Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Prepare for an ugly battle in Texas
(P. Z. Myers, ScienceBlogs.com, October 15, 2008)

The Texas Board of Education has named the six people who will be on a committee to review science curriculum standards. Texas, you've got trouble. The people are:

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

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

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

Stephen Meyer, vice-frakkin'-president of the odious Discovery Institute in Washington state;

Ralph Seelke, a pro-ID creationist and biologist from Wisconsin;

Charles Garner, a chemist from Baylor who is also a pro-ID creationist.

Note that Meyer and Seelke are co-authors of that ghastly new ID textbook, Explore Evolution, and would no doubt love to tweak the curriculum to make their book marketable in Texas. Conflict of interest? Nah.

So, three good guys and three ignorant ideologues, with the overall head of the board of education being Don McLeroy, the creationist dentist. It's going to get ugly.

'Fishapod' reveals origins of head and neck structures of first land animals
(University of Chicago Press Release, October 15, 2008)

Newly exposed parts of Tiktaalik roseae--the intermediate fossil between fish and the first animals to walk out of water onto land 375 million years ago--are revealing how this major evolutionary event happened. A new study, published this week in Nature, provides a detailed look at the internal head skeleton of Tiktaalik roseae and reveals a key intermediate step in the transformation of the skull that accompanied the shift to life on land by our distant ancestors.

A predator, up to nine feet long, with sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head and a flattened body, Tiktaalik's anatomy and way of life straddle the divide between fish and land-living animals. First described in 2006, and quickly dubbed the "fishapod," it had fish-like features such as a primitive jaw, fins and scales, as well as a skull, neck, ribs and parts of the limbs that are similar to tetrapods, four-legged animals.

The initial 2006 report did not describe the internal anatomy of the head, because those parts of the fossil were buried in rock. In the October 16, 2008, issue of Nature, the researchers describe this region and show how Tiktaalik was gaining structures that could allow it to support itself on solid ground and breathe air.

"We used to think of this transition of the neck and skull as a rapid event," said study author Neil Shubin, PhD, of the University of Chicago and Field Museum and co leader of the project, "largely because we lacked information about the intermediate animals. Tiktaalik neatly fills this morphological gap. It lets us see many of the individual steps and resolve the relative timing of this complex transition."

"The braincase, palate, and gill arch skeleton of Tiktaalik have been revealed in great detail by recent fossil preparation of several specimens," said Jason Downs, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Academy of Natural Sciences and lead author on the new study. "By revealing new details on the pattern of change in this part of the skeleton, we see that cranial features once associated with land-living animals were first adaptations for life in shallow water."

"The new study reminds us that the gradual transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles required much more than the evolution of limbs," said Ted Daeschler, PhD, of the Academy of Natural Sciences and co-leader of the team that discovered Tiktaalik. "Our work demonstrates that, across this transition, the head of these animals was becoming more solidly constructed and, at the same time, more mobile with respect to the body." These changes are intimately associated with the change in environment.

Fish in deep water move and feed in three-dimensional space and can easily orient their body in the direction of their prey. A neck, seen for the first time in the fossil record in Tiktaalik, is advantageous in settings where the body is relatively fixed, as is the case in shallow water and on land where the body is supported by appendages planted against a substrate.

Another important component of this transition was the gradual reduction of the hyomandibula, a bony element that, in fish, coordinates the cranial motions associated with underwater feeding and respiration. In the transition to life on land, the hyomandibula loses these functions and the bone becomes available for an eventual role in hearing.

In humans, as in other mammals, the hyomandibula, or stapes, is one of the tiny bones in the middle ear. "The bony part of Tiktaalik's hyomandibula is greatly reduced from the primitive condition," said Downs, "and this could indicate that these animals, in shallow water settings, were already beginning to rely less on gill respiration."

The discoveries were made possible by laboratory preparators Fred Mullison and Bob Masek, who prepared the underside of the skull of specimens collected in 2004. This painstaking process took several years. This work showed the underside of the skull and gill bones "beautifully preserved," said Shubin, "to a degree unlike any creature of its kind at this transition."

Having multiple Tiktaalik specimens enabled the researchers to prepare the fossils in ways that showed the bones of the head in "exceptional detail," Downs said.

The team discovered Tiktaalik roseae on Ellesmere Island, in the Nunavut Territory of Canada, 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Though this region of Nunavut is now a harsh Arctic ecosystem, at the time that Tiktaalik lived, the area was much further south and was a subtropical floodplain ecosystem.

The formal scientific name for the new species, "Tiktaalik" (tic-TAH-lick), was derived by the Elders Council of Nunavut, the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. The Inuktikuk word means "a large, shallow-water fish." The paleontology team works in Nunavut with authorization from the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth. All fossils are the property of the people of Nunavut and will be returned to Canada after they are studied.

The fossil research in Nunavut is carried out with authorization from the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, Government of Nunavut. All fossils are the property of the people of Nunavut and will be returned to Canada after they are studied.

A cast of Tiktaalik, along with a fleshed-out model of the animal, are on display in the Evolving Planet exhibition at Chicago's Field Museum, where Shubin serves as Provost.

The research was supported by private donors, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Putnam Expeditionary Fund (Harvard University), the University of Chicago, the National Science Foundation, and the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration.

Fish in deep water move and feed in three-dimensional space and can easily orient their body in the direction of their prey.

Message to Louisiana School Districts: The LA Science Education Act’s Religion Disclaimer Won’t Protect You
(Barbara Forrest, Louisiana Coalition for Science, October 18, 2008)

One of the clearest indications that the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) is intended to advance the religious agenda of the Discovery Institute (DI) and the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), the organizations that jointly promoted this legislation, is the law’s inclusion of a religion disclaimer that comes directly from DI’s doublespeak-titled “Model Academic Freedom Statute on Evolution.”

Here is DI’s disclaimer: "Section 7. Nothing in this act shall be construed as promoting any religious doctrine, promoting discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promoting discrimination for or against religion or non-religion."

Here is the disclaimer in the LSEA, now Louisiana Act 473, which the Louisiana House and Senate passed as SB 733 and which Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law on June 25, 2008: "D. This Section 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."

In addition to all of the other indications that the LSEA is a creationist law (see my analysis of the legislation), this disclaimer is a dead giveaway of the creationist (hence religious) agenda that the law advances. The truth is that the Discovery Institute’s disclaimer is included, both in DI’s model bill and in Act 473, precisely because the legislation is intended to advance religion. If the model bill and the LSEA were truly intended to improve science education in public schools, no religion disclaimer would be necessary. If DI and LFF were not trying to advance a religious agenda, they would not have included such a thinly disguised, pre-emptive effort at legal self-defense.

In recognition of the religious intent of the LSEA, Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek has sent a letter dated August 27, 2008, to all “City, Parish, and other Local School Superintendents; Recovery School District Superintendents; Special School District Directors; and, Presidents of School Boards.” After citing legal rulings against teaching creationism, Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 107 S. Ct. 2573 (1987) and Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education v. Freiler, 530 U.S. 1251, 120 S. Ct. 2706 (2000), both of which originated in Louisiana, Pastorek issued a warning to the letter’s recipients: "Religious theories cannot be advanced under the guise of encouraging critical thinking. Written materials or oral presentations that teach creationism or intelligent design or that advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind or that state that evolution is only a theory are prohibited. “Academic freedom” does not encompass the structuring of public school curriculum in order to promote religious beliefs."

Mr. Pastorek’s warning should be taken to heart by all Louisiana school districts. If any Louisiana citizen has evidence that a school board or an individual teacher is using creationist materials in a Louisiana public school science class, please contact the LA Coalition for Science or the National Center for Science Education.

Texas is gearing up to revise their state science standards. This is a big deal, because the standards Texas sets determine how textbooks are written not just for the Texas market, but for the rest of the nation. The fight over science standards now is a prelude to an imminent and much bigger fight over textbook adoptions. And the Texas Board of Education is currently run by creationist Don McLeroy, who runs a bloc of 7 of the 15 board members, a bloc which often draws in enough swing votes to allow bad policy to be pushed through.

The panels of experts selected to put together the new science standards have produced excellent drafts (far from perfect, but quite good), which means that McLeroy and his crew are looking for a way around them. Rather than a ham-fisted kangaroo court as in Kansas, the Board is simply appointing a panel of expert reviewers, and giving them unspecified power to mess with the carefully ironed out documents.

As in Kansas, the creationists on the Board of Education turned to out-of-state creationists to be their "experts." Ralph Seelke and Stephen Meyer are both veterans of the Kansas Kangaroo Kourt, and the third creationist-nominated witness, Charles Garner, has been identified by his own students as a young earth creationist.

As the human rights group Texas Freedom Network points out, Meyer and Seelke are also authors of an anti-evolution textbook: “The textbook, Explore Evolution, is intended for secondary schools and colleges, according to its U.S. distributor, the anti-evolution Discovery Institute in Seattle. Because of that, the State Board of Education could consider it for the state’s approved list of science textbooks in 2011.”

Noting that the three pro-science experts are all from Texas, TFN adds that: “A number of respected Texas scientists contacted TFN to say that they had asked state board members to serve on the review panel, Miller said. None appear to have been named to the panel.”

To sum up: the creationists on the board nominated three men who hold views far outside the scientific mainstream, two of whom are from out-of-state, have a history of attempting to undermine accurate science standards, and will financially benefit if Texas waters down its curriculum.
-Josh Rosenau, ScienceBlogs.com

Quote:

To sum up: the creationists on the board nominated three men who hold views far outside the scientific mainstream, two of whom are from out-of-state, have a history of attempting to undermine accurate science standards, and will financially benefit if Texas waters down its curriculum.

Longtime incumbent faces challenge from former educator in Board of Education race
(Jennifer L. Berghom, Rio Grande Valley Monitor, October 19, 2008)

The candidates running for the District 2 seat of the Texas State Board of Education want students to have the best education possible. But their views on what students should be taught in school differ greatly.

Longtime board member Mary Helen Berlanga, a lawyer from Corpus Christi, faces opposition from Peter H. Johnston, a former educator from Wharton County, about 60 miles southwest of Houston. Johnston now owns The Joseph Group, a research firm that studies legal and public policy issues.

The 15-member Board of Education sets the policies that govern educational programs and services offered by the state's public schools, including deciding curriculum matters. District 2 encompasses parts of Hidalgo County, as well as Cameron, Willacy and other counties along the Gulf Coast north to Matagorda County near Houston.

Seven of the 15 seats - five held by Republicans and two by Democrats - are up for grabs Nov. 4.

With Republicans currently holding a 10-5 majority on the board, the election has at least the potential to change control of the body that helps oversee a vast public school system consisting of 1,227 school districts and charter schools, more than 7,900 campuses, more than 590,000 educators and other employees, and more than 4.5 million schoolchildren.

"We are really at a crossroads," said Berlanga, who was first elected to the board in 1982 and is its longest-serving member. The 60-year-old said she decided to run for another four-year term because the next four years will be critical in determining what children learn in the classroom.

She handily defeated consultant and former Mission school district superintendent Lupe Gonzalez in the Democratic primary in March.

Berlanga has said in the past she is concerned about the future of the state's education, which she said is threatened by social conservatives who want to take students back at least 50 years with curriculum issues the board is considering, including in the areas of English, reading and science.

Earlier this year she clashed with conservative board members over updates to literature standards in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills - a set of standards that establishes what students need to know at every grade level from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Next on the board's list of updates is the science curriculum, which is expected to be a hot-button issue among members, some of whom want intelligent design included in the lesson plan.

Others, including Berlanga, believe schools should stick to teaching evolution and say intelligent design is not a legitimate scientific theory but a way to introduce creationism into the classroom.

The board recently appointed a six-member panel of experts to review current standards and make suggestions on updates. Three of those experts are critics of the theory of evolution.

Johnston, 55, a former school teacher and interim principal of Living Water Christian School in Rosenberg, said he believes schools should teach the strengths and weaknesses of all theories.

"By law (schools) have to teach the strengths and weaknesses of (all) scientific theories," he said. "A movement to take out the weaknesses, I think, would be a tremendous mistake and detrimental to students to compromise facts. Intelligent design is a bona fide scientific theory."

A group of Texas scientists called the 21st Century Science Coalition has denounced such assertions, characterizing the "strengths and weaknesses" argument as an excuse to present students with "supernatural and fringe explanations of phenomena instead of sticking to well-established scientific principles."

"We should teach students 21st-century science, not some watered-down version with phony arguments that nonscientists disingenuously call ‘weaknesses,'" coalition member Sahotra Sarkar, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, said recently. "Calling ‘intelligent design' arguments a ‘weakness' of evolution is like calling alchemy a ‘weakness' of chemistry, or astrology a ‘weakness' of astronomy."

But the differences between Berlanga and Johnston aren't limited to the subject of science education. They also have different views on what should be included in history books.

The incumbent District 2 board member has fought for years to make sure minorities are included in textbooks, whether they are children's literature or books on state history.

"I think for too long Hispanics have been left out of history books," she said.

Berlanga, whose district has a large number of Hispanic students, said she wants to make sure students can also read about historical figures to whom they can relate.

"We have to think of the bigger picture," she said.

Johnston, who has a bachelor's degree in history, said he would like students to learn more about the founding of the United States.

"Students deserve to be taught our rich cultural heritage including our founders' emphasis on principles that enhance and encourage liberty including limited government, freedoms of religion, press and speech and national sovereignty," Johnston states on his campaign Web site, www.johnston4sboe.com.