Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

We have to face the fact that the two posts from Ed and the one from wande above my Byron quote represent fatuity at its grossest and most common.

They are an insult to readers here.

Just take them slowly.

Mull them over.

One at a time.

Let the words marinade in your conk.

What pompous fatuity eh? What a confession of ineptitude and what an irrelevance to a long-running national debate on an important matter.

You might just as well quote Mr Bean

Nonplussed!

Battle over evolution raises stakes on board
(Nathan Batoon, University of Texas Daily Texan, June 8, 2009)

Three panelists and about 60 audience members attempted to answer the question of why people should care about the State Board of Education at the Yarborough Library Branch on Saturday.

Ronald Wetherington, a Southern Methodist University professor of anthropology; Alana Morris, a textbook writer and teacher in Texas for the past 20 years; and Julie Cowan, Anderson High School Parent-Teacher-Student Association president, served on the panel and addressed growing concerns about the board.

The board manages the Permanent School Fund, most of which goes to buying textbooks for grades K-12. The board also determines the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for each subject and grade level, defines teacher curriculum and develops standards for textbooks, teacher training and student testing.

Wetherington, who serves as a director for the Center for Teaching Excellence at Southern Methodist University and is one of the experts appointed by the board to review the science TEKS, said political and religious affiliations have suffocated efforts to reach consensus through rational discussion.

“Since 2003, the board has been fundamentally dysfunctional,” Wetherington said. “A volatile combination of religious fundamentalism and social conservatism has resulted in the virtual strangulation of consideration of principles of education and the pedagogical principles that underlie the topics at hand.”

Wetherington said the science-versus-religion debate is related to the lack of cohesion in the board.

“The disagreement has absolutely nothing to do with ignorance of science on the part of the far-right board members,” he said.

Wetherington said the controversy surrounding the ongoing debate between the teaching of creationism and evolution in Texas public schools is more political than religious.

“Knowing the source of the problem does not necessarily give us an automatic solution, but it does point us in the right direction,” Wetherington said.

One solution is to replace board members. Texas Senators rejected the Governor’s nomination of Don McElroy to another term as chairman of the education board in May, but McElroy remains on the board.

“That’s not enough,” Wetherington said. “The answer, I believe, is in getting citizens involved, in getting them aware of the difficulty of managing the [board] when ideology gets in the way of ideas.”

Morris, who served on the writing committee that addressed the English-language arts and reading TEKS for recent Texas curriculum updates, said that developing standards for education should be easy, but politics have gotten in the way of what’s most important: educating the students.

“Here’s why we care about English arts and reading,” Morris said, “Because it is everything that we are. It is democracy. It is about literacy. It is about thinking.”

Morris advised members of the audience to pay close attention to where the board members are getting their funds, saying that if citizens trace the money, they can see where allegiances lie.

Cowan has three children attending schools in the Austin Independent School District and thinks public education is the future of Texas.

“It’s really easy to criticize, but there is so much good going on in schools as well,” Cowan said. “So, if you’re not working to make it better, then I don’t think you have much to say.”

According to the Texas Secretary of State Office, eight positions for the State Board of Education will be up for election in 2010. Of those eight positions up for election, five are held by Republicans and three by Democrats.

To be eligible to run for the board, a candidate must be a U.S. citizen, a resident of Texas, a voter at least 26 years of age and pay a $300 filing fee or present signatures.

“Advocacy is not an event, it is a process,” Morris said. “If we don’t get involved in the process, we are headed down a bad road. And if we don’t know where we’re headed, any path will get us there.”

ACLU wants Louisiana to ban creationism in public schools
(KEVIN McGILL, Associated Press, June 10, 2009)

BATON ROUGE " New rules for teaching science in Louisiana should include specific prohibitions on the teaching of scientific creationism and intelligent design, the American Civil Liberties Union said today.

The ACLU urged the state education board to revisit the issue.

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted in January on the rules, which were drawn up to implement 2008 legislation.

That legislation allowed local school systems and teachers to introduce into science classes supplemental teaching materials in addition to state-approved textbooks.

The rules were published in the state register in April for public viewing and comment before they are formally adopted.

In its comment, the ACLU complained the board in January rejected language specifically forbidding the teaching of creation science and intelligent design " concepts knocked down by federal courts as religion-based.

The board also rejected draft language prohibiting teaching materials that "advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind" and another sentence stating, "Religious beliefs shall not be advanced under the guise of encouraging critical thinking."

The ACLU said those prohibitions should be restored as well.

The Christian conservative group Louisiana Family Forum had fought such language, saying it went beyond the original intent of the 2008 legislation. The rules still prohibit materials that "promote any religious doctrine." The ACLU called that language "vague at best."

A supporter of the legislation and the policy language, Casey Lufkin of the Discovery Institute, said he believes both are clear.

"It is logically and legally impossible for religion to be taught under this law," he said.

The more specific language favored by the ACLU is redundant and could actually discourage free and open discussion in the classroom, argued Lufkin, whose organization supports the intelligent design theory but opposes laws requiring that it be taught.

Dale Bayard, chairman of the board committee that approved the guidelines, and Amy Westbrook, executive director of the board, did not immediately return telephone messages Wednesday afternoon.

The 2008 legislation allows use of supplemental materials, not approved in advance by the state, that backers say could be used to promote critical thinking about topics including evolution, the origins of life and global warming. Opponents said they fear the bill is a veiled attempt to illegally promote religion in science classes.

Louisiana law mandating that scientific creationism be given equal time in state classrooms with evolution was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 as an effort to promote religion.

The concept of intelligent design, which holds the universe's order and complexity are so great science alone cannot explain them, has been struck down at the federal district court level.