Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Democrats holding firm against SBOE chairman - for now
(Terrence Stutz, The Dallas Morning News, May 21, 2009)

Democratic senators so far are not budging on their opposition to the confirmation of State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, a Republican from College Station. In an unexpected move Wednesday, Republicans on the Senate Nominations Committee outvoted Democrats to send Gov. Rick Perry's nominee to the full Senate. That came after the committee had shelved the nomination for a month because of Democratic resistance to McLeroy.

But Republican leaders said McLeroy may now stand a chance even though that would mean at least two of the Senate's 12 Democrats would have to drop their opposition and vote for the board chairman. The Senate has 19 Republicans, two short of the two-thirds majority necessary to confirm gubernatorail appointments. Informal polls of the Democrats indicate that all are still against confirmation, but a vote of the Senate is not expected until next week.

McLeroy, who says he is a creationist, has come under fire for trying to write into new science standards for schools language that would raise questions about the theory of evolution. McLeroy has vigorously denied tying to inject his religious views into the science curriculum.

It's obvious he's a two-faced liar, but what is more bothersome is that all those conservatives also support creationism in the science curricula.

They also believe in less government intervention. Go figure.

So hes a two faced liar as well.

the end is like the beginning; the midst like both; and euery part like the whole. Railing, railing, railing; bragging, bragging,bragging; and nothing else but fowle railing vpon railing, and vayne bragging vpon bragging; as rudely, grosely, odiously, filthily, beastly, as euer shamed Print...I wonder, his owne mouth can abide it without a phah.

Fundamental Mechanism For Cell Organization Discovered
(ScienceDaily, May 22, 2009)

Scientists have discovered that cells use a very simple phase transition -- similar to water vapor condensing into dew -- to assemble and localize subcellular structures that are involved in formation of the embryo.

The discovery, which was made during the 2008 Physiology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), is reported in the May 21 early online edition of Science by Clifford P. Brangwynne and Anthony A. Hyman of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, and their colleagues, including Frank Jülicher of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, also in Dresden.

Working with the worm C. elegans, the scientists found that subcellular structures called P granules, which are thought to specify the "germ cells" that ultimately give rise to sperm or eggs, are liquid droplets that transition between a dissolved or condensed state. In newly fertilized one-cell embryos, the P granules are dissolving throughout the cell, like water droplets at high temperature. But prior to the first cell division, the P granules rapidly condense at one end of the cell, as if the temperature were suddenly lowered there. The progenitor germ cell subsequently forms where the P granules have condensed.

"This kind of phase transition could potentially be working for many other subcellular structures similar to P granules," Brangwynne says. P granules are ribonucleoprotein assemblies (RNPs), and a given cell may contain dozens of different types of RNPs.

"It is interesting to think about this in the context of evolution and the origin of life," he says. "What we have found is that, in some cases, simple physical-chemical mechanisms, such as a classic phase transition, give rise to subcellular structure…This is likely the kind of thing that happened in the so-called primordial soup; but it's not surprising that even highly evolved cells continue to take advantage of such mechanisms."

The insight emerged when Brangwynne, a biophysicist who was a teaching assistant in the MBL Physiology course, watched a movie of P granules fusing that had been made by a student in the course, David Courson of the University of Chicago. "We were looking at that and thinking, man, that looks exactly like two liquid droplets fusing," Brangwynne says. They began making measurements of liquid-type behaviors in P granules, and made the first estimates of P granule viscosity and surface tension. By the end of the course they were "90 percent sure" that P granules are liquid droplets that localize in the cell by controlled dissolution and condensation, a concept that Brangwynne further confirmed after he returned to Dresden.

Brangwynne credits the discovery to the "dynamic nature" of the MBL Physiology course, where scientists from different fields (biology, physics, computer science) work intensively together on major research questions in cell biology. In addition to Courson, the other co-authors of the Science paper who were in the Physiology course are Hyman, and Jülicher, who were Physiology faculty members, and Jöbin Gharakhani, who was a teaching assistant. The paper also credits Physiology course co-director Tim Mitchison for valuable discussions.

"There are so many molecules in the cell, and we are coming out of the age of cataloguing them all, which was critical, to find out who the players are," Brangwynne says. "Now we are putting it all together. What are the principles that come out of these complex interactions (between molecules)? In the end, it may be relatively simple principles that help us understand what is really happening."

theres to be a new pub on the understanding of the RNA world hypothesis.

Note to spendius: "pub" in American slang refers to a "publication."

Actually, the name is "Darwin's ABC Pub."

Lawmakers trying to strip some powers from State Board of Education
(By ANNA M. TINSLEY, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 24, 2009)

AUSTIN " Tired of high-profile battles over textbook selection, evolution and other issues, some state lawmakers are continuing to do their best this session to wrest control from the 15-member elected board that governs Texas’ public schools.

Some proposals to rein in the State Board of Education " from making it nonpartisan to taking away its power to choose textbooks or make money decisions " have already died in the 81st Legislature’s regular session, which ends June 1.

But other measures still have life, including the pending confirmation of the board chairman, Republican Don McLeroy of College Station. Senators have moved slowly on the confirmation.

"A lot of the members think the State Board of Education is out of control," said state Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth. "They have become the laughingstock in the public education arena across the nation."

Others say the elected board " now dominated by Republicans " and its powers are needed to give Texans a voice in the state’s public education system.

"If you remove the State Board of Education, then you take away from voters the only voice they have at the state level in the administration of education," said state Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford. "Do they do the right thing all the time? No, but nobody does.

"If the state board is gone, then the Texas Education Agency runs everything," he said. "We need this checks and balances."

McLeroy, a dentist and conservative activist, has been a lightning rod as he has worked to water down the role that the theory of evolution would play in the classroom, potentially opening the door to teaching creationism. Critics say he has dragged the board into unnecessary culture wars.

"You’ve created a hornets’ nest like I’ve never seen," state Sen. Elliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, told McLeroy recently.

But some lawmakers say they are concerned by the spate of anti-Board of Education bills this session.

"The recent attempts by the Legislature to limit the board’s powers concern me," said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound. "If the public is unhappy with the board’s actions, that should be reflected at the ballot box."

Last week, a Senate committee approved sending McLeroy’s nomination to the full Senate. Senators could take up the issue as soon as Monday. If they do not confirm his reappointment, McLeroy will stay on the board, but Republican Gov. Rick Perry will have to choose a new chairman from among the other members.

"There is some concern that [Perry] will select from the remaining social conservative members of the board," said board member Mavis Knight, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Tarrant and Dallas counties. "If that happens, I’m not sure anything will change. I think the [lawmakers] who have raised concerns about functions of the State Board of Education have legitimate concerns."

State lawmakers this session filed more than a dozen bills designed to dilute or take away some of the board’s powers.

"That’s what this process is about " sorting through ideas and debating them," said state Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington.

Board member Pat Hardy, a Weatherford Republican who could not be reached for comment, has said the efforts to cut the board’s authority are a mistake because no other governing body would pay such attention to the issues that members oversee.

Among the measures that still have life are a bill requiring board meetings to be broadcast and archived on the Internet that has been sent to Perry and a plan to let the state textbook fund pay for technology and create a list of electronic textbooks and materials that would not go before the board.

"Let our citizens decide for themselves whether their interests are being appropriately represented on that board," said state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, referring to broadcasting meetings on the Internet.

If House Joint Resolution 77 passes the Senate, as it did the House, Texans will decide in November whether responsibility for the $18 billion Permanent School Fund should move to a specially appointed council.

"What’s the appropriate role for an elected State Board of Education to play?" Davis asked. "There may be some instances where citizens of Texas feel some decisions are better made by people with educational expertise."

Failing efforts include stripping the board’s authority over the Permanent School Fund, cutting its power to choose textbooks and curricula and creating a nonpartisan election for board members.

This month, a House measure that failed would have put the board under a complete review of its duties and actions.

Some local lawmakers say they support keeping the Board of Education essentially as it is " an elected board whose members do have party affiliations and retain much of the control they have now.

"These bills the Legislature has filed are shots across the bow to the SBOE," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.