reversing a court of appeals judgment, voted 6-3 to dismiss the case of a Texas woman seeking civil damages for injuries suffered in a forced exorcism conducted under the auspices of the Pleasant Glade Assembly Of God (majority and dissenting opinions are available here). The case might well be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, keeping the issues alive in the public discourse.

While the case does not directly involve schooling, it could be indicative of the judicial climate that would await litigation over any anti-evolution “Academic Freedom” bill to pass in Texas. It could affect how at least some legislators think about how much they can get away with.

The general atmospheric effect could be like that of a US Supreme Court opinion on seminary curriculum that is thought to have some potential bearing on the handling of the petition by the Institute for Creation Research to get accreditation from the state of Texas for its distance education graduate degree program for science teachers.

MeganPearl comments:

And you know what is even more scary? The AOL poll on this story showed about 52% of voters agreed with the ruling, and about 58% believe in demonic possession. What is America coming to?

teaching about science and religion in the public schools

Michael Dowd has left a comment on my previous post that I think deserves to be shared. The comment was appropriate there, but it raises a problem that’s a little different from the main focus of that post; so this new post can focus on Dowd’s own proposition.

The earlier post quoted John West of Discovery Institute saying evolution education in the U.S. is “dumbed down.” I agreed, but added that the remedy is not the introduction of Intelligent Design into Biology class, but instead teaching Biology at least well enough that people will know the difference between what is and what is not the natural science of Biology.

Dowd, who wrote Thank God for evolution: how the marriage of science and religion will transform your life and our world, (click on the title or the cover image to find the book; click here for a 4-minute interview of Dowd on CNN), contributed this comment:

I agree with you, Tony. ID is not science and should not be taught in science classes. I do, however, think that students, schools, and society as a whole would be greatly served by having worldview classes that show how mainstream Biology and other evolutionary sciences can be interpreted in ways that enrich a variety of religious and nonreligious perspectives.

My other post was about how science should be taught. This post shares the proposition that in addition to, and outside of, science classes, it would be a good thing to have “worldview” classes in which students could learn about the kinds of relationships that Michael suggests.

I agree, Michael, in principle; and I think that dealing with this controversy could necessity creating a place in the curriculum where appropriately qualified teachers could help students learn about these things. As a Constitutional lawyer, I think I could make a case for a course in which even your book could be read by students in a public school, perhaps alongside Dawkins and another book by someone arguing that Darwinism cannot be reconciled with Christianity.

If I were a public school principal, however, just about anyplace in the United States, I’d probably think that’s just not feasible politically, no matter how much I might personally want to see it done.

John West: U.S. evolution education is “dumbed down”

Here’s a video clip from CNN on the “Academic Freedom” bills being supported in states around the U.S. by the Discovery Institute (DI), the major proponents of Intelligent Design. The clip is seven minutes long, with a reasonable 3-minute overview followed by a 4-minute interview with Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for evolution: how the marriage of science and religion will transform your life and our world.

The one thing in this clip that I find notable is this statement by John West of the Discovery Institute: